Treadmill

XVIII.I

There are a very limited number of sentences I have heard in my life that have made my heart stop completely. Very limited. Very.

But let me tell you: hearing two of them in the same day—nay, the same hour—isn't good for your health.

This is about to be a wild ride, just so you know. I'm not trying to hype anything up that shouldn't be hyped up, but there it is. Because when Leo Lutz took me down the rabbit hole that was Hank Wilcox, I had no way of knowing what was about to hit me. I didn't get a warning. So you do.

This is a short introduction to this next part, because I don't know what else to say about it. All I know is that it's my job to tell you about all of this. It's my job to put it out there, right? Because in a way...it kind of happened to me. It's kind of my story. And the people whose story it actually is...they won't tell it.

Here we go.

><><

Rebecca started coughing.

It wasn't a fake cough. It wasn't one of those coughs that you did when you were trying to cover up the fact that you were laughing when you weren't supposed to be laughing. It wasn't one of those coughs you did as a signal to someone else. It wasn't one of those coughs that you did when you were trying not to be awkward in front of someone, but you really didn't have anything more to add to the conversation.

It was one of those coughs that you did when you forgot to breathe for a total of seventeen and a half seconds, and your chest was reminding you that it needed air to function.

She coughed for at least seventeen and a half more seconds, until the coughing turned into the kind of coughing you do when you're about to puke. Because Rebecca Eaves was about to puke. Rebecca Eaves was about to puke, pass out, stop breathing, and die, all at the same time.

"You good?" Leo asked, leaning forward in his seat in alarm when the coughing turned to dry heaving, "Do you need some water?"

Rebecca shook her head quickly, calming her body back down. She was fine. She was fine. She was going to be totally and completely fine.

She stared at Leo Lutz in silence until he spoke again, almost forgetting what his initial question had been until he repeated it.

"Rebecca, what can you tell me about Hank Wilcox?"

Rebecca heard the question again and quickly reminded herself to breathe. That was important. Breathing. Breathing was important. Otherwise she would probably start coughing again.

"I don't understand the question." She finally replied. Slow, measured, low-pitched. She didn't trust people with high-pitched voices, so whenever Rebecca was lying about something, she made her voice noticeably lower than usual. To offset her own personal biases. "Who is Hank Wilcox?"

Leo grinned slightly, a lopsided grin that would have been cute if he were twenty years younger than he was. Rebecca placed him at mid-forties, although she was usually terrible at guessing ages. She would probably have gauged herself at thirty if she were meeting herself for the first time.

"You realize that you aren't in any trouble, right?" He asked as one of the uniformed officers came back with a bottle of water for Rebecca, "You can answer my questions."

"If I'm not in any trouble, why did I get hauled in here, to a police station in a city I don't live in, in the middle of a Saturday, to talk to a PI?" Rebecca asked, taking a sip of the water to cool her throat, "I feel like you're lying, Mr. Lutz."