More than anything, I need to get to the bottom of this.
I didn’t even realize until I’m driving home how good it feels to be investigating a murder. Ever since I gave up my job at the DA’s office, it was like I had been in some sort of fog. Always trying to find more and more activities to substitute for the job I missed so badly. The one I was born to do.
I don’t know what to do next about April. I have to find time to return to the nursing home when Dr. Williams isn’t around. Peggy will help me. Next time I’ll record my visit, and I’ll call Riley if I manage to find out anything. Maybe there’s no chance of getting justice for Courtney Burns. But if I can get Janet Portland out of that nursing home, it will be worth it.
I stop off to get groceries on the way home. I still have some time before the boys’ karate class ends. April is supposed to be picking them all up and bringing them home. But I’m not comfortable with that anymore. I don’t want that woman near my kids.
I call her while I’m driving home from the grocery store, but the call goes to voicemail. I’ll have to intercept her at the karate school. Maybe I should call the karate school and ask them not to release the kids to her.
I walk into my kitchen through the back door with my bags of groceries. I’m carrying four bags, so I drop them on the kitchen counter and extract the handles from my wrist. Then I get out my phone and call the karate school. I look at my watch. Still twenty minutes left till pick up time. Just enough time for me to drive over there.
The karate studio answers after a couple of rings. A slightly accented female voice answers, “Hello? Teraoka karate studio.”
“Hi!” I say. “This is Julie—Leo and Tristan Bressler’s mom. I just wanted to talk to somebody about their pick up today.”
“Oh, yes, yes!” the woman says. “Your friend April already picked them up. No problem.”
“But… the class isn’t over yet…”
“She explained… there was a party…?” She sounds confused. “It was okay for her to pick up, right?”
“No!”
“But…” she sputters. “She always picks them up… I thought…” “Don’t ever let her pick them up again,” I snap into the phone. And
then I slam it down on the kitchen counter.
Why would April pick up my kids twenty minutes early? There was no reason for her to do that. Unless…
Unless she already knows I was at the nursing home with her mother.
Maybe Dr. Williams called her right after I saw him.
I get a stab of panic in my chest. Oh my God, what is she doing? What is she planning to do to my children?
Okay, I need to calm down. So what if April has my kids? It’s not like she’s going to run off with them. I know where she lives—practically next door. And it’s not like she’s some sort of monster who would murder two young children.
Is she?
I call April’s number yet again. Again, right to voicemail. This time I punch in a text message:
Please give me a call back as soon as possible. I really need to talk to you.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t call the police. I gave April permission to pick up the kids. She would have been negligent if she hadn’t gotten them. The karate studio has written permission from me to allow April to pick them up. If I call the police, I’ll sound like a nut job.
I call Keith, but he doesn’t answer. Naturally. And then I call him again. And again. On the fourth try, he picks up the phone.
“What’s going on, Julie?” he barks into the phone.
“I…” I bite my lip, trying to figure out how I’m going to tell him what happened. “April has the kids—”
“So?” he interrupts me before I can get the rest of the sentence out. “I’m worried they might be… in danger.”
“From April?” He snorts. “What’s she going to do—bake them into a pie?”
“I just… I’m worried she might hurt them.” “Julie, have you been drinking?”
“No!”
“Look, I don’t have time for this.” Keith’s voice becomes muffled as he talks to somebody in the background. “Julie, I’m going. I’ll be home late tonight.”
Before I can even attempt to explain, he has hung up on me.
I pace back-and-forth across my kitchen. I try calling April again, and I send her three more text messages. As much as Keith was a jerk, he was probably right. April won’t hurt them. It’s crazy to think otherwise.
But April not picking up her phone is unusual behavior. Not answering text messages is even more unusual. April’s standard reply time is fifteen seconds.
This goes on for almost two hours. I even walk over to her house and peer through the window, but the Masterson house is empty. By the end of the two hours, I’m going out of my mind. April knows what she’s doing. This is no accident. At the two hour mark, I punch in the following text message:
Please. I’m sorry. Bring them back.
Still no response. That bitch.
Fine. I’m not just going to stand here and let April torture me all night long. I go to my recently dialed numbers list and select Riley’s number. It rings twice, then I hear his reassuring voice on the other line. “Jules? What’s wrong?”
I tell him everything. It all comes out in a rush of words, but he doesn’t interrupt me. He listens to the whole awful story, and waits until I’m done to remark, “Jesus.”
“What should I do, Riley?”
He’s silent for a moment on the other line. “You really think she might hurt them?”
“I don’t know. Look what she did to her own mother.”
He heaves a sigh. “Okay, give me your address. I’m coming over.”
I recite my address for him, but before we end the call, I hear a noise.
It’s the front door. The lock is turning. And there is April. With my boys.
“Never mind,” I mumble into the phone. “She’s here.”
I don’t wait to hear Riley’s response. I toss my phone on the kitchen counter and rush over to hug the boys tightly to me. April is standing behind them, her usual sweet smile plastered on her lips. I want to scratch her eyes out.
“Oh my gosh!” she cries. “You weren’t worried, were you? I just took them out to McDonald’s after karate.”
I swipe at the tears forming in my eyes. “I called you.”
April raises an eyebrow. “Did you? I think I left my phone in the car.
So sorry about that.”
I straighten up to stare her in the eyes. The thing is, I was a prosecutor. I have stared into the eyes of a lot of horrible people who have done a lot of horrible things. But when I look into April Masterson’s pretty blue eyes, I get a chill. She isn’t just horrible. She isn’t just a murderer.
She’s evil.
And she’s making her message to me very clear. If I try to hurt her in any way, she will destroy me and everything I care about. And unlike back in my prosecutor days, when I was single and childfree, I have a family I care about now.
That night, I send Riley a text message, telling him I have made a terrible mistake. It turns out my neighbor hasn’t done anything wrong after all.
