A Flicker In The Dark by Stacy Willingham

 

Chloe Davis has been running from her childhood her whole life.  When she was twelve, there was a series of teenage girls who went missing and were never found.  Chloe was the person who found their jewelry tucked away in a box in her parents' closet and gave it to the police.  Her dad confessed and has been in prison for the last twenty years.

Chloe had a horrific six years after his imprisonment with her mother becoming so depressed that she ignored the children and people in town determined to take out revenge on someone in the family.  Her daily life was taunts, smears and sometimes physical violence from those who lost a sister, daughter or friend.  She got out as soon as she could like her brother Cooper did, went to LSU and got a degree that lets her now practice as a psychologist.  Recently, she has become engaged to Daniel and she thinks she has finally put the past behind her.

But the past isn't done with Chloe.  Twenty years later, girls start missing in Baton Rouge where Chloe now lives and the missing girls have connections to Chloe.  One is a patient and another a girl she had met while shopping.  Who could be doing this?  Who is copying her father?  A New York Times reporter comes to town to do an article on her father after twenty years but stays to report on this new, more exciting story.  He asks Chloe to help him and reluctantly she agrees.  Can they find the killer?

Stacy Willingham has created an interesting look at what happens to the families of killers.  The killer is often locked away, safe from victims' families revenge but the killer's family is left to deal with what the killer has done.  They feel guilty, persecuted, unable to believe they were blind to what was going on and unable to believe any good memories they might have.  As Chloe stumbles from one theory to another, the tension increases until all is revealed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.