Chapter Text
Both hands behind her back, chin titled upwards, Laura Kearney closes her eyes and collects her breath in preparation for a long-suffering sigh. She pushes her thumbs against one another, digging the crest of her nail into the cuticle until the pressure turns her thumb white, and she releases her grip with a low hiss.
A series of piercing beeps in front of her and she opens her eyes slowly, meeting resistance from the headache blooming in the base of her skull. Reaching forward, she yanks the handle of her microwave and retrieves her dinner for the night: leftovers of a burrito bowl she’d gotten from Landis’ dining hall during yesterday’s new student orientation. She tops off her wine glass from the box of cabernet sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, and makes a move toward her seat on the living room couch before pausing.
Five steps away, the source of her headache, her laptop rests open, and a message awaits.
WE KNOW THAT YOU KNOW SOMETHING.
All machinations of her Saturday evening routine had fled the moment she saw that line in her inbox, despite her best efforts otherwise. Take a shower, prepare dinner, drink wine, and watch whatever Netflix show could occupy her mind for a few hours and keep her from repeatedly checking the window to gauge the waxing state of the moon as it nears fullness. It will be her first full moon since leaving Hackett's Quarry behind her.
She had been expecting an email from Landis. Classes start in two weeks, and her requisite first-semester payment is half complete. She’d applied for an extension, knowing her chances were slim, and the current waiting game makes her stomach twist. Not that the current message sitting in her inbox is a welcome distraction.
Evidently, Bizarre Yet Bonafide’s latest Patreon special delved deeper into the events of Hackett’s Quarry, to its albeit smaller yet more attentive audience. This special, unlike their original coverage of the case, name dropped several of the counselors as more doubt was cast on the account of bear attacks and house fires being the cause of calamity. Laura was landed with the most amount of scrutiny; she had to lock all of her socials the following day and deplete half of her friends list, and has since been fielding emails and phone calls from armchair detectives and amateur reporters.
WE KNOW THAT YOU KNOW SOMETHING.
After putting back a quarter of her glass, Laura opens the email. She skims it once first; like the title, the message itself is in all caps and reads as a three paragraph long accusation. KAYLEE HACKETT DID NOT DESERVE TO DIE. Laura bites down on the inside of her cheek, hard. Well of course she fucking didn’t. ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT A MONSTER? What an original, inspired question.
IF YOU WISH TO RECUSE YOURSELF, WE WILL ALLOW YOU TO SPEAK ON OUR PODCAST, TRUE CRIME TALKS, FOR A ONCE-ONLY CHANCE AT REDEMPTION-
Laura slams her laptop closed, sinking back into her seat. Way to pitch an interview request. Still, she cannot decide which is worse; those who reach out to her in vitriol and indictment, or the morbidly curious, bordering on hopeful. This message was an off mix of both, begging for her attention while at the same time denouncing it.
Releasing another sigh, Laura opens her laptop and forwards the message to [email protected], as she has for the past few messages of this nature to arrive in her inbox. He would reply within the day, his messages timestamped at midnight or later, telling her he looked into the sender and would keep tabs on them, despite there being no true threat present.
Laura thinks of the reporters who went missing in the woods of the quarry. What had it looked like, Travis keeping tabs on them? How far did the threat extend before he took matters into his own hands?
Her breath peters out, and when reaching for her glass she notices that her hand is shaking. The threat ends with me, she reminds herself.
The sheriff’s plan of attack, whatever it looked like in the past, looked different then, when she met him. Early in her and Max’s confinement did Travis Hackett stop feeling like a danger to them both. Their captivity was a waiting game, more than anything. A poorly managed one, to be sure.
While there is much she does not know about his sudden change in tactics, she does not feel like she’s sicing a wild dog on these podcast hosts just by sending their message to Travis. If anything, it was insurance on her end. A trail of evidence in the case it was determined that she does know too much.
Which, of course, she does.
Kaylee Hackett didn’t deserve to die, and Laura Kearney is a monster.
And if she were the only one, she may not be able to bear it.
---
Early Monday morning, Laura receives an email from Landis. In the politest of words, she is told that her request for an extended payment timeline has been declined.
Cough up the money by the end of the week, or kiss her class roster goodbye, is how she reads it.
Laura groans, clicking out of the email and slamming her phone into the pillow beside her before dragging her duvet cover over her head to block out the infuriatingly earnest light of morning.
Allowing the numbers to percolate in her head, she recognizes that she won’t be put in the red if she dips into her savings to reel out the rest of the payment. Except for the fact that she was already planning on doing that to cover the cost of textbooks. And this month’s rent.
She throws the covers off of her and presses her palms into her eyes under her vision is overtaken by pale sparks and stars. Everything she’s been putting off thinking about rushes into her brain all at once. Stalkery reporters. Encroaching overdrafts. Her goddamn rent.
She’s known for a while now that she could not afford to live alone. Max had moved out just a month ago, following their decision to take a break while Laura settled into the routine of grad school and Max found a replacement for the routine of grad school. He’d moved back in with his parents in the suburbs and took up a job at a local auto shop. Some days, she pictures his forearms greased with dark oil and his hair slicked back with sweat, a warm grin gracing his personable features. Most days, she does not think of him at all.
Retrieving her phone, Laura opens her banking app and crunches numbers in her head. Today, she tells herself, or tomorrow, she’ll post an ad online for a roommate. It was something she should have done the second Max handed her his final rent check, but the part of her that revels in quiet had been stubborn. She had been able to ignore the door to the empty guest room up until now. The place may have been too big for Max and Laura to begin with; he had been overly zealous at the prospect of living in a big city when they moved in together a year ago, and Laura, who already had her eyes set on Landis, favored the fact that it was close enough to campus without the inflation of university housing costs.
