I find myself singing out loud as I cook breakfast the next morning.
No, the Brianna situation isn’t resolved. But that’s okay. I’ve solidified my marriage and that’s the most important thing.
And no, I haven’t forgiven Elliot—not even close. I’m not a complete pushover. I still expect him to do a massive amount of groveling. I may make him sleep on the floor a few more times. But I want to give him a hint at what the reward will be.
“Why are you singing, Mommy?” Bobby asks as he walks into the kitchen.
“Why can’t I sing?”
Bobby thinks about this a moment, but can’t come up with an answer. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Chocolate chip pancakes.”
Bobby couldn’t have looked happier if I told him that we were having an early Christmas tomorrow. But he’s had a rough week. He deserves chocolate chip pancakes. And so do I. I’ve had a rough week too.
I’ve just finished mixing the batter when the doorbell rings. I lower the flame on the stove and race to get the door. I don’t check the peephole before throwing it open, which turns out to be a mistake.
Because there’s a squad car parked in my driveway. And what I presume is a plain-clothed police officer standing at my door.
My heart sinks. Is this about the shoplifting thing? Because my court date isn’t for another couple of weeks. I haven’t done anything else wrong. I’ve barely left the house!
“Mrs. Masterson?” the officer says in a thick New York accent.
He’s in his early forties with red-tinged brown hair and he’s solidly built, with a scar running through the stubble on his left jawline. He has pale blue eyes that make him look non-scary—he’s actually pretty cute. He’s the sort of officer I’d see in the community and bring him some baked goods to enjoy on his break, and maybe flirt a bit for fun.
But right now, I’m scared out of my wits. “Yes, I’m Mrs. Masterson,” I manage.
“I’m Detective Hanrahan.” He flashes a badge at me. “Is your husband home?”
He wants to talk to Elliot. That’s a good thing, I assume. It means at least I haven’t allegedly done anything else wrong.
I go to the base of the stairs. Elliot was in the shower when I came down to make breakfast, but I don’t hear the shower anymore. He must be getting dressed. “Elliot!” My voice cracks. “Could you come down here please?”
A few seconds later, Elliot emerges from the upstairs bedroom wearing a dress shirt and slacks, his head freshly shaved. He’s got a tie loose around his neck that he’s expertly tying. But when he sees Detective Hanrahan at the door, his fingers freeze.
“Mr. Masterson?” Hanrahan calls out.
Elliot looks around, like he’s hoping there’s another Mr. Masterson the officer might be talking to. “Uh… yes…”
“My name is Detective Hanrahan. Could I have a word with you?” Elliot makes his way down the stairs, nearly tripping on the final step.
“How can I help you, Detective?”
Hanrahan’s expression is grim. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” When a policeman comes to your door and tells you he’s got bad news,
you can’t help but think the worst. I wonder if something happened to one of Elliot’s parents. It can’t be my mother—the nursing home would have called me.
But why would a detective be coming if something happened to one of Elliot’s parents?
“Yes?” Elliot says.
Hanrahan hesitates for a split second and bows his head. “I’m afraid I gotta tell you that your receptionist, Brianna Anderson… was found dead last night.”
Brianna is… dead?
Elliot looks like he’s about to choke. He grabs onto the banister of the stairs, and it’s the only thing holding him up. All the color has left his face.
The detective squints at him. “Are you okay, Mr. Masterson?”
He nods, but it looks like he’s barely keeping it together. My head is spinning. Brianna was found dead? What does that mean? She’s so young… People in their early twenties don’t just die for no reason.
“What… happened to her?” Elliot croaks.
“I’m afraid…” Detective Hanrahan pauses for what seems like an eternity and a half. “I’m afraid she was murdered.”
Murdered. Oh my God.
But I suppose that makes sense, considering there’s a detective at our door.
Elliot’s eyes widen. My husband might have a heart attack right now. “Murdered?” he gasps. “How?”
“Blunt trauma to the head. Basically, she was beaten to death. We found her in an alley a block away from her house”
“She was…” He sinks onto the steps. “Someone beat her to death?
