“Actually,” Zeke said, the thought only just occurring to him now. “Sybil, have you heard from her since…then?”
Sybil frowned, and Zeke loved the way her face shifted when she was really considering something. He knew this wasn’t the time or the moment, but he liked this so much about her: that when she took you seriously,she took you seriously, and you never doubted it. So many people in his life were part smoke, part mirrors. Not her. Never her. She could be overbearing, sure, and he felt guilty that he snapped at her last week, but that was his shit, not hers.
Sybil unlocked her phone and checked her texts.
“No, now that you say that…” She met his eyes again. “I think we’ve been so wrapped up in our shock these past few days that it didn’t occur to me.” She paused. “Also, early on, remember, Zeke? She left that one time. But she came back. And I don’t think she liked us, well, monitoring her. She’s an adult, after all.”
Simone exhaled, long, exhausted, uncertain.
“Right, I don’t think my dad was actually honest with you guys,” she said. She reached into her bag and placed a manila folder on her lap, then ran her hands over it as if it were precious to her.
“How so?” Sybil asked. “And even if he wasn’t, that’s okay. We met him because we were all awake in the middle of the night with our own problems. He didn’t have to share them all with us.”
“My dad didn’t really run a candy store.”
“What?” Zeke said.
“Well, that’s okay too,” Sybil talked over him. “What you do for a living isn’t the gravest of lies.”
“No,” Simone said, firmer now. “What I mean is my mom did own the candy store. It was her thing. When she died, my dad couldn’t bring himself to sell it, which was just as well.”
“I’m confused,” Zeke said. Sybil raised her eyebrows at him as if to perhaps hush him up and let Simone speak. She reached over, placed a hand on his forearm and let it rest there. He stared at it, hoped she never retracted it.
“Sorry, I’m all over the place,” Simone said. “What I’m trying to say is that my dad was former FBI.”
“Oh,” Sybil said, a line forming between her brows. “But, I guess, I mean, that’s still okay, I don’t mind that he didn’t tell us. He was entitled to tell us whatever he wanted.”
Simone sighed out of what Zeke took to be exasperation. She opened the folder on her lap.
“My dad had to retire four years ago. He had a heart attack. I don’t know what he told you, probably not that either. The stress of the job and maybe with my mom gone, I don’t know, it was too much. And he promised me that he was done with his casework, reallywasmoving on and managing my mom’s store, putting the investigative stuff behind him. But he didn’t. Or he wasn’t.”
She pulled out a glossy photo of a family, handed it to Sybil, who held it between her and Zeke, who pressed himself closer to examine it. There were seven of them, dressed in what Zeke thought of as religious clothes, something like what the Amish would wear, if he remembered correctly. Sybil reached for her reading glasses from the coffee table and pulled the photo closer. Then Zeke heard her gasp, and her hand flew over her mouth. Of course he didn’t see what she was seeing.
“Is that—” Sybil turned toward Simone.
“Yes.”
Zeke was too embarrassed to ask whatitwas.
“Four years ago, their…I’m not sure what the exact definition was, but their cult? Their church? It burned down. My dad had been investigating corruption, or, I don’t really know, abuse or maybe money laundering; I’m sorry, I didn’t live with him then and am only figuring out what I can now.”
“Her parents—she said it was a farming accident. It was a fire?” Sybil said, already putting together jigsaw puzzle pieces while Zeke was still staring at the picture on the front of the box. Betty. Were they talking about Betty?
Simone shook her head. “I really don’t know the details. I know that they never solved who did it, and I remember my dad refusing to let it go. Richard, his partner, forced them to close the case because there were other fish to fry. I can still hear my dad arguing with him about that. ‘Richard, I don’t give a shit about frying other fish!’ But—” She paused, gestured to the picture. “I don’t think it’s a leap to say that he never did.”
Sybil placed the photo on her lap and turned toward Simone. “You think he knew who Betty was?”
“I’m sorry,” Zeke said. “Which one is Betty? I don’t mean to be slow but—”
Simone reached for the picture. “Right here—” She jabbed her finger at a girl maybe around ten or twelve standing at the edge of the rest of the family. She had a mop of brown hair and sad eyes and posture like she wanted to make herself curl up and disappear.
“That’s her,” Simone said. “That’s Elizabeth Jones. And there is zero chance in a million universes that my dad wasn’t onto that, that anything about this”—she flung her arm into a circle—“could be a coincidence.”
37
Night Thirteen
Sybil
