I probably knew this beach house better than my dad did.

He was a busy man with his practice and apparent fraud schemes with my dead ex and his dead law school roommate. When he bought the house, I didn't know why. I thought it was some sort of midlife crisis after divorcing my mom. When rich people go through midlife crises, they buy houses.

He had told Jeremy and me the key code to the garage once, when he first bought it. He wanted to make sure he didn't forget, so he told his kids. And I, being the opportunistic genius that I've always been, wrote it down in my phone. Just being a thorough, prepared daughter.

When Hank and I started going out, we used that beach house more often than we stayed anywhere else. Whenever I could get away from school, Hank and I would make the 2 ½-hour ride from Tampa to Naples, and no one ever knew. No one besides us ever used the damn house.

And though returning to the state where I had killed a man might not have been the wisest of ideas, it did offer Rebecca and me a secluded place to get our shit together. Because we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, or how we were going to get out of this without going to prison for a very, very long time.

><><><

Naples, Florida.

Home of literally nothing Kennedy found remotely interesting.

If anything, punching in the garage code and walking into her father's beach house gave her vivid memories that she would prefer to forget.

Rebecca carried their duffel bags in while Kennedy went around the house closing every curtain she could find. The garage door was closed, the front door was locked, and no one could see into the house. No one could even tell that people were inside of it.

Kennedy selected her room and was surprised to find Rebecca right on her heels.

"You can take the master bedroom, Rebecca," Kennedy said, "I'll take this one."

'This one' was a large bedroom with a king size bed and walls painted ocean blue. It had its own adjoining bathroom, which, after spending the past few weeks in jail and then in a rundown motel room, Kennedy was very grateful for.

Plus, she couldn't take the master bedroom. The entire thing screamed HANK at her.

"Sounds good. I'm gonna shower." Rebecca called after Kennedy's retreating back. Kennedy waved her hand over her shoulder in acknowledgment before closing the bedroom door behind her.

She stared at the room for a brief moment. The windows opened out right to the front of the house, with a clear view of the long driveway and the road in front of the house. She would be able to see if anyone approached them—whether that was the police, her father, or a random neighbor's kid looking to get lucky in the empty place.

Two hours later, Rebecca had washed her hair, Kennedy had taken a quick nap, and both girls were becoming aware of their grumbling stomachs.

"We didn't think the 'food' part of this trip through." Rebecca said to Kennedy as both girls sat in the living room, feet up on the ottoman.

Kennedy glanced over at her, eyebrows arched.

"My apologies for not thinking of every possible thing we would need. Next time that I'm escaping from prison, I'll be more considerate."

"Oh, shut up." Rebecca muttered, "You know what I mean. We have to use cash, so that eliminates any food delivery apps, and we also can't really have anyone knowing that this house is in use."

"I haven't been out with the rest of the world in a long time, but I believe grocery stores still exist."

"We'll be recognized."

Kennedy laughed.

"Will we? I don't think I would recognize us in passing."

The girls both looked at each other. Neither one looked like they had 24 hours earlier.

"Alright, let's go." Rebecca said, "Can we walk to one?"

"Probably." Kennedy nodded, "Let's stock up a little bit."

Fifty-four minutes later, they were back at the house with supplies for the next week, including a few frozen pizzas.

Kennedy turned on the oven and slipped one of the pizzas out of the box.

"I haven't had frozen pizza in ages." She said, remembering times when she and Jeremy would put them in the oven when their parents worked late.

"I generally like to eat them once they're cooked, but you do you."

Kennedy rolled her eyes but couldn't help a smile crossing her face. For just a second, she felt like she was in a normal situation, living with a roommate and bickering about food. It felt like she wasn't the person she had become—the one forced to unravel everything from her family's past in order to free herself from their unhinged present.

><><><

The next morning, Kennedy made herself an omelet while she watched the news. The 9:00 hour began with her and Rebecca's mugshots on full display across the flatscreen in the kitchen. Not the most flattering picture of herself, but Kennedy had seen worse mugshots. The reporter reminded viewers that both girls were wanted but not suspected to be armed or dangerous, which Kennedy supposed was kind of him.

"The suspects are believed to be travelling in a blue 2005 Toyota Prius, registered to Eaves but missing its license plates."

That's a new one, Kennedy mused, flipping the omelet over and sprinkling feta cheese on top. Her prime objective in the grocery store the day before had been the ingredients for her comfort breakfast: a spinach, mushroom, and feta cheese omelet. The food itself calmed her heartrate; she was sure of it.