That’s… Jesus Christ, I can’t…” “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
He sounds like he means it. He doesn’t sound suspicious of us at all. It sounds like he’s just letting us know, by the way, Elliot’s receptionist is dead.
I wonder if he knows Brianna was pregnant. He’s going to know sooner or later, I assume. They do an autopsy on anyone who gets murdered. That’s the sort of thing that would show up on autopsy. And then he might not seem quite so friendly.
“This is so sad,” I speak up. There’s no need for him to know that I hated Brianna with a passion. “I can’t believe somebody would do that to poor Brianna. She was such a nice girl.”
He nods. “Yes, it’s very sad.” His eyes dart between the two of us. “I’m afraid I gotta ask you both a few questions. You have time to talk?”
Elliot raises his face to look at the detective. He reaches out for the banister and shakily gets back to his feet. “Of course. Whatever we can do…”
Hanrahan clears his throat. “Can you tell me where you were during the late evening last night?”
Elliot rubs his neck. “I was home. I was here the whole night. With my son.”
“Me too,” I quickly add. “We were here together.”
Hanrahan raises his eyebrows. “So you two were together here the whole night?”
“Well,” Elliot says, “except for the time when April went to her book club.”
Why? Why would he say something like that?
“You went to a book club meeting last night?” Detective Hanrahan asks me.
“Yes,” I say. Technically, it’s true. I did go to the book club meeting.
But Lucy wouldn’t let me in the door.
I flinch as the officer studies my face. “What book?” he says. “Excuse me?”
“What book were you reading for your book club?”
“Oh!” My smile feels so phony. He must see through it. “We were reading Life of Pi.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “I always meant to check that one out.
Any good?”
I did read the book, but that doesn’t mean I have anything intelligent to say about it. “Yes. I enjoyed it very much.”
He nods, like this is a key piece of information. “And the other members of the book club could vouch for you that you were there?”
“Yes.”
My stomach feels like it’s full of rocks. Why did I lie like that? Nobody at the book club will vouch for me. I have no alibi at all for last night. It will take the detective five minutes to walk over to Lucy’s house and find out I was lying through my teeth.
My head starts to spin as I realize what is happening here. Brianna has been murdered, and I have both motive and a lack of an alibi.
I look over at Elliot, who seems like he’s going to throw up. I wonder if we should just tell this detective everything. Admit to him that Elliot was having an affair with Brianna. She was pregnant. It was his. And then admit to him that I wasn’t at the book club last night.
Of course, that last bit of information is damning. I can’t bring myself to hammer that nail into my own coffin.
“Mr. Masterson,” the detective says, “do you have any idea who might have done this to Miss Anderson?”
Elliot shakes his head slowly. “No… No one I can think of.” “Did she have a boyfriend?”
He runs his hand over his skull. “Um. Maybe. I don’t know. We didn’t discuss things like that.”
“Her roommate said she was seeing someone.” Detective Hanrahan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little notebook. He consults it for a moment, then looks back up at us. “She said Miss Anderson was seeing a married man. You got any idea who that could have been?”
He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know.”
The detective stands there for a moment, scratching at his reddish- brown hair. Does he know Elliot was the man Brianna was seeing? He must at least suspect. Or maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t seem like he thinks one of us is a murderer.
“Do you have any other questions?” Elliot finally says.
Detective Hanrahan shakes his head. “Not at this moment. Thank you for your time. But if you could make yourself available in the future, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course.” Elliot manages a half-hearted smile. “I want to cooperate in any way I can.”
The detective turns around and heads for the door. I feel a rush of relief. He’s leaving. He hasn’t accused me of anything. He doesn’t even seem that suspicious of us. But then, just before his fingers touch the doorknob, he turns around.
“One more question,” he says. Elliot raises his eyebrows. “Yes?” “Who was Courtney Burns?”
I feel all the blood rush out of my face. That is the last question I wanted to hear right now.
