All the Dark Places

by Terri Parlato

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Snow falls softly outside Molly Bradley's home on a frigid January night.
Inside, half a dozen close friends are gathered to celebrate the fortieth birthday of Molly's psychologist husband, Jay. Everybody loves Jay, Molly most of all. Yet next morning, Molly discovers Jay dead on the floor of his office, his throat brutally slashed. Devastated, Molly tries to make sense of her husband's death. Jay was her rock, the only person who really understood the nightmare she lived through long ago. But shocking revelations are making her question if Jay was all he seemed to be—and whether someone else knows her past too.

Release date: December 27, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

SOMETIMES I WANT TO CAPTURE A HAPPY MOMENT TO KEEP FOREVER. Not like a picture or a video, but a feeling. A feeling that I want to relive for the rest of my life. (Why is it that nightmares insist on the same treatment?) I shudder and move away from the dark hallway and into the light of the living room, where my husband stands in front of the blazing fireplace while he relates a funny story to our friends. They’ve gathered for his birthday celebration and laugh with honest mirth. Everyone loves Jay. No one more than me.

The first week in January isn’t a great time to have a birthday, but since we have no choice in the matter, I’ve done my best to make everything light and festive. Jay’s fortieth is going to be one to remember if I can help it. The Christmas tree still shimmers in the corner, and white candles glow across the mantel, setting the photos there alight. Jay and I smiling and posing, the pictures illustrating our happy three-year marriage.

There’s a sharp contrast between inside and out. Dark falls early in New England in the winter. It’s been as black as coal dust outside the windows for over an hour. Only the glow of a single streetlight across the road illuminates our snow-shrouded neighborhood. We’ve been in the house not quite a year, yet it feels like home. It’s an older place, almost historic, and the nooks and crannies and gleaming woodwork appealed to me right away. Inside, the house is bright, alive with friends and my perfect husband. I feel safe here.

The cake is a work of art and sits boxed in the fridge, hidden until the big moment. Jay didn’t want a huge bash, just our best friends, good wine, and food. It should be a wonderful night. Should being the operative word. I’m praying I don’t spoil it.

I stand at the granite counter, arrange the finger foods I’d ordered from our favorite café on the square. Everything looks delicious, if only I had an appetite. Instead, I pick up my wine, a rich Malbec we picked up on a trip to California last summer, and take a sip. Jay comes up behind me and wraps me in his arms, rests his chin on the top of my head. I love his touch, his strong arms that make me feel safe and grounded, the smell of his woodsy cologne. I sigh, and a tear escapes and runs down my cheek.

“Hey.” He turns me to face him and wipes it away with his thumb. “None of that, okay? We’ve got this.”

I nod, sniff. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He crushes me in his arms and skims his lips half on my mouth, half on my chin, a light reassuring kiss. “Everything’s going to be fine, Molly.”

At six-thirty, our friends started arriving, bringing winter air and a few stray snowflakes with them through the front door. There were hugs and kisses, presents, although I told everyone Jay didn’t want any.

Kim, my best friend since second grade, and her husband, Josh, an old friend of Jay’s, sit on the sofa. We introduced them shortly after Jay and I started dating. Kim is petite, dark-haired, with big brown eyes, a former cheerleader. She’s as extroverted as I am quiet, but we complement one another.

Cal, Jay’s hockey buddy, and his wife, Laken, a tall, beautiful blonde, sit in dining room chairs carried in to provide more seating. Laken owns a day spa in town, and at the door, she’d pressed a thick, cream-colored envelope into Jay’s hand. A massage gift certificate, no doubt. Laken and I’ve gotten to be good friends too.

And Elise and Scott. Dr. Elise Westmore is Jay’s partner in a family therapy practice, and they round out our group. The Westmores are older than we are, both in their early fifties. Jay met Elise in grad school, and they hit it off. He calls her the big sister he never had.

“Who wants what?” Jay asks, the Malbec bottle in his hand. Glasses are raised, and he pours, then slips behind the bar for a second bottle. “Cal, you want a beer instead? I just made a Trillium run.”

Cal smiles and stands. “You know me, my friend. I’ll get it.” He turns to Scott, who sits next to Elise like an elder statesman. “You want a beer?”

“That would be great,” Scott replies.

There’s an easy rapport among the eight of us, and I smile as I carry a tray of mushroom and Gruyère crostini and place it on the coffee table. I refill my glass and try to enjoy the wine and the focus on Jay. I admire his total comfort with people. I guess that’s why he’s such a good psychologist. People trust him, know that they can. His easy smile and kind green eyes don’t hurt either.

