A Flicker in the Dark

“And in that moment, the moment of the crash, it made me realize that monsters don’t hide in the woods; they aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners. No, the real monsters move in plain sight.”

Chloe Davis hints at the disillusionment she experiences at age 12 when her father is arrested for the murder of six girls. This change from innocence to adulthood redefines the rest of Chloe’s life and leads to her experience with anxiety and self-trust. Willingham’s use of the word monster demonstrates the terrifying and active ways danger threatens others within the novel.

“Those four-drawer metal lockboxes symbolized the possibility of me somehow being able to express my pain one day—verbalize it, scream about it, cry about it—then when the sixty-minute timer ticked down to zero, we could simply flip the folder closed and put it back in the drawer, locking it tight and forgetting about its contents until another day.”

A psychologist, Chloe shares how her own experiences in therapy offered her comfort in the aftermath of her father’s arrest. Therapy offers Chloe the ability to release the pain she feels and move on with her life. These experiences influence her life choices and exemplify the coping mechanisms she has implemented in her life to protect herself from her overwhelming feelings of despair and fear.

“Leave work before dark. Clutch our purses to our chest with one hand, hold our keys between our fingers in the other, like a weapon, as we shuffle toward our car, strategically parked beneath a streetlight in case we weren’t able to leave work before dark. Approach our car, glance in the back seat before unlocking the front. Grip our phone tight, pointer finger just a swipe away from 9-1-1. Step inside. Lock it again. Do not idle. Drive away quickly.”

Chloe details the various safety measures women must implement to protect themselves. Willingham lists the action items in short sentences that convey the urgency of these choices that women are forced to make daily. Through this, Willingham explores the gender differences that render women vulnerable to the aggression and violence of men.

“Refused to admit the completely irrational reason why the month of July morphed my anxiety into something debilitating, a progressive disease that worsened as summer stretched on. Refused to acknowledge the rising sense of nausea in my throat or the way the sour smell of manure in the distance seemed to mix with the sweet magnolias or the suddenly deafening sound of flies I could hear buzzing around somewhere, circling something dead.”

On their wedding venue tour, Chloe hesitates to choose a date in July as her wedding date. She holds back from telling her fiancé Daniel Briggs the reason for her hesitation, which stems from the month of July marking 20 years since her father’s arrest. This moment embodies many of Chloe’s relationships in which she isolates herself from confronting her anxiety. As the novel progresses, the Baton Rouge murders force Chloe to face the past and finally address her need for healing.

“I understand the way the brain can fundamentally fuck with every other aspect of your body; the way your emotions can distort things—emotions you didn’t even know you had. The way those emotions can make it impossible to see clearly, think clearly, do anything clearly. The way they can make you hurt from your head down to your fingertips, a dull, throbbing, constant pain that never goes away.”

Chloe reflects on why she became a psychologist. She hopes her own mental health conditions will grant her an understanding of her patients that will allow her to help them find healing. As Chloe describes the way her thoughts hinder her ability “to see clearly, think clearly, do anything clearly,” Willingham sets Chloe’s story as an example of how anxiety can alter one’s perspective in real ways. Willingham’s use of second person extends her commentary to the reader.

“I imagine the things that can happen to me in my sleep, defenseless. I imagine the things that can happen to me in the dark, unaware. I imagine all the invisible killers that can strangle the life from my cells before I even know they’re being suffocated; I imagine surviving what I survived, living through what I lived through, only to die from a case of unwashed hands, a tickle in my throat.”

As she expresses her fear and anxiety, Chloe relays the lack of safety she feels in her life. These fears drive Chloe to seek total control over her life. Throughout the novel, Chloe explores the limits of this control and the ways this strict desire for control can manifest in dark, destructive ways. Ultimately, this need for control connects Chloe with her killer brother Cooper Davis and allows her to understand his perspective.

“It’s the realization of how many hidden bodies could be buried beneath my feet at any point in time, the world above them completely oblivious to their existence.”

Chloe expresses anxiety over the knowledge that the bodies of the missing Breaux Bridge girls could be buried anywhere. This anxiety carries into her adulthood and motivates her to participate in the investigation into Aubrey and Lacey’s deaths. Ultimately, Chloe seeks to find peace from the unresolved nature of the Breaux Bridge murders and to break free from the fear that haunts her.

“I remember catching one in my palm, feeling it flutter between my fingers as I brought it in, placing it delicately inside a water glass, covering the lip in plastic. Poking little air holes and watching it flicker in the dark for hours, trapped, as I lay beneath the sheets in my bedroom, breathing slowly, thinking of her.”

In awe, Chloe emulates Lena Rhodes by seeking out a firefly that reminds her of Lena’s belly button ring. The firefly symbolizes not only Lena throughout the text but also the hope for peace and happiness that drives Chloe to uncover the truth of the murders. Willingham alludes to the title when she employs the verb “flicker” and “dark.” These small moments of light and hope strengthen Chloe’s resolve to seek out the truth and, ultimately, find peace.

