"You're fine."
Kennedy felt a hand on her back as she breathed in and out at the speed of light, refusing to call it hyperventilating. She didn't hyperventilate. She was a very put-together person. Clearly.
She had been put-together enough to kill a man.
"I'm not fine," she snapped back at Lyla, rolling her eyes as her breathing slowed, "I'm on trial for murder and I have a moron as a lawyer."
"You don't have a moron as a lawyer," her best friend sighed, "Where's Rian? She's relatively decent at talking you down."
"I didn't think you even knew what half of those words meant," Kennedy muttered through her teeth as Lyla went off to find the third member of their group. Ever since Rebecca had become a traitor for the other side, Kennedy had decided to become close with her former best friends again—she needed someone in her life who would only tell her the things she wanted to hear.
But they had seemed to become worse at doing even that—the bare minimum of being friends with Kennedy Abrams—since she had last seen them. Since she had gone to jail and gotten out on bail because her mother finally chose to care about her daughter. Her father was nowhere to be found; after the news broke about Kennedy sleeping with and then killing one of his friends, nothing she could say to him would make him forgive her.
She just wished that her brother hadn't taken his side.
"Ken? You okay?" Rian approached her with Lyla close behind, both girls exhibiting signs that they were worried about their friend, but also worried about their personal wellbeing if they got too close to her. "Lyla said you're not doing too great."
"Naturally, I'm doing a phenomenal job of sitting in my old apartment, huddled up like a hobbit under my blanket, and trying not to think about the fact that my lawyer is currently working on getting my trial moved to the state that I actually live in. I'm just spectacular, Rian. Stunning. Perfect. The same old Kennedy that you're used to living with." She rolled her eyes and tried not to think about Brianne Hotchky sitting in a room with a judge, convincing both them and the Florida judge on a video call to transfer the jurisdiction of the case to South Carolina.
She could picture it. Brianne and her co-counsel sitting in stiff chairs with high backs, Brianne's legs crossed over each other when she was nervous. Kennedy noticed that she did that. The South Carolina judge would be sitting on the stand, gavel to the side, laptop open with the image of the Florida judge coming through pixelated and fuzzy. The Florida judge would try and say something, but the connection would be bad and they'd have to wait for it to improve before Brianne could continue making her case.
The Florida judge would argue with her. They would point out that all the alleged illegal activities had taken place in Tampa, not Clemson. That they had jurisdiction over this case—this incredibly high-profile case that had been in the news for what felt like months now, but in actuality had only been days.
Brianne would pull out the point she had explained to Kennedy fifty different times, in fifty different ways; she would pull out their golden ticket to get the trial moved to Oconee County. Brianne would point out that Hank Wilcox had been one of the most influential Florida millionaires that the state had seen in decades—he had been a well-known and well-respected public speaker, a generous philanthropist, an author, a TV personality...you name it, he had done it. The jury in Tampa, Florida would be biased to find Kennedy guilty due to their close ties with the victim and their nonexistent ties with Kennedy Abrams.
And unlikely juror impartiality, in Brianne's confessed opinion, was the perfect excuse to have the case's jurisdiction moved in their favor.
"Clearly," Lyla muttered, rolling her eyes before walking away into the kitchen.
"You're a very supportive friend!" Kennedy called after her as Rian sat down next to the accused murderer, her hand resting on Kennedy's arm in a way that was supposed to be comforting but ended up being annoying instead.
"I'm sorry, Ken. I'm sure that your lawyer is gonna call any minute now."
"Yeah, well I was sure of that twenty minutes ago, Rian."
"Stop picking on Rian," Lyla called out from the kitchen, her voice quiet and moronic to Kennedy's ears, "She didn't do anything to you. You did this to yourself."
Kennedy's eyes widened and she spun around to face the kitchen, where Lyla was standing at the door, her eyes trained on the other two girls sitting on the couch.
"Did this to myself?"
"You killed a guy, Ken. You killed a guy and didn't even tell us about it."
"Oh, you're right. Sorry, next time I kill a man I'll make sure to plaster it on the front page of a newspaper like that bitch whose name I won't even say."
"Technically, Rebecca published it in a magazine, not a newspaper." Rian mumbled, as if she were being forced to correct Kennedy and not volunteering the sentence of her own volition.
"Shut up, Rian."
"Ken—"
"You shut up too, Lyla." Kennedy whipped her head back around to stare daggers at the girl. "I don't need to prove anything to you or defend anything to you. Get off my ass."