We’ve had a few drinks, eaten through half the food. The conversation has moved past the “What’s new?” phase when Laken leans back in her chair, her long legs extending to the edge of the coffee table.

“So, Jay, how’s the book coming?”

He takes a deep breath. “It’s coming, slowly.” His gaze shifts to the fireplace, where the flames snap and flare.

Jay’s writing a book based on one of his grad-school papers. He doesn’t talk about it, or his work, much really. That’s all part of his boring, stuffy side, he says.

“Isn’t it about some pretty creepy stuff? Abnormal psychology and gruesome crimes?” Laken asks.

Jay grimaces. “Some of it’s pretty intense.”

Elise straightens in her chair, eyes on Laken. “Abnormal psychology encompasses a wide range of behaviors, not all of them violent or particularly disturbing.” A momentary tension crackles in the room. Barely there, but I feel it as I look from face to face. Kim leans forward and fills the silence.

“I had an aunt,” she says, swallowing a sip of her drink, “who kept the fur she brushed out of all her dogs in a bag in the hall closet. My brother and I found it when we were kids. Scared the shit out of us. It had been there for like thirty years. Six dogs worth.”

That makes Jay laugh. Kim is good at that. “The mind is a curious thing,” he says and stands, picks up the nearly empty tray. “We need more food!” Something in Jay’s voice has me on alert again. Something’s been on his mind all week, but whenever I asked him about it, he brushed me off with a smile and said he was fine. I follow him into the kitchen, wander to the door, and look out across the backyard.

“The light’s on in your office,” I say, gazing at the old structure. The detached garage sits in the snow at the end of the driveway. No cars inside, just Jay’s desk, a space heater, and other things he needs to furnish his home office.

“Must’ve left it on when I was working earlier.” He uncorks another bottle of red. “I’ll get it later. I might do a little more work after everyone leaves,” he says, eyes on the wine as he refills his glass.

“Tonight?”

“For a little bit. I was in the middle of something when I had to come in and get ready for the party. Shouldn’t take me long.”

I move over to the counter, put a steadying hand on the edge. I finish my wine and hold out my glass to Jay. His eyes meet mine, and I smile, reassure him. “I’m fine, really.”

He fills my glass, sets it on the table, and wraps his arms around me. “I have everything I need right here,” he says.

Cal and Josh walk into the kitchen. Josh raises his empty glass. “What’s the holdup?” He laughs. “Can’t keep their hands off each other,” he says to Cal.

“Do you blame me?” Jay says, brushing my long hair back over my shoulder.

I pull myself free and walk to the fridge. “Time for this, birthday boy.” I set the box on the counter, lift the cake out. It’s a canvas of sky-blue fondant with a garden of glistening orange and yellow flowers.

“Whoa. That’s incredible. Be a shame to cut it,” Jay says.

“They do a great job at André’s,” I say, removing a knife from the cutlery drawer.

“Chocolate or vanilla?” Cal asks.

Laken walks into the room. “God, Cal. It’s Jay. Chocolate!”

Cal shrugs. “Maybe he got adventurous.” The kitchen fills up with the rest of our friends, and I reach for the birthday candles.

Jay grabs my hand. “It would be a shame to ruin that beautiful cake with those!” But he’s smiling. “What the hell? You only turn forty once, right?”

I know there is something wrong when I open my eyes and don’t smell coffee. Jay isn’t beside me in our king-size bed. He usually wakes before I do, but there’s always the aroma of his favorite drink permeating the house. Jay’s one of those people who sleeps only four or five hours a night. An inveterate coffee drinker, he downs five or six cups a day, enough to give most people a serious case of the jitters, but he thrives on it. I’ve gotten conditioned to that morning scent filling the house and my lids popping open, like clockwork.

The kitchen is cold, coffeepot sitting on the counter, empty and untouched.

“Jay?” I call, my voice echoing through the house. My heartbeat kicks up. I walk to the back door, peer outside. The door to Jay’s office is wide open. I fly down the porch steps and across the yard, my bare feet churning through the snow.

I stumble across the threshold. He isn’t here.

“Jay?”

No answer. I move farther into the room, past the desk and space heater. Then I see him, lying on the floor, blood spattered on the wall and in a pool around his head. I drop to my knees, grab his hand. “Jay!”

