It Ends With Her

by Brianna Labuskes

  The moisture on her cheeks wasn’t hers, she realized. It was from lips slicked wet with salty tears, finding the sharp bones of her face and pressing there.

  “Oh, Addie, oh, Addie, we thought you’d left us,” Mrs. Cross kept murmuring over and over again. Even though she must have been missing for only a few hours.

  Adelaide shook her head but couldn’t force words out. She wouldn’t have done that to them, she tried to say silently.

  It wasn’t until she was three cups of tea deep that she found her voice again. “It was Simon.”

  The name had the desired effect. They’d already been watching her, but their attention sharpened at that, their eyes tightening in unison. Then they exchanged a glance that bespoke their decades of marriage. Of being able to have a conversation with a single look.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Cross said, her stubby fingers patting against Adelaide’s cold hand. “You don’t have to explain just now.”

  They didn’t get it. They didn’t understand. How could they? Even after the worst times, how could they even begin to comprehend what he had become?

  She slammed her cup down, suddenly angry. At their assumptions, at her own inability to make them get the urgency. Did they not see the bruise that must be on her throat?

  But mostly she was angry at the fact that they didn’t have to feel what she was feeling in that moment. That the horrors of what had happened to her hadn’t touched them yet. That they were still pure and naive and living in a world where a floaty place existed for them.

  Layered over that was fury at herself for thinking such things.

  “No,” she said, flipping her palm up so that she could clasp Mrs. Cross’s hand in hers. Her fingernails dug into the skin, and Mrs. Cross flinched, but Adelaide didn’t let go. “No. You need to listen. It was Simon. He took me. He hurt me.”

  Mrs. Cross cocked her head, like a dog not quite sure what the noise it heard meant.

  Adelaide dragged her eyes up to Mr. Cross. His knuckles were white where his fingers gripped each other in front of his belt buckle. He didn’t want to hear what she was saying. She could see it in his face. They were stubborn, the Crosses. She knew this. She knew this from years of making them try to see reason. If they didn’t have solid proof for themselves, they wouldn’t believe anything anyone said.

  “I think he’s going to come back,” Adelaide said. She needed to make them understand. “This isn’t over.”

  “What are you saying?” Mrs. Cross’s voice was a whisper caught in her throat.

  Adelaide’s teeth sank into her lip. “He’s dangerous. I escaped, but he’s not going to just let me go. And if I’m here, there’s a chance he’ll come after you as well.”

  “Why . . .” Mrs. Cross stopped herself, clearly biting back something she was ashamed to ask.

  “Why did I come back, then?” Adelaide didn’t care. She didn’t care if their love wasn’t quite as unconditional as they would like to believe. She didn’t care if they would throw her to the wolves if it meant saving themselves. It didn’t matter that she didn’t expect anything else. “Because I had nowhere else to go.”

  Mrs. Cross’s tongue darted over her thin lips, and she nodded. “We always knew . . .” Mr. Cross nodded twice, his face a grim mask.

  They’d always known Simon would be trouble. Part of her wanted to ask if that’s why they hadn’t tried harder. They had realized he was a lost cause. A lost soul. But maybe if they’d tried, a persistent, traitorous little voice whispered. Maybe if they’d tried, it wouldn’t have turned out like it had. Maybe if they’d given him one more hug, paid attention when he’d thrown fits, given him love instead of conditional expectations. Maybe then she wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the middle of the night.

  But no. That wasn’t fair. She thought of Simon’s eyes when he’d looked at her legs, there on the roof. She thought of his eyes when he’d kissed her that first time. Maybe he wasn’t intrinsically bad. That didn’t mean he had ever been good.

  What did that make her? Because she’d loved him. Because at one point he was her whole world. Did that make her bad? Dirty? Wrong? What did the Crosses think when they looked at her? Did they see the summers spent barefoot and wild, running and laughing with Simon? Or did they realize that she’d long given up her dreams of a perfect brother? Around the same time that he’d started sending her pictures of girls with curly red hair.