“It’s like a shadow. A giant shadow always hovering in the corner of the room. Every room. I tried to stay out of it, I tried to stay in the light, but I couldn’t do it anymore. It drew me in, it swallowed me whole. Sometimes I think it might be the devil himself.”

Chloe recounts her father’s televised confession to the Breaux Bridge murders. The shadow symbolizes the dark thoughts that threaten each of the characters as they try to navigate life. Chloe’s father’s confession alludes to Willingham’s Epigraph, which focuses on the power of darkness to overcome a person. This description of darkness could apply to multiple characters, including Chloe as she tries to overcome her past and move forward with her life.

“It had been classic victim blaming. My father, another middle-aged white man with a meanness he couldn’t explain. He offered no concrete explanations, no valid reason why. He offered only the darkness. And surely, that couldn’t be possible—people refused to believe that otherwise average white men murder without a reason why. And so we became the reason: the neglect of his wife, the taunting of his son, the budding promiscuity of his daughter. It was all too much for his fragile ego, and eventually, he snapped.”

In the aftermath of her father’s arrest, Chloe and her family experience blame for her father’s action. By referring to her father as a “white man” twice, Chloe underscores the misogyny and racism that fuel this “victim blaming.” Through this description, Willingham comments on the way society affords white men grace not extended to people of color or women.

“It brought us closer, gave us an unspoken bond. It made Daniel possessive of me, almost, but in a good way. A caring way. The same way Cooper is possessive, I suppose—because they both understand the inherent danger of existing as a woman. Because they both understand death, and how quickly it can take you. How unfairly it can claim possession over its next victim.”

Both Daniel and Chloe connect through their respective trauma of Daniel’s sister’s disappearance and the Breaux Bridge murders. This connection strengthens their bond and leads Daniel to grow more protective of Chloe. Like Cooper, Daniel understands the danger Chloe faces as a woman. As the novel progresses, the comparison of Cooper and Daniel as foils exemplifies the love and protection Chloe needs to thrive.

“I know it the way I knew it twenty years ago when I saw Robin’s face on the news; right now, standing in my office with my eyes glued to the television screen as Lacey’s freckled face stares back, I might as well be twelve again, getting off the school bus from summer camp as dusk approaches, running down that old dusty road. I see my father, crouching for me on the porch; I’m running toward him when I should have been running away. Fear grips me like a squeezing hand against my throat.”

The news of Lacey’s disappearance reminds Chloe of the Breaux Bridge murders and triggers the immense fear and anxiety that she has been attempting to escape. Throughout the novel, Chloe relives the scene of running to her father for protection as she continues to question her inability to identify her father’s evil. Willingham uses personification to portray the active danger fear places Chloe in as the Baton Rouge murder force Chloe to reckon with the past.

“The sun is peeking out now, and almost instantly, the temperature seems to rise a few degrees, the humidity getting thick like churning milk. I feel my cheeks start to burn—I can’t tell if it’s from the sun on my face or from sharing this intimate memory with a stranger. I don’t really know what drove me to tell it.”

During her meeting with Aaron, Chloe shares a memory of Lena teaching her how to break into Cooper’s room with a card. She notes how bizarre it is that she shares this memory with Aaron, a stranger, and not with her fiancé, Daniel. As she grows closer with Aaron, Chloe realizes how much she has controlled her relationship with Daniel to protect herself from harm. This realization leads her to act on her attraction to Aaron.

“It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it happens. It’s cyclical. It’s about power, control—or rather, the lack of control. It’s about taking it back and claiming it as your own.”

As she investigates her suspicion of Bert Rhodes, Chloe discusses the truth of the abused becoming abusers themselves. As a psychologist, she attributes this phenomenon to a reclamation of power. Throughout the novel, Willingham examines the ways in which humans use control to regain power and lose a sense of their humanity in the process.

“I watch his reaction as the pieces fall into place. It’s always the same, every time someone realizes who I am: a visible loosening of the face before the jaw gets tight, like they have to physically restrain themselves from lunging at me from across the table. Our last names, our similar features. I’ve always been told that I have my father’s nose, oversized and slightly crooked, by far my least favorite thing on my face—not because of vanity, but because of the constant reminder of our shared DNA every time I look in the mirror.”

Reluctantly, Chloe reveals her identity as the daughter of Dick Davis, the Breaux Bridge serial killer, to Detective Thomas. She notes the way this revelation often leads to judgment. However, Chloe faces the most judgment from herself as she navigates the haunting feelings of self-hate and a lack self-trust derived from the betrayal of her father. As she falls deeper in the Baton Rouge investigation, she begins to see a need to set herself free from these struggles.

