The Creeping

“Daniel? Have you seen him? We reached his aunt in Portland, and he hasn’t been there in months.” Shane’s like a zombie scenting blood. “Stella, if he’s in town, he’s a suspect. We’ve been operating under the assumption that he’s estranged from his family.” A car behind us at the stoplight honks. The rain is heavier now, almost hail.

I avoid looking at Shane. “Obviously I haven’t seen him. You know I’ve always felt bad for him. I just mean that his dad is all he has left, and I get that.” Desperate to change the subject, I rush on. “Why didn’t you include Mrs. Griever’s statement in the case file you gave me? She was home the day Jeanie was taken, and not just that, she says there are others.”

Shane pulls the car into my driveway. Only two news vans remain, their reporters huddled under a tarp strung up between trees. “Griever? That old drunk who lives down the Talcotts’ lane? She was barely coherent when we interviewed her. So old that she probably couldn’t make it out of her yard. She said she didn’t see either of you. Stella, she’s just an old woman who tells tales. There haven’t been any other child abductions in Savage in the last sixty years. Whoever the bone belongs to, they aren’t from here.”

The fury drained out of him, he pats his pockets, looking for a pack of cigarettes. “I don’t blame you for looking for answers, but Old Lady Griever will fill your head with nonsense. I’m the police. I can’t solve a disappearance that there’s no record of.” He leans forward and adds in a gentler tone, “Maybe . . . maybe you should talk to your dad about staying at your mom’s during all of this? It could be good to remove yourself from it. This town is only just beginning to react. You see all the vigils.”

It takes all my willpower not to slug Shane in his globe-shaped face. Go stay with my mom? That’s literally the only thing worse than all this Jeanie Talcott gruesomeness. I kick the car door open. There’s nothing else to say tonight. He doesn’t believe Mrs. Griever, but I do. “You shouldn’t smoke or eat fast food,” I yell right before I slam the door in his face. I sprint to the house and jam the key into the door’s deadbolt. Inside I flick all the light switches on and trudge up to my bedroom.

Safely stowed in my bed after showering, I curl beneath my comforter, twining my fingers in the sheets. My insides buzz. I lie awake for a long time with my eyes wide open, too electrified for sleep to find me. I didn’t act like me today. I didn’t do the things I was supposed to. Nothing happened as it should have. Everything that makes sense is dissolving. And yet, somehow, even with the visions of amputated fingers and missing children on a carousel loop in my head, I feel more me than I have in forever. As if I haven’t been me in ages, and I’m just remembering how.





Chapter Twelve


Wake up, my sleeping angel.” There’s a Zoey-sized heap straddling me. I try to push her off, worming my head under my pillow, refusing to open my eyes. She wrestles the covers from me and tosses the pillow on the floor. “Get up. I miss you,” she whines, squeezing my ribs with her knees.

It was only yesterday that I hiked into the woods with Sam, but it seems more like a century ago. “What are you doing here?” I whisper, mouth dry and sticky from sleep.

“Open your eyes and look at me, Stella!” She pinches my cheeks until I give up and peer into the light. She throws her head back, laughing, as she slides off me.

I push myself to a sitting position, rubbing the sore spots where her knees dug into my sides. Zoey’s turned on the overhead, and it’s blinding me. “What is it, Zoey?” She’s probably mistaking my glare for squinting at the light, so I cross my arms against my chest to make certain she knows how annoyed I am with her. She didn’t call or text me yesterday. Cole texted a couple of times—granted, the texts were begging me to meet her and Zoey at a house party.

“Haven’t you missed my adorable face?” Zoey asks, batting her long lashes and framing her cheeks with her hands.

I roll my half-lidded eyes. “You’re the one who hung up on me. You’re the one acting pissed.”

“You know how hard it is for me to admit when I’m wrong,” she says. “But . . . I was at least fifty percent wrong in hanging up on you.” Her blue eyes are wide and solemn.

“So you’re saying we’re both to blame?” I struggle not to laugh at the half-assed apology she’s delivering. It is actually half an ass more than she usually gives.

“No, I mean yes. That’s what I’m saying. That I’m responsible too. Let’s just move on.” She buries her head in my comforter. I sigh loudly.

“Okay, I’m sorry too.”

She pops up, smile bright and victorious. She really is a manipulative heathen. “Get your skinny ass out of bed then, because we’re overdue for a cove day.” I let her haul me from the covers and watch patiently as she digs through the closet in search of a swimsuit she approves of, discarding every other article of clothing on the floor.