It’s a sparrow.
No. Goddamn him.
Sure enough, when the new narrator’s voice slices through the silence, it belongs to Logan Zellman.
“Starling, Tennessee,” Zed narrates, slow and deliberate. “A town with a dark history. A history of murder. Missing women. A killer who went to the grave without disclosing their locations.”
“That little asshole!” Sofia cries out, already pushing her way through the crowd. “Zed! Turn that off!”
“But there’s one secret, one puzzle, that can finally be solved. And tonight, thanks toFree the Sparrows, it will be.”
thirty-seven
Let Me Tell You About Gabrielle
My blood runs cold.
What is Zeddoing?
What does he know?
“What’s going on?” Connor looks around as if trying to gauge whether this is some kind of prank.
I have a feeling this is much, much worse than a prank.
Zed’s self-assured voice continues to echo from the speakers, his tone almost gleeful. “We all know the story of Gabriel Thorn. We all know his crimes. We all know the names of his victims. We know he kept to himself, kept his sister-in-law’s family, the Shipleys, at a distance.”
At the sound of her surname, Jasmine starts shaking with anger. “Oh my God! This psycho and his fucking obsession! He’s ruining the entire yearbook presentation!”
My stomach burns, nausea rising in my throat with Zed’s every word. People around us are tensing, their attention glued to the screen. I suck in a deep, calming breath, the way Dr.Wilmer taught me.
“Buthisfamily, the Thorns, his wife and his daughter—heclaims to have cared about them,” Zed drones on, pausing between words as if to create dramatic tension.
I thought he was broadcasting live, but when I see Zed intercepting a livid Sofia at the side of the stage, I realize it’s been prerecorded.
“What do we know about his family? Well, we know his wife is dead. Her life taken by the very man who claimed to love her. But his daughter…”
The breath I just took freezes in my lungs. It feels like ice is sludging through my veins now.
“So let’s talk about the biggest secret this town has yet to uncover. Her name is Gabrielle Thorn.”
The walls start to close in on me. The gym is dark, too dark for anyone to see the panic that must be written all over my face, but I’m suddenly hyperaware of everything around me. The flickering light of the projector. The whispers. The low hum of the air-conditioning. Everything is too loud, too sharp.
There’s a flurry of motion at the edge of the stage. While Sofia continues to yell at Zed, Mr.Hicks and Ms.Steinfeld climb the short steps, their silhouettes moving across the screen, which until two seconds ago was frozen on the photo of Starling.
Now the picture changes.
An image of a baby in a pink onesie, bundled in a white blanket.
The baby is me.
I swallow my gasp of shock. How did he get this picture? I’m pretty sure it was in my grandmother’s boxes, the ones that Maggie put in storage.
“Let me tell you about Gabrielle. Her father murdered six women. Seven, including her own mother. But the question is—who is she really? Is she simply another victim, or has she been hiding something darker? The truth is closer than you think…”
The baby photo fades to a toddler. A little girl with wispy dark red hair, wearing a yellow dress, clinging to her father’s leg.
My body is on fire. Every muscle is tight, every nerve shot through with adrenaline. I don’t know if I’m going to throw up or faint. My cousins are oblivious to my inner distress. Jasmine is no longer cursing Zed for ruining the yearbook. She and Connor are staring at the screen, completely unaware that everything in me is crumbling.
