It Ends With Her

by Brianna Labuskes

  After sliding gold aviators down over her eyes, she surveyed the street. It was on the outskirts of Sweetwater, Texas, a town that seemed like a place where housewives forced bleached-blonde daughters into beauty pageants and beefy sons into football helmets as soon as they could walk.

  Gary’s was a mutt—a mix of a liquor store and a BBQ joint and a dirty video shop rolled into one place. The flyers hanging by frayed edges on the outside walls touted a “Buy one, get one” deal, but she didn’t want to know if Gary’s mixed and matched services.

  The store sat right outside the town’s dry-county limits, where it could lure in the husbands who wanted to numb the boredom with a fifth, and the teens who thought they were rebels without a cause.

  An old lady in a purple muumuu sat in a beach chair a few houses down, cradling a sawed-off shotgun. A standing fan, with a cord running back into the weathered little house, swiveled in a sad, slow arc beside her. Otherwise the block was empty.

  Beads of sweat ran down Clarke’s back, collecting above the waistband of her jeans as she crossed over the road to Gary’s. She wished she could strip out of the black leather jacket she wore over her holster, but she didn’t want to draw even more attention than she already had as a stranger in a place that did not seem particularly welcoming to them.

  She checked the sign one more time and tried to ignore the guilt that licked up her spine at going MIA on Sam. When the tip had come in during the early hours of the morning, it had been more sleep-deprived desperation than conscious thought that had her on a plane to Texas. Sam wouldn’t see it that way.

  Regret had no place here, though. Explanations and reprimands would come later, but for now she had a job to do.

  So she slid the picture back into her purse and pushed through the door to Gary’s.

  The air conditioner was a little window unit with ribbons blowing in its gentle wake, and it let out a cough when she walked in.

  Her sunglasses caught in the tangled mess of her sweat-drenched hair as she pushed them up to eye the large man at the cash register.

  The man—or Gary, as he would now be known in her head—was neck-deep in a magazine that was surely a part of the store’s stock, and didn’t even glance up at the small chime that welcomed her in. Her gaze slid to the back row of coolers, where stacks and stacks of pretty brown bottles nestled in cardboard six-packs. Ignoring their siren’s call, she grabbed a king-size bag of peanut M&M’s instead and rested her hip against the counter.

  Gary grunted as she tossed the yellow bag down, letting out an annoyed exhale of breath at being interrupted.

  He was wearing a dirty wifebeater that didn’t quite cover the beer gut that was making a break for it over the top of his faded jeans. His dark hair was slicked back from a bloated face whose main attractions were dark beady eyes and a bulbous nose. The capillaries in the skin that stretched over his flared nostrils could only have gotten that way from years of alcohol abuse.

  “That all?” His voice was a slow drawl as he typed the price into a midnineties cash register, with the lazy movements she’d come to recognize as Southern through and through.

  “I have a package to pick up as well,” Clarke said.

  “We don’t do packages.” His words crept to a crawl as if he were talking to an idiot. Asshole. “Check the post office. One fifty.”

  Clarke dug for the wadded bills she knew were floating at the bottom of her jacket pocket. “You have a package for Clarke Sinclair,” she said this time, dropping the money into his sweaty palm.

  He actually looked up at that. “Christ. You’re Clarke Sinclair?” His eyes skimmed over her body, assessing. She wondered what he saw. It wasn’t a pretty sight, she was sure. Her dark hair was currently staging a rebellion because of the heat, and her green eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot from lack of sleep. The pit stains under her arms were evident even beneath her jacket. “I’ve been wondering. Not what I expected, to be honest.”

  A barbed comment lodged in her throat, but she swallowed it. “You’ve had the package for a while?”

  “A couple weeks.” He lifted an exposed hair-matted shoulder as he reached beneath the counter. But then he hesitated. “Got ID?”

  “Did they ask you to check?” she asked, but was already thumbing open the black leather case. The gold on the FBI badge caught in the light as she flipped it to reveal her ID card. There was fresh panic in Gary’s eyes as he took it in.

  “No one said anything about FBI,” he muttered, his fingers tightening on the cardboard he still clutched.

