“You think that was a request?” The anger helped, too, to calm her and give her strength. She embraced it. She remembered endless nights she couldn’t sleep because dreams were horrifying landscapes of knives and screams and pain; she remembered the blood that ran warm against her thighs with each slice of the razor blade; she remembered a life tainted by evil and never given a chance to become anything more than a twisted shell of a human just trying to survive.
He was going to pay for his sins. It would end now.
The beam of her flashlight still hadn’t found him. She kept up the slow, torturous sweep of the darkness, but all she could see were walls and the dark shapes of long-neglected furniture.
“Where’s your backup, Addie?” Simon asked instead of complying. “If you wanted to play the proper FBI agent with me now, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be here alone.”
She didn’t answer. He had her on that one.
“That’s right, pet. You don’t want that. You never did. You want it to be just you and me in the end. That’s why I could give you that final clue. I knew I could trust you.”
Clarke bit hard on the inside of her cheek. I could trust you. What kind of ridiculous situation was this that a serial killer said that to the agent hunting him? What kind of ridiculous situation was this that she’d proved him right?
“I wanted it to be you and me at the end, Simon,” she finally confirmed. There was no use denying it, anyway. “Because you don’t deserve to go to jail. You deserve a bullet in the head. And that’s what you’re going to get.”
“Tsk, tsk, pet,” he said, finally stepping into the very edges of the light. She trained her weapon on him immediately, her eyes flashing down to his hands. He had both a knife and a gun held loosely in his long fingers.
Her gaze met his, and everything tilted for a moment. He was no longer as she remembered, but she recognized him in the way she knew she always would. He was older, of course, his hair now threaded with silver, the smoothness of his skin now creased with wrinkles. But his eyes were the same. The way he stood and the way his mouth ticked up at the corners in a smirk and the way he watched her were the same. It was Simon. He was the boy who loved her and the boy who broke her and the boy who haunted her. Now he was the man she would never let terrorize her again.
And just like that, the world righted itself once more.
“Drop your weapons, Simon,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize. Don’t let him get in your head, kid. It was almost like Sam was standing right next to her.
“But why would I do that when you just promised you’re going to kill me anyway?” Simon asked. “So, no, I don’t think I will. Self-defense and all that.”
Her finger itched to pull the trigger. It would be over. So many years of pain, frustration, and torture could be ended in a single breath, a single press of flesh against metal. Why wasn’t she taking the shot? Why had her body stopped responding to the voice that was screaming in her head to put a bullet between his eyes?
There was a witness, true. But it wasn’t that. Clarke would gladly serve the sentence.
If it wasn’t the witness, though, that meant she was actually hesitating. Something—something she didn’t want to put a name to—was stilling her hand. Self-loathing coated the torn-open wounds of her past, and she saw it in his eyes. There was a victory there in the way he stood at the business end of her gun and didn’t flinch. Because he knew her, like no one else knew her. That alone almost made her pull the trigger.
But still it wasn’t enough.
Clarke spared a glance at the girl. Bess. Her sister. She was watching the exchange with wide eyes. Clarke shifted so that her body was between Simon and Bess.
Simon was amused at the gesture.
“Quite the little reunion, isn’t it, Adelaide,” he said, tipping his chin toward the girl. “Not only are we back together, but you also get to meet the sister you never knew. You can’t imagine how happy I am to be able to facilitate this little arrangement.”
“Why should I believe anything you say, Simon?” But she did. She believed him. Although he was a psychopath, he tended not to lie to her. There was no room for emotion right now. Later she would deal with it, the betrayal and the new responsibility and the tiny bit of hope that came with the idea of family. But in this moment, Simon had to take priority.
“You came, didn’t you?”
“I would have come for anyone. It’s my job.”
“But you wouldn’t have come alone for just anyone, pet,” Simon said. “You would have brought your little friends. You would have planned and plotted, instead of reacting on that beautiful instinct you have. If that’s the finale I wanted, I would have ended this long ago, Adelaide.”
She wondered if that was true. Since she’d realized Bess was her sister, she had been raw and aching and unable to process much beyond a single-minded determination to find the girl. Would she have slipped away like she had if Bess were just the stranger she’d thought at the beginning of the chase?
At this point she wasn’t even thinking straight, but she thought maybe she would have come alone anyway. There was nothing more important to her than ending Simon. She couldn’t do that with Roger watching. He’d stop her before she could pull the trigger. No, this was never intended to involve anyone other than the two of them. Right back to where they’d started.
“So this was your endgame? To lure me here alone? This whole time you had me running around the country? Jumping through hoops.”
He tilted his head. “Did you not have fun with our little games, Adelaide? I thought you would appreciate them. You always liked when I sent you pictures from my travels. You kept them.”
“I kept them so when the police came, they would know what a sick psychopath you actually were,” she spit back. The ghosts of the girls still whispered to her sometimes. How many of them had become his victims?
“Why are you lying, Addie? It’s beneath you.”
“Why are you? You didn’t think I would enjoy it. You wanted to torture me,” she said. “You’re still punishing me.”
He simply smiled.
