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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’m the supervisor. Stan Wilkes. What’s going on here, anyway?”

It takes me several long minutes to explain myself and convince Stan to let me take a look inside. Finally he nods, moving with a tortoise’s slow swing, and stands up, brushing off his knees. After eons, he reaches into his hip pocket and produces a skeleton key, small and rounded on top, hanging from a piece of red string.

We go over together, and he opens the door, his big shadow thrown onto the lintel and jamb.

“Go right ahead,” he says.

I step inside just as it strikes me for the first time that even at his age, Stan might be who I’m looking for. He’s a large man, still capable of doing harm. Without breathing, I whirl on him.

He stumbles back, startled. In his widened eyes, I see his age become obvious. It’s in his hands, too, and the shine of his forehead. He’s just an old man, and I’ve scared him.

—

After Stan leaves, I close the door behind me for privacy. The room is a chilly rectangle, maybe twenty by twenty-five feet. Cracks and dark stains mar the concrete floor. Splotches of oil paint. Along one wall, a wooden workbench appears similarly scarred, battered from long use.

The switch for the overhead fixture doesn’t work, but above there are three bubbled Plexiglas skylights. They throw light down in milky cones, where dust motes swim, seeming magnified. Granular. Though the room is bare, there is the sense of residue everywhere. The almost medicinal tang of linseed oil and gouache emanating from the walls. The blackened mouth of the empty kiln. The easel leaning in the corner, one of the support legs dangling as if it’s a broken limb.

I can’t help but wish the space could talk to me, tell me its story. Has Cameron been here, modeling or preening? Begging for love, or for her life? Did her abductor use this yellow slimline phone against the doorjamb to call her? The one with the snaking twisted cord? Is this where she first reached him? Where he first began to draw her into his tormented fantasy?

I’m still fixated on the phone when I hear a fluttering behind me. No one’s there when I turn, but the sound continues, like a small soft hammer on the wall or the pipes, coming from a closet at the back.