Page 80 of Want to Know a Secret?

“No. That’s not acceptable. I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me about this, Peggy. I’ll have to contact Dr. Williams directly to adjust her medications.”

“Mrs. Masterson, I don’t think she needs more medication. She’s already so out of it as it is.”

“Well, you’re not the doctor, are you?”

Peggy is quiet after that. April comes back to help me get cleaned up, but my thoughts won’t stop racing. I can’t get that haunted look in Janet’s eyes out of my head. Janet knows something. She knows something April doesn’t want anyone else to know.

I remember all those rumors about Courtney Burns. Elliot Masterson’s secretary, who killed herself years ago. It was ruled a suicide, anyway. But was it?

I used to be a prosecutor. My job was to put guilty people in prison. If April did something terrible, it doesn’t matter if she’s my best friend. She needs to pay the price.

Chapter 39

I call Riley Hanrahan.

I haven’t talked to him in years. He’s a detective who I worked with very closely when I was a DA. All right, we didn’t just work together—we also had a little fun on the side. What can I say—I was so busy those days, the only men I met were through work. But that was a long time ago. Before Keith. And then just once after Keith. When I first moved out here, he sent me some text messages and tried to call me to convince me to come back to work. I was tempted, but I did what was right for my family. I stayed.

In any case, he hasn’t changed his cell phone number.

“Riley,” I say when he answers the phone. “It’s Julianne... Abrams.” He would only know me by my maiden name. I had always said I would never change my name after getting married, but then it just… happened. I wanted to have the same name as my children, after all.

“Jules!” Riley’s boisterous Queens accent rings out on the other line. Nobody but Riley ever called me Jules. “It’s been… Christ, how long? You back at the DA’s office?”

“No,” I say quietly. “I’m not.”

“Yeah? Where are you working now?”

“I’m still… I’m staying at home with my boys.” I had said that when Leo started kindergarten, I would look into going back. But he’s already been in kindergarten nearly a year, and I’ve made no moves to apply for jobs. In my defense, kindergarten is just half-days. How could I possibly work with that schedule?

“Huh. Well, how you been?”

We spend the obligatory two minutes catching up on our lives. I tell him a little bit about my boys, and he confirms he’s still single. Married to the job, yadda yadda yadda, same way I used to be. As we talk, I feel that deep ache in my chest, remembering everything I gave up when I moved to the island.

“Riley, I’m wondering if you could help me out,” I tell him. “I’m looking for some information.”

“Just tell me how I can help you, Jules.”

I looked up online all I could find about Courtney Burns, but there isn’t much. Her obituary was scarce on details. Her social media pages are long gone. Her death has long since been ruled a suicide. “I’m looking for details about a woman named Courtney Burns. She committed suicide about four years ago.”

“And what’s this for?”

“Just… curiosity.” I pause. “Will you do it, Riley?”

There’s a long silence on the other line. What I’m asking Riley to do isn’t exactly kosher, but he’s done it for me before. “Okay,” he says. “Give me a couple of days.”

A few days later, Riley sends me a text, asking if I would meet him out in Queens. At a pizza place where we used to eat a while back. Dino’s. Great crust, oily cheese. I haven’t eaten a slice of Dino’s Pizza in almost ten years. These days, if somebody brought a pizza pie into my house, I would yell at them. That’s the sort of woman I have somehow become.

Ironically, I have to ask April to pick up Leo so I can meet Riley. The kindergarten day ends at noon. The boys get in a whopping three hours of school, then it’s all over. April is so cheerful about agreeing to pick Leo up, I feel a stab of guilt.

I show up at Dino’s ten minutes early. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a stickler for promptness. Nothing upsets me more than when somebody can’t be bothered to show up on time. So it pleases me when I walk in the door of Dino’s and find Riley already waiting at a table.

“Julianne Abrams.” He stands up to greet me. “It’s been a while.”

It has been a while. A long while. I feel suddenly self-conscious in that way you always feel when you’re in the presence of somebody you used to have that sort of relationship with a long time ago. Worrying if my hips have gotten too wide or if the makeup has concealed the crow’s feet. To make matters worse, Riley looks great. Still so solid and muscular. Same reddish-brown hair, now a little gray at the temples, but it suits him. There’s a scar on his right jaw that I don’t remember from the last time I saw him. And he still had those unassuming light blue eyes that make people trust him—a valuable commodity for a detective.

“It’s Bressler now, actually,” I say as I sit down across from him.

“Right.” He nods. “Keith Bressler. That was the guy you gave it all up for.”