  “Relax,” she said. “Not here for you, Gary.”

  It didn’t seem to ease the tightness in the man’s once-soft face.

  She nodded to the box, and all of a sudden he was eager to hand it over. They both eyed the little brown package that he set in front of her. The top of it was blank except for her name in thick black marker, scrawled in that same haunting handwriting.

  Instead of picking it up, she slapped a printout down onto the laminate. “Was this the man who dropped it off?”

  Gary studied the sketch, squinting. But then he shook his head. “Nope. Not the guy.”

  “Did you know the person who left the box?”

  The bastard had a habit of using random messengers, so she wasn’t expecting much.

  Gary’s eyes shifted toward the door, but the rest of his body language was open, if nervous, so she chalked it up to wanting to get her out of there as fast as possible, and not as a marker that he was about to be deceitful.

  “Normal guy. Didn’t know him, though. Just said I had to make sure it was really you. That’s it. Swear.”

  It fit the bastard’s MO, and Gary was clearly so preoccupied with his own criminal activities that it wasn’t likely he would lie to her about something else.

  It also meant Gary didn’t know anything of value, and she could get the hell out of the store. Get the hell out of this goddamn trash fire of a state.

  “Okay, thanks,” she said, pulling out gloves from the stash she kept in her purse, even though she knew the precaution was useless. They never found any evidence on the clues.

  But she was already toeing the line with the big boss. Roger Montoya’s endgame was the FBI-director spot, and he didn’t take kindly to his agents flouting rules and regulations. Especially her.

  Wearing the gloves would also save Clarke a lecture from the crime-scene guys, and she liked staying on their good side. So, despite her annoyance at the waste of time, she worked her fingers into the stubborn blue latex before finally picking up the package.

  It was only then, as she was about to leave, that she glanced up to the little white security camera perched in the corner above the door. She stared down the lens, then flipped it off, before she headed back into the oppressive Texas heat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ADELAIDE

  April 1993

  Adelaide Young clutched Mr. Koala to her chest, hoping that his worn fur would block the noise of her racing heart. It pounded as if she had run and run and run as fast as she could across the playground. But she was just sitting in the back of Ms. Jacob’s big black car.

  The sight of it had scared her at first, and Adelaide had not been able to relax until Ms. Jacob had climbed out of the monster and smiled at her.

  Ms. Jacob often looked like a rainbow, with flowy, jewel-colored skirts and chains with oh-so-pretty crystals dangling from them. And she always smelled like cookies. Adelaide had taken to crawling onto Ms. Jacob’s lap, laying her head on her soft chest, and sucking her thumb in the way that used to make Mommy and Daddy angry, but they weren’t there to be angry anymore. Ms. Jacob wouldn’t get angry. She would just stroke Adelaide’s hair and hum, and the vibrations would tickle Adelaide’s cheek.

  Adelaide didn’t know why her mommy and daddy weren’t there anymore. She just remembered she’d been so excited to build sandcastles at the beach and collect seashells in her new purple bucket and hunt ghost crabs while perched on Daddy’s shoulders.
She remembered Mommy and Daddy shouting a lot as she kicked against the back of Daddy’s car seat.

  And then she’d woken up in a strange place with bright lights and people dressed all in white and blue. The smell in the air had burned her nose, and the people there liked to poke at her with needles. She had not liked it. And she had not liked that Daddy no longer came running when she screamed. She’d tried over and over, yelling until her throat felt like she’d swallowed a bumblebee. And even then, he hadn’t come.

  One of the ladies had brought her Mr. Koala, and that had become the one thing she had from the before time. Before the endless stream of towering grown-ups and their pats and their hugs and their words that she could never quite understand even though she knew what the words meant. Before the scary places that didn’t have the painted-butterfly walls of her room, that didn’t have her shelves of books or her baskets of stuffed animals. Mr. Koala had not even been her favorite among them.

  It was at one of the scary places that she’d met Ms. Jacob. She’d bent down so Adelaide didn’t have to hurt her neck to look up at her face. She had soft honey hair, like Daddy’s, and when she smiled, she had dents in her chipmunk cheeks.

