It Ends With Her

by Brianna Labuskes

  “Follow the money,” Bradley said.

  Clarke nodded. If she’d learned nothing else in her Florida years, it was that criminals could hide a lot of things, could bleach out evidence and bribe witnesses, but they always needed funding. The bastard had turned out to be far too talented at covering his tracks, though—just as meticulous with it as he was with everything else.

  “He also employs messengers,” Clarke continued, relaxing her arms to her side once she realized she’d brought them up across her chest in a defensive gesture.

  “They never saw the person they got instructions from,” Sam picked up. “Just an email from an account that was deactivated immediately after directions were sent. And they collected the packages from PO boxes. The payment was always in cash attached to the packages. They would take them to the locations specified and drop them off with someone who worked there. They would tell that person what to do when two FBI agents came looking for the boxes, and that’s it. Everyone just had their little piece of the instructions, so no link in the chain ever knew too much.”

  “Even the PO boxes were untraceable. And we have our own genius trying to track them down,” Clarke said. “Cross is . . . I hesitate to say perfect, but he’s yet to trip up.”

  “So, you’re just chasing him, hoping he makes a mistake?” There was a hint of disbelief colored with disapproval there in her words, on her face, where before there had just been cautious respect.

  Sam tensed beside her, possibly to hold her back or keep her in check.

  “I said I wouldn’t call him perfect. He’s not,” Clarke said, her tone leaving no room for doubt. “He has weaknesses. He has an ego. He has gaps in his carefully constructed defenses. We just haven’t found them yet.”

  “We will, though,” Sam added.

  “All right,” Bradley said, placing both hands flat on her desk. “What do we do now?”

  “Is your best detective on Bess’s case?” Clarke asked.

  Perhaps they’d cleared some sort of hurdle with their united front. Going to battle with the locals wasted both time and energy in an investigation like this.

  Bradley nodded. “Yeah, he’s good. Hasn’t had a case of this level yet, but none of us have. Good sense for people, though.” She paused. “And liars.”

  Clarke held her gaze. “Great. Then we’d like to get him caught up. He can work the missing-girl angle. We don’t want to scare our guy off. Not when we may have finally cornered him.”

  “Lucas,” Bradley shouted past her closed door, drawing out every letter of the man’s name, the last s sitting on her tongue for a good three seconds.

  The man they’d passed earlier immediately appeared in the doorway, a lazy shoulder propped against it. Clarke watched him assess them under heavy-lidded eyes.

  They all stood for the introductions, but Clarke froze when she caught a glimpse of Bradley’s computer screen.

  She ignored the rest of them as she walked around the desk for a better view. Everyone else had shut up, and all eyes were on her.

  Looking up, she met Bradley’s curious gaze. “Is this Bess?”

  “Yes,” Bradley confirmed, flicking a glance at the computer even though she couldn’t see the screen.

  “What’s up, kid?” Sam asked.

  They locked eyes. “She’s blonde.”

  The air around them went thick with loaded silence.

  Shit. Well, that dropped it to 85 percent certain. Or maybe 81 percent certain.

  “Goddamn it,” Sam said, the disappointment in his voice mirroring her thoughts. It wasn’t that they were hoping the girl had been kidnapped by Cross. But it had felt like their first real break in the case since they’d started this shit-show.

  Bradley looked between them. “What am I missing?”

  “Remember those characteristics he goes after in his victims?” Clarke asked without looking away from Sam. “Well, there’s one that’s mandatory for him.”

  “Red hair,” Sam finished for her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ADELAIDE

  April 1998

  Adelaide wished she could block out the sound of the Crosses’ sobs. But she could feel them in her heart. The muscles tightening and pulling in strange directions as if the organ were a dirty dishcloth in need of a good wringing.

  Adelaide crouched in the deep shadows in the corner of the landing, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her soft pajamas were warm, but the chill of the night still bit into the flesh of her exposed arms.

  The two policemen had left a few minutes ago, their stony expressions grim but sympathetic. “Ma’am,” one of them had said as he tipped his cap to Mrs. Cross. He’d looked like he’d wanted to say more, from what Adelaide could see from peering through the spindle rails of the banister, but instead he had just turned to the door and his waiting partner.

  The minute Mr. Cross snicked the lock closed behind them, Mrs. Cross let go of her fragile control. It wasn’t just the tears that bubbled over; it was the great gasping heaves of her ample bosom, the rasping sound of the air catching and scraping the back of her throat, the raspberry splotches on her face.

  Mr. Cross was stoic as always, but he went to his wife and pulled her to his chest. He patted a long-fingered hand against her fleshy back, and she buried her face in the region of his lower rib cage.

  “Oh, Thomas,” Mrs. Cross managed to get out between the sobs.

  “There, there, Mary,” Mr. Cross hummed, and nothing he could have said would have made Adelaide feel more like the eavesdropper she was. Mr. and Mrs. Cross never used their Christian names in front of the children. “We knew this day was going to come.”

  “We tried so hard,” Mrs. Cross whimpered, and she sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “We did everything we could.”

  “Some souls just can’t be saved,” Mr. Cross intoned, and Adelaide wanted him to take it back immediately.