But it’s no use. He can’t hear me. He’s cold, lifeless. His neck gapes open beneath his stubbled chin. He’s still dressed in the clothes he was wearing last night. His eyes are half-shut, and his dark hair is soaked in the puddle surrounding him. I fall back against the filing cabinet, screams erupting from someplace deep in my soul.

Cops swarm through the house as I sit in a kitchen chair. My sister, Corrine, is on her way. Someone brought me my robe from upstairs and helped me into it. It was that young officer, I think. The first one who arrived and escorted me back to the house. It was nice of her, but I’m still numb, my feet, my whole body.

The house is a wreck. I peek up and look out into the living room. Beer bottles and wineglasses litter every end table, even the fireplace mantel. Leftover dips and finger foods are spread across the counter, congealing, a disgusting mess. But who’d have thought anyone would be here before I’d had time to clear it all away? Who’d have thought my husband would be lying dead in his office the morning after his party? I cry into my fleecy sleeve. Who would do this to Jay? My life is collapsing around me, and I feel like I’ve fallen into a dark pit.

I hear Corrine’s low, Lauren Bacall–like voice as she comes through the front door. She’s talking to one of the cops. Then she’s beside me, leaning over my shoulder, her perfume filling my nostrils. But it doesn’t displace the smell of blood.

“What the hell happened, Molly?” She pulls me to standing and squeezes me in her arms.

I bury my face in her woolly coat.

“Ma’am, we need to ask you a few questions,” a man’s voice emanates from behind her.

Corrine turns to the cop and demands, “What’s happened here?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Let’s sit, okay?”

Somehow Corrine and I are sitting side by side while the husky, uniformed officer takes the chair across from us.

“I’m Sergeant Simmons,” he says, and lays a notepad on the table. “Mrs. Bradley?”

I clear my throat, swipe a tissue under my nose. “Yes?”

“I need you to tell me what happened.”

I try to breathe through my tears, try to pull a breath down into my chest. “Okay,” I squeak, and think back to when I woke up, try to put disjointed pieces together. “I got up this morning, and my husband wasn’t there, in bed. He’s an early riser . . . There wasn’t any coffee.” I start to cry again, and the cop leans back in his chair.

Corrine drums the table with her fingers. “Is this necessary right now? She’s distraught.”

“I’m sorry, but we’ve got a dead man . . . You are?”

“Corrine Alworth. Her sister.”

He nods. “Okay. Mrs. Bradley, so you woke up this morning, what time?”

I’m at a loss. My head is throbbing. I have no idea, so I look at the time on the microwave and try to figure it out. “Uh.” It’s ten-fifteen now. “Nine o’clock, maybe a little after.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“ No.”

He glances around the room, at the mess. “Had a party last night?”

“My husband’s birthday.” I duck my head, lean against Corrine. I want to disappear.

“Were you here, Ms. Alworth?”

“No. I wasn’t,” she says.

Is she angry? I can’t always tell that about my big sister. She sounds angry a lot of the time. But she’d had other plans. I clutch my left forearm and work my fingers over my sleeve.

“Okay, Mrs. Bradley. You got up. Your husband wasn’t in bed. Then what did you do?”

“I came downstairs, and I saw the office door was open. He said last night that he was going to do some work after everybody left.”

“So he went out there last night?”

“Yes. That’s what he said he was going to do.”

“What time was that?” Sergeant Simmons’s round, moon-like face is slack, patient, and I want to answer his questions. I want to be helpful, but anguished thoughts skitter through my brain like birds I can’t catch.

“I don’t know. Late.”

“He always work late at night?”

“Yes, actually, he does.”

“Okay. Did you lock the doors when you went to bed?”

I honestly don’t know. My recollection is cloudy. We’d really had too much to drink. I’d had too much to drink. I barely remember walking up the stairs, and I’m suddenly cognizant of clumpy mascara sticking my lashes together, the gummy, unpleasant taste in my mouth. I hadn’t even washed for bed.

I choke on a sob, clear my throat. “I think Jay did.”

“But you don’t know?”

Sergeant Simmons tries to catch my gaze, but I can’t look at him. I don’t want him here. I don’t want my house filled with police officers touching our things, writing reports. I want Jay at the stove, flipping pancakes. Me beside him, frying bacon. I want to go back to yesterday. I shake my head, wipe my face with a tear-stained tissue.

“So you woke up this morning. Saw your husband wasn’t in bed. Went downstairs to investigate and saw the office door open? Then what?”