  Those dents were out now as she helped Adelaide climb down from the monster car. Adelaide was sweaty in her jacket that was too heavy, but she didn’t want to take it off.

  She stared up at the house that was bigger than the one she’d lived in with Mommy and Daddy. That one had been only one level, her bedroom snuggled up against theirs, which snuggled up against the little kitchen and living room. They’d had a big backyard for her to play in, though, and Daddy had even built her a tree house the summer before, when she’d turned six and was big enough to play in one.

  Ms. Jacob stood beside her, and Adelaide slipped a hand into hers. The fingers tightened once, and Adelaide felt better for a second, before Ms. Jacob began tugging her toward the happily painted red door.

  “You’re going to love it here, Addie,” Ms. Jacob chattered down at her. Ms. Jacob liked to chatter, like a songbird. Always talking, always talking. Adelaide liked it because it meant she didn’t have to talk. “You remember Mr. and Mrs. Cross, don’t you? You liked them.”

  Adelaide did remember them, but did not remember liking them. Mr. Cross was a very tall man with white hair like Grandpa had before he went away. His voice sounded like a whale when he’d talked to her, all loud and slow. He smelled stinky, too. Mrs. Cross was as round as a ball. She had squeezed Adelaide tight against her soft stomach, so that Adelaide thought she might not be able to breathe.

  “You’re going to be a good girl, aren’t you Addie?” Ms. Jacob squatted down beside Adelaide on the porch. No one in the before time had ever called her Addie.

  She nodded because she knew that’s what Ms. Jacob wanted her to do, and she liked making her happy.

  “That’s my girl,” she said, cupping Adelaide’s face. She placed a kiss against Adelaide’s forehead, and Adelaide leaned into it, liking the feel of the dry lips against her sweaty skin. It reminded her of Mommy.

  Ms. Jacob pulled back and pushed a bright red corkscrew curl behind Adelaide’s ear. Then she made a face, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes. Adelaide giggled, and Ms. Jacob seized the moment, turning to knock on the door. It opened in an instant as if the Crosses had been standing right behind it, waiting for them. Adelaide scooched closer to Ms. Jacob, wanting to disappear behind her thick tree-trunk legs.

  Ms. Jacob wouldn’t let her hide, though, and pushed her ahead, saying she needed to run back to the car for Adelaide’s bags.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cross smiled so big Adelaide wondered if their faces hurt. Hers used to when she smiled that big.

  Mrs. Cross pulled her against her stomach again, and some of her shirt went into Adelaide’s mouth.

  “Addie! Welcome to your new home.”

  “Who are you?” The boy was leaning against the wall just inside her new bedroom. It was painted bright pink, with soft pink curtains and a pink comforter and pink pillows and a pink poster of a white fluffy cat hanging over her bed.

  Her favorite color was purple.

  She eyed the boy. He was small, not much taller than herself, with shaggy brown hair and dark brown eyes. His clothes hung on his skinny body, his jeans slipping down narrow hips as they made an effort to sink to the floor. A worn leather belt tightened past the last notch with a crude homemade hole was the last defense against gravity. The arms of his multicolored striped T-shirt ended below his elbows.

  “Your new sister, Simon, you know that,” Mrs. Cross said, bustling into the pink room with Adelaide’s little rolling suitcase. She had been so proud of it when she’d gotten it for her last birthday. It had her name on it in gold sparkles. She’d zipped her toys into it and rolled it back out to her tree house and pretended she was running away to the circus but had never actually wanted to leave.

  Mrs. Cross unzipped it now while the boy continued to watch Adelaide. “You know what? Why don’t we let you settle in, Addie, before we unpack?” She turned toward Adelaide, cupping her cheek with plump, damp fingers. Adelaide had liked when Ms. Jacob had done it, but she didn’t like the feeling of Mrs. Cross touching her.

  Simon watched Adelaide flinch away, and his thin lips curled into a smile. Mrs. Cross didn’t seem to notice.

  She bustled over to Simon, turning him around and marching him out of the room. “Let’s leave her alone, Simon. We’ll come get you for dinner, my dear. Hot dogs and macaroni! Yum,” she called out, closing the door behind her.

