Chapters (83)
- Epigraph
- Maps
- (prologue)
- Part 1: Signs and Vapors
- (one)
- (two)
- (three)
- (four)
- (five)
- (six)
- (seven)
- (eight)
- (nine)
- (ten)
- (eleven)
- (twelve)
- Part 2: Secret Things
- (thirteen)
- (fourteen)
- (fifteen)
- (sixteen)
- (seventeen)
- (eighteen)
- (nineteen)
- (twenty)
- (twenty-one)
- (twenty-two)
- (twenty-three)
- (twenty-four)
- (twenty-five)
- (twenty-six)
- (twenty-seven)
- (twenty-eight)
- (twenty-nine)
- (thirty)
- (thirty-one)
- (thirty-two)
- (thirty-three)
- (thirty-four)
- (thirty-five)
- (thirty-six)
- (thirty-seven)
- (thirty-eight)
- (thirty-nine)
- Part 3: Time and the Maiden
- (forty)
- (forty-one)
- (forty-two)
- (forty-three)
- (forty-four)
- (forty-five)
- (forty-six)
- (forty-seven)
- (forty-eight)
- (forty-nine)
- (fifty)
- (fifty-one)
- (fifty-two)
- (fifty-three)
- Part 4: The Bent Grove
- (fifty-four)
- (fifty-five)
- (fifty-six)
- (fifty-seven)
- (fifty-eight)
- (fifty-nine)
- (sixty)
- (sixty-one)
- (sixty-two)
- (sixty-three)
- (sixty-four)
- (sixty-five)
- (sixty-six)
- (sixty-seven)
- (sixty-eight)
- (sixty-nine)
- (seventy)
- Dedication
- (acknowledgments)
- (author’s note)
- BY PAULA MCLAIN
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
I move closer to the beanbag, kneeling with my hands out. “And Gray?”
“Yeah?”
“None of this is your fault.”
(twenty-two)
When Will and I get back to the car, we’re silent. For the longest time, he doesn’t even start the engine. Just outside my window, a eucalyptus branch stretches against the glass, making the clustered green-gray leaves look magnified, pearled with raindrops.
Hap had always called them gum trees. Once he told me there are seven hundred varieties of gum tree in Australia alone and that they can make their own fog, a blue haze that’s created when their compounds vaporize in warm air. Seven hundred varieties of a single genus and counting, and yet human lives seem destined to repeat the same terrible patterns over and over, as if there is only one way the story can possibly go.
“Does this type of scarring for sure mean sexual abuse?” Will asks at last.
I’m not surprised he’d wonder, even after seeing how upset Gray became remembering the whole ordeal. “Not always. It’s a controversial issue. A lot of providers will tell you scars like these are inconclusive. Others will tell you that most physicians either don’t know what they’re looking at or don’t want to open that door. The most telling thing to me is Cameron’s reaction.”
“That she shut down, you mean.”
“Right. My guess is she’s buried this stuff really deep.”
“I don’t know what that nurse was thinking. It sure seems irresponsible to drop a bomb like that on a kid.”
“Well, it’s complicated. These clinicians see all kinds of things. Not telling her might have been more irresponsible.”
“Is there a legal issue here? Shouldn’t the clinic have alerted Cameron’s parents?”
“You’d think so, but California doesn’t require that kind of disclosure, at least not yet. I’m wondering what we should do with this information. Maybe just sit on it awhile, particularly since we haven’t ruled out Troy as a suspect. What happened when you polygraphed him?”
“No discrepancies. Emily’s results were more interesting.”
“How so?”
“You know these things are fallible. I try not to take them too seriously unless I have nothing else to go on.”
“Right.” Something about his tone trips a faint feeling of unease in me. “What happened?”
“She failed.”
Before I can respond, the radio in Will’s cruiser screeches to life, startling us both. He picks it up, thumbing the receiver. “Flood here.”
“This is Leon, Sheriff. We’ve just gotten a call from Gualala. Apparently a girl’s been reported missing there. Seventeen-year-old Shannan Russo, last seen June second.”
“June? Why is this coming in now?”
“Because of the others, I guess.” The deputy sounds uncertain and also young, maybe not much older than Will was when he first began to work under his father.