“I ran across the yard to look for him.” Corrine places a box in front of me, and I grab a fresh clump of tissues. I’m all snot and tears, as though I’m dissolving.

“Take your time, Mrs. Bradley.”

I draw a deep breath. “I went into the office and saw Jay on the floor. His neck . . . he was dead.” I drop my head to my chest and cry. Corrine’s arm tightens around my shoulders.

I hear the buzz of voices. Other cops talking to Simmons. Then they move off.

“We’re almost done, Mrs. Bradley. We’ll need a list of everyone who was here at the party last night, okay?”

I try to meet his eyes and nod. Jesus. Do they think one of our friends did this? That’s not possible.

Corrine rubs my shoulder. “We’ll work on it, Officer. I’d like to get my sister something to drink. And she needs to get into some warm clothes.”

“Take your time.” He rises from the table. “We’ve got a forensics team on the way.” He calls a female officer over. “Connors here will help you guys out, so you don’t touch anything that might be important.”

I nod and shuffle to my feet.

“Oh,” he calls after me, “we need the clothes you were wearing last night.” He shoots a glance at Officer Connors.

I choke out a breath. “Okay.” Does he think I had something to do with Jay’s death? The thought nearly buckles my knees.

THE FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY, AND WE’VE ALREADY GOT A HOMICIDE. Times are definitely changing in our little Boston suburb. What a way to start a new year. And working a homicide is always an arduous task, the pinnacle of suffering and heartbreak for all involved. I blow out a breath, my hands gripping the wheel of my old van.

Simmons took the widow’s statement, and then she left to stay with her sister. The forensics team is still on scene, and my partner, Detective Chase Fuller, and I are on our way over there.

Chase has a holiday hangover, still jazzed about Christmas with his wife and young son, gushing about all the cool toys the little guy got from Santa. This makes me think of Christmases when I was a kid. There were so many of us jostling to get close to the tree. Ma would yell and try to rein us in with threats of sending us to our rooms and canceling Christmas altogether. And there were only two gifts apiece, one from Ma and Dad and one from Santa. Money was tight, and since there were nine of us kids to provide for, there wasn’t a lot to go around. But we had fun those Christmases until Ricky left for Vietnam and Jimmy got sick. That was the year everything went south for the McMahons.

“How did Sarah like the necklace?” I ask, slowing my van as we approach the Bradley residence. I pull up behind a police cruiser.

“She loved it.” He grins. “This was the first time I was able to give her something nice, you know?”

“Something without a cord?”

“Yeah.” Chase has been a detective for less than a year, and while we don’t make a buttload of money, he’s making more than he did as a patrol cop. I like working with the young detectives. It can sometimes take the edge off a difficult case because you’re in that teaching mode and you have that focus. Even after so many years, it’s easy to get lost in the pain and evil we witness.

I glance in the rearview mirror. A media van is pulling up behind us. Great. “Let’s head inside,” I say. Time to get to work.

We jump out into the cold, my boots sinking into a pile of slush at the curb, and we move quickly up the walk to an impressive two-story. The neighborhood is older, the lots bigger than most of these new subdivisions with their nearly identical houses and tiny trimmed yards. Simmons said the vic was killed in a detached garage, but we head inside the house first.

The ME is leaning on the kitchen island, writing in her notebook. She drops her pen and looks up. “Hey, Rita.”

I glance around. “Pretty messy,” I say. Chase trails behind me, taking in the scene.

“Yeah. The wife said they had a party last night. The husband’s birthday.”

I wince. Killed after your own birthday party. That sucks. “That’s too bad. He out in the garage?”

“Follow me.” Susan Gaines and I have been in this line of work over thirty years. We both fought our way through our rookie days when law enforcement was basically a boys’ club. Then she left for medical school, only to return to work in the criminal justice system. She and I get together occasionally for a beer and laugh about the old days and try to forget about the struggles.

The team is working the scene, and we weave around them and their equipment. I shout a hello here and there as we pass. They’ve taped off a path of well-trodden snow that leads across the yard. The sun’s shining, and their evidence is literally melting before their eyes, so they work quickly. There’s a side door in the building that had been described as a garage, but there are no cars in here. Chase and I pull on gloves and booties. The little building has all the appearance of a home office. Big desk covered in folders. A calendar with a mountain snow scene tacked on the wall, open to January. A dirty window that lets in weak sunlight. A coffee mug next to a Keurig that sits atop a filing cabinet next to the desk. Blood is drying in a big dark puddle around the body that used to be Dr. Jay Bradley.

