Every five years, a student disappears.No one talks about them.And the desk is empty again.Sixteen-year-old Payton is thrilled when she's accepted into a prestigious summer arts program. With her camera in hand and her enormous Saint Bernard, Rolly, never far away, she expects a summer filled with photography, new friends, and the chance to prove she belongs there.Then she notices the desk.Old, battered, and strangely out of place, it sits empty in a classroom where no one is allowed to use it. Beneath its scarred wooden surface are names carved into the wood-names belonging to students who attended the program years before.Students who disappeared.One every five years.When Payton begins asking questions, the instructors grow nervous. Conversations stop when she enters the room. Doors that should be unlocked suddenly aren't. And a shadowy figure known only as the Phantom seems to be watching her from the abandoned halls of the school.The closer Payton gets to the truth, the more she realizes the adults around her know exactly what happened to those missing students.They're just too terrified to talk about it.But Payton has never been particularly good at leaving a mystery alone.And when the Phantom finally chooses again, she discovers the truth behind the empty desk is far more disturbing than any ghost story.Because sometimes the missing aren't gone.Sometimes, someone has made sure they can never come home.THE EMPTY DESK is a chilling standalone installment in Payton's Paranormal Encounters, a Young Adult paranormal mystery series featuring eerie secrets, dark mysteries, and one very determined girl with a very large Saint Bernard by her side.Some artists never leave.
