The Creeping

“Probably just some jerk-off tourist camping at one of the sites,” Zoey says. “He was just trying to freak us out. I should have gone after him with my Mace.” Picturing Zoey taking off after the stranger with her key-chain spray can of Mace loosens the knots in my stomach.

I open my mouth to say that he looked familiar, then shut it. Better not to eek Cole and Michaela out. I’ll tell Zoey when we’re alone. I’m sure it’s nothing. If it had been any other day, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it. We would have laughed and flipped him off; maybe if we’d been buzzed on pink wine or beer, Zoey would have flashed him; Michaela would have called him “crack-atoa,” her signature insult. It’s only that today is . . . well, today. Superstitious, I know. I’m not usually such a mental patient. It’s like the more time that passes, the less of a grip I have.

It’s totally my fault. I should have left well enough alone, but I got curious last year. The same detectives who were assigned my case eleven years ago come by every September. Detectives Shane and Berry go through the same routine with me. First we exchange hi-how-are-yous, because at this point they’ve watched me grow up. Then the same old questions: Have you remembered anything new? Seen any faces that look familiar? Dreamed about that day? Recovered any memories from the years before? The answer is always no. It doesn’t even faze them anymore.

Sure they were hopeful the first few years, eagerly leaning forward, notepads at the ready; now they’re resigned. Haunted, even—if I’m being all touchy-feely about it—with their dead stares. They don’t bat an eyelash when I have nothing new for them. It’s almost a relief that the whole thing can just be left so far behind us it’s ancient history.

But last September I screwed up. I let curiosity get the better of me. I wanted to read the case file from that day. Burly and gray-haired Detective Berry had launched into a rant about moving on and talking candidly with my parents, but Shane, who was only a twenty-something newbie when Jeanie was taken, gave me an infinitesimal nod when Berry bent to stow his notepad in his briefcase.

Two days later, when I reached my car in the school parking lot, Detective Tim Shane was there waiting for me. His dress shirt was rumpled and hastily tucked into his jeans, mustard stains dappled his collar, and a badge hung loosely from his belt. In the sunlight the creases carving up his forehead and eyes had the look of thin and crinkled pastry, like his skin was the buttery top layer of a croissant.

“Don’t make me regret this, okay?” he said, slipping me a manila envelope. “And don’t let your folks know I gave it to you.” I tried to squeeze out a thank-you, but my hand shook so badly taking the envelope that we both fell silent. “You have a right to know,” he muttered. I held on to that envelope, unopened, for five days. I don’t know why it took me so long to muster the guts. I knew the cops didn’t have a lot of evidence. There were only statements taken from me and Mrs. Talcott. No neighbors who shared the private drive were home that day, and no one reported seeing anything suspicious for days before or after. It was as though Jeanie had disintegrated. Or like she’d never existed in the first place.

I finally gathered the nerve on a Friday night when Dad was working late in Minneapolis. Mom left us when I was twelve, so I didn’t have to worry about her. I told Zoey I was sick so I wouldn’t be expected to make the rounds to weekend parties, and barricaded myself in my room.

At first I was crushed that there wasn’t anything I didn’t know about in the file. Every detail had been plastered on local and national newspaper front pages. I crumpled up the twenty pages, pissed that I’d been so stupid, until a yellow carbon copy slipped from the envelope. It was the transcript of my interview the day of Jeanie’s disappearance. There in my cramped bedroom, wedged between my antique dresser and the wall, I read with mounting terror what I repeated 255 times during the course of my hour-long interview with Berry and Shane. It was Shane who kept count.

It’s the only thing I told the cops until I lapsed into a silence that lasted a week. After that week was over, I emerged from my quiet as though nothing had ever been wrong. I started first grade with all the other normal kids that fall, showed no signs of post-traumatic stress, and by all grown-up accounts, developed like a healthy and happy kid. Translation: I’m not nuts.