Ok! Here's another one for you all! Enjoy! I will be posting a few more tonight so stay tuned! Let me know what you think.

Chapter 17: Now is as Good a Time as Any

Ashley's POV

Oh God, she Knows. She has to know. She's been staring at me ever since I walked through the damn door. She's keeping an eye on me as if she can see right through me. Maybe I was a little too defensive when she brought up Spencer. Maybe my pockets are too full. Are my pockets bulky? Oh God, she saw the bugs. No…no she didn't. Christ Ashley, keep it together.

I'm sitting across from Kyla in the living room of her house. My mind has been going from Spencer to the bugs in my pockets to Kyla, and then back to Spencer. It's a vicious cycle that I can't seem to turn off. I've thought about turning and running out of the house. But I can't because every time I think about it, Spencer pops back up in my head. Maybe Kyla is just waiting for me to say something. Maybe she's trying to see if I'm sincere or something. Sincerity I can do. But damn if she doesn't look as intimidating as hell right now. What is it with these Carlin women making me so fucking nervous? Granted it may be for different reasons, but does that seriously matter? I think not.

I watch her as she shifts in her seat. God, I hope she can't see through me. I hope that I don't blow this. Maybe I can make it a Spencer thing. Maybe I can just ask her to tell me what the hell is going on. You know, get her side of the story. I know what Spencer said about her, but Kyla has never been that vindictive before. At least since I've known her. Maybe there's more to it than just jealousy. Who the hell knows anymore. What I do know is that my palms are sweating and my heart is beating so fast that I think it may just pop out of my chest. Like I said, maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Her eyes are still trained on me and quite frankly she's scaring me a little. Kyla and Spencer aren't so different when their eyes are filled anger. I know Kyla's angry with me, and I really don't care but I have to care. I think that's more frustrating. Is it wrong that regardless of everything that she has said so far, I believe Spencer over her? I've known Kyla longer and we have a longer friendship but something in me will not let me believe her. Is that wrong? Because a small part of me thinks that it is.

I watch as Kyla stands up and walks over to the bookshelf. She kneels down and removes some books from the bottom shelf. Then she reaches in and pulls out what looks like a photo album. She puts the other books back, picks up the album and walks over and sits beside me.

She places the album on the coffee table and I look at the cover. It has a picture of the whole family. I mean everyone. Kyla, Paula, Her father, I think his name is Arthur, and even Spencer. To say I'm a little more confused would be an understatement. I look from the cover to her and she is turned towards me, watching my reaction very carefully.

"I never forgot about her, Ashley." She reaches over to the album and her fingers trace the picture. "I just never could forgive her. She infuriates me and burying the happier times makes it easier." She looks back at me. "It made it easier."

"Why are you showing me this Kyla?" I ask suddenly finding my voice.

"Because you can't even begin to understand the problem if you don't understand what led up to it." She says softly.

I can still hear the shower running upstairs. "So explain it to me."

She looks at me and nods her head. Then she opens the book and smiles slightly. I follow her gaze and look at the picture before me. It's a young Spencer and Kyla lying on their stomachs under a tree, drawing and looking up into the camera with big, goofy grins on their faces. It brings a smile to my face, and then she starts to talk.

"We used to be a happy family without any real worries. Growing up me and Spencer were really close. Partly because we were so close in age and partly because our parents made us do everything together." She turns the page. "When we were teenagers we rebelled. But, honestly, what teenager doesn't?" She sighs, her fingers tracing every page. "But Spencer never got into trouble because of it. It was always my fault because I was the older sister and I shouldn't have let her get into trouble in the first place."

She stops and moves her gaze to me, so I look over at her and nod, urging her to continue.

"It made me angry, you know. I mean everything always came easy for Spencer. She was beautiful, funny, outgoing, and extremely smart. She was everything that I wanted to be but knew that I never could be. And the older we got the angrier I became."

She looks back over to the book and continues to turn the pages.

"So what happened to turn the anger into hate, Kyla?" I ask quietly.

She gets near the end and points to a picture of the family. I stare at it and you can see the change in them. All of them look like they've aged so much but they were still so young.

"This is the last picture that we ever took together as a family. Spencer closed herself off from just about everybody by the time she was sixteen years old. She couldn't get herself out of that rebellious stage. She started lying a lot and it caused this huge rift within the family. The only person she even remotely opened up to anymore was Aiden and even that was a rare occurrence."

"Aiden?" I asked thoroughly confused.

"Yeah, they dated for a long time. Almost four years if I remember right." Dated? Since when? Or did I just not listen when she told me that? Did she tell me that? I'll have to figure that out later.

"Oh. So…umm…how did you end up with him?" I say slightly dejected.

