Chapter Text
They say death comes in threes.
This proves very true for Laura Kearney.
It starts innocuously enough. She hears through the grapevine that a girl she graduated high school with, Whitney Seymour, died in a car accident.
Laura remembers Whitney. They actually spent a decent amount of time together in various classes, met up and chatted at some parties – they were more friendly acquaintances than anything so, while her passing is certainly sad, it doesn’t have a large impact on Laura’s life.
The second death, that of Laura’s grandmother, does. Truthfully, Laura liked her grandmother, but years and years of not interacting with her very much and, frankly, finding her grandfather terrifying, made it so their relationship wasn’t inherently close.
Her father, however, truly loved his mother (a mama’s boy through and through) so when Laura was told her Granny succumbed to her old age and various ailments, she knew she’d have to opt out of going to Hackett’s Quarry summer camp.
Her boyfriend, Max Brinly, offered to skip it as well, to stay and offer moral support. But Laura was insistent he go. She didn’t want to leave the man she’d spoken with, Mr. Hackett, short staffed by two camp counselors.
Besides, Max had been…distant lately. Distracted. Laura wasn’t exactly sure why. She was doing her training at vet school, Max was set to go to Landis – they had a good future ahead of them.
Their plans were to get an apartment together, focus on their studies and go from there. Laura loved Max, he loved her, the sex was still good, the affection clearly there, yet Max seemed…off somehow.
Lately, whenever she talked about their future, he seemed…uncomfortable. It made absolutely no sense to her and, whenever she asked if anything was wrong, he got all defensive and standoffish.
As such, Laura just let it drop, not wanting to push. Whatever was bothering him, she was sure he’d come to her about it eventually, open up, he always did.
This in mind, she urged him to take the trip, to work at the summer camp. Yes, they’d spend some time apart, but maybe that’s what Max needed. Maybe he needed some breathing room before they took these big steps in their lives.
That made sense to her and was a perfectly logical thing for him to ask for, but, knowing him as she did, she’s sure he worried that that would hurt her feelings or look as if he wanted to break up with her or something.
Max could be like that sometimes – overly concerned with her feelings or afraid to appear like an asshole. Frankly, she didn’t know why. Nothing she'd ever done suggested she’s the kind of girl who’s insecure about her relationship.
Laura knows they can spend a couple of days, weeks, even months apart and still be strong for it, if not stronger.
Also, she could use her own breathing room. Not only was she dealing with a distraught father and the rest of her mourning family, but she had a lot of planning to do in her head.
Logistical things about what she was going to do once she officially moved out of her parent’s home and all.
So, Max left.
He went to work at Hackett’s Quarry summer camp and Laura stayed behind.
And that’s when the third death came.
+
Max Brinly’s belongings come back wrapped in cellophane.
Well, not all of them, of course – but the ones Laura receives from Mrs. Brinly. The two women look at one another, noses and eyes red, the clear signs of persistent crying.
Mrs. Brinley’s hands over an open box, her entire being trembling, “I’m…I’m sorry. I packaged these things up for you last night. I-I don’t know why I did it this way.”
Laura just sniffles and takes the box. She rubs a hard palm beneath one eye to stave off more potential tears. She understands why. Mrs. Brinley wasn’t thinking. Laura understands it, because she hasn’t been thinking either.
Or, better to say, she’s been doing her best not to think. Laura had her own cellophane moment when her mother insisted she eat something, anything, and Laura put a plate of leftovers in the microwave still covered with tinfoil.
She almost caused a fire. Her mother simply looked the other way, rubbing Laura’s back and kissing the top of her head and telling her it was fine, it was all fine.
It’s not fine.
Laura feels as if nothing will ever be fine again.
Because Max is dead.
Her boyfriend died. The boy she loved is gone. And all because Laura told him to go to that summer camp without her.
Maybe if she’d been there…
…but she hadn’t been.
So now, Max is dead, and Laura is being handed a box full of his things. Things his mother felt she should have. Laura takes the box home and, sitting on her bed, she starts carefully unwrapping each item.
There’s a photo of them when they went to the beach last summer. A Christmas ornament they made together that used to sit proudly on the Brinly Christmas tree every year. And a big, stupid silver Cuban link necklace.
Laura looks at the necklace and laughs, because she remembers this dumb thing. For a while there, Max wore it all the time. He’d never admit to it, but Laura knows he wore it because he thought it made him look cool. Or tough. Or punk. Or all three. She had had no end of fun teasing him about it.