“Courtney Burns?” Elliot repeats. He’s stalling for time. He knows very well who Courtney Burns is.
“That’s right.”
“She, uh…” Elliot squirms. “She used to be my receptionist. About five or six years ago.”
“And what happened to her?”
“She, um…” I can almost hear him swallow. “She killed herself. It was very… unfortunate.”
“Wow.” Detective Hanrahan shakes his head. “Two dead secretaries in five years. That’s pretty bad luck.”
“Right.” Elliot drops his eyes. “Like I said, it was unfortunate. But Courtney had… a lot of problems.”
“I’m sure she did.” The detective’s light blue eyes are locked on my husband. I get this horrible sinking feeling in my chest—that nice guy routine from a few minutes ago was just to get us to let down our guards. The detective thinks Elliot killed Brianna. It’s so obvious. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to your breakfast. But don’t go anywhere. In case we have more questions.”
After the detective leaves, I shut the door behind him. My fingers are shaking so badly I can barely turn the deadbolt. I rest my forehead against the cool plaster on the door.
“April?”
I feel Elliot’s hand on my shoulder, and I instinctively jerk away. I turn around to face him, and I’m shocked by how pale his face is. Bobby is at the doorway to the kitchen, watching us. We need to keep our voices down.
“I can’t believe this,” Elliot murmurs.
Despite everything, I feel a surge of rage. “Why are you so upset?
Brianna was threatening to destroy our lives.” “No, she wasn’t.”
I snort. “Of course she was. She wanted you to leave me.”
He doesn’t deny it. I remember Brianna’s conviction that Elliot would leave our family to start over again with her. She seemed so sure. Maybe she was sure about it because he told her he would.
“I didn’t want her dead,” he says in a low voice. Well, I did.
Elliot glances back at the kitchen—Bobby is gone. “And I’m screwed
—a seven-year-old is my only alibi. At least you were at your book club.”
I take a deep breath. I couldn’t work up the nerve to tell the detective, but I should tell Elliot. He’s my husband and my lawyer, after all. “I never went to the book club.”
His brown eyes fly wide open. He takes a step back. “You… what?”
I don’t want to tell him the story about how they kicked me out. So I tell him a portion of the truth. “After everything that happened with Bobby, I just didn’t feel like being judged. So I didn’t go.”
“So where were you for over two hours?” “I went to Taco Bell. I drove around.”
“You just drove around? By yourself?” “Who else would I be with?”
He’s staring at me, a strange look on his face. “April…”
Oh my God, he thinks I killed her. I see it all over his face. I’ve got a motive and no alibi. I am so screwed. Whoever did this set me up good.
“Elliot.” I’m trying to hide the hysteria I’m feeling inside. “I didn’t kill Brianna. You have to believe that.”
He just shakes his head. “I… I better get to work…”
I try to reach for him, but this time he’s the one who jerks away.
I see it all unfolding. Detective Hanrahan finds out Elliot got Brianna pregnant. He discovers my alibi is bullshit. He takes my picture around Brianna’s neighborhood, and maybe somebody thinks they recognize it. And that’s all it will take.
I look out the window at the house next door. The lights are on inside and I see a silhouette in the window. Maria. She’s been watching. She saw the police come to my house. She knows they were questioning us.
She’s behind this. My life was perfect until she showed up in our neighborhood. Brianna was talking to her just yesterday, and now she’s dead. I should let Detective Hanrahan know about Maria’s friendship with Brianna. I would have told him all about that burner phone she’s got hidden in her purse, except I didn’t think he would believe me. He’d think I was making it up to take the suspicion off myself. And in the meantime, Maria would probably throw that phone in a dumpster where nobody would ever find it.
I just wish I understood. Why is she doing this to me? I never did anything to this woman. And ever since I met her, it seems like she’s been determined to ruin my life. I bet she really did lure Bobby to her house the first day, like he said she did. She’s been wanting to scare me.
She hates me. She’s been targeting me.
And the only way to prove it is to get that burner phone.