"Well, one night Spencer came to me and told me that people in the town were stealing from the local businesses. She said she had overheard an argument about a week earlier that dad was having with some of the guys at the pub in the square." And what? That wasn't enough to convince you? "I didn't believe her because my dad rarely drank if ever, and he wouldn't do something like that. He wouldn't get involved and not say anything. It wasn't who he was." Apparently not. "So, she said that she would prove it to me."

She stands up and starts pacing in front me. I still don't know what to make of this whole situation so I just sit there, praying to God that nothing falls out of my pockets or that she doesn't catch on. I'm trying to be sincere here. But part of me just wants to slap her across the face for being so stupid.

"She took me to the back alley of the pub late one night and walked over to a window that looks into the bathrooms of the pub. The window is a little high so we needed crates to look in. She stood on one of them and waited. When the mayor and a few other people walked in, she told me to look and listen. I did, but it was only to get this ridiculous outing over with."

She stops pacing and looks at me. Searching my eyes to make sure that I'm listening to everything that she's saying.

"I was only half listening to the conversation because I wanted to appease Spencer. I mean she was actually opening up to me for the first time in a long time. Once they were done, I started to step off the crate. But before I did I heard the mayor say; 'Wait a minute guys Carlin is going to be problem.' And then one of the other guys said; 'don't worry about Carlin. I'll take care of it.'"

She sits back down next to me. "So your father did know?"

She shakes her head. "At first that's what I thought too, but when I confronted my dad about it he just shook it off and told me that I must've heard wrong. And that's when I knew they were talking about Spencer. I mean they had to be. It was the only thing that made sense and she had the smarts to pull it off."

"So you just assumed?"

"No, Ashley. I didn't just assume. I knew. Spencer had lied so much that I don't even think that she knew what the truth was anymore. Anyway, after that I was even more outraged at her for doing this stuff to the people that we grew up around. So I wanted to get back at her and that's where Aiden comes in. One night we were hanging out and he was waiting in my parents' house for Spencer to come home. We were sitting in the living room and after a while I leaned over and kissed him. It caught him off guard but he kissed me back and one thing led to another and I wound up sleeping with him."

"He cheated on her with you?"

"Yes. And then we just never stopped. She found out a few months later and broke up with him. That's when we made our relationship official."

My hands have effectively balled into fists. I really want to hit her and Aiden too. The stupid bastard. But I can't and I think that is more frustrating than anything else. And how the hell could she just assume that Spencer was at fault for all of this? Ugh! This woman infuriates me.

"So what happened next?" I ask as calmly as I can.

"After that me and Spencer started fighting a lot. She couldn't believe that I didn't believe her and I couldn't believe that she wouldn't stop lying about it. I had no reason to believe her. And then things got worse. My father died and I blamed her for opening her mouth to him. If she hadn't said anything then he wouldn't have been going to the police and the accident never would have happened." OK…now I want to kill her.

She leans back on the couch with her body still turned towards me. I look into her eyes, never breaking contact. Trying to keep my cool, when all I want to do is lunge at her and beat her like Spencer did. But I have to keep my emotions under control.

"And then the murders happened. The first one that occurred was before my father died. I could tell by the look on her face that she knew the guy. I mean when the news report came up, I just knew that she knew something. I couldn't figure out what, but then the second one happened. And she can't deny it, Ashley. She can't deny what happened that night. The evidence was there. At the crime scene, there was so much blood and the girl's body was so cut up that it was hard to even tell who she was. It took weeks for them to identify her."

"What makes you so sure that Spencer did it?" I ask still trying to remain calm.

She takes a deep breath and continues to stare into my eyes."Because we were all there." I'm sorry, WHAT?

Aiden clears his throat from the doorway. I wonder how long he's been standing there with his arms crossed and a pointed look at Kyla.

"Kyla can I talk to you for a minute? Alone." He says clearly agitated.

Kyla nods her head and stands up. "I'll be right back."

They walk out of the living room and down the hall, leaving me with my thoughts. They were there? All of them? Did I miss something? Seriously this is like some game of clue, where the truth is right in front of me, but I just can't see it. I can barely hear their muffled voices but I can tell that Aiden is angry with her. Guess he wasn't expecting her to open up. Hell, I wasn't even expecting her to talk to me about this. And is it just me or does this whole fucking situation just get more and more complicated every time one of them says something about it. I'm starting to think that I really don't know these people from a hole in the wall. I don't know any of them.

I slam my hand against the couch in frustration and my pocket rattles. Oh shit, I almost forgot about the bugs. I take a couple of them out of my pocket and take out one of the mini cameras as well. I strain my ears looking for any sign that they might be coming back, but I can still hear their muffled voices arguing down the hall. I stand up and look around the room. Guess now is as good a time as any to start planting them. I'll figure everything else out later.