Proven Guilty (Treadmill III)

II

How did she know? I'll bet you're asking yourselves how she knew. But if there was one thing I had learned while being her client, it was that Brianne Hotchky somehow knew everything.

I thought she would yell. I thought she would scream until her throat was shot, and then drink a glass of water and start shouting some more. But she didn't. It was as if every time she had ever been frustrated with me had been forgotten about, and now she couldn't possibly be angry with me anymore.

Which I suppose I needed at the time.

There were very few people in my life who were always there for me, no matter how many times I screwed them over or even set them up for shit that I did. Brianne Hotchky and Rebecca Eaves were two of those few. And for the life of me, at this second, I can't even think of any others.

I don't blame anyone who didn't stick by me through everything that happened in the 2020s. I deserved to be left behind. I'm just grateful that two women didn't give me what I deserved.

I always bounce back and forth between whether I'm being too hard on myself or not hard enough. It depends on what mood I'm in on any given day—am I full of confidence, of the self-righteous motivation to do what I do? Or am I brimming with self-loathing, convinced that everything I've done in my life has made me unworthy of living out the rest of it.

It varies. I'm not perfect. I'm not mentally healthy. No one goes through what I went through and comes out the other side with zero battle scars.

My battle scars just can't be seen.

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"How—"

"I spent so much time watching that security footage. I taped every news program it was on. I watched it back online at least three dozen times. The first few times I watched it, I was angry. So, so angry that you wouldn't have recognized me."

Kennedy gulped.

"But then I stopped. I took a breath. And I looked at the footage as someone who doesn't have any knowledge of you at all. And I saw your face when you looked up at that security camera. You didn't look anxious or worried. You looked...annoyed. Inconvenienced. As if you were dragging a body out of a hotel against your will."

"I was." Kennedy muttered, picturing Lydia's traumatized expression when she had walked into the hotel room, "I didn't want to be a part of it."

"I've already pulled the hotel's check-in and check-out records." Brianne ignored Kennedy's comment, "And your step-mother did not have the foresight to check in under a false name."

Kennedy let out a sigh of relief. Brianne knew it had been Lydia. Kennedy didn't even need to convince her. Becoming so accustomed to dead bodies that you were recognizably annoyed when you had to move them seemed to have a few perks.

"That's great," she breathed out, shaking her head. Brianne cleared her throat and Kennedy looked up at her to see the lawyer wearing a stoic look. "What?"

"I haven't decided if I'll represent you yet, Kennedy." Brianne said slowly, holding her hand up when Kennedy began to protest, "I know you're innocent. But I need to know what kind of evidence—besides the security footage—we're up against. I need you to tell me if this is winnable. Realistically."

Kennedy sat still, her mind forcing itself back to the night that she walked into Lydia's hotel room. All of the precautions she had taken to ensure that none of them were implicated. Without thinking about having someone watch Lydia.