When the Stars Go Dark: A Novel

by Paula McLain

  “We do,” Will says. “How did Cameron find out?”

  Lydia’s mouth tightens irately for a moment. “His girlfriend called the house and she answered the phone. Can you imagine?”

  I can’t. “Troy’s girlfriend told Cameron she was pregnant? That’s cruel.”

  “Cruel but effective.” Lydia shakes her head. “Actually it’s inexcusable. Cameron was probably reeling, but we had this completely stiff birthday lunch. Crab salad and flourless chocolate cake. Emily didn’t let anything slip, not a single sign that anything was wrong. But that’s Emily, right?” She sighs meaningfully. “Drew and I haven’t spoken to Troy since.”

  At the sound of Drew’s name, I’m jolted back to reality. With all this talk of Cameron, I’ve nearly forgotten why we came. Maybe Will has, too, or maybe he’s just been biding his time.

  “Cameron disappeared on the twenty-first,” he says. “What was going on for you and Drew that night?”

  “We’d just started harvesting the pinot,” Lydia explains. “We were out in the vineyards until two or three, I think.”

  It’s obvious she means a.m. “Together?”

  “That’s right. It’s all hands on deck from August through October. No one sleeps.”

  “And you started working when that night?” I ask.

  “Just after dark. Around seven.”

  My heart sinks at the detail, not because Lydia has just given Drew a strong and verifiable alibi, but because she seems believable. Neither of these things lines up with what I want right now, which is one solid lead.

  * * *

  —

  Eventually we hear a commotion in the hall, and Drew comes into the library. He takes off a dusty straw cowboy hat and drops it on an end table before shaking hands with both of us. The hat has dampened his sparse mousy hair in a silly-looking ring, pressing it flat. His face is reddened and there are flecks of silt across the bridge of his nose. He’s been working hard, not playing farmer as I supposed, and I feel resentful more than relieved. I want his guilt to be glaring. For this whole scenario to be an obvious sham.

  Will stands. “Mr. Hague. I’m Sheriff Flood from Mendocino County, and this is Special Agent Anna Hart. We’re here about Cameron.”

  Drew sits without flourish. Janice has brought in iced tea on a scrolled silver tray, and he reaches for a glass, draining it in one go. “Horrible business,” he says as he finishes, the cubes clattering like crystal. “And now the other girl, too. In Petaluma.” He frowns.

  “Your wife tells us you were harvesting the night Cameron disappeared,” I step in. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. This is our busiest time of year. Otherwise we’d be doing more to help.”

  “Have you had much contact with Emily or Troy since that night?”

  “No, actually. I…” He flexes one of his hands over the other. “I haven’t known what to say.”

  “We feel a little embarrassed, actually,” Lydia adds. “Tension and disagreements shouldn’t matter at a time like this. A family should stick together.”

  As Drew nods uncomfortably, I find myself looking at him, his damp hair and sweat-lined collar. At his hands, too, which are large and strong. Does he seem like a man who could hurt a fifteen-year-old girl? Or one much younger? My gut is saying he might, regardless of his alibi. It’s just a feeling, completely unfounded maybe. But it’s there.

  “I’d like to polygraph you both,” Will says. “Just standard procedure.”

  “Oh?” Drew looks surprised. “If that’s the way you do things.” He glances at Lydia. “It might be a little difficult to schedule right now. We still have a few weeks left in this harvest.”

  “We don’t have weeks here, Mr. Hague.” I glare at him. “You must have staff who can pitch in if you need to be away for a few hours.”

  I expect him to back down right away, but he doesn’t. His eyes are blue and unwavering. Emily has gotten all the beauty in the family, but Drew has something else. Even in his farm clothes, I can see he’s used to wielding power. Authority. And that he’s rarely challenged.

  “If anyone on my property is working, you can bet I’m going to be there. It’s a code we swear by around here. I hope you understand.”