Lyla and Rian were both silent as Kennedy put her head between her hands and closed her eyes. She wanted to go back to a different time. A time where she hadn't decided to pick Rebecca as her scapegoat. A time when she could have picked anyone else. Anyone. Else. In the world. They didn't even have to go to Clemson. She should have picked someone who didn't seem so nice at first. Maybe then she would have actually gone through with the entire plan like she was supposed to.
><><><
"They did? Are you sure?"
Rebecca knew that getting the trial moved to Oconee County was good for Kennedy, but it was also good for her. As a possible co-defendant and the prosecution's sole eyewitness to the crime, she was sure that she was going to be in the courtroom almost as much as Kennedy Abrams herself would be.
Hopefully, she would only be the prosecution's eyewitness and not that other thing, but that was what she had hired her shiny, brand-new—to her—lawyer for: Rebecca Eaves was absolutely not going to be a defendant. She was positive about that.
Nicholas Richter, her new lawyer who had been recommended by David Vontaf himself, had met with Rebecca early in the morning after she had hired him, promising not to bill her more hours than were absolutely necessary. Not that she needed to worry about that quite yet—her funds from Drew Parley's Instagram account before she had been cut off had yet to run out.
"They did." Nicholas replied, leaning back in his office chair with a small smile on his face. "I know this is good for our opposition as well, but it is still good for us. The trial will be held at the Oconee County Courthouse, and you will not need to testify right away."
"Is that good?"
"Yes." Nicholas nodded, "We have plenty of time to look at what the defense is saying about the case—what their plea will be, what their claims will be. We will have plenty of time to find something to help your case as well."
Rebecca nodded feverishly, her eyes trained on the floor under her feet. The carpet was deep red, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. It felt like a lawyer's carpet should not be the color of blood. Or perhaps that was the morbid murderer mentality she had adopted since witnessing a man's death by her own car.
"Thank you for all your help," Rebecca told Nicholas thirty-seven minutes later as she walked out of his office, "We'll meet again soon, I'm sure."
"I'm sure." Nicholas replied, closing the office door behind her as Rebecca tried to find her way out of the maze that was Richter, Nelson & Partners.
She drove back to her apartment, eyes wandering around at the different cars around her when she stopped at a red light. Everything seemed so different from before Kennedy Abrams. Everything seemed darker, more morose. Colors had lost their vibrance, chirps had lost their pep. Rebecca had lost herself.
You're being dramatic, she rebuked herself as the light turned green and she put her foot on the same gas pedal that had been used to kill Hank Wilcox, Shut up.
"There's a guy here for you," Celeste informed Rebecca as the latter walked into the unlocked apartment, "He says that he wants to help on your case. Him and his wife, actually."
Rebecca raised her eyebrows and shrugged her jacket off of her shoulders, leaving it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
"Where are they?"
"In the living room," Celeste yawned widely—she wasn't usually up before 9 AM, "I told them they could wait there until you got home. They didn't really want to leave until they talked to you."
"You let strangers into our apartment? Is anyone else home with you?"
"Yeah, Spencer's in the shower." Celeste shrugged, "He'll protect me or whatever."
"Why doesn't your boyfriend ever use the shower at his own apartment," Rebecca muttered, filling a glass up with water and hoping that their guests couldn't overhear them, "It's weirding me out."
"It's only weirding you out because he used to be in love with you."
"I hate it when you bring that up."
"I know, you both do." Celeste grinned, wrapping a thin piece of hair around her finger and laughing, "That's why I bring it up."
Rebecca rolled her eyes.
"I'm going to go and make sure you didn't let two serial killers into our apartment."
"Go for it."
Rebecca walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, where she found a couple who looked to have a noticeable age gap whispering to each other. They both jumped a bit and looked up when Rebecca walked into the room, immediately falling silent. The women was skinny and blonde and looked to be in her mid-thirties, while the man was stocky and brunette, his hair graying along the roots, and looked like he could be around fifty. Rebecca was convinced that she had seen the woman before, but she just couldn't place her exactly.
"Hi," Rebecca nodded towards the couple as she sat down on the armchair opposite them, "I'm Rebecca Eaves. Am I able to help you with something?"
"We want to help you with your case," the woman spoke first as the man remained stonily silent, "We know all about it...at an intimate level."
"Is that so?" Rebecca asked, leaning back slightly and taking a sip of her water. She had been deliberate about not offering a drink to her guests, and she believed they were aware. "I don't think I know who either of you are...although you look oddly familiar." She addressed the woman with her last comment.
"How rude of us," the man spoke, his voice gravelly and his eyes registering something in Rebecca that she didn't know how to describe, "I believe we forgot to introduce ourselves before getting into the logistics." He extended his hand towards Rebecca as the woman sat back slightly, one eyebrow up towards the sky, "I'm Kristopher Abrams. Kennedy's father."