BooksBarbecue
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?

When I wake, my eyelashes are sticky and damp. I’ve been crying in my sleep. Remembering, reliving. Replaying the trauma in my body, where it’s been all this time.

I dress numbly, forgoing a shower while Cricket paces, reading my mood. I’m out of coffee, out of food, too. Shoving my feet into boots, I drive into town, barely feeling the steering wheel under my hands, the air on my skin. Little flashes of the roundhouse dream wriggle through the emotional fog, Hap trying to reassure me that I’m not alone. But I sure feel like I am.

This case is getting away from me, and from Will, too. What he was saying in his office the other morning after we got the call from the medical examiner, that he might not be strong enough, or good enough. I wonder if he might be right—about both of us. Maybe we’re not ever going to solve this. Maybe Cameron will stay lost, and her abductor will go unnamed, and history will repeat itself.

—

Leaving Cricket in the car, I walk into the GoodLife and feel bombarded by the cheerful chaos, bright light and noisy conversation, and the smell of milk becoming sweet foam. I order coffee and a breakfast burrito and then head over to the message board by habit, to wait for the food. Cameron’s missing photo is still here, plus the new one with the words FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED screaming from dead center. The rest is innocuous, including a posting for Sam Fox’s free community yoga class, but something has struck me suddenly. A high bell has begun to ring steadily in my inner ear, a warning sound, because this is how Cameron’s abductor could have reached her. Exactly this innocuously—hidden in plain sight.

My eyes flick over the board, across the top and down the side, a feeling of dread and inevitability rising. And then I see the posting I’m looking for, in the lower-right corner, simple and spare, printed on Kelly-green copy paper:

ARTIST’S MODEL WANTED

No Experience Necessary

Will train if other requirements met

It was here three weeks ago, when I found the listing for the cabin, but I didn’t register it. Haven’t even remembered it until now. The phone number at the bottom is local and repeated in a fringe of tear-off tabs, no name. All but two of the tabs are gone. Artist’s Model Wanted…Will Train. Twelve words, three lines, all without heat or persuasion or intensity—which is why the posting is so potent. It’s like the kill site I saw in the woods that day, simple and incredibly effective.