  All souls could be saved. At least that’s what Pastor Mike told them every Wednesday and Sunday at church, his gentle black robes swirling around his ankles, too short for his tall, lanky frame. It was a game she played, guessing what socks he would wear. Some had bicycles, others had plump baby elephants, and still others had broad rainbow stripes. She liked the way he smiled at her when he pressed a stale, spongy piece of bread into her hands for Communion.

  And the way his voice boomed when he told them that Jesus loved them. If Jesus loved them, that meant Jesus loved Simon. If Jesus loved Simon, that meant the Crosses would let him stay.

  “It’s Matthew all over again,” Mrs. Cross cried out and collapsed completely against Mr. Cross. Adelaide straightened. She had long gotten over her fear that Matthew had been buried in the Crosses’ backyard. Simon had been trying to scare her. But no one ever seemed to want to tell her what actually happened to him.

  She leaned forward, wishing she were closer so she could hear better. Mrs. Cross’s voice was muffled in Mr. Cross’s thick cable-knit sweater. “Why does this keep happening to us?”

  “Twice only, Mary. And we have Addie to think about this time.” His deep voice was a rumble that used to scare her, but she now found it reassuring.

  “She’ll be the last.” Adelaide barely made out the words, but she saw Mr. Cross nod wordlessly even though there was no way his wife could see the gesture.

  “Boo.” It was a whisper, a hot breath against her earlobe, and she would have screamed into the quiet of the darkened stairway had a clammy hand not clamped immediately over her mouth. “You’re such a girl.”

  It was a familiar refrain, and she relaxed against the body behind her. She nodded to let him know he could trust her not to make a sound if he withdrew his hand. His fingertips traced over her lips as he pulled away, and she tried not to grimace. She couldn’t explain even to herself her new aversion to Simon touching her. But it was there.

  He grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet. They raced back up the stairs to his room, where he flung open the door, then crashed, face-first,
onto the rumpled sheets.

  She sank into the neon-blue beanbag chair that had sprung a leak a month earlier. Most of the beans remained encased in the faux leather, but a few white, round pill-like objects had escaped into the recesses of the shaggy beige carpeting.

  Adelaide was rarely allowed into Simon’s room, even though he had free rein in hers. She looked around now. The walls were empty, unlike her own, which were papered with the faces of Brad Pitt and Will Smith and Joey McIntyre. His bookshelf was filled with comic books and the young-adult novels he loved so much, but that was the only sign that someone lived in the room. Even his desk was free of any clutter. Her own had gel pens and rainbow Lisa Frank folders scattered over it. It was almost eerie—his undecorated room. Like there was nothing joyful or colorful or fun in his head to spill out and over onto the blank walls just waiting to be filled.

  “What . . .” She paused, cleared her throat. “What happened?”

  He shifted so that his ear was against the bed, his face turned to the wall, but he didn’t roll off his stomach. “Everyone’s overreacting.”

  That was doubtful.

  “Simon.” She nudged him, not sure she wanted to know.

  The only thing she was surprised about was that he actually got caught doing something wrong; Simon could usually talk himself out of situations. And because he was both charismatic and wicked smart, he usually got away with it. He’d get himself in deep and then charm the pants off whoever had caught him. She’d seen him do it 1,004 times. But those other times—those times he couldn’t sweet-talk himself out of whatever disaster he’d gotten himself into—those were the times the evil Simon reared his ugly head.

  Adelaide had always wondered why adults went along with him. She loved him, and even she was terrified of some of the things he did. Most people, though, thought he was a lovably mischievous scoundrel.

  Adelaide tried to weigh both sides of his soul. He was her brother, and she loved him beyond words. But then he would do things that rocked that foundation. Like that one time he snuck into her room and cut off all her hair because she had laughed at him at the dinner table. She cried for days, and he was so confused about why she wouldn’t talk to him.

  She thought of what Pastor Mike said at church, how Satan was hovering just at the edges of every action, and she knew that Satan had a strong grip on Simon. She also knew, in her heart of hearts, that Simon was strong enough to fight the fallen angel. He just needed her help doing it.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” he muttered.

  Which meant he did. But no one would be able to prove it.

  He shrugged. “We were working with acid in chemistry today. I tripped.”

  No. She bit her lip to hold back her gasp. “Simon, what happened?”

  “Some got on Sarah Gramble. I don’t know, she had to go to the hospital.”

  Sarah. The pretty girl who had turned Simon down for the homecoming dance.

  “Oh, Simon,” she breathed.

  He sat up to look at her, his eyes cold. “I told you I didn’t do it on purpose. It was just a little on her arm.”

  He must have convinced the police of that; otherwise, why would they have let him return home? But she couldn’t shake the image of the Crosses crying downstairs. He hadn’t convinced them.

  “You might have to go away,” she ventured, and he crashed back down against the mattress.

  “Maybe they’ll kill me, like Matthew.” His voice was muffled by the comforter, but she made out the words clearly.

  “They didn’t murder Matthew.” She felt tight with anger. They’d had this battle before.

  “So naive, Addie,” he said, finally pushing up to look at her again. “Perfect little Addie.”

