REBECCA

Alright, this is weird, right?

I feel like the order of this is off. Maybe it is. Or maybe, it's 2 AM and I'm super tired and a little bit tipsy while I write this. I also just watched seven episodes of Will & Grace and so if I start writing like Karen Walker talks, don't think too much about it.

Or maybe Jack. Am I a Jack McFarland when I'm tipsy?

None of you know who I'm talking about. That's fine. I'm going to get on with things now.

So, she was arrested. Arrested for killing a dude, which sounds super strange to type out in a real sentence, but there it is. She was arrested, because of the information that I gave to Leo Lutz. Because I was a snitch in every sense of the word, and because I had told the truth. I shouldn't have felt guilty about that. But I did. I really, really did.

Do you ever do something that you know, deep in your gut, is technically the right thing to do? But in a less deep part of your gut, it makes you feel like a rotten person for doing it at all?

Maybe I should have been blaming the person who put me in a situation of this magnitude in the first place. Maybe I should have been blaming the person who lied and cheated and killed and did everything possible to ensure that they wouldn't be the one to blame for any of it in the long run.

But I didn't. I blamed myself.

And maybe that's why I acted the way I did.

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"This is a collect call from the Clemson Police Jail. Would you like to accept this call?"

Rebecca felt as if her heart was about to leap out of her chest, hit the floor, and then sink through the floorboards, through the apartment below hers, and then deep, deep into the ground below that. Clemson Police Jail. There was only one reason that she would be receiving a call from Clemson Police Jail, and it was a call she had been wondering when she would receive for the preceding two weeks. Day and night, night and day, Rebecca Eaves had been waiting for that phone call.

And now that it was coming, she wasn't quite sure how to handle it.

She made note of the time. 10:50 AM. Monday, November 30, 2020. She felt like this was a time she was going to remember for a long while.

"Yes." Rebecca responded to the question, the single word scratching in her throat as it came out. "Yes."

She could hear noises on the other end of the line before a voice that she hadn't heard in weeks came through.

"Rebecca?"

Kennedy Abrams didn't sound like Kennedy Abrams anymore. Just the one word coming from the other end of the phone had lost all of the confidence that Rebecca had come to expect from Kennedy. She sounded like someone with the same amount of love for herself that Rebecca had exuded when Kennedy had first met her—and that was hardly a good thing whatsoever.

"Yeah, it's me." Rebecca replied. She wasn't sure if she should feign confusion at why Kennedy was calling from jail, or if she should admit upfront that she understood what was going on, or if she should just...completely ignore the entire thing.

She decided on the last option and waited for Kennedy to speak again.

"Rebecca, I don't know what to do." Kennedy's voice broke on the second word she spoke, and Rebecca could hear her sniffling as she tried to speak again, "I...I got arrested. And I...I don't know why this would have happened."

"Arrested?" Rebecca replied, "Like...for real? Did they say why?"

"For the 'murder of Hank Wilcox,' to quote the brute who cuffed me." Kennedy sniffled again, "I don't even know who that is, I don't know what's going on..."

As she trailed off, Rebecca wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. Kennedy had been arrested. She had been arrested, and she was still trying to pretend to Rebecca like she had no idea who Hank had been, she had no idea who she had killed months earlier, and she had no idea why in the world she would have been arrested for that.

"Kennedy, why did you call me?" Rebecca asked. Where she had felt sorry for the girl seconds earlier, the reminder of her inability to be honest made her want to hang up the phone.

"Because I need to know if you talked to anyone." Kennedy replied.

And like a switch, all of Rebecca's guilt left her body. Dissipated into the air around her. She was done. Free. Because she was reminded for the umpteenth time that Kennedy Abrams was only ever acting in her own self-interest.

"You shouldn't have betrayed me, you know." Rebecca responded, measuring her words carefully as she spoke. "You wouldn't be in a cell if you hadn't betrayed me."

The other end was silent for a brief moment before the ensuing response echoed through like a banshee.

"Did you talk to someone?"

"You shouldn't have betrayed me." Rebecca repeated.

"You little bitch!" Kennedy huffed, "You actually thought you could—"

"Sorry," Rebecca interrupted as a loud beep sounded in her ear, "That's the other line. Good luck."

She could hear Kennedy trying to slip in one more insult before she switched over to whoever else was calling her, leaving Kennedy's call cut short.

"This is Rebecca."

"Rebecca, hello. My name is Brianne Hotchky, and I'm an attorney with Hotchky & Fitch. Do you have a second to talk?"

Rebecca considered saying 'no,' but decided against it quickly—she didn't want to be hostile towards someone who, if she were working on Kennedy's case, might use Rebecca as another person to pin the blame on.

"Sure." She replied shortly, "What can I do for you?"

The woman hesitated for a second.

"I was just wondering if you could let me know what you said to the police."

Rebecca waited for her to continue talking, but nothing came through.

"Um..." She paused for a second. It seemed like a very broad but also very invasive question at the same time. "Are you positive that I spoke to the police at all?"

The lawyer laughed shortly—a laugh that said that she wasn't about to have any patience with Rebecca avoiding her questions.

"Police, private investigators, detectives, law enforcement of any kind. I don't quite care what their title is; I care about what you said to them."

"How do you know I said anything to them?"

"Because if you hadn't said anything to them, my client wouldn't be in jail."

Rebecca paused after that. Mainly because that had been an excellent point.

"Miss Eaves?"

"Sorry," Rebecca shook her head slightly, "I just...I don't think I need—"

She heard her phone ding softly and looked to see a text message waiting from Leo.

"Sorry, give me a second."

"Take your time."

Rebecca opened the message and scanned it quickly.

Rebecca—do NOT answer any questions from lawyers right now. You can't give information to both sides. It's us or Kennedy.

She read the message a few more times in her head as the lawyer tried to get her attention from the other end of the line.

"Miss Eaves? Are you still there? Miss Eaves?"

Rebecca read the message one more time, the last line ringing through her head.

It's us or Kennedy.

She most certainly was not going to be on Kennedy's side of anything. So that meant she was on the side of Leo and Hank Wilcox's widow.

"Miss Eaves? If you'd prefer, I could call back at a later time—"

Rebecca hung up the phone without another word. She went into the recent calls on her phone and blocked the number that the lawyer had called her on before putting her phone down and taking a deep breath.

She had made her decision. She would have to live with it, no matter what ended up happening to her or Kennedy.

A/N: Hey guys! I'm doing a giveaway of both the books currently published in the Three's Company trilogy over on my Instagram! Head over to @someshelfawareness on Instagram OR click the external link of this chapter to enter to win signed copies of both the books!

-Katherine