  “Your work ethic is honorable,” Will says, lingering over the word. “But we don’t have time to be flexible right now. I’ll expect you at my office tomorrow.” He looks at Lydia. “Both of you. How’s eleven a.m.?”

  Drew’s expression sharpens. He’s angry.

  “Of course,” Lydia says without looking his way.

  Janice appears at the door, and Drew leans forward, grabbing up his hat. When he stands, he presses into my body space for just a moment, and I feel a crackle of physical power coming off him. It’s over in a blink, but I have a strange sense that the move is intentional, that he means to lean too close to me—to flex. My muscles read his subtext instantly, tense and on guard. I can’t help thinking of that rape charge during his undergrad years, and how violence against women is almost never about sex, but about domination. About crushing a woman’s autonomy with total control, driven by hate.

  When he’s gone, Lydia walks us to the door. “We’ve been watching the news from Petaluma. I even have a few friends who are volunteering at the search center for Polly Klaas. If getting something similar started for Cameron is a matter of money, we’d like to contribute. Drew and I have already discussed it.”

  Will and I exchange a look. Maybe she’s feeling guilty or ashamed for not doing more right away, or maybe this offer is a veiled attempt at an apology of sorts, repayment for what her husband has done, or who he is. Some wives of sexual predators are silently complicit, while others—a very few—openly collaborate, serving as a kind of pimp for their husbands’ appetites. And then there are those who know and suspect nothing, even when the abuse happens under their own roof, and not because they’re ignorant or lack insight. Many offenders have the uncanny ability to show only what they want others to see. There’s a level of duality—a firewall between discordant parts of their personalities. From our brief visit, there’s no way of knowing where Lydia falls on the continuum.

  “Good of you to offer,” I tell her.

  “We can discuss it more tomorrow,” Will adds. “Thank you for your time.”

  (thirty-one)

  “What the hell was that?” Will asks when we’re back in the car.

  “Damned if I know. I don’t like him, though.”

  “I can’t tell what to think. He’s got the whole midcareer Clint Eastwood thing going. But then you also get the feeling he’s been in a lot of boardrooms swinging his weight around and signing big checks.”

  “And that stuff about no one on his property working if he’s not there? Is he for real?”

  Will shrugs, starting the engine. “He’s got an alibi either way.”

  Unfortunately, I can’t argue. I take one more glance at the house, the stately disproportionate front entrance where the two deerhounds sit in profile. They haven’t moved an inch since we first arrived, as if they’ve been glued in place. An operation like this needs lots of hands to make it run smoothly, but I don’t see anyone around. Maybe they’re all well back in the vineyards, or in the outbuildings, occupied with the crush or whatever goes on by day, but it’s still an odd picture, like an enormous beehive, perfectly constructed and full of honey, but utterly empty of drones.

  “I still wouldn’t rule out Drew for the abuse piece,” I say. “He wasn’t on a tractor back then.”

  “Good point,” he agrees as we head back down the long, manicured drive. “What did you make of her?”

  “Lydia? I don’t know. A few things she said about Cameron seemed pretty insightful. But if she does care, why hasn’t she reached out to Emily and Troy since Cameron disappeared? You’d think she’d be camped out in their living room like families do f
or one another. None of it fits.”

  “Even if it’s the harvest,” he says pointedly. “They don’t need the money.”

  “Exactly. And if they’re pissed at Troy, why not show up and make a stand? Did you hear what Lydia said about Cameron having a change in personality from when she first came? She’s been worried, okay. But why keep that to herself?”

  Will grumbles his agreement as we pull back out onto the main road, where the vineyards run in long lines, on and on in a symmetry of red-gold light. Strings of colored tinsel flicker from wires above the vines, there to keep the birds away, but beautiful in their own right. This is why tourists come to wine country, not just to get tipsy from tiny pours of Cabernet Sauvignon, but to be inside this world, where every surface mirrors back the sun.

