My heart jumps. It’s the same journal I found in my father’s dungeon.
Foster slides it across the desk, his expression stern. “Be careful with it. It needs to go back into evidence.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
I can’t believe he’s giving me access to such critical evidence. I touch the worn leather cover, my hands trembling slightly. I’ve spent so many nights, so many years, wondering who my father truly was. And now that truth lies right here, in his own handwriting.
I open the journal, bracing myself for what might be inside.The entries are a mixture of neat, controlled print and a looser, wilder scrawl that hints at something darker lurking beneath. I skim through pages detailing the birdhouses he built, the endless lists of species he spotted. The only pages that matter are the ones that mention his pretty sparrows.
His victims.
My chest aches as I read how he stalked them, from his first victim, Lydia Singh, to his last one, Anabel White, who we now knowwashis last one.
And then…Leah. No body, so not his victim, yet mentioned prominently in his diary.
She came by today to check on her portrait. She’s excited to give it to her kids. She loves those kids. But not enough, I think. She watched me paint, and I could feel her there, just a few feet behind me. Silent. No words exchanged, not at first. It was like she was a ghost—hovering but never staying, slipping in and out of spaces like she wasn’t meant to linger anywhere too long. And then she spoke. “Sometimes,” she said, “I feel like I’m meant to be somewhere else. I’m trapped here, you know?” I knew what she meant. And I saw then what she was. A bird that forgot she had wings.
He was drawing her because she’d asked him to. Commissioned a portrait for her kids. That must have been the surprise from my memory, I realize. The one he wanted me to keep secret.
Why did she want a portrait, though? Had Leah wanted togive Everett and Nikki a thoughtful personal gift…or something to remember her by?
It’s several pages before he mentions Leah again. His handwriting becomes more erratic, trailing down the page.
She doesn’t deserve a cage. I understand that, better than most. She needsfreedom, not these walls and chains. I’ve watched her struggle in the trap of her own making—a family, a life she felt tied to. And there was an affair, she confessed it to me one night. Ineverjudged her, of course. I could only think of my wife, my Sarah, how I would’ve been shattered if she ever drifted from me. But I couldn’t blame Leah. I never judge birds who crave a taste of life outside their cages.
My heart races as I read the strange, almost poetic passages. Each line feels like peeling back another layer of who he was—a man who could see Leah’s innate spirit and respect it, even as he went on to become the monster he was.
I gulp, reading further.
Today she sat for hours, silentas deathas always. When she finally looked at me, she asked, “If you could, would you leave everything behind?” I said no, I couldn’t. Not with a family.I can’t even imagine losingBut she shook her head, said she could leave, if only she had the courage. Said she might disappear someday, just vanish without a trace.
I look up at Foster, who’s watching me with an unreadable expression.
“Leah told him she might leave,” I say, stunned.
“If we can trust your father’s words, then yes, it sounds like she confided in him about wanting to disappear, maybe to escape her life.”
I glance down at the journal, flipping through more entries. Most are small fragments, thoughts barely strung together, glimpses of his mind, his darkness, and his fascination with those who wanted more than the life they had. Then I come across one final note that sends a chill through me.
They said Leah’s gone missing. I knew it was coming; I could feel her slipping away. When they told me, I thought, Maybe she’s found her wings at last.
I shut the journal. “If my father didn’t kill her, why would he say he did? Why would he confess?”
Foster shrugs. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Although if you’ve read his confession, he never named names. After the initial investigators found his drawings, they pressed him, asked him to account for each victim. He just said, ‘I killed them all.’ He was vague, almost dismissive. Perhaps he wanted them to stop asking. About Leah, anyway. To stop digging into her disappearance.”
I lean back in my chair, letting his words sink in. All my father had to do was say the words, and they stopped looking for Leah.It’s as if he’d given everyone closure. Or maybe, I realize, permission to stop searching.
“What if he knew she was planning to leave?” I venture. “Maybe he knew that she was done with everything here, with JP, with her family, and so he let them all think she was dead.”
Foster’s gaze turns thoughtful. “That’s possible. From his journal entries, it’s clear he liked her. Maybe he saw something in her, saw himself even. If she truly wanted to disappear, he might have been able to give her that. Make it real so no one would ever come looking.”
The pieces of the puzzle float around in my head, each one forming a warped reflection of the person I thought I knew. My father, the man who loved birds, who told me they were meant to be free. He saw something in Everett’s mother, something wild and untamable. Maybe he felt for her, recognized that she wasn’t made for a life in a small town, bound to roles and responsibilities that didn’t fit.
If Everett’s mother truly wanted to escape, then my father had given her that escape.
A twisted gift, in his own way.
When I get home, I find Jasmine making her bed in our room. I carefully walk toward my own bed, dropping my purse on the mattress.
