"What time is he getting here?"

Dallas sits on the counter in the kitchen, his bare feet dangling like he used to do when he was a teenager and we were waiting on the popcorn to finish popping to go watch a movie.

How much I wish that's what we were doing right now. I wish I'd gotten my brother back under literally any other circumstances than the ones I'm currently wrapped in.

Instead of hanging out in the kitchen to make snacks and spend a lazy day binge watching tv until our butts get sore on the couch, we are preparing for my lawyer to arrive.

Because I'm the suspect in a serial murder investigation.

It's still surreal.

No matter how many times I try to play it out in my head, I'm just a bystander watching my life unfold in the scariest series of unlucky events until I see myself getting slammed behind bars.

It literally doesn't make sense how one person could be so undeniably cursed.

I'm cursed to keep failing no matter how hard I try because the universe is literally against me. If I was sitting at home watching the coverage of this case on tv, I'd be sure as hell that I was guilty.

The evidence against me is unreal.

It just makes me wonder how many other people have found themselves in situations just like this one. With all of the new technologies and sciences available now, so many convictions are being overturned nearly daily. Netflix is making bank covering these wronged victims of the system who spend the best years of their innocent lives behind bars.

I'm terrified I'm about to become one of those people.

Another girl to add to the statistics of small town police forces being in a rush to shove the first person they suspect behind bars.

Honestly though, I can't even blame them that much. It does look bad.

"Any minute." I tell Dallas, rubbing my hands up and down my arms to try to get rid of the goose flesh gathering there. "I can't believe I'm actually having to do this."

Dallas furrows his brows and rubs his chin. "I know." He says. "But it's gonna be fine. They'll get that fucker and you and me will get the hell out of here and never come back."

"Just tell the truth." Kelsea stands beside me, rubbing my shoulder. "You've got to tell him everything so he can work out how to spin this all in your favor, ok?"

I don't know if I trust lawyers. They're too close to the police.

"Did your mom call you back?" Dallas asks her, raising a brow.

"Yeah." She tells him. "She said she can definitely get her friend involved if we need him. He's supposed to be really good. If this thing really does make it to a trial, he will take your case."

I guess that should make me feel a little better. Kelsea's mom is friends, well something, with a flashy New York lawyer who apparently owes her a favor. I'm glad she's been able to cash in on the debt with him, but it doesn't exactly make me feel better about all of this.

Needing any kind of lawyer is scary.

Needing a good one, is even worse.

"It'll be expensive," she adds softly. "But he will do it if it comes down to that."

I take a deep breath and sigh loudly. "That's great." I say flatly. "Came here for the money, gonna have to use the money to get out again." I palm my face. "Only me, I swear."

Kelsea laughs a little, giving me a little shove. "Drama queen." She shakes her head at me. "You're gonna be fine." She says to me. "And you need to get lost." She turns to Dallas.

"With pleasure." He hops down from the counter and grabs his socks and boots from beside the door. "Do we have any bandaids?" He asks, leaning down to rub at his ankle. "These boots are giving me a blister."

"Yeah let me grab my bag." Kelsea rushes up the stairs and Dallas gives me a long look.

"Be strong, Miss." he says quietly. "It'll all be over soon and we can move on. Just focus on that."

The future?

I've always been bad at planning for that or looking forward to anything. I've lived stuck for so long, I have a hard time trying to even fathom what a better future would look like from here.

"I'll try." I promise as Kelsea comes back, passing him the bandage.

There is a knock on the front door and Dallas rushes to get his socks and boots on and grabs his jacket to disappear in the backyard.

"It's gonna be-." I raise a hand to stop Kelsea.

"Please, for the love of God, could you guys come up with something a little better than it's gonna be fine?" I scrunch my face at her. "It's starting so sound like you don't believe it."

"Fine." She grins at me with a wink. "I will be in here."

With reluctance, I go to the door and let Taylor in.

He's dressed in what looks to be the same ill fitting tweed suit and he forces a gap toothed smile when he sees me.

"Good morning, Missouri."

"Missy." I remind him.

"Shall we get started?" He glances around the front yard behind him and then back to me. "The snow is really coming down today."

Behind him the yard is blanketed in blinding white snow and it flutters down with furious flurries that seem to get stronger even as I watch them.

"Come on in," I wave a hand into the house and he steps carefully in, keeping a distance from me.

I lead him into the living room and move the blankets and pillows off of the couch, tossing them to the floor so he can sit down.

He hesitates, pursing his lips, but he finally sits. He's teetering so precariously on the edge I worry one sneeze will send him to the floor, but he forces another smile.

He sets his bag on the ground by his feet and pulls out his packet of wipes and cleans the coffee table before laying out his files in the same meticulous way he'd done yesterday.

"A search warrant is being pushed through the system right now waiting on approval, but I'm sure it will receive it within the hour if it hasn't already." He tells me as I turn the recliner to face him and take a seat. "A friend at the courthouse gave me the heads up, so before we get started, is there anything I need to know? Anything that might be found when they do come to conduct their search?"

The nausea is back.

I press a hand to my stomach trying to calm the slow churning as I watch him lay out his pens on the table from lightest to darkest.

"They're going to search my house?"

"Of course." He widens his eyes at my surprise. "This place, as you know I'm sure, is of great interest to the FBI and the local authorities right now. Especially with Ms. Farmer still missing." He explains quickly. "They've already done their search of the Carter property and you're next up on the docket."

"Did they find anything?" I lean forward in my seat. "At Aries's place?"

