The Creeping (27 page)

“If I hadn't recognized the Worth boy's station wagon in our driveway when I arrived home last night, I might not have been so discreet.” He waits for a response. I try not to look as guilty as a kid with her mouth stuffed with candy right before dinner or a girl hiding hickeys under a turtleneck. How could I have forgotten Sam's car in the driveway?

“Dad, I'm—I didn't want to be alone with everything going on, and . . .” I move my lips soundlessly.

He tips his head forward and holds up his hand for me to stop. “Sam is welcome to our couch in the future. Just . . . be safe, Pumpkin. Again, if you need to talk with someone about methods of—”

“Dad,” I cut him off. “I got it.”

He pats me on the shoulder and nods, satisfied. “Well, okay.
Glad we talked.” He stops just over the threshold. “Please don't leave home today, Pumpkin. It's safer for you here.” I stand dumbstruck for a minute more after he leaves. That was literally the most awkward conversation I have ever had. Obviously, I'll be too embarrassed to look Dad in the eyes ever again.

I bound up the stairs, and by the time I reach Sam, my mood's brightened and I'm jouncing with giggles.

“You aren't grounded, are you?” Sam says, perched at the foot of my bed. “I can talk to him. I'll tell him it was my fault I stayed.”

I leap onto the bed and hug him from behind. “My dad doesn't know what grounding is, and no, I'm not in trouble. He says you're welcome to the couch in the future.”

Sam covers his face. “There goes my making a good impression on your dad.”

“Dad sort of already knows you, Sam.”

“Yeah, but it's been years, and now I'm your boyfriend.”

The roller-coaster stomach is back, and I get the sense that I'm free-falling as I hug him tighter.

“I picked up a shift today, so I have to work in an hour.” He twists in my arms and turns to look at me. “Is that okay? I shouldn't have, huh? Now I won't get to see you the whole day.”

I brush the hair from his eyes. “It's fine, really. I should see the girls today anyway. Zoey was pretty messed up yesterday. And I miss Michaela and Cole.”

“Tonight then? Do you think your dad will mind if I come to actually watch a movie?” he asks, the tip of his nose brushing mine.

“Don't forget that we're digging up graves in Mrs. Griever's yard tonight. Will you text Daniel the plan?” I'm undeterred by his reluctant grunt.

Sam leans in for a kiss, and I get this perfect toe-tingling closed-eye moment where I realize I want a bazillion more kisses just like that from this one boy. “Thank you, Sam,” I whisper.

He tilts his head quizzically at me, face still only an inch from mine. “For what?”

“For the corsage.” I hop up from the bed and run to the bookcase. Between my Wildwood junior and sophomore yearbooks there's a small leather-bound journal. I pluck it from its shelf and hand it to Sam. The book falls open. Pressed between its pages is a flattened gardenia corsage, wrapped in a blue satin ribbon, its stem impaled by a long pearl-capped pin.

Sam blinks at it like it's the last thing he ever expected to see again. “Is this . . . ?” he asks.

“I saved it,” I say, more shy than I was about sleeping next to him. “I'm so sorry for the way I treated you . . . for not telling you how beautiful I thought the corsage was.”

For once Sam is speechless. I peck him on the cheek and tow him downstairs. After an embarrassing amount of stalling, he leaves, one of Dad's pumpkin muffins in hand, waving good-bye.

Now the hard part. An hour later, having showered, called Zoey for a ride, and fed Moscow, I'm scaling the wood fence in my backyard. While Dad telling me to stay home on his way out the door didn't exactly inspire me to listen, I do experience a pang of guilt at
completely disregarding him. I'd call him and explain that I need to be with the girls today, but I worry he'll tell Shane. I don't want to contend with the uniformed minions tailing me. I have to confess to Zoey about Sam and me, I have to convince her to dig up graves at Griever's, and I have to remember what happened the day Jeanie was taken.

“Ouch,” I whimper, snagging my arm on the ridge of the pickets. I'm sure there's a cluster of evil splinters sticking out of my flesh. I jump down into my neighbor's yard—the Howards don't have kids and they work, so their house is dark—and scramble to their side gate. I emerge onto the street that runs parallel to mine.

Zoey's SUV waits idling under a mammoth oak. The lowest branches have the look of arthritic skeleton hands reaching greedily toward the cab. Zoey's already popping gummy bear after gummy bear into her mouth.