  Adelaide crawled on the small bed and buried herself under the covers, bringing her legs up to her chest. The hot, thick tears ran down her cheeks, and she pushed Mr. Koala into her mouth so Mrs. Cross wouldn’t hear her crying.

  It wasn’t long before the door opened and then closed again, and Adelaide clenched her eyes shut, so that maybe they would think she was asleep.

  After a few minutes of silence, she couldn’t resist peeking, lifting one lid so she could see who was standing over her, breathing quietly.

  “They’re not so bad, you know.” It was the boy. He’d been watching her cry. She sat up, scooted back against the wall, and hugged her knees to herself, resting her chin on them. “I’m Simon.”

  He held out a hand and she shook it, pretending the adult act wasn’t strange to her. He smiled into her eyes and she warmed. “You’re Addie, right?”

  “Adelaide,” she said, her voice so soft she didn’t even know if he’d heard her.

  “Adelaide,” he repeated before dropping her hand and walking around the room, assessing it. “I’m eleven. How old are you?”

  “Seven.”

  He nodded wisely. “Seven’s a good age. Seven’s a good age.”

  She nodded, too, not knowing what that meant, but he sounded like a grown-up when he’d said it, so it must be true.

  He picked up one of the Barbies perched in a little pink-and-white convertible. He studied the face before tossing it to the floor. The pretty blonde hair spread over the carpet after her head bounced off the hood of the toy car.

  “I’ve been here three years. The family before that had six other foster kids,” he said, moving on to the next basket. He dug in. “Now that—that sucked.”

  She giggled nervously at the word Mommy had always told her was a bad one. But Simon said it as if it were nothing.

  “They weren’t as old as dinosaurs like the Crosses, but at least you don’t have to fight for food around here.”

  “Are there any others here?” Adelaide asked, braving her first full sentence. He turned with a smile, holding a floppy yellow duck half his size.

  “Nah,” he answered. “There was Matthew, but he isn’t here anymore.”

  “Did he go away?”

  Simon threw the duck back into the bin. “Not like your parents.”

  Adelaide fought the tears in her eyes, not wanting to cry in front of this older boy any more than she already had. He wasn’t looking at her, though. H
e’d found a rubber bouncy ball, which he seemed to deem satisfactory. He turned, in a swift move, and chucked the ball toward the wall next to her head. She ducked, and the ball hit the space where she had been with a thwunk before bouncing back to him. He caught it with one hand, laughing a little-boy laugh.

  “You are such a girl. I wasn’t going to hit you.” Adelaide didn’t know if she should believe him.

  She didn’t say anything, and Simon lifted a narrow shoulder. “Fine, don’t believe me. No one ever does.”

  There was silence for a minute.

  “You wanna play catch?” she asked. His face brightened instantly.

  “Well, come on then,” he said, tearing out the door and down the stairs. She scrambled off the bed, her little feet struggling to keep up with his longer strides. The screen door slammed, a shot that rang out in the quiet of the house, as she saw him burst through it into the light of the warm spring day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CLARKE

  July 13, 2018

  It never got easier. Even though she knew what was in the box, knew the contents weren’t dangerous, it never got any easier.

  Emotions gnawed at her gut, warring for dominance. Dread, disgust, excitement, a sick twist of curiosity. It was those last ones that made it hard for her to look in the mirror some days.

  The box was so innocuous. Plain and brown and just sitting there where she’d placed it on the bed’s comforter. It should look scarier than it did. More intimidating. It was like the bastard himself in that way.

  He liked to vary it, the packages he left for Clarke and Sam. Just another way to keep them off balance. Sometimes it was a cardboard box, but sometimes it was a hollowed-out book tucked onto a library shelf; sometimes it was an empty beer case stacked in the dark corner of a bar. The constant was what was inside each. And what it meant.

  She’d already kicked off her boots by the door, but all of a sudden her jacket was too restrictive. It needed to come off. Once it had, she palmed the now-exposed gun at the side of her breast, sliding it from the holster. The weapon joined her badge, which she’d slapped down on the bedside table.