Page 104 of Unbound

“I guess you’ll have to find a hobby.” I give her a grin. “Or five.” And she’ll attempt to perfect them concurrently and then abandon them so she can move on to something new and interesting.

“I’ve always thought crows would know I was cool and bring me shiny things.” Sybil’s admission is so out of left field my eyes snap to her face.

“Crows?” I assumed she would want to knit or maybe paint by numbers. Possibly get into pottery.

Murders never occurred to me.

“Don’t look at me like that. Everybody has something completely bananapants they think they’re capable of.” She motions to me. “Like how most men believe they could land a plane in an emergency situation.”

“I don’t think I could land a plane in any situation.” I reconsider. “I mean, I could get it on the ground, but no one’s going to survive.”

“It’s actually not surprising that you know you’re not capable of landing a plane successfully.” She reaches out to pinch my cheek. “You’re such a green flag guy.”

I try to make sense of her words, but don’t really get what she’s saying. “What in the hell does that mean?”

“It means I’m very lucky no one snapped you up before I got here.” Sybil takes a deep breath, eyes shifting back to the windshield as we close in on Titus’s house. “Here we go, I guess.”

I park beside Tucker’s UTV and help Sybil out. Her hand in mine, we make our way to the front door, giving it a rap before letting ourselves in. We’re the last ones to arrive—it took us a few minutes to collect everything we have to share with them—and the house is loud when we walk in.

Until it’s not.

Everyone falls silent, their eyes coming our way.

Sybil shifts on her feet beside me, creeping just a little closer. She pats the bag slung over one shoulder containing her computer and the letters our parents exchanged. “Got all my stuff.”

Maren gives her a sharp nod. “Good. Let’s figure out what the fuck is going on.”

Everyone filters into the large great room at the back of Titus’s house. It was selected as the best option since he’s got a number of monitors, making it possible to display a collection of evidence at the same time. Sybil seems to think that will be more effective than rotating through items individually, and it does make sense. Looking at the whole picture tells you more than focusing on a single square.

And she’s sure as hell going to see the whole picture, because Titus has got a pretty impressive set up. Not only does he have several large computer monitors lined down his fireplace mantel, he’s also got a number of laptops situated on a folding table that looks a lot like the ones my aunt DeeDee uses when she hosts parties, and a large rolling whiteboard sits off to one side.

Sybil is silent as she lowers into one of the chairs lined along the folding table and pulls out her laptop. She opens the screen and Bluetooth connects to the monitors on the fireplace. One by one, each populates with a different image. One is the still of the man Maren believes is her neighbor. Another is a photograph of Tom. The next displays both Dead Dans and the autopsy image of the shooter who put a hole in Trevor’s leg.

Once it’s all up there, Sybil goes to the whiteboard, uncapping one of the dry erase markers cradled in the tray. She starts scribbling across the surface, listing everything that’s happened.

To her.

To us.

Next come the dates. She marks when the explosion happened. The crash Toby and I were in. The day Ruth’s ex showed up and didn’t make it out alive. When an unknown man called Sybil to threaten her. The break-in at Maren’s trailer, followed by the shooting in the parking lot. The guy in her townhome, and the one who took pictures of us.

Once everything is down, she recaps the marker and turns to face everyone. “What if all of this is connected?”

Seeing everything laid out, I can’t imagine my family will come to a different conclusion than Sybil and I both have: There’s no way it’s not.

“You think what’s happened to you is connected to what happened to us?” Toby sounds skeptical. “We didn’t even know each other when this all started.”

“Technically, that’s true.” Sybil’s eyes move to where I stand. “But Walker and I have been connected for over twenty-five years. We just didn’t know it.”

She explains the discrepancies between the story she was told about the circumstances of her father’s death and the autopsy results, then moves on to the scribbled name she found in the documents from the cold case archives.

“I saw that too.” Ruth glances at Trevor. “I found it the day of the shooting. But we didn’t know who Shelley was, and decided not to mention it until we could talk to Titus and he could do some research. Then everything went to hell and it didn’t seem important.” Ruth meets my gaze. “I’m sorry. I probably should’ve told you right away.”

I shake my head. “It wouldn’t have mattered. No way could we have known who Shelley was.”

“Who was she?” Trevor asks.

“Not a she.” Sybil stands a little taller. “Shelley was what everyone called my dad.”