The Familiar Dark

PRAISE FOR THE FAMILIAR DARK

“A dark and beautifully written thriller with a haunting ending that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Engel’s ability to conjure the harsh beauty of the Ozarks is spellbinding. An emotional and powerful read.”

—Catherine Steadman, New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water

“A grim and gritty thriller, this is a story that will haunt readers.”

—The Parkersburg News and Sentinel

“[A] harrowing thriller. . . . Without sacrificing any of the narrative’s ferocious urgency, Engel gradually discloses a few of Eve’s own guilty secrets—on the way to some gut-wrenching final revelations. This rural noir stakes Engel’s claim to that dystopian terrain somewhere between Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Engel masterfully creates a milieu in which women struggle against all odds to provide the best lives possible for their daughters. . . . A stunning conclusion.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“The Familiar Dark is a blistering rural noir brimming with dark secrets and the harsh realities of survival in a hardscrabble town. As Eve Taggert seeks vengeance for her daughter’s murder and descends into the depths of her own jagged past, we are reminded that a mother’s love is a fearsome thing. A powerful, gripping, heart-stopping read.”

—Laura McHugh, award-winning author of The Wolf Wants In

“In this heartrending tale of motherhood and murder, Amy Engel takes us into the heart of the Ozarks. . . . The Familiar Dark promises to be a gripping new novel about the lengths to which we go for family.”

—CrimeReads, “The Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020”

“The Familiar Dark is a twisty thriller that will appeal to fans of dark mysteries, but it is also an exploration of motherhood’s many faces and the extraordinary strength of a woman protecting her child.”

—BookTrib

“[An] uncompromising and absorbingly written new novel . . . Not just a fine thriller but a fine character study, plumbing family and particularly mother-daughter relationships and showing Eve, her mother, and Izzy’s mother, too, as women unbendable as oak.”

—Library Journal

“The Familiar Dark is impeccably plotted. . . . The novel digs deep into the gritty, cold undersoil of Eve’s hometown, never shying away from the biting realism of sexism and poverty. But it is the shocking moments of tenderness and love these characters show one another that packs the biggest emotional punch and reminds readers where true power resides. . . . The thoughtful exploration of legacies of violence and the force of a mother’s love shape this riveting thriller.”

—Shelf Awareness

“A superbly crafted dystopian noir novel of women doing the best they can for their daughters in dire circumstances, The Familiar Dark showcases author Amy Engel’s very special and thoroughly reader-engaging narrative storytelling style.”

—The Midwest Book Review

ALSO BY AMY ENGEL

The Roanoke Girls

The Book of Ivy

The Revolution of Ivy

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © 2020 by Amy Engel

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

DUTTON and the D colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Engel, Amy, author.

Title: The familiar dark: a novel / Amy Engel.

Description: [New York] : Dutton, [2020] |

Identifiers: LCCN 2019025265 (print) | LCCN 2019025266 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524745950 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781524746018 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Grief—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3605.N4354 F36 2020 (print) | LCC PS3605.N4354 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019025265

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019025266

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover image by James Kingsland / Gallery Stock

pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r2

For Graham and Quinn, my brightest lights

CONTENTS

Praise for The Familiar Dark

Also by Amy Engel

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

The End

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

The Beginning

Acknowledgments

About the Author

We grow accustomed to the Dark—

When Light is put away—

—Emily Dickinson

THE END

They died during a freak April snowstorm, blood pooling on a patchy bed of white. Afterward, some people said the killer must have kept an eye on the gathering gray clouds. Taken the weather as a cue to strike and picked the moment when everyone else was huddled indoors, shivering in their optimistic shirtsleeves and muttering about global warming. Armchair detectives trying to make sense of something that would never be anything but senseless. They were wrong, of course. It had nothing to do with the weather. The girls could have told them that, if the girls had been capable of speaking.

