The Darkness of Others

by Cate Holahan

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; Thrillers

Synopsis

USA Today bestselling author Cate Holahan delivers her latest nail-biting thriller, perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lisa Jewell.
 
Imani Banks lives in a posh Brooklyn Heights neighborhood that has just been rocked to its core. An acclaimed movie director has been murdered, and his blond trophy wife—Imani’s closest friend—is missing. Their neighbors, along with the media, jump to the conclusion that Melissa Walker has killed her husband in a fit of rage and is on the run.
     Fortunately for the missing actress, Imani is a psychiatrist as well as a steadfast friend. She will never give up her search and is determined to prove Melissa’s innocence. It shouldn’t take a degree in human behavior to know that Melissa would never leave her daughter behind. 
     Recently, Imani and her chef husband rented some extra rooms in their house to a struggling waitress from his restaurant. Tonya Sayre has moved in with her teen daughter and the convenient timing and her suspicious behavior soon lead Imani to suspect that the true killer is living right under her own roof. Now all she has to do is prove it.

Release date: August 23, 2022

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

The Walkers were hiding. Oksana tried not to take it personally as she hauled her vacuum down a narrow staircase to their finished basement. Clients liked to pretend she was invisible. They avoided eye contact with the jowly blonde whom no one would believe was only forty if they’d asked, treating her like a product that disappeared toilet rings and eliminated carpet stains rather than a person who scrubbed and wiped and hauled, who’d escaped a military invasion and mortar shells to start her own American business. Life’s unfairness was less embarrassing that way, she figured.

Celebrities were frequently the worst, often refusing to remain in the same room once she appeared. But the Walkers had always been different, acknowledging her biweekly presence with warm smiles and casual inquiries about her health and family. Oksana knew that they didn’t expect her to answer too honestly or at any length. Even so, the effort at polite conversation had been something, providing tidbits with which to regale starstruck friends or, once or twice, sell to gossip rags. Melissa Walker Bathes Skin in Snail Mucus. Nate Walker’s New Gig: Stay-at-Home Dad.

Oksana stepped off the wooden stair onto the white marble floor. She carted the unwieldy vacuum another several feet to a patchwork cowhide carpet, which was surprisingly easy to care for despite its undoubtedly exorbitant price tag. A single pass with the Dyson typically did the trick, as long as there weren’t any real stains.

The vacuum’s various attachments clattered as she set it down. Oksana unwound the cord and began dragging it toward the socket tucked beneath the open staircase, wondering which floor the family was holing up on. It was the pandemic making everyone extra cautious, she told herself. If the Walkers had suspected her of leaking that headline about Mr. Walker’s lack of employment, they would have fired her already.

Then again, maybe not. The pandemic had made people desperate to retain their small circle of previously vetted people, even when it became clear those relationships weren’t working out. Maybe she’d simply been grandfathered in.

Oksana crouched to the outlet. A merlot-colored mark shone on the tile in front of her. She dropped the vacuum cord and crawled toward it, pulling a wet wipe packet from her back pocket. Red wine stained everything, even seemingly hard surfaces, and the basement floor was honed, making it more porous than the shiny stone version. To prevent a permanent mark, she’d probably have needed to treat the marble yesterday.

Still, maybe there was a chance.

As she reached the stain, Oksana saw that it had company. Red dots led a jagged path to the den. Somebody had gotten tipsy and then sloshed his or her way to the stairs, she decided. A damp tissue wouldn’t clean this mess. She’d need a paper towel at a minimum. The mop most likely.

Oksana straightened, pressing one hand to the floor and the other to her bad knee. She followed the spots to the open den door, muttering about the importance of holding one’s liquor. If there were spills on the carpet or, worse, vomit, she would need to rent a steam cleaner and give them a quote. And she wouldn’t be able to offer any guarantees. Red wine, puke, blood, and pet piss were the four horsemen in her business. Removing such fluids from carpet or fabric furniture was nearly impossible.

As she entered the den, she immediately noticed more splashes on the suede wallpaper behind Mr. Walker’s large, wooden desk. A scotch glass sat on the top with a ring of gold liquid in the bottom. She spied the bottle in a bin beside the door, trashed despite the liquor still inside. Scotch and wine. She’d cleaned up the family’s dishes long enough to know that Mr. Walker rarely drank alone, especially not hard liquor. He’d been entertaining. First time since the shutdown, probably. No wonder someone had gotten sloppy drunk.