  But what was important now was that Simon could be heading toward the house at this very moment. If he’d tried to search her out and been unsuccessful, the obvious choice was to return to the Cross house.

  “Right,” she said, at once frustrated, sad, and impatient. “I think we should leave.”

  “Leave.” Mrs. Cross turned to her husband. “No, we couldn’t do that.”

  “No,” Mr. Cross agreed.

  Adelaide just blinked at them. “Are you not listening to me?”

  “There’s no need to raise your voice, dear,” Mrs. Cross said as if she couldn’t resist her instinct to scold and correct.

  The urge to scream roiled in Adelaide’s belly, and she kept her jaw tight, fearing if she relaxed, it would all come spilling out. And now wasn’t the time for that.

  “You’re right. But there is a need for us to leave here.” Adelaide paused. She had to say it but didn’t want to. Didn’t want to form the thoughts into vocalized words. When she did, it would be real and true, and there would no escaping it. But if it was what she needed to say to get them to move, then she had to do it. “He raped me. And then I escaped, and I don’t think he’s going to be happy about it.”

  “Oh, baby,” Mrs. Cross breathed, but she did that wordless communication with Mr. Cross again, and Adelaide didn’t know what to think. The look was filled with something. Doubt?

  Mr. Cross cleared his throat. “We should call the police, Addie.”

  Adelaide nodded. “Yes, yes,” she said, seizing on an idea. “Let’s go to the station. Let’s go.”

  Adelaide even stood, tugging at Mrs. Cross’s forearm. She didn’t budge.

  “No need for that, dear. They’ll come out,” Mrs. Cross said, watching her behind a shuttered gaze.

  “Listen, I don’t know how far behind me Simon is. I was a little . . . out of it. But he could be close.”

  “You listen, girl.” Mr. Cross straightened from where he’d been leaning against the counter. The air crackled around him. It was a rare thing for him to be pushed beyond his patience. “We’re not going to let some punk kid scare us out of our home. We didn’t let him do it before. We’re not going to let him do it now.”

  “Oh, I don’t need you going anywhere, Thomas,” Simon said, stepping into the kitchen from the shadows just beyond the doorway. “You’re actually right where I want you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CLARKE

  July 16, 2018

  The little cabin with the boat at the end of the dock was quaint. It seemed like a place you could forget you had nightmares that made you want to numb the pain with any substance that would alter reality. Even the motorboat promised an escape, the No Worries stamped across its stern a sweet promise that could lull a girl into imagining that was actually possible.

  The chief had set up a constant surveillance on the place since Sam and Clarke had checked it out the day before. There had been nothing in the cabin. No furniture, no dust, no wild, scavenging mice. Nothing. The patrol reported that no one had approached it, either.

  Still, she wasn’t surprised when there was a box waiting for them. It was in the middle of the room, a ray of light catching just a corner from where it streamed in from the window.

  Her name was scrawled across the cardboard, the slashes and lines almost angry in their abruptness. New location, same goddamn box, was all she could think. She ran a hand over her eyes. She was so tired of it. She imagined a year from now, squatting in a whole new location and staring down at that same handwriting. How many girls would die between now and then?

/>   Finale, she reminded herself, instead of letting herself sink into the melancholy. It felt different. This one was different. She just had to make it through to the end without falling apart.

  Once there, at the end, she didn’t care what happened after.

  After. The word had lost so much of its meaning in the endless chase that she no longer believed such a thing even existed. When he was dead—and he would be, that was for sure—what would happen? What would that life, her life, look like without him in it, without him driving it? She couldn’t even imagine.

  Sam was a steadying presence behind her, and she leaned back, just a little, until her shoulder pressed against the solidness of his thigh. He wouldn’t move away, she knew. Even if he was livid with her. That was Sam.

  They knew they shouldn’t be opening the box yet. Not before the CSI team did its thing. But she’d already thrown procedure to the wolves over and over again on this case. There wouldn’t be anything to find anyway, so there was no point in wasting time.