“They find the murder weapon?” I ask Susan.

“Don’t think so. There was nothing in here, but they’ve bagged up all the knives in the house.”

I step over to the vic and drop down on my haunches. His head was nearly severed. The wound is wide and ugly. I peer up at Susan. “He was killed here, right?” Blood spatter from his severed artery decorates a nearby wall. Chase is coughing and clearing his throat behind me. “Check the desk,” I tell him, and he moves back and away from the body.

“Yeah. Looks like.” Susan drops down next to me. “The wound would’ve been quickly fatal.” She points with her pen. “No defensive wounds apparent. But I’ll know more after I get him back to the lab.” She stands and heads outside.

I walk through the room, circle back to the filing cabinet. One drawer is pulled halfway out, and there are bloody smears near the handles. It looks like the perp wore gloves. There are also scratches near the lock. I pull out my phone and snap pictures. “The lock has been jimmied.”

“What?” Chase says.

“The lock on the cabinet is broken.” The first drawer yields what looks like research notes, old school-type papers. I lean over and check the bottom drawer. It’s also crammed with odds and ends, news clippings and articles cut from magazines.

The desk drawers are also half-open and in disarray, as if someone had rifled through them. But a laptop sits on the desk, seemingly untouched. “He was looking for something,” I say. Chase turns around from the far end of the room, where packing boxes are neatly stacked. “But left the computer.”

“Not a robbery then,” Chase says.

I shake my head. “He was looking for something specific.” I draw a deep breath, turn to Chase. “Tell the team to take the filing cabinet to the lab.” It’ll be easier to sort through it there.

“Will do.”

I check the floor for shoe prints, but don’t find any. The perp must’ve been very careful not to step in the blood. I head outside, shade my eyes from the sun, and examine the snowy path. There are lots of shoe prints and footprints. Susan said the wife ran out this morning in her bare feet, but there are other prints, layered over each other and melting together. The snow is also churned up from the driveway to the office door. Chase is leaning against the side of the building and looks a little green. The smell in the garage was starting to get ripe.

He joins me, and we walk back across the yard.

“Sorry,” he says.

“For what?”

“I never got used to it. The smell of blood. As a patrol officer, I always did my job, then stepped away as quickly as I could.”

“No biggie. For some people, it never becomes routine.”

We walk through the open kitchen door. Simmons stands by the sink, and he waves to flag me down. He and I confer, and he hands me his report, notes from his interview with Mrs. Bradley. Chase and I will head out to talk to her as soon as we’re done here. But first I want to walk through the living room one more time. It’s here that the Bradleys and their guests would have gathered. Laughed, talked, but maybe everything wasn’t so friendly.

The mantel is covered with pictures and a couple of wineglasses. The largest photo is of the Bradleys, I assume, decked out in their wedding finery. They’re a handsome couple. He was dark-haired with a nice, confident smile. She’s fine-featured, long red hair in an updo topped with a tiara.

I grab my notebook out of my satchel and flip to a new page. I quickly sketch my impressions of the scene, empty wine and beer glasses. Too many? I’ll have to see the guest list, talk to the Mrs. Were people drinking too much? Was there something sinister simmering beneath the good cheer? Or was the house a happy cocoon with a murderer lurking in the garage, a beast waiting for his prey?

“Rita?” Chase calls.

“Yeah. Just a minute.” I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Ma was a strict Catholic, but she believed in “feelings.” Intuition, most people would call it. Not sure I buy into that, but I don’t discount it either. I’ve trusted my gut over the course of my career, and it doesn’t usually let me down, but I don’t feel anything at the moment, only the sadness of the situation. A life lost, loved ones forever changed. I blow out a breath and glance out the window. Susan is standing in the backyard, directing her team as they load Dr. Bradley onto a stretcher and wheel him away.

I take a last look around. Who would want a young, handsome doctor dead?

THE POLICE ALLOWED ME TO CHANGE MY CLOTHES AND PACK A BAG before leaving with Corrine. My home is now a crime scene, and I’m banished, at least for a little while. It pains me to leave, as though I’m turning my back on Jay and our life together. When I return, even his body will be gone, and I’ll be alone again, an idea that shakes me to my core.

My sister and her husband, Rich, live in a toney apartment building in Boston. They’d moved there last year after their son left for college. Corrine was never the domestic type, and the less square footage to keep up, the better. Besides, she and Rich both work downtown in tall offic. . .