"Let's try to stay focused on you right now." He gives me a pointed look. "Back to my pervious question." He waves a hand around the house. "Is there anything I need to know that might be here? Anything that might lead the police to further connect you to the crimes or anything I should be made aware of to be able to properly defend you?" He speaks fast and efficiently, like he's quoting a script he's given a dozen times over. "I know it's hard, but if I'm going to be able to do my job I have to know everything. I need to be able to stay ahead of them and the story if I'm going to help you."

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Not that I can think of." I tell him. "My boots and the clothes I was wearing the day I was in that alley are here." I tell him. "But they already know I was there."

"And why was that?"

I rush over the details of the day as best I can remember and he jots down a few notes on his notepad.

"Very good." He says distantly. "Anything else?" He looks up at me expectantly.

"Uh, there is a hole in the floor in my parent's room." I tell him and his eyebrow rises in interest. "I was hiding my stuff in there but it's empty now. The jacket and boots are upstairs but an officer did see the hole."

"And did you make this yourself? As a place to hide things?"

I shake my head. "No, it's from...before."

He purses his lips in understanding. "Anything else I need to know? Anything at all."

I shrug. "I don't think so." I say, leaning back again. "But I also didn't think I'd get caught up in all of this in the first place."

A cough comes from the other room.

Then, "the keys", inside of another cough.

Taylor looks puzzled, turning his head from the kitchen back to me. "The keys?"

"Right." I rub my forehead. "Mrs. Statham is in charge of overseeing the selling of this house and some of my other family estates." I explain. "She had a spare set of keys to this house and they've gone missing. I'd been suspicious that someone had been coming in, but I thought I was being paranoid until she told me about that."

"And she'd attest to the fact that the keys in her possession were stolen?"

"I am pretty sure, yeah."

"And this is Nancy Statham?" He starts writing again. He takes down her number from me and then sets the notepad down again. "She is a relative of Ms. Farmer?"

"Yes."

He nods a little, scrunching his nose. "Ok." He says carefully. "This would be the same woman who's home you have previously stolen from? Pain pills and antidepressants?"

Taylor may just be an appointment public defender, but he's certainly done his research.

"Correct." I stare at the wall in shame.

"I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable, Missou-Missy." He tells me gently. "I just need to be sure I have everything."

I chew my lip as I think. It feels inherently wrong in every single part of me, but slowly I open my mouth and speak again.

"Uh, Aries was close with her." I tell him. "She knew us when we were kids and she helped him buy his house here in Faulkner. She is the one who got him a lawyer too."

I feel sick to my stomach.

I feel like a traitor.

I feel like I'm throwing him under the bus, but what choice do I have? He is the one who started this. He's the reason I'm having to have this conversation at all.

I can't keep defending him.

"So you think he is the one who stole the keys?" He asks me and I can't meet his eyes as I nod. "That's good information." He tells me. "I can make sure they are looking for those. It can help show he's had access to your home and hers and help paint the picture that he's trying to use you as a scapegoat."

Every time someone alludes to it, it doesn't get easier to hear. Someone I loved and trusted is trying to make me take the blame. He's put me through all of this.

"I don't have anything else here that would be a problem." I tell Taylor, trying to shake the thoughts away. "But he has been here, and I do think he's got the keys."

Taylor picks up the notepad again and makes a few more notes in a hurry.

"Ok, that's all very good." He says, still scribbling. "Thank you for being straight forward with me." I shrug even though he isn't looking at me. "Does the kitchen have anything else to add?" He tilts his head over his shoulder.

Kelsea coughs loudly again from the other room. "I'm-good-I-think." She says, continuing to cough as she peaks her head around the archway into the living room. "Well, actually." She stops coughing and leans against the doorway. "She's been getting threatening notes and someone had definitely broken in here and messed with stuff."

"What kind of notes?" He turns from her back to me.

I explain in a hurry but when he asks if I kept any, I have to shake my head.

"I'm sorry." I say, knowing now that it was stupid. "But I can show you where someone painted on the wall in the bedroom and then covered it up to make me think I was nuts." I add, trying to give him anything to work with.

The three of us go into the bedroom and I show them where I'd peeled some of the paint back, revealing the red paint below it.

He scribbles down some more notes while I show him the hole in the floor. My fingers shake as I lift the lid, terrified of what might be inside of it now, but he shines his flashlight inside and it's still empty.

We go back into the living room and take our seats, Kelsea hanging back in the kitchen as Taylor and I go over every second since I've been home with scrutiny.

I do as Kelsea instructed and I tell him everything.

"You certainly have a knack for being exactly where you shouldn't." He says without judgment when I'm done. "I know all of this must be scary, and given your past probably a little traumatic, but I think we have a good case."

"Really?" I ask, a little too hopeful.

He slowly collects his pens from the table and places them back into the pockets of his bag as he speaks. "Lots of things don't look good, but as I said yesterday, the evidence on you is all circumstantial and can be explained away, even if the explanations are a bit muddled on their own." He offers a little grin. "I'm confident we can separate the narrative on you and Mr. Carter and I can say they are compiling plenty of evidences against him as we speak."

That should make me feel good, shouldn't it?

But how exactly are you supposed to feel good to find out someone you care about is actually a monster?

How did I get so lucky to, in such a short life, encounter so many?

This morning has been draining emotionally, and physically. I can already feel my eyes getting heavy from lack of sleep and too much adrenaline as I watch Taylor gather the rest of his things.

I stand to walk him to the door but as soon as we make it into the hallway, a commotion out back has us both turning our heads.

"Um...?" He says, looking at me with a pinched expression as the shouting from outside gets louder.

"Missy!" I hear my name shouted above the rest of the noise.

And I know exactly who it is.

Aries is here.