I think I figured the whole thing out, you know.

Maybe that'll make people hate me. Maybe that's a stupid beginning sentence. Maybe I'm a terrible writer and no one is going to read this.

Who am I kidding. Of course, people are going to read this. If there's one thing every single person I've ever met has been consistent about, it's an inappropriate level of curiosity.

But it all made sense in my head, once I'd been sitting in a cell for three days straight with absolutely no one to talk to and nothing to do but think about how in the hell that tape got to the cops.

It wasn't difficult to figure out. I guess I just still thought the best of people. Or, I was trying to think the best of people. I hadn't been very good at that throughout my life up until that point.

But, maybe me changing my mindset to be more trusting was what had led to me ending up with two arrests in two months. Maybe I should go back to being a cold, bitter bitch.

Beside the point.

Lydia Farrow-Abrams kept just enough of the security footage that she would not be able to be implicated in her little dip into the pool of women killing abusive men. She kept it in her arsenal on the off chance that Jaxson's body was found.

His body just happened to be found much quicker than anyone had anticipated.

And to think, Eaves had told me not to call her a step-monster. I'm going to spend the next few days trying to think of an even more fitting name.

But anyway. I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's pull a page out of Eaves' book. Or blog.

Let's go back a bit further.

><><><

Kennedy remembered the phone call where her father had revealed his plans to propose to his midlife crisis.

"Ken?"

"Don't call me that."

"Well, that's not how I wanted this call to start."

"Maybe you should have thought about that six months ago. You know. The last time you called?"

Kristopher Abrams sighed loudly into the phone, but Kennedy couldn't tell if he was apologetic or annoyed.

"I'm sorry, Kennedy. Things have been a bit busy over here recently."

"Oh, I've seen the articles." Kennedy spat out, physically incapable of keeping the disgust out of her voice, "Am I going to meet this model girlfriend of yours? Or are you planning on replacing Mom without letting me vet the bitch first?"

"Watch your language, Kennedy Abrams." Her father ordered. "I am not replacing your mother. We divorced, honey. It happens all the time. I'm trying to move on."

"You do realize that you're supposed to see us every other weekend, right? That you haven't held up your end of that for who knows how long?" She couldn't wait until she graduated and left her mother's house. She wanted to move far away for college, so that not seeing her father for almost a year was a normal thing and not a main topic of conversation for the therapist she knew she was eventually going to have to get.

"I know that, Ken. I'm sorry."

"I told you not to call me that."

Her father sighed again. This time it was in annoyance.

"I just wanted to tell you something before you...read about it."

Kennedy felt her heart sink into her thighs. She had assumed it was coming. But she had hoped it wouldn't be while she was still in high school. When she would still be expected to attend the wedding.

"You're proposing to her."

Kristopher didn't respond for enough time that his silence alone confirmed Kennedy's words.

"Well, congratulations. Hope you can make this one work."

"Lydia wants you to be a bridesmaid."

"No."

"Kennedy—"

"No." She repeated, "If I agreed to that, I would be endorsing this sick fling. Leave me out of it."

She hung up the phone before her father could get another word out. Two years until she was on her own. Just two years.

"I'm not saying anything until you get Brianne."

The public defender that the cops had brought in to try and force Kennedy to talk was a tiny brunette man who looked like he was about to pass out every time someone spoke more than four words to him. Kennedy didn't even know if she believed that the man had passed the bar exam.

"You don't get to make that call, Miss Abrams."

"Come on, Paul, we're on a first-name basis by now." Kennedy grinned. She felt like she knew half of the police in the state at that point, "Call me Kennedy."

Paul Simmons rolled his eyes.

"Kennedy, we're not getting Brianne Hotchky for this."

"Then I'm not saying another word."

"What if we got a different public defender?"

Kennedy stared straight ahead, at the two-way mirror, silent.

"Kennedy?"

She didn't open her mouth. She kept her arms crossed. She kept her eyes locked on the same point in the mirror, knowing that she was making the public defender nervous just by making indirect eye contact with him.

It was fun.

Paul started talking some more, but Kennedy tuned him out. She wondered how Rebecca was doing. She wondered if she had said anything yet. She wondered if Brianne would represent both of them. Would they be tried together? Kennedy didn't know if that was even a thing. She had never had a willing accomplice before. Although, she supposed this didn't quite count. Since they had both been unwilling accomplices to Lydia, who had up and disappeared without a word, leaving them both to take the fall.

The room was silent for a few seconds before Paul turned to the officer standing beside him—one of the few cops whose name Kennedy hadn't learned over the past few months of being surrounded by them, constantly.

"Call Brianne." Paul muttered, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and handing it to the guy, "Now."