“And taking Bess wasn’t about getting me here alone,” she said, some of the pieces clicking into place. “You knew I would come alone anyway. You know me well enough to know that.”
The look he gave her was one of a patient teacher waiting for a slower student to catch on to the right answer. Her mind scrambled, chasing something she knew she should already understand. Something she should have known before stepping inside the house alone.
“It was the final punishment. Killing me isn’t enough because I don’t care about dying.” And there it was. “This whole thing, it’s always been about me. So of course the endgame is as well. I’d gotten numb enough to the other girls’ deaths, so you had to up the ante.”
“Lucky for me I had an ace up my sleeve the whole time,” Simon said, smug. “You can thank your lovely cheating father for that one.”
“How did you even find out about her?” She needed to know.
“Oh, he was so careless, pet,” he said, with a dismissive flick of the wrist that made her tighten her grip on her own weapon. “Always follow the money.”
“How long?”
“How long have I known about her? For years. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a very patient man,” Simon said. “Did you ever wonder what I was doing all that time? No need to answer that. I know you did. I know that I’m all you ever think about. Because you’re all I ever think about. Don’t you see how similar we are?”
She knew better than to lie. He was right, and it didn’t matter. “I was hoping you were rotting in the desert as coyotes chewed slowly on your balls.”
The taunt surprised a cackle out of Simon, and she grimaced at the sound. It was awkward and evil all at once.
“See, I told you. Feisty.” But Simon wasn’t looking at her. His gaze had flicked to Bess. Clarke moved so that he couldn’t even see the girl. It forced his eyes back to her.
“W
ell, if you must know, I was actually hiding from those pesky FBI agents you sent after me,” Simon said, refocusing his whole attention on her. “It wasn’t easy. Matthew was dragging me down. We almost got caught in Albuquerque. He had to go.”
Thank God for small favors. “And then what? You just stalked me?”
“I planned,” Simon corrected. “Do you think this . . .” He waved his hands again. She’d seen this type of behavior before with criminals. Try to lull the agent into relaxing at small gestures. Shift slightly, frequently. Get the agent to drop her guard at the little movements. And then strike. “Just happened?”
“No,” she said. “It was meticulously plotted out.”
He grinned, pleased at that. “Of course it was, pet. It’s my masterpiece. Everything in my life has been leading to this moment.”
He looked around, savoring it. Her fingers itched, begging to slap the arrogance off his face. She gripped the gun tighter.
“All of it to torture me,” she said. “Because, what? I left you after you raped me?”
His eyes tightened at the corners before he let his face relax again. “Because you left me, yes. After we made love. Because you were the only person I had ever loved, and you took my heart with open hands and then sliced it to bits.”
It was odd to hear him talk about it. Like he had a heart that could be hurt. “You didn’t love me, Simon. You were obsessed with the way I made you feel. That’s not loving me. You don’t do this to people you love. Even if they hurt you. You do this to people you hate.”
“I did love you.” The calm, measured facade he’d been wearing since she walked down the stairs cracked. Rage lashed at the air around her, and she nearly flinched away from it. “And you left me, you bitch.”
This. This was easier to deal with than that broken boy who pretended to have a heart. This anger was something she could dismiss. It helped keep her balanced. “I escaped, Simon. You kidnapped me. You don’t do that to someone you love.”
“You wouldn’t listen to reason. You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“We’re having the same conversation sixteen years later, Simon. You threw a tantrum because you couldn’t have what you wanted, like a two-year-old. It’s led to the deaths of at least three women whose names you don’t even care about. You just care that they looked like me, and when your fingers tightened around their necks, you could pretend it was me but still have me to look at. To manipulate. You had the best of both worlds. So you can drop this smooth mastermind act. You’re nothing but a little boy who wants to break the toy because you don’t get to play with it. You are a child.”
The silence was taut. She didn’t care if it was a mistake to taunt him. Her life, her entire life, had been shaped by the actions of a boy who couldn’t take no for an answer. Every move, every breath, and every thought were shaped by her connection to him. And watching him pose and preen like he was playing some goddamn mind game with her was intolerable. This wasn’t an elevated and elegant bout of chess. This was a particularly clever toddler in the midst of a hissy fit. And she was done indulging it.
“So, what now, Simon? If you kill Bess, that’s it. You’ll have broken the toy, and then what? Will it make you feel better?”
With that, the calm facade slipped back into place. He even smiled. “You know, you’re right that killing you has never been my goal, Adelaide. Because you don’t care. You only care that I am dead. That’s your sole goal in life. But what would truly break you? That’s what I had to think about. For years. What would truly break you?”
He doesn’t have anything. He doesn’t have anything.
“And then as I watched you find those girls, I knew. You were all torn up about them. But not really broken. Do you want to know why?”
She didn’t answer.
“Of course you want to know why. It’s because, though you were too late to save them, in your mind, you didn’t cause their deaths. You, in the end, always blamed me for them. It’s different, though, when your actions lead directly to someone’s death, isn’t it, Adelaide?”
“What do you mean?” But her mind raced. Trying to keep up, see the next step. That’s never how it was, though. She never managed to get ahead of the bastard.
