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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?

“Did he kill her here or just need a place to deal with the car and body?” I ask, though I know I can’t get an answer. We won’t know anything until the autopsy and crime scene reports come back—and maybe not even then.

“Let’s move to sweep this whole area,” Denny says. “There are rangers’ cabins in these woods, and huts for hikers. If he drove Shannan here in her car, how’d he get out unless he had a vehicle here waiting? Or lives somewhere on reserve property?”

“He could have had an accomplice,” Will throws out. “That’s one of the theories with the Klaas girl. That there was a driver too, someone who stayed in the car while the other went in to take Polly.”

“It’s possible,” I have to admit while, inside, a louder voice tells me, No. That this is one guy with strength enough to lift a body into the trunk, and skill enough to control a serious fire in woods he knows well. Maybe he is a ranger, as Denny suggested. Either way, if he’s the same guy who took Cameron in late September, he waited four months before hunting again. Could Cameron be in these woods, too, I can’t help wondering, hidden somewhere nearby? Is her harrowing ordeal still unfolding, or are we already too late?

I look at the car again, a last stand, unwitnessed. Think of the photos in Karen’s wallet, her story about the fishtail braid. Nothing in the trunk looks like the girl who once wanted to be a Disney princess. But this is Shannan, I know it. And she was tortured before she was destroyed.

(fifty-one)

I haven’t been in Montgomery Woods since I was a teenager. It was late spring and warm, one of Hap’s rare days off. He drove us out of Mendocino along the Ukiah-Comptche road, one hand on the wheel, the other out the window. Several miles shy of the state reserve, on runty, narrow Orr Springs Road, he pulled his Suburban onto the berm and killed the engine. Then he grabbed a daypack from the tailgate, slugged a little water from his hiker’s canteen, and led us straight into the forest, where there wasn’t a trail for miles.

The going was hard, just the way we both liked it. I scrambled after him, twigs stabbing through my jeans, attacking my hands, spiderwebs catching in my hair and stretching across my face. But after a while, I was able to match his stride. My legs had been growing stronger year by year, and my skills had improved exponentially. If at ten I was Hap’s cautious shadow, by fifteen I was deft and capable.