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Back When the Stars Go Dark Save as PDF
Chapters (83)
  1. Epigraph
  2. Maps
  3. (prologue)
  4. Part 1: Signs and Vapors
  5. (one)
  6. (two)
  7. (three)
  8. (four)
  9. (five)
  10. (six)
  11. (seven)
  12. (eight)
  13. (nine)
  14. (ten)
  15. (eleven)
  16. (twelve)
  17. Part 2: Secret Things
  18. (thirteen)
  19. (fourteen)
  20. (fifteen)
  21. (sixteen)
  22. (seventeen)
  23. (eighteen)
  24. (nineteen)
  25. (twenty)
  26. (twenty-one)
  27. (twenty-two)
  28. (twenty-three)
  29. (twenty-four)
  30. (twenty-five)
  31. (twenty-six)
  32. (twenty-seven)
  33. (twenty-eight)
  34. (twenty-nine)
  35. (thirty)
  36. (thirty-one)
  37. (thirty-two)
  38. (thirty-three)
  39. (thirty-four)
  40. (thirty-five)
  41. (thirty-six)
  42. (thirty-seven)
  43. (thirty-eight)
  44. (thirty-nine)
  45. Part 3: Time and the Maiden
  46. (forty)
  47. (forty-one)
  48. (forty-two)
  49. (forty-three)
  50. (forty-four)
  51. (forty-five)
  52. (forty-six)
  53. (forty-seven)
  54. (forty-eight)
  55. (forty-nine)
  56. (fifty)
  57. (fifty-one)
  58. (fifty-two)
  59. (fifty-three)
  60. Part 4: The Bent Grove
  61. (fifty-four)
  62. (fifty-five)
  63. (fifty-six)
  64. (fifty-seven)
  65. (fifty-eight)
  66. (fifty-nine)
  67. (sixty)
  68. (sixty-one)
  69. (sixty-two)
  70. (sixty-three)
  71. (sixty-four)
  72. (sixty-five)
  73. (sixty-six)
  74. (sixty-seven)
  75. (sixty-eight)
  76. (sixty-nine)
  77. (seventy)
  78. Dedication
  79. (acknowledgments)
  80. (author’s note)
  81. BY PAULA MCLAIN
  82. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  83. What’s next onyour reading list?

I put down the book feeling my eyes burn, and watch the dog instead. The tip of her dark nose lightly touches the wall as her belly rises and falls rhythmically, as if whatever life she’s had before now doesn’t take up space or trouble her in the least. She sleeps so peacefully it makes the whole room feel lighter, and warmer.

(thirty-five)

“We’ve got this,” Will tells me the next morning before the polygraph technician arrives from Sacramento to interview Lydia and Drew Hague. “You said you were going to talk to Gray and Steve Gonzales about drumming up support for the search center, right?”

“They’ll be in school all day. I can help you here.”

“We’ve got enough hands on deck. Get some rest and we’ll connect later?”

“Rest?” I ask incredulously. “When we’ve got two missing girls, and maybe three?”

His look tells me to drop it. “It’s just a few hours. I’ll check in with you later.” Then he turns on his heel and leaves me wondering if he’s punishing me for Petaluma and Rod Fraser. Maybe he’s still fuming over missing resources and manpower or maybe it’s some deeper thing, our disagreement over Emily’s polygraph results, or what he said at Patterson’s about my getting too emotionally involved with this case for my own good. Whatever his reasons, he seems to be drawing a clear line, with me on the other side.

I climb back into my Bronco feeling irritated, held in check. “Do you want to rest?” I ask the dog when her head pops up from the back seat.

She shifts her ears forward, widens her eyes, listening.

“Yeah, me neither.”

—

First we drive toward the patch of the coast road that abuts the Curtises’ property. Since my conversation with Emily, I haven’t let go of the theory that Cameron might have disabled the alarm and slipped out her window and through the woods to meet someone waiting there. Someone who’d promised something valuable to her—love, maybe, or freedom from the pressures and upheaval in her home. Someone she mistook for a life jacket when she felt she was drowning inside.

The stretch of road is far enough from town to be isolated, just past a large undeveloped meadow a few miles from Caspar, where only a handful of residents live. The houses I do see as I park along the verge are well concealed behind privacy fences. Even if Cameron’s abductor had idled here at the roadside, waiting for her to appear, it would have been late and dark, with little chance of anyone spotting him, let alone noting the make and model of his car.