He’d finally dropped it in their senior year of high school, but it had had a good three year run around his neck every single freaking day.
Now that she thinks of it, he might have even been wearing it on the night they lost their virginity to one another. She squints to herself, trying to remember. But it’s not exactly the world’s best memory.
They’d both been so…awkward. And it hadn’t been a very good time for her. Later? Oh, later it'd grown to be pretty damn good, but their first go was a chaotic mess that ended with him coming way too early and her not coming at all.
Laura didn’t mind so much, but she knew it really bothered Max. It shouldn’t have – he made up for it after a while. Still, the more she thinks of it, the more she’s sure he did wear this ridiculously chunky thing and, unable to help herself, she clips it on around her own neck.
It hangs heavy, but the feel of it, the cool metal against her hot skin, makes her choke up again.
She continues to move through the box, unwrapping things and having fond memories of what used to be, when she suddenly comes across a rather big stack of letters.
These too, are wrapped, and she looks at them in pure confusion. Laura doesn’t remember these and, once she’s gotten all the filmy cellophane off, she realizes they’re letters for her from Max.
From the summer camp. He wrote these before-?
Laura eagerly tears into one, opening it with shaky hands to find Max’s handwriting.
Hey babe,
I forgot to bring stamps! Can you believe it? I could probably get some from the shop or ask somebody, but I think this might be fun! I can write a couple of these, save ‘em, and then you and I can go over them when I get back!
You already know I can’t e-mail, since Mr. H has this big rule about cellphones and technology and all, but we’re not forbidden from writing! So, here is my first letter to you!
And it’s boring!
But, y’know, not everything I write is going to be Charles Dickens or whatever. Although I’ve never actually read anything by Dickens. I think you have? Maybe?
Anyway, miss you bunches! Hope you’re doing okay and send my love and condolences to your family again!
Max
Laura’s sobbing by the end and has to get up and walk around some to relax. Just seeing something new from him…
It’s as if he’s still alive. Still talking to her. Even though he most certainly is not. Reading the letter makes her miss his voice, his smell, his arms, his…everything. It makes her miss him.
Suddenly, full of a surge of rattled emotions, Laura puts the letters away. She puts it all away – the box and everything – puts it all beneath her bed.
Laura pushes it away. She doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
At least…not tonight.
+
Days pass. They lapse into weeks and those lapse into months and those approach a whole year.
Laura goes back to school. She doesn’t move out of her parents place like she planned, but they understand. Max’s death was hard on everyone. The details of it, scant as they are, added even more weight to everything.
Because it’s eventually ruled as a homicide.
Max was murdered.
Murdered.
At a fucking summer camp for fuck’s sake!
Murdered by some corrupt cop who went psycho and also killed his own brother. This same cop reportedly killed two other counselors too! Jacob Custos and Nick Furcillo and when Laura hears all of this she is beyond livid. Why would the man do this?
Why his brother – why three counselors? Why Max?! Of all of the other counselors there – why, oh why did he kill Max and she works with Max’s parents to try and get answers.
But, apparently, there are none to give. Probably because the killer was a cop, their former sheriff no less!
They don’t get very much of anything out of the North Kill county’s sheriff’s department about it. But they certainly try their goddamn hardest to. They threaten legal action, they talk to the local government - they do all they can, everything they can, to get more information.
To get justice, to get answers.
But they just keep getting fed the same thing over and over again. The cop who killed them all had had a flagging career in the last six years. It was well known he abused alcohol and that, while he was reportedly close with his family, had been seen arguing with members on and off.
His brother? One of the victims? It was Chris Hackett. As in Mr. H, as in the man who had hired Laura and Max to work at Hackett’s Quarry summer camp.
And the murderer?
His name is Travis Hackett.
Travis Hackett…Laura hated him. She’d never met him, but she hated him with an all-consuming passion. He’d cost her her future, her happiness, he’d cost her Max. She HATED him.
At first.
But then Laura learned more.
In between being forced into trying to return to regular activities by her friends and family (‘You have to go on dates, Laura,’ ‘You have to go out and have fun, Laura,’ ‘You’re still alive, so you have to live, Laura’) she found a loophole to get answers.
Laura decided to check out the other victims, the other camp counselors who were there, the ones who survived that night – that terrible night where Max and three other people died. And the ones she managed to get ahold of, what they had to say was…interesting.