  If it went to court, they’d have problems.

  But maybe she knew it would never go to court.

  Still, she slipped on latex gloves before she slid the box closer. Training was hard to overcome. The flaps were held down by a feeble strip of basic Scotch tape, and they gave easily when she tugged at them.

  Her breath hitched for a moment, before steadying. It was a picture of a child. A boy with a mop of brown hair that fell over green eyes. His face was split wide in a grin, and there was a gap in the upper row of his teeth where one was missing. The angle was tight, but she could see a bit of his blue shirt and most of something that was pinned there. It was blurred a bit, though, so she’d need Della to enhance it before she could tell what it was.

  She flipped the photo over.

  One day.

  “It’s all out of focus, but the background looks like it might be a restaurant,” she said, handing the picture to Sam.

  He hummed his agreement. “He changed the timeline.”

  She’d noticed. They should have had two days to find the next clue.

  “Are you thinking it?” she asked. She didn’t always want to be the one to jump to the worst conclusion, but she didn’t know any other way.

  “One day means the next location is the last one,” Sam said.

  “Which means Anna might already be dead,” Clarke said, finishing the thought.

  “We don’t know that yet,” he countered.

  “Yeah,” she said for the sake of agreeing.

  “Hey, kid.” He reached down, hooking his beefy fingers under her armpits to drag her up to eye level. He grasped her chin in his palm, holding her gaze steady. “Remember what I said last time. Don’t let him get in your head. He does this to you every time.”

  “What else am I supposed to think, Sam? What are you thinking? Do you honestly believe there’s any hope for that girl? We have, what, twenty-four hours, tops.”

  “Does thinking she’s dead already change anything?” he asked, his voice gentle where hers had turned ragged.

  “No. Or maybe a little.”

  “You already thought she was dead,” he said, seeing into parts of her dark soul she wished were completely hidden. It made her feel naked and exposed.

  “So what if I did?”

  “I’m not saying it’s wrong to expect the worst, Clarke,” he soothed. “It hurts less when you expect the worst.”

  A gurgle bubbled up from her throat that might have sounded like a laugh but wasn’t a laugh. “Does it ever hurt less?”

  She must have looked as pitiful as she felt, because he finally pulled her into his chest, wrapping his thick arms around her. Always forgiving her.

  Her hands found each other at the small of his back, and she buried her forehead in the dip of his shoulder, pressing hard against him. He felt like everything that was steady and true in the world.

  “No,” he said. “Or maybe a little. When you’re braced for the piano to fall, maybe you can avoid being crushed. But you can’t spend your life looking up like that.”

  “You can when you have pianos falling on you all the time. Some would say it’s smart,” she said into his shirt.

  “You have had your fair share,” he acknowledged. “But this one hasn’t dropped yet.”

  She pulled away, swiping the loose strands of hair out of her face.

  “You’re right. Everything is different this time,” she said. “Which means Anna might still be alive.”

  “That’s my girl,” Sam said.

  “But even so, we only have a day. And I have no idea what this means.” She snatched the photo back from Sam and waved it in front of his face.

  “It’s Staunton. It has to be,” Sam said, his eyes on it again. “He wouldn’t have us go to another town when he’s here. Not now, when he can watch you so easily.”

  She agreed. “Well. Good thing we’ve made friendly with the locals.”

  She wasn’t surprised when Lucas shook his head after she had him look at the photo, but she was disappointed. It would have been nice to catch a break.

  “I’ll ask the chief when she gets back,” he promised, but he didn’t look hopeful. “I’ve only been here for about three years, so maybe she’ll know something I don’t.”

  Dwelling on it would not be productive, so she shifted her attention.

  “You said Peterson’s here?” She already started walking toward the interrogation room. Lucas and Sam fell in step behind her. “What’s his mood?”

  “Seems distraught, still.”