She pulls open her email once more, ignoring the WE KNOW THAT YOU KNOW SOMETHING. message that is now sandwiched between a coupon for a fro yo shop and what appears to be a phishing email boasting a way to make $5,000 a week. Oh, such miracles.
She is more pressed by what she does not see: a response from Travis. He hadn’t responded to her last email either, when she received a voice message asking her if she would be willing to provide more detail of the “bear attacks” that plague Hackett’s Quarry for a blog whose title she has already forgotten. Laura mulls over potential explanations for his radio silence as she paves her way into her morning routine: skincare, get dressed, make coffee, dread the day. She’s been staring at the few bits of grounds stuck to the bottom of her mug for close to five minutes when she makes the decision to call him.
“Hackett.” He responds after three rings. He’s dropped the usual moniker.
“No, this is Laura.”
Silence.
She sighs, pushing a hand through her hair. “Hey, I sent you an email yesterday. Some crime podcast that’s poking into things wants me on their show. I’m going to ignore it, like you said, I just figured you’d still want the update.”
“I didn’t get it.” He replies after a beat. “You’ll have to send it to another email. I’ll text you the address.”
“Wait, why?” Laura pours herself a second cup of coffee before moving back to the couch, knowing there’s an equal percent chance that he’ll dodge the question as opposed to answering it.
“Out of office.” He says, and it is all she expects him to say, until she adds. “The department placed me on leave. Forced bereavement. Some county folks are taking over for now, and they’re bringing in some wildlife services to respond to the bear attacks your stalkers are so concerned about.”
If he could see her, he’d make a jab about her mouth hanging open. “Oh.” She responds lamely, before she can leave the line hanging and for him to wonder if she hung up. “Bereavement, right.” For the Hacketts she killed. “What does that look like?”
To her added surprise, he continues to respond. “Preparing for the estate sale, mostly. Getting the house ready to go on the market. Bobby’s been helping, in his own way, but progress has been slow overall. The whole goddamn town is keeping their distance, which is a blessing, I suppose.”
Constance Hackett’s death had been labeled a suicide; evidently, the angle at which Laura lost control over the shotgun that ended her life was not innoprotune to such a conclusion. As for Jedidiah, he had died of a broken heart the following week.
“You know, it never occured to me until now to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“I’d rather not hear it from you, Ms. Kearney.” His words are stern, though his tone is without malice. He has yet to blame her for the events that abolish half of his family. Initially, Laura had been sheltering in place, waiting for his anger to erupt. Despite her expectations, since that night just over a month ago, he has regarded her with a strange peace. They have reached a plane of understanding that she is unsure how to navigate.
“Is it paid leave, at least?” She asks, hoping to redirect their conversation back to neutral ground. Not that she needs to continue the conversation, part of her thinks.
“Enough for an extended stay at the Harbinger Motel, so I’m no broke college student.” Laura realizes he’s trying to make a joke at her expense too late, and the moment dangles into silence.
He’s selling his family home. Right. Who would want to eat their morning Cheerios one room away from where their mother was mowed down by a half-werewolf half-stranger? Or watch Saturday afternoon college football feet away from the spot where their father collapsed, unable to continue living after being torn from his dearly beloved?
Laura remembers her scramble through the North Kill police department after Travis had left and Max had clawed her eyes out, and she was left looking for match sticks in the dark. She had spied the folded-up cot and stack of blankets hidden under his desk, though had been too concerned with logging into his computer to consider the implication there. Being placed on leave has made him effectively homeless.
Travis doesn’t seem impatient with her lack of response, though she feels impatient to fill the silence. “I’m going to propose that we do each other a favor.” Laura pinches the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes shut; she can hear his hackles rise over the phone. He had been uncharacteristically lax up to this point, telling her what she wanted to hear. She doubted that would continue.
“Staying in Hackett’s Quarry doesn’t seem . . . ideal, for you. At least for now. Have you thought about getting out of town at all?”
“No.” He answers with swift conviction and does not elaborate. There’s the sheriff she knows.
“Do you at least have a plan for where you’ll live after the Motel?”
“No.” Right. The real estate market of North Kill is nonexistent.
“Look.” Laura straightens her spine, and sets her mug on the coffee table with a sharp contact sound. “I can’t afford my apartment on my own, not with classes starting next week. But I have an extra room. It’s five and a half hours away from North Kill, which isn’t terrible. And it would give you time to look for a place of your own. The newly reinstated sheriff living out of a seedy motel won’t run great headlines, I imagine.
“ . . . Travis?”
She waits for dial tone.
“Jesus. I thought you were going to recommend a Zillow agent or some shit, not ask me to move in with you.” He responds eventually, speaking slow and with a reserve she has not heard since they first met. Wetting the lead of his pencil with his tongue and dragging a circle over her map, ushering her and Max to the Harbinger Motel, a not-so-subtle bid that the two of them needed to get out of here, if they knew what was good for them.
Oddly, or perhaps not, Laura can place herself in his shoes as he stood then. “Well?” She prompts.
“I have shit to do here.”
“Yeah? Sounds like shit you can do anywhere.” Laura counters, regaining her step. “Or shit that’ll drag you down if you don’t get out of it.”
Travis laughs without humor. “Nothing I don’t deserve. Tell me, if I move in to this extra room of yours, will you kill me in my sleep?”
Laura doesn’t catch herself grinning in response to his words. If she did she might be ashamed of herself. “Not if you kill me first. So . . . do we have a deal?”
“Yes, ma’am.”