Oksana approached the wallpaper. The largest spot had hardened into a crust, less like wine and more like ketchup. She scratched at it. It didn’t flake off, but particles slipped beneath her nail.

Oksana stepped back, considering the gunk on her finger. She heard the wet squish before registering the sensation beneath her shoes. The sides of her gray sneakers were coated in dark, brick-colored goo. She whirled around, looking for the source of this new stain.

On the floor, behind the desk, lay a near-headless body. Oksana couldn’t immediately tell whether she was looking at the figure’s front or back. The face was nearly gone. Brain, identifiable only by its whitish color amid all the red, had dribbled and dried over the places where the eyes and nose had been. The arms were splayed out as if the victim had fallen backward. A black handgun lay in his palm.

Most people would have screamed. However, most people hadn’t learned to sleep through shelling and wake at the rumble of tanks rolling past their home. They hadn’t grabbed blankets off beds to cover bodies or scrubbed blood from cobblestone hearths.

As there was nothing to save, calling the police could wait. Oksana reached for the garbage and then her phone. She withdrew her cell and clicked on the camera app. She stepped back until what was left of director Nate Walker fit in the frame. Then she placed her finger squarely over the screen and tapped its big red dot.

CHAPTER TWO

“I’ll get out of here!”

Melissa shouted the words, though she knew no one was listening. It was too late. Too dead. The city that never sleeps had finally found its bedtime. COVID o’clock. Everyone was indoors, waiting for the cold weather and coronavirus to pass, venturing out only to take in packages. She’d been one of them. Cautious. Careful. Relegating friendships to phone calls, shrinking her social sphere to shared genes. Some good it had done. She’d never get sick in here. She’d die first.

“I’ll get out of here.” She repeated her intention, quieter this time. Saving her voice could be important. Still, she needed to hear the echo, to prove to herself that she was alive in this darkness. What surrounded her was an indescribable black, not so much color as void. There was nothing for her eyes to adjust to, no shades of gray with which to orient herself. She was trapped in a starless universe. Only the hard floor beneath her palms and feet assured her that there was an up and down, that she was still gravity-tethered to Earth, subject to the laws of space and time. And biology.

She wasn’t hungry or thirsty yet, but she would be. The last thing she’d consumed was a green juice intended to “cleanse” away the quarantine fifteen. Silly, the things she’d once considered crucial. Waist size. Boob size. Butt shape. Who the hell really cared?

Hollywood, she conceded. Her husband.

She pictured Nate as she’d last seen him, roguish face shredded by the bullet’s impact, brilliant brain splattered on the wall. He’d deserved it. She wondered whether the world would ever know that. Violent deaths had a tendency to turn men into martyrs. Even if the news ultimately leaked, the media might refrain from publishing it, afraid of slandering a sacred cow whose work had suddenly become “important” now that its auteur was incapable of producing more of it.

Nate didn’t deserve more accolades. But, as he was too dead to enjoy them, Melissa preferred praise to the alternative. Better for their daughter to think Nate a talent taken too soon than to live under his real legacy.

She imagined Ava asleep in her bed, dreaming to the sound of soft rain. The memory morphed into others. Instead of her own life flashing before her eyes, Melissa saw her daughter as a swaddled baby, lips stretched into a smile from passed gas. She pictured her as a grinning toddler, feet racing to keep up with the forward momentum of an oversized blond head, and, later, as a hammy elementary schooler sing-shouting her heart out in the school production.

Melissa recalled her kid more recently, Ava’s face melding into some version of her own, though with a fierceness and confidence that Melissa had never possessed. She pictured that beautiful visage morphing into openmouthed terror when she saw her father’s body.

Melissa considered herself an atheist, but the adage was true. Nonbelievers didn’t exist in foxholes—or in the dark. She prayed to the God of her childhood, unsure whether her eyes were closed or open. “Please don’t let Ava go downstairs,” she whispered. “Please let someone else find him. Please let her go to school without seeing.”

Beyond that, Melissa didn’t know what to ask for. A doorway? Light? It didn’t seem possible that God could grant such requests. If he could, then why was she in here? What punishment was she serving, and for which crime?

