Thornbird

In the days following the dance, Ryan is ostracized at home and school. Jasmine refuses to speak to her, and the Shipleys’ home is tense. Meanwhile, Zed profits from his newfound fame, giving interviews where he reveals he began investigating Ryan after seeing her with an FBI agent. He admits to bribing people: He paid someone to unseal her juvenile records after tracking down the social worker who handled her case, and separately paid someone at her grandmother’s storage facility for access. 

One day, Zed appears at the Shipley house asking for an interview. Ryan confronts him, and he denies sending her the threatening messages. Soon after, Natalie Singh visits Ryan. She reveals the FBI told victims’ families that Gabriel’s suicide note asked Ryan to “watch over the remains” (363), and she urges Ryan to continue with hypnosis. Ryan agrees to keep trying.

At school, Chase confronts Ryan for avoiding him and kisses her. Ryan pulls away, insisting she is “stained” by her father’s crimes and doesn’t deserve happiness. Chase argues that her father’s actions don’t define her, but she leaves for her appointment with Dr. Wilmer. 

During the hypnosis session, Ryan recalls a childhood memory of being in her father’s art studio while he sketched Leah Devereaux, Everett’s mother. She remembers her father sending her away and telling her to keep Leah’s visit a secret. The memory causes Ryan to panic, as she fears this may have been when her father killed Leah. 

Later that evening, Connor comforts Ryan, reassuring her that he understands why she kept her identity a secret. That night, Ryan dreams about a hand-drawn map of birdhouses she made with her father, and she awakens with the sudden realization that the map is the key to finding the bodies.

Ryan finds her mother’s scrapbook in her suitcase and locates the birdhouse map inside it. She identifies the three birdhouses mentioned in her father’s suicide note and draws a triangle connecting them, discovering a fourth birdhouse, the red cardinal, at its center. Early the next morning, she sneaks out with shovels, and Jasmine and Connor insist on joining her. She calls Chase, who agrees to help and brings Everett along. 

In the woods on her family’s old property, the group digs around the red cardinal birdhouse but finds nothing. Just as they are about to give up, Chase stamps out a cigarette and his boot hits a metal hatch hidden beneath the dirt. They descend a ladder into a dark underground passage, where they find a room containing several large birdcages. Each cage has a name plaque identifying the victim, e.g., “Sparrow Lydia,” and inside each cage is a skeleton. A nearby journal chronicles how Gabriel caged the “pretty sparrows” because he loved them and wanted to protect them. The group realizes that there are only five bodies and Everett’s mother, Leah Devereaux, is not among them.

The discovery of the bodies becomes a national news story, and the FBI credits Ryan with the breakthrough. Agent Foster allows Ryan to read her father’s journal, which reveals that Leah Devereaux commissioned a portrait, confessed to having an affair, and often spoke of wanting to disappear; Gabriel called her “a bird that forgot she had wings” (387). Ryan and Foster speculate that Gabriel likely didn’t kill Leah but may have confessed to the murder to help her escape to a new life. 

Later, Jasmine apologizes to Ryan, and they reconcile. That evening, Ryan asks her aunt and uncle what they think happened to Leah. Maggie says she believes Leah ran away from her unhappy marriage with JP. Dan becomes tense and avoids the conversation.

After Chase takes Ryan for a late-night motorcycle ride, she returns home and overhears Maggie confronting Dan about Leah. Ryan intervenes, and Dan admits he had an affair with Leah but insists it ended before she disappeared and that he had nothing to do with what happened to her. 

The next morning, Ryan goes to Everett’s house, worried about him and intending to be honest with him about her uncle. While waiting in his room, she finds her missing locket. Everett appears and explains that his sister, Nikki, stole it. Ryan assumes Nikki sent the threatening messages after finding the “G.T.” initials inside. However, Everett makes a startling confession: He was the one who opened the locket, deduced her identity, and sent the messages.

Everett explains that he sent the threatening messages because he didn’t want Ryan to find the bodies. If she did, everyone would realize his mother was not among them, raising questions he wanted to avoid. He then reveals that Leah’s death was an accident. 

Everett leads Ryan to an old, sealed well on his property and recounts how, at age seven, he got angry after learning that Leah planned to leave his father. Leah tried to comfort him, but he shoved her, and she fell into the dry well. When Everett ran to get his father, JP saw Leah’s body at the bottom of the well and closed the lid. He later sealed the well with cement and let everyone believe Gabriel Thorn was the killer to protect Everett. Ryan urges the guilt-ridden Everett to tell the police the truth.

In the following weeks, the truth about Leah’s death is revealed. Everett faces no charges due to his age, and his father, JP, is charged with the minor offense of obstruction. Ryan donates most of her reward money to a victims’ charity. 

Ryan and Everett say goodbye, and she encourages him to forgive himself. Afterward, she recalls hiding under the bed while her father shot her mother and recognizes she too was just an innocent child who couldn’t have stopped what happened. 

As graduation approaches, Everett defers his football scholarship to Alabama in order to support his sister, Nikki, in the aftermath of the revelations. Meanwhile, Chase renews his offer for Ryan to join him on a cross-country road trip. After the graduation ceremony, Ryan has a final meal with the Shipleys, feeling torn about leaving but knowing she needs a fresh start.

On her way to Nashville, Ryan has her Uber driver stop at the animal shelter. She confronts JP James, presenting two chipped red fingernails she found stuck in the stone at the top of the well. She deduces that his wife, Leah, must have been alive when he sealed her in, and the nails are proof she climbed to the top and tried to claw her way out. JP breaks down and confesses that he knew she was still alive when he sealed the well.

JP explains he initially thought Leah was dead from the fall, but when he lifted the lid two days later, he heard her moan. Alive and enraged, Leah threatened to report JP to the police and take the children away from him. In a moment of panic, JP poured the cement, burying her alive. He insists that he just wanted to protect his children.

Disgusted that he let his son carry the blame for decades, Ryan leaves the fingernails on the counter, telling JP it is his choice what to do with them, and walks out.

Ryan tells the Uber driver to go to Chase’s house instead of continuing to Nashville. Chase is packed and ready to leave on his motorcycle road trip but admits he was waiting for her. When she asks to join him, he confesses his love, which she reciprocates. They kiss, and after rearranging the bike to accommodate her things, they ride out of Starling together. 

A final glimpse of the FreeTheSparrows.com online forum shows a user reporting a sighting of Gabrielle Thorn in Sedona with a handsome man. Another user clarifies that Gabrielle now goes by Ryan Shipley. The forum moderator, RainKing, announces the case is solved and officially closes the discussion thread to allow Gabrielle to live her life in peace.