  I try to get comfortable for the long drive home, but my shoulders still feel tense and weighted. Will’s radio is tuned to his own department’s air. One of his deputies comes on to report a 10-15, a domestic disturbance. Will leans forward, listening intently until another deputy is dispatched. Only then do I ask him what’s been on my mind for a while. “What are the chances of getting a warrant to unseal Cameron’s adoption file?” I ask Will.

  “Why? What do you think you might find?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m still stuck on when Cameron’s abuse might have happened. If it was Drew, interviewing her birth family might help us eliminate the earlier part of her life. Or who knows. Maybe someone from back then has found her here? Stranger things have happened.”

  “I can try. What did you think of Lydia offering to help with a search center?”

  “If she’s serious, you should have no problem taking her money. But even a big fat check might not help us get the town involved. That’s what’s really working in Petaluma.”

  “We’ve been over this, Anna. I can’t compete with ‘kidnapped at knifepoint.’ Nothing here pushes those same alarm bells. And Polly was clearly a very special girl. You saw. Those people feel personally invested. You can’t fake that and you can’t force it, either.”

  “No,” I have to concede. “But we can work to give people more of a sense of who we’re trying to find. You’ve said yourself that the Curtises have always kept their distance from the community. That has to be part of the problem. What about calling a town meeting and asking for support, just flat out? Do a big shout-out to the media first to get them there. Tell them we have breaking news.”

  “Do we?” Even in profile, his eyes on the snaking road, Will looks annoyed.

  “Maybe we will by then, and if not, we show them our turnout, the whole town coming out for Cameron. We put pictures of her everywhere, and then you stand up and say her name ten times. Twenty times.”

  “It can’t be that easy.”

  “What else have we got?”

  He doesn’t answer. For a long moment the vineyards clip by, green and gold and deep purple. Dusk light is like a soft warm animal lowering its body over the round yellow hills and live oaks.

  “I can reach out to Gray,” I try again, “and Steve Gonzales, too. The kids at the high school have all been traumatized. This might help. They could feel more active and empowered. We can’t just leave them wrestling with those feelings. You know how bad it can get. They need to do something.”

  “I guess it’s worth a try. Troy and Emily might not like this angle, though.”

  Screw them, I want to say but manage not to. “Maybe they’ll come around.”

  * * *

  —

  It’s dark when Will drops me off at the GoodLife. My legs feel rubbery from being in the car most of the day, and the waistband of my jeans has gouged ridges into the flesh of my still-soft stomach. I decide to walk off my anxiety instead of taking it to a barstool at Patterson’s, and the moment I do, I feel rewarded. The wind picks up as soon as I reach the end of Lansing Street, scrubbing over me with every salt-filled gust, rinsing off the day.

  At the edge of the bluff, I look down at Big River Beach and know immediately that it’s the setting of my nightmare, the one with the girl running through kelp and driftwood, being chased or hunted. The night is cloudy and the way is dark, but I can see the first few earthen steps leading down the grooved, sandy bank ahead of me, and start down, ignoring the little flares of warning. I’m isolated here if I fall, or worse.

  And yet I don’t stop. I know this path, or my muscles do, remembering how to drop low and feel along the cliffside for handholds, clumps of bunchgrass, like fistfuls of hair. The last few steps have been washed away, but I scramble past the treacherous spots on my butt, pushing off with my hands to drop the last three feet into damp sand. It gives with a soft wet sound, and I catch my balance, feeling triumphant for a moment. Then: How will I get back up again?

  As my eyes adjust, I can see the beach is empty. Low tide has left a long ragged string of kelp. I can smell it decaying wetly as I make my way to the water’s edge, the sand seeming almost phosphorescent in the gloom, the feel of it loose and creamy under my boots as I skirt pieces of twisted white driftwood. As a girl, I always thought they looked like human bones, and I have to admit they still do.

