The Creeping

“Let’s go posse!” Zoey yells, waving toward the wood.

With a wink Caleb ducks his head and whispers, “We better listen to her like good little soldiers or else.” Side by side you’d think Caleb and Zoey were twins, they look so much alike—they basically even have the same haircut now.

I fall in step with him and the girls, perfectly aware that I’m ignoring Taylor. Cole jabbers on about how worried she’s been since the bonfire, and for one guilty second, I fantasize about holding her mouth shut so I can talk to Caleb. Caleb was always a way better listener than Zo. Zoey would die to know that I told him about my first kiss (the real one) a full hour before I told her. More importantly, Caleb was in the same grade as Daniel. All of us played together, and if anyone can help me remember, it’s Caleb. And just like that, there’s one more person I can depend on, and he’s had my back most of my life.





Chapter Thirteen


Michaela locks arms with Cole and steers her a few feet ahead, winking at me as she distracts her from Caleb’s dimpled smile. I’ve never had even a fleeting crush on Caleb, since he’s really just a much taller, more masculine, more benevolent version of his sister. By the way girls respond to him—by how Cole yanks her beach cover-up over her head and glances at him coyly over her shoulder in one deft move—I know he has largely the same effect on the opposite sex as Zoey does. He tilts his head to mine and whispers, “Watch it, Zoey’s in one of her moods. You guys fighting?”

I grunt noncommittally and check that everyone else is a couple of yards ahead. I keep my voice low. “I’ve been trying to remember what happened . . . you know, the summer of Jeanie.”

He freezes midstride, with one foot suspended over a fallen trunk. His eyes dart to mine before he resumes the step and offers me a hand to help me over. “Sorry. That took me by surprise. I always thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“You’re right,” I admit. He is. I’m not certain Caleb and I have ever discussed that summer directly, even though he indirectly shut up a lot of guys—including Mike Walt—for teasing me when we were younger. “I definitely wasn’t into obsessing over it. But with the dead little girl and Mrs. Talcott and the cops suspecting Mr. Talcott . . . how can I go on my merry way, pretending everyone’s salvation isn’t trapped in my screwed-up brain?”

“Salvation?” One blond brow lifts up, and he swats at a swarm of gnats we’re traveling through. It’s an unusually buggy afternoon.

“Okay. Maybe that’s melodramatic. Mr. Talcott’s freedom and probably Daniel’s sanity hinge on me doing something.”

“Seriously, Stella, don’t you think it’s safer to stay out of it?” he asks. I open my mouth to argue before he cuts me off. “Just hear me out. You matter to me. Zoey matters to me. My mom matters to me. That’s not a lot of people. You’re like my less bitchy kid sister.” He elbows my side playfully before sobering up. “Whoever took Jeanie, whoever killed that kid in the cemetery, whoever killed Mrs. Talcott, you don’t want a piece of them.” His shoulders rise and fall, and I can tell he doesn’t want to keep talking about it.

The way he refers to Jeanie’s, Mrs. Talcott’s, and Jane Doe’s killers separately rather than saying the killer . . . It nicks my imagination. I get these sudden glimmers of yesterday at Griever’s, and Jane Doe’s body in the cemetery. I’m sure Caleb doesn’t mean anything by it, because he doesn’t know about the Balco girl. Caleb doesn’t know that the crimes are stacking up and they couldn’t possibly be the work of one person.

Zoey spins to face us for two backward strides. “Hurry up, slackers,” she yells, staring daggers at Caleb and waving her middle finger in the air. He picks up the pace instantly. I trot to stay at his side. We’re coming up on the others, and I’m losing my chance.

“Caleb,” I hiss under my breath, and reach out to tug on his T-shirt—there’s a grinning adolescent pop star on the back. I’m sure Caleb thinks he’s oh-so ironic wearing the T-shirt.

Before my fingers make contact, Caleb stops suddenly and spins to face me. “I know what you’re gonna say. You’re asking me to help you.” He sweeps his hair off his forehead and blinks, daring me to argue.

I step toward him and keep my volume low. “Yeah, I am. Just talk to me about that summer and about Jeanie.”

He steps away and says too loudly, “Why? So you can pick up the trail of a killer? So you can get closer to a homicidal maniac? So you can get yourself killed?” There’s desperation in his pale-blue, rounding eyes. “This isn’t rescuing you from your mom’s so we can bum around Chicago for a week. This is dangerous.” His voice takes on a pleading quality that echoes mine.

“Please.”

“No. I love you too much for that. And don’t make me—”