Would those sins be visited upon her child?

Imani would pick Ava up, Melissa realized. In her mind, she could see her friend striding into St. Catherine’s, gathering Ava in her arms, pretending to have it all together. Imani had been getting better at that. Pretending.

She’d taught Imani to play a part too well. What role would she take with her daughter?

CHAPTER THREE

They were already arguing. From her curled position on the couch, Imani could hear her two o’clock warming up for their weekly verbal wrestling match. The strip of drywall separating her office from the hallway couldn’t muffle the condescension in the husband’s tone or the hysterical notes in the wife’s as each attempted to force the other into apologetic submission.

“But you don’t know,” the woman snapped. “Why do you always assume to know everything?”

“It’s a logical conclusion that any thinking person would come to,” the man responded.

Imani pulled up the surgical mask cupping her chin. She hated how face coverings complicated reading patients’ expressions. However, she appreciated that the fabric would cover her own downturned lips.

Had it not been for the pandemic, she might not have accepted Mr. and Mrs. Halstead’s business. The couple didn’t want to fix their marriage. Not really. They wanted to rage about who hadn’t done the dishes or helped with homework until they could agree that they’d tried but simply weren’t happy. She was the witness to their failed attempt, the person whom they’d point to later as evidence of their efforts and say, hey, we paid thousands to save our relationship, but it wasn’t salvageable.

Imani couldn’t turn down thousands at the moment.

“I think she had nothing to do with it,” Mrs. Halstead shouted outside the door.

Imani tugged the hem of her sweater so that it rested a little lower over her backside. She’d caught Mr. Halstead checking out her rear during their last session and didn’t want to tempt him into doing it again.

“Guilty people run off,” the husband countered. “People with nothing to hide stay and—”

The door’s creak cut him off. Mr. Halstead was dressed for work in a well-tailored wool coat, suit pants, and KN95, which was a stark contrast to his wife’s snakeskin-patterned leggings, blinding white ski jacket, and floral face covering. Imani silently wished that the woman had dressed more business casual. Mr. Halstead was already dismissive of his spouse’s financial contributions. Looking like the whole day could be spent on a yoga mat wouldn’t help the woman’s argument that her work was of equal importance.

Imani sat on the edge of her Eames lounge chair, positioned kitty-corner to the long couch at a nonconfrontational angle that still made clear she was part of the conversation. As she waited for the couple to sit down, she remembered looking up at the cement sky earlier that morning. Gray was the most prominent color in New York City between December and March. There was nothing particularly depressing about that fact. It was just the way the year started, a blank slate, which was what Imani needed her face to be.

Years earlier, her best friend had taught her the trick to controlling her micro-expressions. “You’re an open book,” Melissa had said, too many glasses of pinot grigio rendering her assessments brutal. “When you anticipate something bad, your brow scrunches and your nose flares like you’ve caught a whiff of day-old diaper. You need to keep a neutral face. There was this one film financier who had a reputation as being a misogynistic bully. Before he came in to talk to me, I pictured a wall so that my affect would be completely flat.”

“And was he as awful as everyone said?” Imani had asked.

“Worse,” Melissa had quipped. “By the end of our conversation, I was imagining that bastard buried in that wall.”

A smile crept behind Imani’s mask at the memory. “So, how are you both this week?” she asked the couple.

“Fine,” the husband said. “Things are picking up at work, so that’s a bit stressful.”

“And I’m juggling clients and the kids.” The wife glared at him.

“You both have demanding careers and a lot on your plates, which makes it difficult to carve out space for one another. How has that—”

A buzz from Imani’s pocket interrupted her. She reached inside and, without looking, sent the call to voice mail. “Were you two able to have any focused time together this week?”

“I tried the other night,” the husband said. “I brought up drinks to the bedroom.”

“You brought scotch for yourself.”

“I brought the bottle. You could have had one.”

“I don’t drink liquor before bed.”

Imani cleared her throat and directed her attention to the husband. “So, you wanted to initiate some intimacy and feel your signals didn’t register with—”

“Oh, you knew what I wanted. You were just busy reading.”

“I offered to watch something.”

“You only like that true crime stuff where everyone kills their spouses.”

“That’s not true.”

“She’s obsessed. Even during the cab ride over here she was talking about a murder that’s on the news.”

