Page 23 of Creeping Lily
And somewhere in his decaying house is a woman who could be Mary Jane Denaud, all grown up. The right age. The same bone structure, blurred and thinned by years of survivingsomething she shouldn’t have had to survive. She moves like a shadow that’s forgotten how to stand in the light.
The locals? They don’t even seem to know she exists.
And then there are the others—transients who passed through Depot and never left. Every one of them had some thread leading back to Walt.
His arrogance was the crack I needed. Weeks ago, the Denauds started getting calls. No words. Just breathing, slow and deliberate, before the line went dead. At all hours. Relentless. Mrs. Denaud swore it was Mary Jane. “I know my own child,” she said. And I believe her.
The PI traced the calls to Walt’s landline. Turns out, he’d been working in Kaneda Ridge the same year Mary Jane vanished. The Denauds had the whole puzzle—but no way to take down the man holding the final piece.
That’s where I come in.
This isn’t a job for a detective. This is a job for a cleaner.
And I am very, very good at cleaning.
Walt Barnaby isn’t the kind of man you reason with. He’s not the kind you take to trial, where rules and loopholes might hand him back to the streets. No—Walt’s the kind of problem you erase.
Now, I’m standing in his house, the air thick with grease and something sour that clings to the walls. The place sags under the weight of years of unkindness and lack of maintenance. It’s the kind of home no one chooses, only endures.
She’s here—the woman who might be Mary Jane. She sets a plate of food on the table, her movements small, precise, like someone who’s learned to exist without being noticed. The child clings to her hip, strapped to her with a worn sling.
I study the kid. Dark hair. Fragile bones. He’s hers—at least by the way she holds him, with a fierceness that saystry me. But bloodlines in a place like this are never that simple.
Walt won’t be missed. No—correction. Walt will be celebrated in absence. And the woman with the hollow eyes won’t shed a tear.
She turns away from the table, her gaze flicking across the room. For one fraction of a second, our eyes lock. No fear. Just a resignation so deep it feels like drowning.
That’s all I need.
The verdict’s in.
Walt Barnaby is a dead man walking.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
“I’ll trade you,”Walt says, lifting the bottle to his lips. The liquor glints amber in the dim light before he tips it back, his throat working as he swallows. When he lowers it, there’s a smirk hooked into the corner of his mouth—sharp, knowing, predatory.
The kind of smirk that tells me this isn’t a conversation.
He’s not offering a deal; he’s staking a claim.
Whether I hand over the keys or not, he plans on taking the Pontiac. And in a deadbeat town like Depot, where people mind their own business until the grave, no one’s going to notice him cruising around in a stolen car—let alone report it.
The ’72 Firebird isn’t just a car. She’s a rare beauty, black paint deep enough to swallow the sun, engine purring like a threat. She cost me more than I care to admit, and I’d sooner set her on fire than let Walt Barnaby put his hands on her steering wheel.
Still, I lean back in my chair, pretending to think it over. My eyes drift around his living room—if you can call it that. The place is a choking mess of old furniture, stained carpet, and walls the color of nicotine. Nothing here’s worth the dust it’scovered in. But I let my expression tilt toward curiosity, just enough to keep him talking.
“What’ll you give?” I ask, voice even.
Walt’s gaze slides sideways toward the sofa. “I’ll give you the girl.”
Deanna sits slouched on the sagging cushions, her body turned toward the baby in her lap. She’s holding his tiny wrists, gently pumping his arms up and down until he giggles, a sound that somehow makes the room feel smaller. She doesn’t even look at us, her eyes fixed on the child like nothing else exists.
“She’s mute,” Walt adds, his smirk widening, “but pliant.”
The words hit like a nail driven straight through my temple. Mute. That’s new. But it explains a lot—why she never spoke on the phone, why the calls to her parents had been nothing but breath and silence. Her mother swore it was her, said she’d know that breathing anywhere, said Mary Jane used to wander the house chanting their phone number like a song when she was a little girl.
“Hardly seems like a fair trade,” I say, keeping my tone flat.
