Chapter Thirty-Seven Let Me Tell You about Gabrielle
thirty-seven
Let Me Tell You About Gabrielle
My blood runs cold.
What is Zed doing?
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.
“But his family, the Thorns, his wife and his daughter—he claims 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.
The slideshow continues. One image after another, year by year, flashing in front of everyone.
My childhood, splayed out for all to see.
The gym is dead silent. Everyone’s attention is riveted to the screen.
Even Sofia and the teachers have lost some of their urgency as they reprimand a smug-faced Zed.
“She was born Gabrielle Thorn,” he narrates in a grave voice, and the next photo dissolves into one of a birth certificate.
Mine.
The long view of it flips into a close-up. The name Gabrielle Thorn.
“And then,” Zed says, “when she was seven years old…” Another dramatic pause. “She ceased to exist.”
The next photo is me at the age of seven. The screen freezes again, and I stare at my second-grade self. I’m missing my two front teeth.
My eyes flit desperately to the side, looking for an escape, but every exit feels miles away. The gym doors, the windows, the people—none of it matters. I can’t focus on anything except Zed’s voice.
“But people don’t just disappear, do they? No, they reinvent themselves.”
Seven-year-old Gabrielle fades into another photograph. A candid shot of an auburn-haired girl in jeans and combat boots.
Me.
I swallow, trying to force down the panic, but it keeps thickening and growing and twisting like vines around my throat, threatening to choke me. I snap my gaze toward the doors. I need to leave. I need to disappear.
But the moment I start to move, Jasmine grabs my hand, yanking me back.
“Ryan?” she says, staring at me, then the screen. “What’s going on?”
The slideshow has one more image. One last nail in the proverbial coffin. The photo once again dissolves into a document. The name-change paperwork my grandmother filed for me.
It zooms in on my old name. Gabrielle Thorn.
Then it zooms in on the new one.
Ryan Mayfair.
The world begins to spin, everything blurry except for my name on the screen. And then the lights abruptly turn on, the projector going blank. Gasps and whispers explode throughout the gym. Faces turn toward me as people start piecing it together.
My secret isn’t a secret anymore.
I can’t breathe. I feel sweat prickling at the back of my neck. My heart pounds so loudly it’s now drowning out everything else.
Before I can flee, the man of the hour steps onto the stage, holding a microphone and sporting a broad smile.
“Hey, Ryan,” Zed calls, grinning when he picks me out of the crowd. “Or do you prefer Gabrielle?”
I stumble back, words failing me. All I can see is the stunned faces of my cousins, my classmates. Everett. The people I tried so hard to keep in the dark. In the instant before the full weight hits them and the shock registers on their faces, I feel everything inside me breaking apart.
There is no coming back from this.
Their expressions change. Morphing into horror, disgust, anger. I glance from Connor to Jasmine, wishing I could be anywhere else. A torture chamber would be preferable to this. I’m not sure I’ll leave this gym alive.
Jasmine’s features twist in betrayal. “You lied to us! All this time, you were…you’re…Uncle Psycho is your father?”
Connor isn’t as quick to accuse, but his suspicious eyes aren’t comforting. “Is that true, Ryan?”
“Of course it’s true,” Zed barks into the microphone.
“I know y’all look down on me, think I’m some kind of hack, but Free the Sparrows doesn’t do half-ass investigations.
Ryan Mayfair is Ryan Shipley. There is no father in Europe.
She was living with Annette Mayfair in Allentown, Pennsylvania, until Annette passed away.
Annette,” he says arrogantly, “who also happens to be the mother of Maggie Shipley and Sarah Thorn.”
I tune out Zed’s grating voice and implore my cousins with my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” My voice is small, breaking under the weight of their disbelief. “Your parents made me promise not to tell you. They thought that if you knew—”
Before I can finish, someone slaps me. Hard.
I stagger backward from the pain, expecting to find that Jasmine was the culprit.
But it’s Nikki.
Everett’s sister lunges at me, utterly enraged. “Your father killed my mother and you didn’t think we deserved to know? You fucking bitch!”
As my cheek stings from her blow, I start to back away, but I suddenly notice Everett standing there. His face is pale with shock.
“You goddamn lying bitch!” Nikki shrieks.
She hurls herself at me again, and before I can react, she’s grabbed a fistful of my hair. I cry out, grappling with her, trying to get her off me. Hands try to pry us apart, but I can’t make anything out through the haze of pain and confusion.
“Nikki, enough!” someone yells, but she’s beyond listening. She’s pushing and shoving, her red fingernails digging into my arm.
I feel my own anger boiling up, mingling with the humiliation and fear. In a burst of desperation, I shove her hard, breaking her grip on me, and she stumbles before regaining her footing.
The gym is a mess of shouts, everyone’s attention fixated on us. Whispers and accusations blend into a deafening hum. Kids are filming everything, their phones aimed at me, at Nikki. The chaperones rush over, trying to break up the fight, their voices barely audible over the din.
I feel eyes on me from every direction, judging, accusing.
I suddenly spot Natalie Singh several feet away, staring at me.
I glance toward the stage where Zed stands, posture proud, stance wide, like a king watching over his peasants.
He loves this. The production. The drama and the big reveal.
He’s probably been planning it for weeks.
Blinking back the tears, I run from the dance floor, desperate to escape.
“Ryan,” I hear someone say. Chase.
I ignore him, pushing through the crowd.
Relief pours into me when I finally glimpse the exit sign.
I race out the doors and stumble into the fluorescent-lit hallway.
I’m still battling tears when Chase appears beside me, wrapping one strong arm around my shoulders, and I let him, because I have no strength left to fight.
“Come on,” he murmurs in my ear. “I’ll take you home.”
I rip myself away from him. “No.”
My skin burns from the sheer humiliation of what just happened, and I’m dangerously close to a panic attack. Chase senses it, because he steps closer, reaching out to stroke my cheek.
His voice is low as he says, “You’re okay, Shipley. It’s okay.”
But I’m not.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” an incredulous voice says from behind us.
We turn toward the gym doors, where Everett stands, jaw clenched tight. He takes in the sight of Chase’s hand dropping from my face in what was clearly an intimate moment.
“I am such a fucking idiot,” he spits out, looking between us. “I get it now, Ryan.” He starts to laugh. Bitter and defeated. “How long has this been going on?”
“I…” I stammer, then glance at Chase, unsure what to say.
“How long have you guys been lying to me?” demands Everett.
“Ev, it wasn’t like that—” Chase starts.
Everett cuts him off. “Fuck you, Chase. Both of you.”
Finding my voice, I step toward him, trying to explain. “Everett, please, just listen—”
“Save it, Gabrielle. I don’t want to hear another word from either one of you.”
My heart sinks as I watch him storm off. For several heartbreaking seconds, silence hangs over the hallway. I swallow the lump of agony in my throat and turn to Chase.
“I think I’ll take that ride home, after all.”