  It was a taunt, and not a new one. “Maybe if you just tried to be good . . .”

  “What, be like you?” He all but spit the words at her, and she cringed against the derision in his voice. “Yeah, a bit too late for that.”

  “You never give them a chance.”

  At that, he threw his head back, his Adam’s apple sharp against the long column of his pale neck. The sound that came out could have been called laughter, if laughter could freeze your blood. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You think you see everything that goes on around here? With those big eyes always looking at me. Always.”

  She shook her head, not even knowing what she was disagreeing with but unable to do anything else.

  “That’s right, you don’t. You don’t see any of it. Saint Addie.”

  There was nothing to say to that.

  “I don’t need them,” he said. “I’ll be fine without them.”

  “What are you going to do? Where will you go if you have to leave?” she asked, even though she guessed he didn’t know. He liked to talk a big talk, but his follow-through was a little more tenuous.

  In a quick move, he pushed off the bed and fell to his knees in front of her.

  His eyes had melted; they were soft again. In them, she saw her brother. It was almost as if a switch had flipped in the space between heartbeats.

  He cupped her cheek, the calloused pad of his thumb pressing into her jaw to hold her gaze steady with his.

  “Come with me, Adelaide.” His voice was silky but tight as a strung wire at the same time. “You’re too good for this place. For these people.”

  Panic and hope clawed at her throat, a battle to the death in the little pocket of space right behind the palate of her mouth. Mr. and Mrs. Cross were nice people, kind people. But Simon was family. Could she really run away with him? They could travel the country, not tied down by anyone’s expectations or someone else’s reality. They would have their own.

  Then she thought of Sarah and the acid. Maybe it had been an accident, but she had been on the receiving end of one too many similar “accidents” to actually believe that. Punishments. That’s what they should be called. Simon kept a meticulous scorecard, and no one was safe.

  She shook her head, a small movement against her fingers. “I can’t, Simon,” she said, her voice a mere whisper as if she were afraid to say the words out loud, to contradict his wishes. But they had to be said.

  His eyes pinched at the outside corners. Something in them made her brace herself. For what, she didn’t know. But it didn’t take long to find out.

  His hand lashed out, grabbing a handful of her fiery curls, crushing the spirals in his palm as he yanked her face toward him. It was all harshness and violence and force as he brought his lips down over her sealed mouth.

  She didn’t even shut her eyes during the assault, just looked into his as he tried to maneuver his saliva-slicked tongue against the seam of her lips.

  It was all so startling, all so sudden, that she had frozen, every cell in her body at a standstill, unwilling to listen to the screaming alarm bells ringing in her head. Danger, they yelled at her, as the tip of his tongue, acting like a battering ram, found its way inside. He hadn’t relaxed his grip on either her face or her hair, and she felt helpless. No other part of his body touched her, but he might as well have been holding her in a vise.

  Move. The voice was stronger as he licked the inside of her cheek, his eyes still open, almost eaten up entirely by the black of his pupils.

  With a burst of clarity, she knew what she had to do, and she clamped down on his invading tongue with her teeth, as hard as she could. She tasted metal in her mouth.

  It got him to withdraw, though. He’d cried out and then, using her hair, threw her to the floor. “Cunt,” he spit at her, his hand at his mouth. “Ungrateful cunt.”

  Her mind recoiled at the language and what had just happened. She hugged her arms against her chest, protecting herself from both.

  “Whatever.” He flopped back on the bed. “Go cry in your room about it, little girl.”

  She was shaking now. She didn’t think her legs could carry her that far, all the way down the hall, to the safety of her bed. Could she even stand?

  There weren’
t any tears streaming down her cheeks, though. And she wanted to tell him that. To prove to him that she was stronger than he thought. But she couldn’t seem to form words.

  She got to her feet, slowly, and turned to the door. Her hand had closed over the knob when she heard him speak.

  “Adelaide.” Her name was a caress in his mouth. In the mouth of her dear older brother, the one who had driven her to the movies the day Toy Story had come out, and all of her friends had said she was a baby for wanting to see it; the same brother who had dressed in robes with her and waited in line at midnight to pick up the new Belinda the Brave book; the same brother who had knocked down mean Miles Tenor when he’d called her a poor nobody loser mouse, then bought her Dairy Queen instead of making her go to dreaded softball practice.

  She paused, but didn’t look back at him. He moved, coming up behind her, looming over her.

  “Adelaide,” he said again, the rage completely gone. His hands hovered over her shoulders; she could tell by the almost imperceptible disturbance of the night air around them. But he didn’t touch her. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I don’t want to . . . leave you.”

  His voice broke. Her tough-as-nails, never-let-them-see-you-hurt brother was about to cry. Her final defenses broke down, and she turned into his arms, blindly. She pressed her face against his heart, which was a slow, steady beat against her ear.

  He buried his face in her hair, and she felt the dampness of the tears against her scalp.

  But you have to go, she thought but didn’t say. And she ignored the traitorous relief she felt blossoming in a far corner of her heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CLARKE

  July 15, 2018

  “Clarke.” The voice on the other end of the phone rounded the letters in her name, tasting them, savoring them, as if he were sipping a fine wine.