Page 85 of Want to Know a Secret?

“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?”