The first one she contacted, Abigail Blyg, was reluctant to talk to her. Laura managed to get her on the phone but, once the girl learned why she was calling, she stuttered and mumbled her way out of the conversation before hanging up on her.
Dylan Lenivy replied to her in a long rambling email that made little to no sense, but reiterated over and over again about how sorry he is about Max and how Travis is innocent.
He didn't really go into details about what happened or why - he mainly just implied there being more to the story than he felt comfortable talking about and how Travis got a really raw deal.
'Royally fucked over' the term he used. As well as how it's hilarious to him that no one - not the cops, the judges, or the lawyers - seemed to give a shit about what the survivors said. That they'd made up their minds and that's that - the American justice system at its best
Kaitlyn Ka rejected any attempts Laura made to get in touch with her.
Emma Mountebank was a different story. While Laura didn’t get to speak to her directly at first, she discovered Emma was a social media darling.
She had videos and pictures up everywhere and, even after what happened, that continued. Yet the tone of her content changed dramatically.
Instead of being playful and girly – instead of posting vlogs about her life or doing make-up tutorials, she started talking about mysteries and injustices.
One such injustice?
The imprisonment of Travis Hackett.
The first few videos she put up were removed from various sites but the internet, being the internet, never really loses anything.
Eventually Laura was able to pull up some clips of Emma speaking passionately about his wrongful arrest and incarceration.
“No one wants to listen to me!” Emma says directly to the camera, “They keep trying to shut me up! But I was there. I saw what happened and what I didn’t see, my friends told me about. Travis Hackett SAVED our lives!"
"He didn’t do any of that bullshit they said he did! It’s all a MASSIVE cover-up! They don’t want us to talk about it, to get the truth out there, but I’m telling you – no one knows the real story and if they did…”
Laura’s sure there’s more, but she can’t seem to find any of it. The video cuts there, no one able to salvage the rest. So, she does the next best thing. She contacts Emma.
Laura goes through every link she can, she messages her, e-mails her - she prays and prays that Emma will get back to her.
And then, miraculously, she does.
+
"Wow. You look just like your picture." Emma says the first time they meet face to face. Or better to say Facetime to Facetime, "I'm sorry I had you send me a selfie before we spoke, but I just had to be sure."
"I understand." Laura offers, because she's not sure what else she can say, even as Emma rattles on, "I mean, I knew how you look because Maxi...MAX showed off this picture of you when we first met him at orientation. Every counselor. Multiple times. Same photo."
Laura knows which photo she means. It's one Max always carried around in his wallet. She's much younger in it, just a freshman, but she guesses she hasn't changed all that much. Still, this doesn't throw her as much as, "Maxi?"
Emma looks sheepish, "Yeah. Um, first couple of times we interacted I nicknamed him 'Maxi Pad', because he always seemed like he was on the rag."
There's an immediate retort at the ready, but Emma beats Laura to it, "But then I got to really know him and dropped it. Kept the 'Maxi' though."
"I see." Laura returns coolly and Emma sighs, "Look, I know what this is about. You read Max's letter, right? You want to call me out and I respect that, it's your right, but I want you to know I'm not the same girl I was. After what happened..."
She looks down, long eyelashes like drooping fans on her face, "I mean...I was a total bitch. Completely self-absorbed. All I cared about was having a good time, no matter who it might hurt. And I know you don't want to hear this, but I am sorry."
Laura is sure Emma hasn't glimpsed her face yet, because, if she did, she'd see Laura's blatant confusion. What is Emma talking about? Yes, she read ONE of Max's letters, but not all of them.
Is she talking about the nickname? Maybe Max wrote about it in another one of the letters? But then the bomb drops, "And you should know, it was only a couple of times. And just kissing! That's all!"
The swift swoop in Laura's body makes her feel blinded. Frigid ice scattering freely in her bloodstream, "You kissed Max?!"
"Ohhhhh craaaaap." Emma uses one hand to press at the middle of her forehead, which does double duty to hide her as well as to push down on the vein that appears at Laura's question, "That's-? You didn't-?!"
A stifling silence settles between the two. Neither looks at the other and the tension is neigh unbearable. Finally Emma breaks, "Do you want to end this call?"
And Laura must be possessed, because her head shakes in the negative without her permission. Or, better to say, without the permission of her heart and stomach, both of which now ache.
"...do you want me to end this call?"
Another head shake.
"Then why-?"
