Proven Guilty (Treadmill III)

XI

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.

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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."