“A little early for gelatinous sugar, don't you think?” I say, climbing into the front seat.

She taps the lid of an extra-large coffee in the cup holder. “This is breakfast, and these”—she waggles the candy bag in my face—“are dessert.”

“Oh well, in that case.” I hold my hands up in surrender.

She tosses me the bag. “And don't eat all my green ones this time, Secret Agent Slut.”

Mouth full, I raise an eyebrow.

“Don't get me wrong, I liked the old Stella, but I'm in looove with this new badass Stella who scales fences and ditches cops.”
She throws the car into drive, and the wheels spin taking off.

Zoey doesn't usually have a lead foot; she told me once that looking eager equals looking desperate. Today she must not care. I hastily snap my seat belt on as we careen sharp around a corner. It's supposed to storm this afternoon, but you wouldn't know it by the blissed-out sun rays making everything glow.

“I'm thinking the sun wants us to have a cove day,” Zoey says. I squirm under the seat belt at the thought of heading back to our spot after everything that's happened there.

I open my mouth to protest; Zoey shoots me a warning glare. Usually, I wouldn't give in so quickly, but I don't want to piss her off, especially before I confess and ruin her chirpy mood.

“The girls are already there waiting for us, and I brought an extra bikini for you,” she adds.

“ 'Kay, sounds fun.” I muster a teaspoon of enthusiasm. “Zo, I have something to tell you.” I pause, trying to work my words out. How do you tell your bestie you're shacking up with a guy she calls the King of Loserdom?

Before I take a stab at it, she says, “We're making a quick stop. We have to meet Drew's older cousin by the garbage bin at the back of the drugstore.”

I'm grateful for the momentary reprieve. “What kind of back-alley deal are you dragging me to?” I ask.

She pantomimes tipping a bottle to her lips. “He's hooking us up with hard lemonades and a bunch of pink wine so we can have fun this summer.” I give her a sideways look. She flaps her hand at me. “Spare me.
I mean, after all this Jeanie
stuff
blows over, obviously.”

The loaded way she articulates “stuff” inflames me. I can hear her insinuating Sam's name, as though he is only Jeanie blowback and I'll move on once the killer is caught. “I asked Sam to be my boyfriend,” I blurt.

Zoey slams on the brakes. The car screeches bloody murder, almost turning sideways in the middle of a deserted residential street.

“Tell me this is a really effed-up joke, Stella!” she shouts.

I shake my head. “We made out last night.” I don't add that the kissing continued this morning, because I'm not suicidal.

She stares at me, mouth agape like a dead person, lips stained from candy. “Then tell me that you just wanted to mess around with someone who wasn't a total skeeze and that you were only using Sam because he's a peasant and therefore STD free.”

My arms cross against my chest to shield myself from Zoey: from her judgment, her anger, her biting words. A car honks and then drives around us, the driver shooting us a dirty look before speeding up. Zoey flips him off until he disappears around a street corner.

She takes her foot off the brake and we continue toward downtown, where the alley behind the drugstore waits, bearing gifts.

“Well,” she snaps, “say something.”

“Why'd you do it?” I watch her profile change as she puzzles out what I mean. “Why did you make me choose, and why would you tell him? My mom had just left and you thought that was a good time to make me pick between my best friends?” I fight to keep control; all the sticky resentment finally gushing out.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she says sarcastically, flipping her hair from her eyes. “Did you want high school to blow? Did you want to be stepped on by girls less pretty but more popular than you? Did you want to beg for a dribble of attention from some guy who stank of BO and couldn't remember your name? I didn't realize that Stella Cambren wanted to be a desperate freak. Because let's be honest, people think you're a freak for surviving what you did. And without me, without being popular”—she checks to see that I'm looking at her before she smiles wickedly—“people wouldn't be too afraid to tell you so.”

Bleary-eyed, I stare at my best friend, the urge to punch her bitchy upturned nose so strong I form a fist. I've never heard Zoey say anything half as mean to one of her so-called peasants. I take a shaky breath, fighting the vomit washing up my throat. “What you did was shitty, Zoey. It was fucked up. To me. To Sam. We were his best friends.”