It took a beat for Imani to realize that the husband was now addressing her rather than volleying another barbed comment at his wife. “Well, we all have interests,” she said. “Our partners don’t need to share every one of them. Perhaps if true crime doesn’t appeal to both of you, you two could—”

“I thought you’d be into it.” The wife was back in the game. “You were all googly-eyed for that actress when we met. You saw all her movies.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to know all the gory details of how she killed her husband.” The guy pointed at Imani. A smile glinted in his eyes. “Put it on record, my wife has a penchant for mariticide. If I end up with a bullet in the brain, and there’s some suspicious note…”

Imani knew her patient didn’t fear his wife. He was trying to curry favor by flirting while diminishing his partner’s interests. Imani shifted her knees so that they pointed in Mrs. Halstead’s direction. “True crime is very popular right now. What are some topics that you believe would interest both of you?”

A beep emitted from Imani’s pocket, signaling a new voice mail. She wondered if Melissa had called. The prior night, her friend had texted and, surprisingly, asked to meet up—ASAP. Imani hadn’t yet replied because she still couldn’t fathom where they would go. A polar vortex had slammed the brakes on outdoor socializing, and Melissa had previously made clear that she was too nervous to see anyone indoors—especially not possible vectors like Imani, who still saw in-person patients and was married to a man who spent six days a week in a restaurant kitchen. Melissa hadn’t worked since Broadway’s close, and Nate’s latest project had been on hold for two years. Imani wasn’t sure if the Walkers had left their house since October.

“Finance!” Mrs. Halstead threw up a hand. “Money and the markets are the only things that interest him anymore. He finds stock more compelling than a famous director being shot dead in his twelve-million-dollar brownstone.”

Imani realized that the wife was doing the same thing as her husband, trying to win over the therapist by painting her spouse as myopic. If Imani had been at a bar and not mid-session, she might have asked about the case. It wasn’t every day that a wealthy celebrity was murdered. But she couldn’t let the wife score a point for the same competitive behavior that she’d pointedly ignored from the woman’s spouse.

“Let’s think about subjects that interest both of you.” She clapped, trying to focus them on the task at hand. “When you first got married, what were some of the things that you talked about?”

A buzz from her cell interrupted the silence that followed. Imani hesitated but ultimately reached into her pocket. The restaurant was filled with sharp knives and dangerous machinery, and Philip had been doing more of the food preparation since laying off 15 percent of his staff. Whoever had left a message could be alerting her to an emergency.

“Excuse me one moment.” Imani withdrew her phone. The school’s number shone on screen.

Imani pictured her kids quarantined in the school’s gymnasium. A rash of psychosomatic symptoms followed. Sore throat. Shortness of breath. “I’m sorry,” she said, forcing the words through her empathy-inflamed larynx. “I have to take this. It’s my children’s school.”

Her office was only the one room. Two hundred square feet packed with a couch, a chair, two bookcases, and a secretary desk. It was no place to take a private call. She turned her head toward the wall as the husband muttered something about cost per minute. “Hello. Imani Banks.”

“Hello, Mrs. Banks, this is the office at St. Catherine’s. We need you to come right away.”

Imani fought the urge to cough. “What’s wrong? Are my kids all right?”

“Yes. Your children are fine. We need you to pick up Ava.”

Ava was not her daughter’s name. Her kids were Vivienne and Jay. Had the school made a mistake? “Do you mean Melissa and Nate Walker’s daughter?”

“You’re listed as one of Miss Walker’s emergency contacts.”

“Is Ava okay?”

“Yes. But it would be best if you picked her up.”

She’s caught it, Imani thought. What other reason could the school have for wanting Ava immediately removed from its premises?

Imani unconsciously touched her neck. As an athletic fifteen-year-old, Ava would probably be fine. But Imani was forty-two. She maintained a healthy body weight, which was in her favor, but she also suffered from mild asthma and, since the pandemic’s start, enjoyed a nightly glass or two of red wine. Statistically, she was far more likely than Ava to get very sick. And if she fell ill, who would take care of her own kids?

“Have you tried Melissa’s cell? She’s usually home at this hour.”

