When the Stars Go Dark

The interview disturbs Anna—she recalls when she watched her own father, Red, taken away by the police, that trauma three years before her mother overdosed on Christmas Day. Anna drives back to Mendocino and heads to the community center. She admires Gray’s collection of photos and drawings about Cameron. As the townspeople arrive, Anna notices the tension in the body language between Will and his wife.

Although the media turnout is disappointing, the event goes smoothly as first Will and then Troy, Cameron’s father, speak. They encourage the townspeople to help in the search. After the program, Tally introduces Anna to her husband, Sam, an Indigenous American who uses a wheelchair and operates a successful yoga studio. Sam intuitively picks up on Anna’s frustration. He suggests Anna could help the case by sharpening her mind-body connection.

Will invites Anna to his studio apartment, a sign to Anna that he has separated from his wife. The two enjoy some chilled vodka as they discuss connections between the disappearances of Cameron and Shannan and whether both girls had been sexually abused.

Feeling the vodka, Will confides in Anna his obsession over never solving Jenny’s murder 20 years earlier: “I’ve always thought the authorities missed something” (243). He shows Anna his boxes of files on the case. He is frustrated because, despite his diligence, which has cost him his marriage, he still knows nothing. As they talk, Will edges closer to Anna until finally he kisses her: “It’s not sex he wants at all, but a lifeline” (246), Anna surmises. The phone interrupts the awkward moment—helicopters have spotted Shannan’s car north of town.

They drive the hour to Montgomery Woods and join the recovery team. The car is little more than a “blistered hulk” (248). It had been set on fire, but the rear of the car is intact. They find Shannan’s body in the trunk. Lacerations and burns indicate she was tortured before being strangled. The investigators note that whoever started the fire was careful to bank the perimeter of the car to avoid starting a forest fire. They conclude that whoever they are looking for has a background in forestry.

Anna, as she watches, remembers hiking through Montgomery Woods with Hap and how he encouraged her to rely on her wits and not on him whenever they hiked. Once he challenged her to lead them back to their parked car from a hike deep in the woods. She did.

The next day the coroner confirms strangulation as the cause of Shannan’s death. Will notes that strangulation was Jenny’s cause of death. His suspicions still focus on Drew, Cameron’s uncle, who as a vineyard operator would be comfortable in the outdoors. Anna demurs. She thinks the perpetrator has a psychological condition and, sensing her “troubled” psyche, sought Cameron for comfort: “What if Cameron sought him out instead?” she theorizes (258). What if Cameron believed she could help her own killer?

Anna admits how, back in San Francisco as lead detective in cases involving horrific acts against children and teenagers, she would identify with her victims so strongly that she “lived and breathed them” (262). One case haunts her—a father who killed his six-month-old son and then hid the tiny body in a freezer amid slabs of deer meat.

The investigators now piece together a profile of Shannan’s killer: most likely male, physically strong, familiar with the woods, and with a background in the military or firefighting. The possibility of links to Cameron raises alarms about a serial killer. That anxiety increases community awareness and search teams grow bigger, now targeting the woods immediately around the Curtis home.

As Anna looks through the photos Gray assembled, she notices one in which Cameron is posing out in the woods in an outfit that is strikingly “sexy” as if the photo had been staged. Anna recognizes the spot where the photo was taken. Anna thinks hard, tries to channel Cameron’s help: “Talk to me, Cameron. Please” (274). It comes to her; she asks Gray whether Cameron had ever thought about modeling as a career. He is not sure, and Anna heads to the site of the photo shoot.

Anna remembers a story that Hap shared. During his time as a forest ranger, a boy accidentally shot his brother during a hunting trip. Shocked over what he had done, the boy hid the body in a cave and, uncertain what to do, stayed and stretched across his brother’s body for more than a day. Rescuers the next day confirmed that the boy had saved his brother: His body weight created a perfect tourniquet to prevent the wounded brother from bleeding to death. Anna’s thoughts turn dark: It was just two months after she left for college that Hap walked into the woods for a hike and was never seen again: “No drama or fanfare. No goodbye” (278).

Anna joins the community search efforts near Navarro Beach. Anna sees Emily and asks whether Cameron had expressed an interest in modeling. Emily says Cameron did not and that Emily would never have let her daughter go into that industry.

Anna pursues a hunch and asks Emily whether Cameron’s behavior ever dramatically changed. Emily admits Cameron had a difficult fourth grade and had been home most of the school term with mono, which doctors suggested then might have been caused by stress. Anna pushes. Emily reveals that the year before the family had several reunions at their Malibu beach house and that family had been coming and going. Cameron had her own bedroom. Emily is alarmed that Anna is suggesting someone in the family may have molested Cameron. Ruling out her father because of his poor health and her brother because of his responsibilities at the vineyard leaves only her husband, Troy.

Will catches up with Anna. Will tells her the search teams found a wad of money near Shannan’s car, so robbery was not the motive. They also found a camera and developed the film. They are all shots of Shannan. In one, she is wearing a fur coat, exactly as Tally had suggested. Anna shares what Emily told her, and Will decides that Drew needs to take another polygraph.

That night in Anna’s cabin in front of a fireplace and over shots of Jack Daniels, Will tells Anna that Drew’s latest polygraph had been inconclusive. After Will leaves, Anna falls asleep and dreams of a ritual among the local Pomo in which ghosts were exorcized through dance and music. She then spots Hap, who assures her that she has found Cameron and that she is here, he says, spreading his hands to indicate the Pomo dance: “She’s been here the whole time” (298).

The next morning, her dream weighing on her, Anna heads to the coffee shop. Among ads posted on a cork bulletin board, she happens to spot an ad for an artist’s model. The ad includes a phone number.

Anna is intrigued. She goes to the police station and has the phone number tracked. It belongs to one of the studios in the Mendocino Art Center, just blocks away. She experiences an epiphany: the killer hidden in plain sight. Leaving a message for Will to join her, she drives to the Center alone.