"I wan-?" She stops to lick her lips, to swallow, to try and get moisture back into her mouth and feeling back in her tongue before saying, "I wanted to ask about Travis Hackett."
"Oh! Yeah!" Emma brightens, clearly relieved to focus on anything else other than the elephant in the room, "That makes sense! I'm sure you were told he killed Max, but that's just not true."
Laura nods dumbly and Emma looks chagrined, "I guess, after what I told you just now, you won't believe me or care, but honestly - Officer Hackett is the reason the rest of us are alive."
And while Laura wants to say she doesn't believe the girl and that her honesty is seriously in question considering what she...she and Max did...Laura knows she can't.
Because, if anything, Laura is more inclined to believe her now. Because why admit to fooling around with someone's boyfriend and then lie about everything else?
If Emma had started off with Travis and withheld her tryst with Max and Laura had found out about it later, then yes, Laura would label her a liar.
But, with this bald reveal (albeit accidental) Laura finds herself more willing to take Emma's word at face value.
Not to mention she still has other survivors to question - ones who've claimed the same thing as her.
"So, if Travis Hackett didn't kill Max, who did?"
"His mother - Constance Hackett."
This time Emma catches the confused look, "The Hackett’s are a really, really, REALLY fucked up bunch. Chris came across as decent when we worked for him, but on the last day at camp the van broke down. The van that we were supposed to leave in. That's where the trouble started."
"Did Chris break the van?"
"No, no. He-he really did want us to get out of there. For a variety of reasons." The last is said darkly, enigmatically, and Laura wants to dig deeper.
Emma doesn't afford her the opportunity, "But probably one of the main ones came from the fact that his family is made up of a bunch of psychos."
She lets out a sound of disgust, "They have the world's worst communication skills - Travis included, but at least Travis has some respect for human life. I think the rest of them gave up on that a long time ago - or at least long enough to be responsible for killing three of us. Three of my..."
The words 'my friends' comes from her tight and twisted, tears blended into the utterance. Laura almost wishes she could console her. Console her. The girl who apparently kissed Max. And, reportedly, more than once.
Stay focused, Laura.
"Why did Constance kill Max? Why did she get away with it? Why would she frame her own son?"
Emma scoffs, "You haven't met this woman. I did. In passing. Mainly when her, her husband, and their other son, Bobby, came to the lodge to murder us!"
Laura's eyes go wide and Emma nods, "Yeah, after Travis killed Chris. Now, he did do that - he did kill Chris, but he honestly had no choice! Chris was going to kill Ryan-!"
"Ryan?"
"Erzahler. Ryan Erzahler. He was another counselor at the camp. I can put you in touch with him, if you'd like."
This gets a definite nod. Emma smiles, "Yeah, Ryan's a good guy. He really looked up to Chris, but Chris..."
Suddenly Emma looks cagey, "Chris...wasn't himself. He wasn't himself when he went to attack Ryan. Travis had no other choice. I mean, this is what Ryan told me. I...I wasn't there for that. Like I said, I was at the lodge with the others."
The caginess drops away, "After Chris was killed, the other Hackett's decided it was open season on us counselors. Nick was already dead by then, but Jacob? Max?"
Her voice hitches, "They were just trying to protect us. You know? They were both such...such sweethearts and how they were just gunned down like that..."
Laura knew Max was shot. She knew it. Mainly because he took a shotgun blast to the face. They had had to have a closed casket funeral.
Not that she'd wanted to see him lying there, in an open coffin, but still...being denied even the choice...
"Max was really brave. I want you to know that. He deserves for you to know that."
The words offer little comfort. The only comfort she seems to find right now is in the facts, "But you still haven't told me why Constance framed her son."
"Psh," Emma practically spits, "Because Travis is her son in name only. She treats him like garbage. Again, Ryan heard more of this than I did, but I did hear some of that old bitch's ranting. Talking about how her no good piece of shit cop son had had this coming for a long time. That the only reason they'd spared us for this long was because of Chris."
"So...Chris was the favorite."
"Huh, yeah," Emma intones with a sound of derision, "You could say that."
"But he tried to kill Ryan-?"
"Again, he wasn't himself."
"Okay, so...what? All of the Hackett’s are warped murderers, but somehow Travis and Chris avoided it until that night? Like, Chris snapped, tried to kill Ryan, so Travis killed him and then his family decided to kill all of you for revenge?"