  Peterson certainly looked the part of Worried Boyfriend. Deep shadows smudged the skin beneath bloodshot eyes. His whole face, really, had taken on an unhealthy, sallow look that stripped him of the youthful handsomeness she’d seen only a day earlier. She wondered idly if he was hungover.

  “Jeremy,” she said, a little louder than was necessary. His wince confirmed her hypothesis. “Thanks for coming in.”

  “Course,” he muttered. “Have you found anything yet? Have you found that guy?”

  “We’re working a few leads on that,” she said, sliding into the chair across from his.

  His face flushed with color. “So you’ve got nothing.” He slammed a fist against the cheap tabletop, so quick to anger. “She’s been missing for more than a week, and you guys are sitting around here with your thumbs up your asses.”

  Lucas shifted behind her when Jeremy brought his fist down again. She shook her head, just a quick movement, to signal that she had it under control.

  “Tell me about Bess,” she said, completely ignoring his outburst.

  Confusion overtook the rage, and he squinted at her, the question taking a moment to work its way through the dense circuits of his brain. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “What?”

  “We need to know more about her. Presumably you can give us more than the basic facts, yes?”

  He was caught off guard with that. “Course I can,” he muttered, but then didn’t continue.

  “Anything you can tell us, Jeremy—really anything—will be helpful,” she prodded. She’d wanted to redirect his rage, not shut him down completely.

  “She’s a teacher. Kindergarten.”

  “In New York?”

  “Brooklyn,” he corrected.

  “You’ve lived there long?” she asked.

  “A few years. Since we graduated. Penn State,” he said, answering her next question.

  She paused at that. “She’s from Pennsylvania?”

  “Yeah, Philly,” he said.

  Her heart stuttered against her chest. “I thought she was born in New Jersey?” She’d read the file twenty times over by now. Birth city was listed in New Jersey.

  “Yeah,” he said, as if talking to someone who was not very bright. “She was born in New Jersey. Her mom’s family is from Jersey, but once she had Bess, they moved into the city. They lived there until her mom got married, when she was, like, eleven or something.”

  Clarke’s mind
raced. The most important thing first. She latched onto one of the whirling particles. The picture from the cabin.

  She shifted, grabbing the file in Sam’s hands. She found the photo and held it up to her face. She laid it on the table, smoothing a thumb over the corner. Her breath caught in her esophagus. There.

  She stood up, holding out a hand. “Stay there,” she said to the room at large.

  Clarke sprinted toward Lucas’s desk where she’d dropped her bag earlier. She hooked a hand around the strap, without breaking stride, and turned back to the interrogation room. When she burst back in, all three sets of eyes were on her.

  She dropped the bag on the seat and dug in for what she needed, pulling the Meyers set of photos from its depths. She snagged a pen and a legal pad as well, then dumped everything on the table.

  She slid each of the eight previous pictures in front of Peterson, in order, then slapped her hand above the photos. “Look at these, Jeremy. Look at them closely. Does anything about them relate to Bess in any way?”

  Both Lucas and Sam tensed behind Clarke at the question, but she didn’t take her eyes off Peterson.

  He blinked at her for four seconds longer than her patience held out, but just as she was about to slam her hand against the table in an echo of his earlier frustration, he turned his attention to the pictures.

  The silence in the room throbbed.

  “I mean . . . ,” Jeremy finally said. He trailed off. But then he nodded to himself and pushed two of the pictures toward her. He glanced up. “These two, maybe. Well, this one definitely. This one’s probably a stretch.” He tapped them separately.

  “I’ll take a stretch,” she muttered. She pulled that picture closer. “Why this one?”

  It was a close-up of a bouquet of pink-and-yellow roses, filled out with wispy baby’s breath. It was tied with a lavender bow.

  “I don’t know, it might not mean anything,” he warned again.

  “Maybe it will help,” she coaxed.

  She was about to drag it out of him forcibly, when he finally shrugged. “Her mom was a florist.”

  It wasn’t the groundbreaking revelation she would have liked, but it was something.