The Creeping

Two minutes later Shane’s holding the passenger-side door of his car open for me and placing my small overnight bag, stuffed with the few items Dad brought to the hospital, at my feet. I manage to buckle the seat belt across my chest without yelping. Shane’s cleared away all the fast-food wrappers from the floor, but the upholstery still reeks of cigarettes, and there’s a new coffee ring on the dash that shines sticky and fresh.

“So you and that Worth kid are a real item now?” Shane asks, steering out of the almost empty parking lot. A droplet of sweat runs from his hairline down his temple. I crack the window to let the June breeze in.

“We have ten minutes before my house and you want to waste it on who I’m dating?” I raise a quizzical eyebrow.

“No, I’m stalling.” He looks at me for a long second, trying to determine my condition. Am I too broken to tell the truth to? I wave impatiently for him to continue. “We found Caleb.”

“What?” I strain against my seat belt.

Shane keeps his gaze on the road. “A fisherman spotted tracks along Blackdog River early this morning. He followed them and found Caleb huddled in the hollow trunk of a fallen tree. Hadn’t had water or a thing to eat for two days.”

I sit up straighter. “What did he say?”

“He hadn’t had any water or food while he was out there,” Shane parrots himself.

I knock on the dashboard. “Yeah, hello, I heard you the first time. What did he say?”

“It’s more complicated than that. He can answer our questions, sure, but he’s . . . unwell.”

I can tell by his reluctance that he doesn’t want to continue. “Whatever it is, I can handle it, Shane.”

He takes a deep breath. “He’s painted a detailed picture of his involvement with Daniel. He reached out to Daniel on his way back to Savage. He only came back because he saw the coverage about Jane Doe. Daniel told him shortly after he arrived that he killed his mother to keep her quiet. Caleb made no effort to tell the police. He and Daniel conspired to frighten you off trying to remember Jeanie’s death. He confessed to having Officer Reedy, who we’ve learned is a previous acquaintance of Caleb’s, help by distracting his partner from watching your house when Caleb left the strawberries on your porch. Apparently, he knew Caleb and Daniel were on their way, and he insisted on a coffee break.”

I drop back into the seat, wincing at the sting in my shoulder. Daniel and Caleb were pulling the strings all along. They left the lifeless strawberries on my porch. Caleb could have used one of Zoey’s many misplaced keys to let himself into my house; Caleb and Daniel rearranged the photos. Caleb threatened to tell my dad and the cops if I continued pursuing Jeanie’s killer. They were trying to scare me off the investigation. Now that I really think about it, the only time Daniel cooperated with me was to bring me to Griever’s. Daniel believed Griever had Jeanie’s body; he hoped she’d implicate herself. He didn’t know she’d tell us about the others or send us after monsters.

“Reedy’s claiming he was blackmailed. Caleb has some incriminating pictures of him smoking marijuana at a party. Daniel learned about them and seized the opportunity,” Shane rumbles on. “There’s something else,” he warns, sizing me up again out of the corner of his eye. “Under the stress of recent events and confronting you and Zoey, he’s showing signs of a psychosis. It’s situational, meaning that he’s capable of having lucid conversations on some topics, but when discussing others, he’s delusional. He’s talked a lot about a monster. He doesn’t have a name for it like you do. He said the monster chased them through the woods when they left you at the lake. It attacked Daniel.”

I slump back. That’s what happens to those who believe in what couldn’t possibly exist. Caleb rocking and ranting. Caleb crying that it was the monster setting them up. He was always more fragile than Zoey. Daniel let him believe that Jane Doe was proof that it existed. Daniel called me a loose end; Caleb was one too. I don’t want to give Daniel too much credit, but I think he was handling Caleb. As long as Caleb lamented a beast, no one would believe him if he confessed about Jeanie. Manipulating Caleb was Daniel’s fail-safe.

“Stella,” Shane says gently. “We found Daniel about a half mile up the river in a ravine. He’d been dead for a day. Impaled by a branch. The techs who recovered the body found hair and blood on it. They believe it’ll confirm that Caleb killed him.”

I exhale shakily. “Daniel is dead? Caleb killed him?” My voice is hollow. The words are eely, hard to grasp in my head. In a way Daniel killed himself. Daniel fed and stoked Caleb’s belief in the monster by lying to him about Jane Doe. “Did you search the Talcotts’ old house? Did you find the missing piece?”