"Pretty much." Emma confirms, "Only Chris and Travis were keeping us safe from the Hackett’s and the werew-!"
She stops, eyes wide, then clears her throat, "The Hackett’s and the wherewithal."
Laura gives her a look that screams 'I know that's not what you were going to say'. But whatever Emma was going to say before she tried to cover with 'wherewithal', Laura will never know, because Emma looks ready to be over and done with this, "Look, contact Ryan. He can tell you a lot more than I can and he's probably more of a reliable witness. Well, to you, anyway, considering..."
Emma doesn't finish, but she doesn't need to. Laura would prefer not to hear more about how her and Laura's boyfriend made out. About Max's cheating on her and Max! Dear, sweet Max, why would he ever-?
But Laura has at least one more question before she'll let the other girl go, "Even if Constance hated her son, let him take the wrap, wouldn't the evidence-!"
"Doesn't matter if you have the kind of connections the Hackett’s have." Emma promises, "And the money. They may look like backwoods hillbillies, but they have a good chunk of change stashed away for rainy days. Or bloody ones "
The last is a sad, dark joke. Laura nods to herself, accepting this and the call ends. Afterwards, Laura sits, staring into space for a very, very long time. She should read the rest of the letters.
The ones Max wrote. Clearly they're very... illuminating. They'd probably tell her a lot of what happened up there. In Hackett's Quarry. With the other counselors. With Emma.
Instead, Laura opens her laptop and looks up Travis Hackett. Up to this point, she's done her very best not to look him up. At least, not to see a picture of him. She didn't want to. She didn't want to see a human face attached to the monster that killed her boyfriend.
It was easier in a way... imagining him as some faceless creature rather than a person, because people are real and can sometimes solicit some kind of sympathy.
Envisioning him as some force of nature who took Max away from her had felt like a better solution. After all, what if he looked nice and normal? How could she trust anyone again if he came across as a plain joe type.
Or the opposite could be true - he could appear unique and then she'd question if maybe there was something wrong with him, something he couldn't control.
Laura didn't want to be blindly prejudice, but in many ways that felt better than giving any humanity to the person held accountable. But now, after having listened to Emma, she just has to see...
It doesn't take her long to find a picture of him.
Travis Hackett...
Honestly, at a distance he's neither normal nor unique. He's a blend. The pictures she finds are mostly of him being transported for the trial or in the courtroom itself. He has handcuffs on his wrists and around his ankles. He's wearing a white V-neck shirt and hunter green scrubs. Green. Her favorite color. Funny.
She zooms in on his face. Again, up close, neither normal nor unique. He has dark hair, dark eyes, large ears and a downward turn to his mouth. There are lines on his face – whether from age or circumstances or both is hard to say. And yet…there’s something about him that captivates Laura.
Maybe it’s just how he looks so…accepting.
Accepting and defeated.
His expression is of a man who’s beyond bone tired. A man who is more than okay with whatever life is going to throw at him, because he’s already given up and something about that, the resignation he emanates (even though simple photographs like these), makes her furious.
She used to hate him, but now? Now, knowing what she does, what she’s heard from the survivors – she’s-? She’s something else.
Something beyond hatred.
Something where she wants to just-? Just wants to shake some life back into him. Rile him up, because if he is innocent and his shitty family is making him take the wrap then his just sitting there is an insult to everything he did, everything he sacrificed.
It’s an insult to Max and maybe that’s why she’s breathing so heavily, teeth gritted with fury. Max died and this guy (reportedly) tried to protect him and while he might have failed, he tried.
Tried against his very own family, tried against stacked odds, tried and at least made it so some people did make it out alive. And for him to just sit back and be accepting? To just throw up his hands and give a big ‘oh well’ to it all?
Laura feels electrified. She hears her heart drumming in her ears, feels fire cascading through every vein and she’ll be damned if she lets this bastard just collapse, just let him think it’s okay to rot, to just-?
He doesn’t have a choice!
Travis Hackett doesn’t have the luxury of deciding to just stop living. Not when Max can’t even have the decency of that option.
No, Max is dead and if Travis tried to save him, even if he failed, he has to live with that. Laura won’t let this man simply disconnect from life. She absolutely refuses to.
This in mind, she goes to her old desk, the one she still uses in her studies. She finds some paper and a pen. If Max could write her letters, then Laura can write letters too. This in mind, she begins writing.
Travis Hackett,
My name is Laura Kearney and I have some questions...