Izzy died first, dark brown hair tangled over her face and one eye peeking out between the strands. A slow blink, gaze trained on Junie’s face. Another blink, focus fading. Junie waited for a third blink that never came, watched blood unspool in the space between them. She tried to reach for Izzy, meaning to shake her back into the world, but couldn’t make her own hand move. It felt weighted down even though she couldn’t remember being tied up. Couldn’t remember anything, really. Why she was here or what was happening. Only a dim, distant terror that pulsed along with her fading heartbeat. She pushed a sound out of her ruined throat, a name, a plea, a prayer. But it never made it past her lips. A bubble of blood popped and spilled over. The snow pressed cold against her cheek.

“Shhh . . .” a voice said. “It’ll be over soon. Shhh . . .” A hand on her head, stroking her hair.

She tilted her eyes upward, the only part of her body she could seem to move. Saw the edge of the swing set, a branch coated in white, the flat, iron gray sky. Last time she’d been here was with her mother. They’d had ice cream that melted down their hands faster than they could eat it. Hot, sweaty dusk and fireflies. Swinging side by side and Junie’s mother jumping off her swing at its highest arc, blond hair whipping out behind her, throaty laugh cutting through the air. Telling Junie the secret was not to think about it. Close your eyes and fly.

Mama. The longing tore through her like a barbed hook, her body bucking once against the ground, her hand spasming into a fist. I want my mama. She smelled her mother’s perfume, a spring garden doled out a single drop at a time to make the bottle last. She heard her mother’s voice, whispering comfort into the shell of her ear. She tasted salt, tears on her lips and blood in her mouth. She knew this was the end, and couldn’t believe it was coming so close to the beginning. A sigh shuddered out of her. Watch me, Mama. I can do it. She closed her eyes and soared.

ONE

I’d had one eye on the clock all day. Had taken heaps of shit for it, too. Every time I’d leaned over the counter to pick up an order, Thomas had swatted at my hand with his grease-spattered spatula. “You got somewhere else you need to be?” he asked, tsking under his breath. “Yeah, somewhere better than this crap hole,” I shot back, laughing when he went for me with the spatula again. That was about the only good thing I could find in having worked in this dump for more than a decade: I didn’t have to mind my manners anymore.

“It’s almost five o’clock,” I called out, after watching the minute hand creep around the clock one final time.

“What’s your hurry today, anyway?” Louise asked, retying her apron around her thick waist. “You’re like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Keep it up and you’re gonna give Thomas a heart attack. You know he hates it when we’re distracted.”

I threw a glance back through the pickup window, winked at Thomas, who couldn’t quite manage to keep his scowl in place. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Antsy, I guess.” Maybe it was the strange, unexpected weather. Yesterday had been a budding, whispery green, the air scented with wildflowers. Today snow had splattered against the diner’s plate glass windows, tiny swirls sneaking inside every time someone opened the door. But now the sun was starting to peek out from behind the cloud cover, just in time for it to set. Already rivulets of melting snow were forming on the edges of the parking lot. By morning it would be spring again. But that was Missouri for you. Like the old-timers always said, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.

“Coulda been those sirens,” Thomas offered. “Damn things about drove me insane earlier.”

Louise nodded, motioned for me to pass her the half-empty ketchup bottles so she could get to refilling them. “Must have been a heap of accidents. Heard there was a bunch of activity over by the old playground. Nobody around here can drive worth a good goddamn.” Thomas snorted his agreement from the kitchen, and Louise turned to glance at him. “When’s the last time we had snow in April? Seems like it’s been ages.”

“Right before Junie was born,” I said without hesitation. “Thirteen years.” I remembered how big I’d been, ankles swollen to the point I couldn’t shove my feet into snow boots and had to navigate the drifts in my worn tennis shoes.

“Oh Lord, that’s right,” Louise said. She finished filling a ketchup bottle and slid it back down my direction. “You have big Saturday night plans?” She did a sideways shimmy. “Maybe a little dancing? A little drinking? A little something-something?”