“Panic starts to surge through my chest as twelve-year-old me stares into the eyes of myself, twenty years older. They’re completely black, like the eyes of Bert Rhodes. I blink a few times and look down at the shovel in her hand, covered in a red liquid I somehow know in my gut to be blood. Slowly, a smile forms on her lips, and I break out into a scream.”

Influenced by alcohol and prescription medications, Chloe dreams of the night she saw her father in the woods with a shovel but imagines her adult self as the murderer. This moment highlights not only the suspenseful elements of the thriller genre but also symbolizes the lack of self-trust that haunts Chloe. Still reeling from her father’s evil acts 20 years later, Chloe finds it difficult to love and trust herself as his daughter. Through her active participation in the Baton Rouge murder investigation, Chloe seeks a path toward redemption and healing.

“I guess I thought that if I focused on it, on her, it would be overbearing, impossible to focus on anything else. But if I ignored it, eventually the pain would just subside on its own. It would never be gone—I knew it would still be there, it would always be there, ready to begin prickling across my skin as soon as I would let it—but it would be less noticeable, like background noise. Static.”

Chloe hears of her mother’s refusal to eat and rushes to her mother’s side. She reflects on how she has ignored her mother for 20 years to avoid feeling the pain of her mother’s abandonment. Chloe’s treatment of her mother exhibits the coping mechanisms that she employs and ultimately abandons. Through her reconciliation with her mother, Chloe gains an understanding of her mother’s pain and learns the power of confronting the harsh past.

“My inexplicit involvement reminds me of twenty years ago—of seeing and not realizing. Of unknowingly leading girls to a predator, or rather, leading a predator to them. I can’t help but wonder—if it weren’t for me, would they still be alive? All of them?”

Now suspicious of Daniel, Chloe asks her assistant about Daniel’s actions at the engagement party and blames herself for once again being intimately and unknowingly connected with a predator. The blame Chloe places on herself haunts her throughout the novel and leads her to take uncharacteristic action. Now, as an adult, Chloe can confront the murders from an empowered position that grants her healing and peace.

“Because for the first time in weeks, someone believes me. Someone is on my side. And it feels so good to be believed; to have someone look at me with genuine caring instead of suspicion or worry or rage.”

Desperate for help, Chloe divulges the details of her investigation to Aaron who expresses his support. Overwhelmed by his support, Chloe trusts Aaron and allows herself to be more vulnerable with him. Although this trust is soon broken, Chloe’s relationship with Aaron teaches Chloe how much she has withheld from Daniel and motivates her to focus on her own healing.

“I stop in my tracks, instinctively uneasy of the darkness. The cloak of night. But then I think of Riley. Of Aubrey and Lacey. I think of Lena. I think of the girls, of all the missing girls out there, and I force myself to keep walking toward the truth.”

Chloe travels back to Breaux Bridge for the first time to save Riley from Daniel. Her fear of the dark causes her to hesitate but, rather than retreating as she has done in the past, Chloe overcomes her fear. This moment leads Chloe into danger at Aaron/Tyler’s hands; however, it is only by overcoming her fears that she uncovers the truth of the murders and finds a way to move on.

“That wooden beam in my mother’s closet still snapped from the pressure of her neck, the ash from my father’s pipe still staining the living room carpet. All of it—a snapshot of my past, frozen in time, dust particles suspended in the air as if somebody had simply pressed Pause. Then turned around, closed the door, and left.”

Describing the state of her childhood home in Breaux Bridge, Chloe discusses how she and Cooper retreated from their family home in their attempts to heal. Willingham uses Chloe’s childhood home as a symbol of her past; Chloe’s abandonment of the home symbolizes the coping mechanisms she relies on to escape her turbulent feelings. It is only when Chloe returns to Breaux Bridge and confronts the past that she discovers a new path toward healing.

“That was the question I had been asking myself my entire life. Those had been the very memories I had been struggling to make sense of—those memories with my father that seemed to be so conflicting with the monster he had turned out to be.”

When Daniel poses the question of her father’s protection of her in the aftermath of the Breaux Bridge murders, Chloe contemplates how much this question has haunted her over the past 20 years. Despite the evidence against him, Chloe continued to question internally how her father could be the monster who murdered Lena and the other girls. Although Chloe ignores exploring this question for 20 years, Daniel’s insistence aids Chloe to begin the search for answers.

“Because that’s the thing about danger—it heightens everything. Your heartbeat, your senses, your touch. It’s a desire to feel alive, because it’s impossible to feel anything but alive when you find yourself in its presence, the world becoming cloaked in a shadowy haze, its very existence all the proof you need—that you’re here, you’re breathing.”

During her confrontation with Cooper, Chloe reflects on the power of danger to make one feel alive. She attributes loneliness as the cause of seeking out dangerous situations and empathizes with Aaron/Tyler’s dedication to Cooper. Through her commentary on the power of danger to entice, Willingham humanizes those like Aaron/Tyler.