When the Stars Go Dark: A Novel

by Paula McLain

  I stand up. “I’m Anna Hart, a new agent on Cameron’s case. I hope we didn’t wake you.”

  “It’s all right.” Emily moves toward the couch looking guarded and delicate at the same time, as if she’s nursing a physical injury instead of an emotional one. “Have they found the girl from Petaluma?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Will responds. “As soon as we have any news, we’ll share it.”

  “I know how hard this must be,” I say. “Can you tell me a little about Cameron?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. Did you have a good relationship? Did she talk to you?”

  “No one’s asked me that yet.” She crosses her arms over her chest as if she’s cold. “I think so. I tried to let her know she could always come to me. But you know, mothers and daughters.”

  “Of course,” Will says to be kind. “But beyond the normal sorts of tension? Anything seem to be going on with her lately? Any noticeable changes in behavior? Or new stressors?”

  “We’ve been over this.” Troy’s hands cover his knees, the fingers clamped tightly together.

  “I know,” Will says. “But we need to catch Detective Hart up to speed. The more you both can cooperate, the more we can help Cameron.”

  “Help her?” Troy erupts. “We’re just talking in circles. How about you get out there and look for her?”

  “Troy,” Emily says, trying to bring him back.

  “What?” His face has reddened. Suddenly there’s nothing at all handsome or composed about him. He’s a cornered animal, lashing out defensively.

  “I promise you we’re taking action,” Will says, stepping in. “My department has had every man on this since day one. We’re hoping to get a fresh team from the U.S. Forest Service mobilized soon, too. Nothing’s more important than finding your daughter.”

  “We all want the same thing,” I add, trying to stay on top of my emotions. It’s hard enough that I already feel too close to this case without Troy’s reactivity. I’m not sure I trust him, or myself for that matter. “We need to focus more on Cameron right now,” I say levelly. “Who she is, what she cares about, what her days look like, who she sees after school. Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” Emily says quickly. “Never.”

  That surprises me. “A beautiful girl like Cameron? No interest from boys at all? Or men?”

  “Men?” Emily looks pained. “Not that I know about. Not that she shared with me.” She glances at Troy. “Us.”

  “What about this teacher you mentioned?” Will presses. “Do you know him? Ever see them together?”

  “The school year had just started, but I met him at curriculum night. I don’t think he was inappropriate or anything, but he did take a particular interest in Cameron. He told her she’s a gifted writer and has been encouraging her poetry.”

  “We’ll follow up,” I say. “What about Gray Benson? Any romantic attachment there we should know about?”

  “They’re just good friends,” she replies. “He’s always been someone Cameron can lean on.”

  “Lean on when?” I ask. “For what sorts of things?”

  “The usual stuff, I guess.” Emily doesn’t look at Troy, only reanchors herself, taking a breath. “We’ve been having some problems. As a family.”

  “That’s no one’s business,” Troy bursts in.

  “Mr. Curtis.” I stop him, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. “If Cameron was under stress at home, we need to know it. You can’t hold back anything that might help the case.”

  “Troy, please,” Emily says. “We have to be honest. Cameron has been affected by all of this. You know she has.”

  From the strain in Emily’s voice I can tell how hard it is for her to let her guard down and show weakness. But that’s true of most people in a situation like this. I’ve rarely encountered a family that could bear the scrutiny of an investigation without falling apart, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once.

  “We’ve been arguing a lot lately,” Emily says.

  “Everyone argues,” Troy jumps in reflexively. “Marriage is no walk in the park.”

  “Cameron’s always been sensitive,” Emily continues. “I think she’s been worried we’ll split up.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Did you try to reassure her?”

  “I tried. Maybe not enough.”

  Will and I share a glance. We’re only beginning to understand the family dynamic, but it’s become obvious that Cameron has been under emotional strain. In that state she could have leaned on someone new or familiar, someone she thought she could trust to help. That need increased her vulnerability. It gave her contour as a target. Made her glow in the dark.

  “Emily,” I say, “at the risk of making you uncomfortable, Sheriff Flood mentioned to me that your brother has had criminal allegations made against him in the past. Has he had any recent access to Cameron?”

  She blanches. “What do you mean by ‘access’?”

  “Is he still part of your life? How often do you see him?”

  “Not as much as we used to. He and his wife, Lydia, live in Napa now. They bought a vineyard and make their own wine.”

  “He’s retired, then?”

  “He’s done very well for himself.” Her tone is stiff, defensive. But I hear something else, too. Survivor’s guilt? Some sort of invisible alliance?

  “Any reason the visits stopped?” Will asks.

  “Just life, I guess. We’ve been busy here.”

  Busier now than when you used to work? I think to myself. Then I ask, “Do he and Lydia have children?”

  “My nephew Ashton is in boarding school out east. Andover.” She pauses, her expression darkening. “What are all these questions about? You’re not suggesting Drew could have hurt Cameron?”

  “I’d love to see Cameron’s room,” I say, closing my notebook. “Emily, would you show me?”