She runs her tongue over her shimmery bottom lip. “Whatever, Stella. Tell yourself what you need to. But I made you choose because you were too much of a coward to do it on your own. You
needed
me to make you.” She presses her finger to my forehead right between my eyes. “Just like you need me to be the pusher. If I'm the pusher, then you can do whatever you want without feeling bad about it. Without ever taking responsibility for what you are. Ohhh, poor me”—her lip juts out and she whines in a baby voice—“Zoey makes me treat people like crap to be more popular. Now I have the hottest guys wanting me. Every girl wants to be me. Poor Stella.” She spits my name out.

Zoey's words resonate in me. They bounce around in all the dark corners. I try to resist them; I don't want them to stick; once they stick, I won't be able to ignore them. “Being popular was never important to me,” I whisper.

“Sure, Stella.” She laughs cruelly. “Who would you be if I hadn't pushed you? Who the hell do you think you'd be without me? You'd finally have to accept that you're not a nice girl.” We come to a stop sign in front of the massive white building that Savage's city hall and courthouse share. We're a block away from Drew's cousin. Vaguely, I'm aware of a large crowd on the courthouse steps and the faint roar of them chanting. Men and women, shoulder to shoulder, pumping their fists in the air.

Zoey leans across the emergency brake so she's a few inches from me. Her face softens, and she takes my hand like she's breaking really horrible news. “I made you choose once. But you chose over and over again. Every time Sam came around with some sappy bullshit corsage, or valentine, or playlist, or pathetic excuse to be near you, you chose all on your own.” She catches my wrist as I pull away. Her skin is porcelain and flawless this close; her voice becomes full-throated and velvety. “And if it wasn't for me, you'd have to face it. You're a fucking monster, Stella. You're
just
like me.”

At that moment I make sense of what the mob is chanting, a single word decipherable from their bloodthirsty howls.

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” they chant. I tear my eyes away from Zoey to see Mr. Talcott, in shackles, escorted by a dozen cops up the courthouse steps.

“What the . . . ?” I mutter. Before I think better of it, I swing the SUV's door open.

When I look back to Zoey, her expression has changed, its control melted away, her head wagging at what she knows I'm about to do. She grabs hold of my seat belt just as I'm unbuckling it. “No, no, no.” Her voice goes shrill, losing the venom that laced it a moment ago. “It's a shit-show out there!” She tries to shove the buckle fastened, but I slip out from under it.

“I have to help him,” I shout, jumping out onto the sidewalk.

“Stella Cambren, you get back in this car,” she cries after me.

I push forward into the mob, trying to get to its core, where Mr. Talcott is handcuffed like a criminal. Fragments of Zoey's voice follow behind me, cursing and shouting, trying to keep at my heels. I don't have a plan, and by the time I realize that this was a horrible idea—like pounding-a-strawberry-milk-shake-before-you-get-on-a-roller-coaster brainless—the people around me have started to recognize me. One by one, pairs of eyes attach to me. Some strangers murmur condolences, others scream, “Guilty!” louder, like it's
my
battle cry. Everyone smiles this brainwashed fiend's grin at me, like I'm no longer a seventeen-year-old girl but the main attraction in their circus of horrors.

All the reporters must communicate through some insect-y silent sixth sense, because as soon as one reporter notices me, the whole army turns to torpedo me with questions. I try to spot Shane as I fight forward. If I can find him, explain to him what's really going on in Savage, they'll have to let Mr. Talcott go.

The blond reporter with the shellacked helmet of curls is nearest to me. “How does it feel to know that the man who victimized you and your childhood friend will finally be behind bars?” she yells above the chaos.

My stomach thrashes. This is my fault.
Doubly so.
If I'd been able to tell the cops what happened that day, this wouldn't have gone on for years. If I had told Shane about the other missing girls, they'd know that there's no way Mr. Talcott is involved. Instead I was selfish, spoiled, stubborn. Too worried that I'd be sent off to Chicago. Now Mr. Talcott is being sent off to prison.

Hands reach out, palms petting me, patting me, squeezing me. Everyone trying to console me, not giving me any room to breathe. I can't wade through the crowd any farther. A wall of reporters has formed—at least they won't be hassling Mr. Talcott now—and I can't get past their swarm of cameras. The blonde sticks her microphone in my face again and says, “Any comment on the judge moving Kent Talcott's trial to today?”