A sharp intake of air answered. Silence followed, as if the person on the other end had muted herself. Imani waited a beat before saying, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Banks, Ava’s parents are unavailable. It’s truly imperative that you come and collect her. This isn’t about COVID.”

Imani wanted to ask what it could be about. But something about the tone of the woman’s voice, an undercurrent of panic that pushed her words together, drowned out additional questions. Imani promised to be right there, hung up, and then returned her attention to her patients. “I am terribly sorry to do this, but I need to reschedule. There’s been an emergency.”

The husband nodded as if he understood but then flashed a hard look at his wife. Imani sensed that he hadn’t wanted to attend their session. Her abrupt departure would become ammunition in a later argument to cease therapy altogether.

“I will, of course, comp today and the next visit. We can even do this virtually, if that would be easier.” Imani grabbed her coat off a hook and then opened the door wide. “I am terribly sorry.”

The wife’s eyes crinkled with sympathy as she rose from the couch. “Kids come first.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

As Mrs. Halstead gathered her jacket, her husband strode to the door. Imani realized that he’d never removed his coat. Perhaps he hadn’t planned on ever getting comfortable. He exited with a gruff “good luck” and continued down the hallway, not waiting for his spouse.

Beneath her mask, Imani’s frown deepened. She felt terrible for the conversation that her female patient would soon face about the “pointlessness of therapy.” She felt even worse that, in this particular case, the husband was probably right.

“I’m sorry to have overheard.” Mrs. Halstead’s brow was tightly knitted above her mask. “But did you mention Nate Walker?”

Imani’s stomach tightened. She tried not to share any personal information in her sessions. Therapists all had stories of clients romanticizing the shrink listening to all their problems. She struggled to recover her gray-sky expression. “I should probably go,” she said.

Mrs. Halstead leaned forward, shortening the not-quite-six-feet of space between them. “I only ask because he’s the director who was found dead this afternoon, and his wife is still missing.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Abrupt temperature changes made people sick. Where did that knowledge nugget come from? Her mother, Tonya was sure. All mothers said it. She’d repeated it herself that morning when nagging Layla to don an extra layer beneath her coat. But had she been parroting an old wives’ tale like viruses were caught from chilly weather, or did the immune system actually struggle to adapt from hot to cold?

Tonya prayed she’d been spouting nonsense as she emerged from the restaurant’s equatorial kitchen into the barren tundra of the dining room before heading to the outdoor dining “igloos” with only an apron over her uniform. Her shivers vibrated the platter balanced atop her right palm, forcing her to steady it with her left hand like a newbie. She was still trembling as she reached the clear plastic wall shielding her guests from the wind.

“How are we this afternoon?”

Muted grunts answered her question. The diners wore sheepskin parkas with thick, fur-trimmed hoods covering their heads, as if they’d agreed on Inuit costumes for a themed dining experience. Such heavy clothing wouldn’t have been required in a real igloo, according to Layla. Her bookish kid had brought up an article the other day explaining that traditional ice houses used snow as an insulator, enabling body heat alone to toast their insides to an eminently tolerable fifty degrees.

City health regulations prevented the restaurant’s bubble tents from building up such warmth. Two sides had to be vented at all times to allow microbe-dispersing air circulation. Even with space heaters operating full blast, diners were lucky if the “indoor” temperature remained above freezing. Tonya certainly couldn’t detect any difference as she began placing plates in front of her four patrons.

The four patrons, she realized. Summer’s uptick had almost convinced her that New York City’s hospitality industry had survived the harsh spring and emerged on the other side. But the months from June to November had been the eye of the storm. Winter had barreled in like a nor’easter, dumping on new challenges that even the novelty of dining street-side in clear domes, yurt villages, or tiny greenhouses couldn’t counteract. People were scared. They were cold. They’d become resigned to hibernation.

As Tonya set down the meals, she watched the diners’ faces for reactions. Some of the brave souls who ventured out demanded the full restaurant experience complete with their server’s mask-muffled explanation of the spice rub coating the steak. Others wanted her to leave as soon as the last dish touched the table.

Judging from her patrons’ averted eyes, Tonya decided that this group belonged to the latter category. She thanked them for braving the weather and then backed out into it, hoping they could detect her smile from the corners of her exposed eyes. Her best chance at earning a decent tip was this table. No line waited to be seated in the empty huts.

“Miss.” One of the female di. . .