  (eighteen)

  Will stays in the living room with Troy while Emily leads me down a long gleaming hall set with square windows at intervals. Inside each deep ledge, a perfect little bonsai tree arcs out of a terra-cotta pot like a work of art, pale green and sculptural. They don’t look real.

  “Do you have a gardener?” I ask. “A housekeeper?”

  “A cleaning team comes every other week from town. I do everything else.”

  “That’s impressive.”

  “Is it? Most women don’t have help.”

  Most women aren’t Emily Hague, I think.

  * * *

  —

  We’ve reached the end of the hall, a closed door. Emily seems reluctant to step inside, so I go first, respectfully, sensing her strain. Dozens of men have already been here, turning everything over, dusting for prints. They’ve dug through her clothes and books and photo albums, opened every drawer. These violations are necessary, but hard to watch, particularly if Emily is carrying guilt and self-blame. Possibly years’ worth, if my gut is right.

  Cameron’s full-sized bed is neatly made with a simple cream-colored comforter and sham, a small blue velvet pillow shaped like a rabbit. I wonder if she’s the kind of girl who keeps everything neat and perfect all the time, or if Emily was the one to come straighten after the forensics team left, unable to stop herself.

  “You were alone that night, just the two of you?” I ask. “Did Cameron seem okay?”

  “Mostly. She hadn’t settled into a routine with her sophomore year. She was moodier than usual, a little anxious, I guess.”

  “Did she say about what?”

  “I tried not to pry. I have all these books that say teenagers need their space. Was that a mistake?”

  “Teenagers are tricky.” I walk over to the bookcase, gently touching the spines.

  Little Women. A Wrinkle in Time. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Cat
cher in the Rye. There are fairy tales and fantasy stories, graphic novels and poetry. Rilke, T. S. Eliot, Anne Sexton. This is the bookcase of a budding writer. “Where’s the work you mentioned?” I ask. “The stuff her teacher praised?”

  “I’m not sure. She’s always been really private, even as a little girl.”

  “She sorted out her feelings on paper. Did she draw too?”

  “Yes. More when she was young. How did you know?”

  “Just a guess. If we could find some recent writing, we might have more clues to what was going on with your daughter.” I reach under the lip of the bookcase and find nothing, not even dust. I open her desk drawer, and then feel under the edges of her mattress.

  “She might have kept it all in her locker at school,” Emily suggests.

  “Maybe. I’m sure Sheriff Flood’s team has collected all that, but I’ll double-check. Just in case we missed something.”

  I cross to Cameron’s closet, where half a dozen dresses have been pushed to the back. Mostly I see jeans and T-shirts, hoodies and plaid flannel. She likes black and gray and red, Converse low-tops, and high-necked raglan sweaters. Tomboy things. I reach for the hem of a red-checked shirt that looks worn and well loved. It’s so intimate, being here among her things. I have the strongest urge to apologize to her.

  Emily has come up behind me and gathers one of Cameron’s sweaters into her arms, as if with enough warmth and attention she might bring it to life. “I’m trying to prepare myself for the worst, but it’s killing me. If someone’s hurt her, or—” She takes a gulping breath of air. “Do you think it could have been one of my fans? If it’s my fault I just don’t know how I’ll live with myself.”

  “Let’s try not to go there,” I tell her. “If this is a gambit for your attention, more than likely there’d be a ransom note or some sort of message for you specifically.”

  “That makes sense,” she says, seeming slightly reassured.

  “There’s still a lot we don’t know, obviously. Let’s just try to take this one step at a time.”

  “I keep thinking I’ll wake up,” Emily says, her voice full of knots. “That she’ll walk through the door and I’ll know it was all a nightmare.”

  “I know,” I say quietly.

  “What you were talking about before, the abandonment issues, I never really thought about that with Troy and me. Or maybe I did, and just pushed it all away.”

  I nod to encourage her.

  “I should have been more open with Cameron, should have talked to her more. When I was Cameron’s age, my father had an affair with someone from our country club in Bowling Green. In northern Ohio. That’s where I grew up.” She shakes her head, her eyes cloudy, full of unresolved feelings. “Everyone knew he was fooling around. It was horrible.”

  “But your parents stayed married,” I guess aloud.

  “My mother went off to a fat farm. When she came back we all pretended it had never happened. Six months of cottage cheese and peaches. My father gave her a sapphire tennis bracelet, but it slipped right off her wrist. She’d lost thirty pounds.”

  “And then you ran to Hollywood,” I say. “You were how old then?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “But you never really forgave your father.” Again, I’m guessing, but would wager a lot on her answer. “What about your brother? Does he feel the same about your mom and dad?”

  She drops the sleeve of Cameron’s cardigan and begins to finger a loose tortoiseshell button she’s noticed, frowning a little. “Drew has always taken care of Drew. He doesn’t look back. We never talk about those days.”

  “Right,” I say, having imagined as much. “When you moved here from LA, you stopped working as an actress altogether. Was that always the plan?”