Rebecca's car was tucked away in the beach house's garage, with the door shut and no reason for anyone to think there was a car inside in the first place. Kennedy knew they would have to leave the beach house in a few days regardless of whether people suspected the house was occupied, since it was only a matter of time before the cops figured out that her dad owned the house. And then they would be breaking down the doors; she didn't want to be around for that.

She muted the TV and picked up her phone, getting comfortable at the kitchen table with a laptop Rebecca had rented from Best Buy to 'try out.' She googled a name that made her nauseous, but it had to be done: Premiere Costal Hotel – Clemson.

A phone number popped up first in the search results, and Kennedy dialed it without thinking of what she was going to say. If she had learned anything over the past few months, it was that her carefully-thought-out plans hardly ever panned out, and the ideas she thought up on the spot served her better.

"Premiere Coastal Hotel in Clemson, this is Olivia. How may I direct your call?"

"Hi, Olivia, my name's Vanessa. I'm calling with some questions about a former long-term guest at the Premiere; are you the right person to talk to?"

"Yes, ma'am." Olivia replied, "Although I must warn you, it is against our policy to reveal pretty much anything about our guests, especially those who stay with us for long periods of time."

Kennedy didn't even pause to think.

"I completely understand. I'm working on the investigation into the woman who broke out of Oconee County Jail a few nights ago, and we believe she was related to one of your guests. Any information you can provide would be helpful to us finding the fugitive."

"Oh, of course! I heard about that; it sounds just awful. What information were you looking for, exactly? I might be able to pull a few strings for the police."

"I do appreciate it," Kennedy said solemnly, "and the guest we're looking for stayed in room 1K on December 16, 2020."

"Alright..." Olivia trailed off, and Kennedy could hear faint clicks of a keyboard, "...and what was the name of the fugitive again?"

"Kennedy Abrams." Kennedy replied, trying not to sound like she had said the name too many times before.

"Well, we don't have record of a Kennedy Abrams on the 16th, but we do have record of an L. F. Abrams. They stayed there for a while, but checked out on the 17th."

"Do you have any security footage from the night of the 16th that you wouldn't mind sending over? We believe that the suspect killed a man in your hotel that night." Kennedy crossed her fingers that some sort of security footage would be usable after Lydia had destroyed all of it except for the parts that only incriminated Kennedy and Rebecca.

"Let me see...no, it looks like the security footage from that night was tampered with on the first floor. I would assume that that hurts her case, right?"

"Indeed, it does." Kennedy managed to get out through gritted teeth, "Would you be able to send over the documentation that you have from that room to my email?"

Olivia hesitated, and Kennedy plowed ahead.

"I don't want to put your hotel under the scrutiny that could be caused by obtaining a search warrant and having to shut the whole establishment down so that we can do a thorough sweep. It would be so much easier for everyone involved, especially yourselves and the valuable time of our public servants, if we could obtain the information electronically, with as little hassle as possible."

"I suppose that's true." Olivia mused, and Kennedy could hear the clicking of keys again, "What email address should I send it to?"

Kennedy spelled out a fake email address that she had made while on the phone call.

"Great. I will send over everything we have. Don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything else, ma'am."

"Thank you, Olivia, you've been a great help. Bye-bye." Kennedy hung up the phone and took a deep breath, willing her heartrate to slow itself.

Rebecca walked out of the master bedroom, rubbing her eyes as she went. Every single one of her joints sounded like they were cracking in half when she took a step.

"I haven't slept that well in months." She murmured, opening the fridge, "What kind of mattress is that?"

"No idea," Kennedy said, maniacally refreshing the page with the fake email address' account on it, "but in a few minutes, we should have a start at showing that it was Lydia who killed Jaxson."

"How so?" Rebecca asked, pouring oat milk into her cereal.

"Look." Kennedy invited, grinning from ear to ear as a single email appeared in the inbox.

1K History – Full

"1K?" Rebecca muttered in confusion, "1K...wasn't that the hotel room?"

"Indeed," Kennedy nodded her delight and clicked on the first of 37 separate files, "and now we have a lot of work to do."

A/N: Want a sneak peek of Chapter 12? Click the external link or copy and paste: https://www.patreon.com/posts/sneak-peek-12-67863940?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copy_to_clipboard&utm_campaign=postshare to check it out on Patreon!

-Katherine