“That, my pet, would be a fate worse than death, wouldn’t it? To live every day knowing, but not being able to end the torture because—well. That would be the ultimate punishment.”
It was almost there. But the buzzing in her head started to drown out rational thinking. “What do you mean?” It was all she could manage.
“Oh, Addie. Do you really think the only person you have left to care about is Bess?”
Time slowed, and everything around her stilled as she met his eyes. “No,” she whispered.
Bess hadn’t been the target. She’d been the distraction.
Simon’s eyes flickered to a spot over her shoulder. She blinked, slow and heavy, and behind her lids there were flashes of a life she always tried to forget. Summer nights and bike rides and giggles underneath a carpet of stars. She saw his face not as it was now, frozen in derision and lined with a rage that never seemed to fade, but as it was then. Sharp at the edges but sweet and kissed pink from the sun. She saw a mischievous smile and an outstretched hand begging her to come play.
She saw Simon.
It had been only a second, the hesitation. But when she opened her eyes, she knew she’d been too late. He was already moving, his hand gripping the hilt of the blade, to throw with his unerring accuracy.
She spared the extra second she didn’t have to steady her hand and then she pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into Simon’s forehead, and he died instantly, with a smile on his face.
But she hadn’t been quick enough. She knew it when she had felt the blade whisper past her cheek. She whirled when she heard the gasp of confirmation, the thud of a body hitting the floor.
No. No. No. No. It was a plea. A prayer. A mantra.
Her body reacted before she could force her mind to accept the reality before her, and she stumbled over to where Sam had fallen, the knife buried in his chest. Simon had always been handy with that throwing trick.
Clarke dropped to her knees, not even feeling the lightning bolts of pain that flashed through her as bone met concrete floor.
Sam was spread-eagled, his eyes at half mast. But he was breathing. That’s what mattered. He was breathing.
She gathered the top half of his body into her lap as she dialed 9-1-1 on her phone and fished his out of his pocket so she could call Roger at the same time. She shouted off an address to the operator, but then Sam groaned and shifted beneath her.
“Hey, kid.” It was so soft she almost didn’t hear him over Roger’s voice and the operators in each of her ears. She dropped the phones to the floor immediately.
“Sam.” She leaned in closer. “Stay with me, stay with me.”
Her eyes flicked down to the spreading stain on the front of his shirt. So much blood. But she heard the sirens. They were getting closer. “Hang in there. They’re almost here.”
“Kid,” he said again. “This isn’t your fault.”
“No. Don’t talk like that, Sam.” She heard the panic in her own voice, but she couldn’t quite tamp it down. “Yell at me. I was irresponsible. I’m a pain in the ass. You can’t believe I left without you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but her hands were covered now in red. “All that. Yes. But this is not your fault.”
The tears started. Streaming down her cheeks, saturating the collar of her T-shirt.
“Sam, no. No.”
“Kid. I need you to promise me.” A racking cough cut his words off. She ran shaking fingers through his hair, soothing him as he grimaced against the pain it had caused. “Promise me, promise me you’ll survive this.”
Don’t kill yourself. That’s what Simon had meant when he said she wouldn’t be able to end it. That she’d have to live with it the rest of her life. She could never deny Sam’s request.
>
“I will, Sam. I will,” she said, sealing her own fate.
“You’ve been worth it, kid,” Sam said.
A sob caught in her throat, but she swallowed it. “You’re not dying, Sam. You hear the sirens? They’re almost here. Just hold on.”
The lip twitch again, and his eyes slipped lower. “Did you get him?”
“Head shot,” she confirmed. “It’s over, Sam. We got him.”
A tip of the chin. He’d heard her. He’d understood.
“Roger . . . ,” he whispered, and then his eyes slipped closed completely.
The door slammed above their heads, but she didn’t look up as feet pounded on wood. People were there. Surrounding her. Pulling at her hands. Tugging her away from Sam’s body. She lashed out with boots and fists and screams. A few landed against soft flesh. But it wasn’t good enough, because she was no longer holding Sam in her arms. There was a blanket thrown around her shoulders as if she were cold. That’s not why she couldn’t stop shivering, she wanted to tell them, but her lips weren’t forming words, just sounds in between the sobs that racked her entire body.
Sam. Sam. Sam.
He wasn’t there. Where’d they take him? She pushed at the hands that were holding her down in the chair. They didn’t budge. Even as time passed, so much time, they refused to give. “Let me go,” she managed. How long had they been holding her back? She had to get to Sam.
Then the person was in her view, kneeling in front of her. The hands came off her shoulders and cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.
Roger.
The name sank into the chaos that was whirling through her. Roger. He’d only be there, with her, if there was no hope left. If Sam didn’t need him.
She fell into his arms, surprising them both. But he wrapped her tight, held her body to his as they knelt together on the floor two feet away from where the concrete was stained from Sam’s blood. She buried her face in his neck and let his warmth seep into her bones, which had turned ice-cold.
His tears fell gently into her hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ADELAIDE
It Ends With Her Page 25