  She nods woodenly. “My work was taking up too much of my attention, and the paparazzi were always following us, to restaurants and family outings. We never had any privacy. I thought being up here would be better for all of us. Cameron would get a normal life, and I could finally devote most of my time to her.” I watch her face crumple as she wrestles with the cruel irony of the situation, the guilt and remorse. “What if Cameron has been crying out for help and I just couldn’t see it?”

  The pain in her eyes is terrible. I have the urge to comfort her, and also to wake her up. There’s work to do now.

  “What-ifs will take you down a very dark hole, Emily. Cameron needs you to be strong. Will you help me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Emily, is your husband having an affair? Is that what you’ve been fighting about?”

  Her face is glacier-still and poised, but I can feel fear coming off her body in stiff, solid waves. Inside, she’s at war with herself over how much to reveal. “There’s a woman in LA,” she answers finally. “His assistant at Paramount. She’s not the first.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll need her name.”

  “Why? You don’t think she has something to do with this?”

  “We have to follow up on everything at this point.”

  “It’s just.” She shakes her head. “Troy’s going through a challenging time.”

  “Emily.”

  “Yes?”

  “Enough of that. Enough of making excuses for him.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t even know I’m doing it.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  —

  On Cameron’s desk there’s a red spiral class notebook with star-shaped doodles all over the cover. Emily opens it and tears out a blank page. Once she’s written out the name, she folds the page twice and hands it to me.

  “It might be hard, some of the things we’re going to learn. Ugly, too,” I tell her, “but I believe even the toughest kinds of truths are better than not knowing.”

  She looks fragile, full of doubt. “I hope you’re right.”

  Tucking the page into my notebook, I cross to the large rectangular window that runs half the length of the north-facing wall. It looks out on the driveway and security gate to the left, the lawn bleeding into thick trees to the right. The blinds are made of sheer ecru-colored rice paper, pleated on a pulley system. When I gently push the dangling cords to one side, something catches my eye. Along the bottom of the screen there are tiny scratches, subtle enough to miss if you were looking for something else.

  “Did Cameron ever sneak out of the house this way?”

  “I don’t think so.” Emily comes over to look, strain clouding her beautiful features. “Why would she need to do that?”

  When I press my thumb against the screen frame, it gives instantly, popping forward. Cameron’s removed the screen more than once, or someone else has. “What’s on the other side of these woods?”

  “The coast road. Maybe half a mile away?”

  “When Sheriff Flood’s team combed the property, did they bring dogs in?”

  “They did. What’s going on? I’m confused. Are you trying to say Cameron ran away on her own?”

  “I can’t be sure, but that would explain a lot.”

  “Where would she go? Why?”

  I don’t answer her immediately, waiting to find the right words. Of course Emily’s confused. She’s been mostly blind to her daughter’s pain, but also doesn’t seem to understand her own.

  She grew up despising her father only to marry a carbon copy of him. She pitied her mother but had become her. Had her flight to Hollywood accomplished anything in the end? She’d found stardom, yes, playing a role millions of people loved and identified with, but I wonder if what she’d really been after was an elusive freedom from what she’d left behind.

  In my years as a detective and particularly with Searchlight, I’ve learned so much about cycles of violence in family systems. But cycles of silence can be just as dangerous—and they repeat through generations with startling consistenc
y. A mother’s dieting becomes her daughter’s obsessive control over bonsai trees. Secret glaring infidelity becomes wordless assent and then emptiness. Cameron was exposed to all of this. Silver spoon or no, Emily had fed her powerlessness.

  “I don’t think your daughter was abducted,” I say. My words are blunt, and I’m jumping to conclusions. But there isn’t time for anything else.

  “No,” Emily says so thinly she might be saying Yes. The two words never live all that far apart, I’ve learned.

  “If someone has Cameron now, I think she knows him. I think she went willingly.”

  (nineteen)

  “You okay?” Will asks when we’re back in his squad car, sensing the precariousness of my mood.

  I hand him the folded slip of paper. “Troy Curtis’s girlfriend.”

  “I guess I’m not surprised.”

  “Me neither, but I wanted better. For all of them.”

  Moments later, we pass through the security gate, and the camera’s eye pivots to follow us silently. I think of Cameron in her room, planning to evade that eye, a girl with a secret self, clinging to a hope she may have voiced to no one, and written nowhere.

  “What do you think about Drew Hague being so nearby?” I ask Will. “Tell me more about him.”

  “He was nineteen when the rape allegation was made, a sophomore in college. Said it was a misunderstanding and the girl was drunk. I can’t see how, but his parents made it go away. I’ll bet it cost them plenty.”

  “How old was the girl?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “And it went away? Let’s interview him this week. Napa’s really nice this time of year.”

  He smiles. “Agreed.”

  “Whether or not Drew’s significant here, I think Cameron was complicit somehow. It’s never as black and white as you think in these cases. Sometimes victims seek out their abusers just as intensely as they’re pursued.”