The other officer nodded and walked out of the room. Kennedy didn't shift her eyes from their place on the mirror.

"Daniel, you can leave." Paul spoke to the public defender, who jumped when his name was mentioned, "Thanks for stopping by."

The public defender—Daniel—nodded hurriedly and left the room, briefcase under his arm and glasses falling off his nose. Kennedy moved her eyes to a different point in the mirror, concentrating on the wall just behind her own head. It was gray and concrete and dull. Like Paul.

Don't be a bitch. Paul's nice enough.

At least he was calling Brianne.

Kennedy let her gaze fall down from the wall and rest on herself. She could vaguely hear Paul talking to her, saying something about fifth amendment rights and double jeopardy and some other term that sounded too long to be interesting or worth learning about. Kennedy tuned him out, instead focusing on the person in front of her, the woman sitting in the chair, haggard and dull as the wall behind her.

The circles under her eyes were turning shades of purple, not just the regular grayish color they usually were without concealer. They were tinged with red on the edges. It might have looked like Kennedy had been crying, but she hadn't been. She didn't think she had room inside of her for tears.

There were flecks of old mascara scattered around her face like freckles. They didn't give you time to take off your makeup the proper way, when they yank you from your apartment on a murder charge. Her left wrist, resting on the table, was starting to bruise in a handcuff-shaped ring. Her right wrist had stopped bleeding a few hours before. Maybe it would bruise in a bit as well.

Her hair was frizzier than she would have preferred, but the ponytail was still, for all intents and purposes, intact. They had taken her jewelry, which had been disappointing but not all that unexpected, and her hands felt bare.

All things considered, Kennedy still looked great.

"Kennedy?"

She yanked herself out of her doze when Paul said her name. She looked over at him and was surprised to see Brianne Hotchky standing beside him. She wondered how long she had been staring at herself. Time moved at a different pace when you had the good fortune of being able to examine your bruises and mascara flecks in a two-way mirror.

"Will you speak now?" Paul asked. Brianne walked around the table and pulled up a chair beside Kennedy. Kennedy noticed right away that she wasn't wearing her regular red bottom stilettos. She wondered why.

Kennedy looked to Brianne, who nodded.

"Yes, I will." Kennedy addressed Paul, who seemed to be holding back a sigh of relief. He looked a bit constipated.

"Excellent." He sat down across from the two women and pulled out a tape recorder. "Now—"

"Actually, my client and I have changed our minds." Brianne interrupted, her voice loud enough to make Kennedy jump in her seat, "We would like to speak in private before she answers any questions."

Paul looked stunned.

"Uh, Ms. Hotchky, that's not really protocol—"

"You have a twenty-two-year-old woman here who is facing her second murder charge in as many days. Nothing about this is quite following protocol." Brianne shot back, standing up. Paul followed suit, but Kennedy stayed seated. "I am going to speak to my client alone before she answers any of your questions."

Paul looked back and forth between the two women, his expression implying that he would rather be getting his legs waxed than be in that room.

"Fine." He said after a minute of silence, "You may speak with Miss Abrams in a separate room."

"Are there cameras?"

"Of course, there are cameras, Brianne."

"Ms. Hotchky." Brianne corrected him swiftly, "Do these cameras have sound?"

Paul shook his head.

"No, ma'am."

"Good. We'll go there now."

Kennedy joined the other two in standing and Paul placed her back in the handcuffs from before. Her right wrist stung, and she groaned at the wound opening up again.

"Sorry." Paul muttered.

He led the two women out of one room and into another, smaller room, this one without any mirror for Kennedy to entertain herself with. There was a small security camera in the corner of the room, its gaze trained on the table in the center of the space. After Paul removed her handcuffs and left the room, Kennedy took a seat with her back to the camera. Brianne sat across from her, her eyes flicking up to the device as if she didn't quite believe that it didn't have any sound.

Kennedy stayed quiet. She didn't know what to say. What did you say to the lawyer who had just spent the past month and a half in a highly-publicized trial defending you for doing exactly this, and then you go and get arrested for the same crime the day after your miraculous mistrial?

She felt like she should get Brianne a Christmas present. Kennedy was 90% sure that it was December 22nd, but she didn't know for certain. Nothing felt quite festive in this particular precinct.

Brianne didn't say a word for the first three minutes that they sat in that room. Kennedy wondered if she was expected to speak first.

She was about to tell Brianne that she didn't kill the guy, but the lawyer beat her to the punch.

"I'm well aware that you didn't do it this time, Kennedy."

A/N: Welcome to Book 3 in the Treadmill world! I honestly didn't think it would get this far, but hey...when the ideas come, the ideas come. Hope you're ready for the ride! -KP