  Out across the water, the mast light of a night fisherman flashes red. Farther out, another light answers—but that’s just how it looks from here. In truth the boats are at least a mile apart. Neither knows the other, probably. They can’t hear each other either except through their VHF radios, through the static.

  “You okay down there?” a deep male voice shouts from the top of the bluff.

  I jump, startled. Above, his hulking silhouette is faceless, completely without contour. It’s hard not to feel cornered. I look up and down the beach pointlessly, and then call out, “I’m fine.”

  “You look stuck.”

  “No, I’m good,” I shout back at the figure.

  He doesn’t answer, just makes a noncommittal wave, his shadow breaking up and then retreating, thankfully. When I’m alone again, I feel safer, but still have to find a way out of here. The jump I made getting down doesn’t work for up, obviously. Feeling stupid for my predicament, I pace back and forth along the cliff wall, looking for a better way, but there isn’t one. No handholds or well-placed gouges. The wind has picked up and I’m shivering now, too. If I have to sleep down here, I’m going to freeze to death.

  “Hey!” The voice comes again. He’s back.

  Shit.

  “Watch out, I’m throwing down a rope.”

  (thirty-two)

  Even with the rope, the climb is a struggle. The fibers are rough and feel like woody splinters, eating into my palms as I inch my way along the cliff face, banging up my elbows and knees. The muscles in my back contract, and my thighs begin to burn. Why does this look so easy in action movies, I wonder, and who is this guy anyway, some well-meaning neighbor or passerby, or a full-on villain? And how the hell did I end up here, letting a stranger hold my body weight, with no choice at all but to keep going?

  When I finally reach the top, he gives me his hand and pulls me, breathless and full of adrenaline, over the ragged lip of the bluff and onto the path. It’s the Summer of Love hippie guy from Rotary Park. The street behind him is empty, the storefronts flat and dark.

  “I remember you,” he says, dropping the length of rope at his feet. “Not too safe down there, you know.”

  I glance up and down the path we’re standing on, weighing my options if this goes bad, and then back at his face and body, trying to read him. He’s a big guy, big enough to snap a girl’s neck in two without difficulty. Big enough to take me out if that’s where this is going. “I’m fine. I know what I’m doing. Thanks, though.”

  “Last month, a rogue wave took a guy right out to sea. Happened at Devil’s Punchbowl. They come from nowhere.”

  His speech is odd and clipped, the sentences coming in sharp little fragments. But he also hasn’t moved t
oward me or said anything particularly threatening. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’m Clay LaForge. My girl and I were just sitting in the park when we saw you go by a bit ago. When you didn’t come back through, she sent me to check.”

  “Oh.” I can hardly believe what he’s saying. Most people don’t give a damn about anyone who doesn’t directly touch their lives. “That’s…nice of her.”

  “We all got to watch out for each other, that’s what she’s always saying. What were you doing down there, anyway?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking, I guess. Did that person drown? The one out at Devil’s Punchbowl?”

  “For sure,” he says almost cheerfully. “Tourists. Think they know things they don’t.”

  It’s not just his way of talking that’s unusual, I realize, but everything he’s saying. He’s like a character from a storybook, a wizard trafficking in metaphors, or a hermit holding out three magic beans—or, in this case, a rope. The whole encounter is odd, but unless I’m missing something glaring, he doesn’t seem dangerous to me. In fact, he could be useful. He’s not a tourist, but something more than a local, even. He sleeps in the park, or so I assume from the tent I saw the other day, where he can watch everyone the way he’s just watched me—like a TV show he can turn on and off by rolling over.

  “Has anyone from the sheriff’s office come and interviewed you and your friends about the missing girl, Cameron Curtis?” I ask.

  “Why? Because we’re the closest thing this town has to a criminal element?” He might be winking a little as he says it. Even under the streetlamps, the light isn’t good. Either he’s amused or I’ve offended him.

  “You’re outside most of the time.” I try to elaborate. “You know everyone who lives here by sight. I’m thinking you’d catch it if something was off. Or someone.”