We Are All the Same in the Dark

We Are All the Same in the Dark is a 2020 thriller novel by Julia Heaberlin. The story follows a young policewoman, Odette, as she works to help an abandoned young girl while also unraveling the secrets behind a decade-old cold case that has haunted a small town in rural Texas. The novel explores themes of The Lasting Effects of Unresolved Trauma, The Public’s Involvement in Criminal Cases, and Resilience in the Face of Trauma and Adversity.

Heaberlin is an internationally bestselling author of six novels, all in the mystery/psychological thriller genre; as a former journalist, Heaberlin’s interest in true crime permeates her writing, and her work often centers around cold cases.

This guide refers to the 2021 Ballantine Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain mentions of abuse, sexual violence, and suicide.

Plot Summary

The novel opens from the point of view of a man named Wyatt Branson, who finds a girl with a missing eye on the side of a road in rural Texas and takes her home. The novel switches narrators as Odette, a young policewoman, responds to a tip about Wyatt and goes to his house. Ten years earlier, the Branson house was the site of an investigation; Wyatt’s sister, Trumanell, disappeared, and he and his father, Frank (who also disappeared), were prime suspects. Odette has returned to the town to investigate Trumanell’s disappearance.

She arrives at the Branson house and identifies with the girl because Odette herself was involved in an accident that resulted in her leg being amputated. The girl, whom Wyatt calls Angel, refuses to speak, and Odette takes her to her cousin Maggie, a law student who runs an unofficial safehouse for young girls. Maggie takes Angel in but warns Odette to be careful.

Odette is determined both to solve the mystery around Trumanell’s disappearance and to help Angel. Her late father was a policeman in this town as well; she investigates his belongings and his desk at the police station, suspecting he was involved in Trumanell’s case. She finds that Angel has not been reported missing and fears someone may be out to hurt her, so she takes Angel to an ocularist for a prosthetic eye that perfectly matches her real eye, making her more difficult to identify.

Later, Wyatt is arrested for harassing a local young woman who resembles Trumanell. Though there is no evidence of his involvement in Trumanell’s disappearance, the town is convinced of Wyatt’s guilt, while Odette seeks to protect him given their past together; they were in a relationship as teenagers. Odette’s husband, Finn, offers to represent Wyatt in court, although he has left Odette after finding out she recently had sex with Wyatt.

Odette finds a pair of her father’s boots with mud and blood caked on them, and she gives them, along with Angel’s scarf, to a forensic investigator for DNA testing. Angel’s DNA is a match to a man who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and was recently released from prison. Odette assumes Angel is on the run from this man and goes to Maggie’s house. Angel still refuses to speak, but Odette talks to her about her own accident and gives her a note her father once gave her, saying she sees herself in Angel and believes they were brought together for a reason. That night, Odette goes to the Branson field with a shovel, looking for something buried out there. While there, she is fatally shot, although her exact fate remains unknown to the town’s residents.

The point of view shifts to Angel’s; five years have passed, and she is now returning to the small Texas town to investigate Odette’s disappearance, still on the run from her father. Angel goes to Odette’s house, which now sits abandoned, and looks through Odette’s personal things. She goes to the Branson house, and Wyatt, recognizing her as the girl he found, takes her to the spot in the field where Odette disappeared (i.e., where her truck was found). He tries to take Angel to the spot where he found her five years ago, but a storm forces them to take cover in an underground shelter. When the storm passes, Angel finds all the local motels have been damaged, forcing her to stay at Odette’s house.

Finn is there when Angel wakes up the next morning. He threatens to turn her in to the police, but Angel convinces him to let her stay. In return, she offers to clean the house. While cleaning, she finds a Betty Crocker cookbook in the kitchen that Odette has filled with personal notes and details about the Trumanell case. She uses Odette’s notes to convince Odette’s former partner, Rusty, to work with her. Rusty, convinced of Wyatt’s guilt, plans to go after him.

Angel goes to Maggie’s house and tells her everything; Maggie tells her not to go back to Odette’s house, but Angel returns anyway. While she is there, someone breaks in and shoots her in the shoulder, and Angel hits him with one of Odette’s prosthetic legs.

The shooter is Reverend Rodney Tucker—the town pastor, as well as Odette’s uncle and Maggie’s father. It is revealed that he is responsible for both Trumanell and Odette’s deaths; he discovered that Maggie is not his biological daughter but Frank Branson’s and threatened the Branson family, fatally shooting Trumanell. His brother, Odette’s father, helped Tucker evade guilt by killing Frank Branson and convincing Wyatt not to tell anyone what happened.

Angel finishes cleaning out Odette’s house. When she takes down an old portrait, she finds a map of graves sketched on the back. The map leads to the bodies of both Trumanell and Odette, who were buried in the local graveyard. With both cases solved, Angel goes on to attend college.