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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?

At 7:09 she called her husband, Troy Curtis, who was at their second home in Malibu. The call lasted three minutes. The second she hung up she called 911. Will’s office had responded in minutes. Before 8:00 a.m., they were interviewing Emily and sweeping Cameron’s room for clues. But there weren’t any.

The property had a security gate with a video camera that held a week of film. On the night of the twenty-first, the tape showed only typical comings and goings. Emily drove in around six that night, and then there was nothing else until the 911 call and the arrival of Will’s team. When they searched Cameron’s room and the rest of the property, there were no signs of a break-in, and nothing significant was missing. According to Emily Hague, Cameron had always saved her allowance and had at least a few hundred dollars in her room, but apparently it hadn’t been touched.

—

This is all I have and it’s almost nothing. The simplest explanation is that Cameron chose to run. She disarmed the alarm and bolted sometime in the night, out the front door and through the woods, avoiding the main gate with its camera. It happens all the time, kids throwing off their parents’ homes like shed skins, moving on to something or someone that promises freedom. One version of that freedom is black and permanent, like the bluff a hundred yards from Cameron’s front door. She could have walked right off of it, her body carried away by the current or ravaged by sharks, erased with purpose, her escape driven by an inner pain no one could see or even guess at.