“I promised Junie I’d be home early and we’d have pizza and watch a movie. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.” I didn’t need to see Louise’s eye roll to know how pathetic she found my version of an exciting Saturday night. She’d already told me enough times that youth was wasted on me. Thirty going on fifty was one of her favorite commentaries on my nonexistent social life.

“When mine were that age, I’d a been happy if someone had taken them away for a week at a time. Little smart-asses.” Louise shook her head. “Where’s she been, anyway?”

“She stayed over with Izzy Logan.” I kept my gaze on the swath of counter I was wiping. Ignored the pinch in the base of my skull.

“Those two are thick as thieves,” Louise said, and I didn’t miss the slight note of disbelief in her voice. I was used to it by now, understood that girls like Junie and girls like Izzy didn’t usually run in the same crowd. Especially not in this town, which might as well have a neon strip painted down the middle. Poor white trash on this side. Do not cross. Didn’t seem to matter that 90 percent of the town was stranded on the wrong side. The invisible line wasn’t budging based on majority rule, at least not when it came to mixing with Jenny Logan’s family. When I was in junior high, out searching the roadside ditches for cans I could recycle, I used to see Jenny tooling around in her little white convertible. She left for college when I was a sophomore in high school, and I’d assumed she was gone for good. But she’d returned two years later with half a degree she’d never used and a college boy groomed to take over her dad’s boat dealership. They weren’t anything special by city standards, but around here the Logans were practically royalty. It didn’t take much. A decent job and a house that wasn’t moveable usually did the trick.

“Yep,” I said. I hated how everyone acted like I ought to be grateful that Izzy liked my daughter, that Izzy’s parents welcomed Junie into their home. No one ever asked me what I thought, probably would have been surprised to discover that I wasn’t grateful at all. That I would’ve put a stop to the friendship a long time ago if I could have figured out a way to do it without breaking my daughter’s heart. I resented the phone calls from Jenny arranging get-togethers, always assuming, even after constant reminders to the contrary, that my schedule was endlessly flexible. I looked away from the perfunctory waves Izzy’s father, Zach, gave from the front porch when I pulled up in my ancient Honda, the back window jury-rigged out of cardboard and duct tape. I kept waiting (and wishing) for the first bloom of friendship to fade, for some stupid drama to tear the girls apart. But it had been years now, and so far, the bond they had was made of stronger stuff. And I didn’t like that, either. Hated thinking about what it might mean.

I dropped the rag on the counter and pressed my hands into my lower back. I was too young to feel like such shit at the end of the day, my legs aching and spine a dull throb. You would have thought the snow might’ve made for a quiet day at the diner, but weather was everyone’s second-favorite topic, right behind politics. The place had been hopping all day, only now emptying out as everyone made their way home for dinner. The pie rack had been cleared out, and I didn’t want to estimate how many cups of coffee I’d poured in the last eight hours. Lots of jawing and not a whole lot of tipping. My least favorite kind of day.

“Looks like your brother’s pulling in,” Louise said. “Hope he doesn’t want a piece of apple. He’s shit outta luck.”

I straightened up, watched Cal’s car slide to a stop out front. Even after all these years, the sight of my brother behind the wheel of a patrol car came as a little shock. We’d spent the majority of our childhoods evading the cops, grew up always keeping one eye out for the law. The kind of public service that might earn us an extra dollar from the dealers using our mama’s cracked countertop as a storefront. So cop hadn’t exactly been at the top of my list of promising potential professions for my brother. But he’d surprised me, first by becoming one and then turning out to be good at the job. Word around town was he was tough but always fair. Which was more than could be said for his boss and the other lazy-ass deputies. Once, when Thomas had spent a night in jail after he’d made a drunken mess of himself, he’d told me that Cal had “a real nice way about him, even when he was putting on the cuffs.” Praise for the law didn’t come higher than that, not around here.