Authors: J.A. Jance
So her mother had been blindfolded or maybe even unconscious. She had no idea where she was, and she was being held there against her will.
Ali strained to hear the other woman’s response, but it was totally inaudible.
Then Ali heard her mother’s voice again. “Untie me,” she said. “Let me go. I’m sure we can sort all this out.”
There was a momentary pause followed by a burst of outrage. “We’re not going to sort it out. We’re not sorting anything. Stop telling me what to do, damn it! Just stop it!”
And now that she heard the voice clearly, Ali knew whose it was—April’s. The voice belonged to April Gaddis. How could that be?
“Please, April,” Edie said aloud. “Be reasonable.”
But April had evidently moved beyond reason. “Shut up!” she screamed. “Shut the hell up!”
April’s shout was followed by the sounds of a brief struggle complete with lots more rustling and a sharp clatter. In her mind’s eye, Ali imagined the phone falling out of Edie’s bra and skittering across some hard surface. In her ears, the noise was deafening, but Edie’s attacker didn’t seem to notice. There were other sounds, too—the horrifying thumps of something heavy landing on human flesh. Knowing her mother was most likely bound and helpless, Ali cringed at each one. At last the struggle ended in a terrible groan and a spate of ragged breathing.
“There now,” April said very clearly. “Maybe now you’ll finally shut the hell up and stay where I put you.”
Ali heard a door slam shut followed by an awful silence on the other end of the line. By some miracle the call was still connected.
“Mother?” Ali called. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”
But of course there was no reply. If Edie Larson was even still conscious, she couldn’t hear her daughter’s voice.
For a moment longer Ali stared at the phone in an agony of indecision. The phone in her hand was her only connection to her mother, but where was she? If Ali dialed 911 on her room phone, what would she say to them? “My mother’s been attacked somewhere in L.A. I have no idea where.” Or, was it possible there was an emergency operator somewhere who could trace the call between Ali’s cell phone and wherever it was her mother was being held, injured, perhaps, or maybe even unconscious? But how long would that take? And even if Ali managed to maintain the connection for a while, could she keep it going long enough? What would happen when Edie’s phone ran out of battery power and turned itself off?
Closing her eyes, Ali tried to decide what to do. Wherever April had taken Edie, it had to be a place to which April had ready access. And Edie had mentioned something about a basement. This was California, an area where basements weren’t all that common, but Ali knew where there was at least one basement—a huge one—in the bottom of the house on Robert Lane.
More than half of the space had been and still was devoted to Paul’s extensive wine collection, but there had been several other rooms as well, including a decommissioned redwood-lined sauna that Paul had considered turning into a safe room. Thinking about the way the heavy door had slammed shut behind April as she’d left, Ali had the sudden sense that she knew the answer. She wasn’t confident enough in her idea that she was willing to place an emergency call based on it, but she did know for sure that there wasn’t a moment to lose.
With the call still connected and on speaker, Ali dressed and strapped on her Glock. She paused only long enough to call for her car before grabbing for her purse.
Riding down in the elevator, Ali realized that taking on someone as seemingly deranged as April all by herself was nothing short of stupid. Once more she considered ending the one call and dialing 911. But again, what would she tell them?
Let’s see. How about: “My mother’s been attacked by my dead husband’s pregnant fiancée who may or may not be holding her prisoner somewhere in my house on Robert Lane”?
Did that sound like a call emergency operators were likely to take seriously? And even if they did, if April had come unhinged, what would she do if a bunch of cop cars came screaming into the yard? With Edie possibly injured and alone in the house with April, that was a risk Ali wasn’t prepared to take.
While she was riding down in the elevator, the call ended on its own. Either her mother’s phone had run out of power, or Ali’s had simply lost the signal. Frustrated, Ali tried calling Dave. He didn’t answer, so she left a terse message.
“On my way to the house. I think April’s there, but I’m not sure. I also think she’s lost it. Wherever she is, I believe she’s holding Mom prisoner. Call me as soon as you get this message. Please.”
Scrambling into the Cayenne, Ali rammed it into gear. Heading for the house, she was reasonably confident that in a fair fight—a one-on-one altercation—she would be able to take April.
And I have no intention of fighting fair,
Ali told herself grimly.
None whatsoever!
A
li should have been pulled over a dozen times between the hotel and the house. She drove at breakneck speeds, passing like a maniac, going through lights that were already turning red. She almost hoped she could provoke an observant traffic cop into following her. Maybe having cops there was a good idea after all, and that was one way to summon some police presence without having to explain her soap opera existence to some emergency operator. But it didn’t happen. When Ali finally sped through the broken gate and pulled to a stop in the paved driveway, she was still on her own. Dave hadn’t called her back, and she couldn’t take the time to call him again.
It’s now or never,
she told herself.
Before Ali ever stepped out of the car, she considered drawing her Glock but decided against it. Her plan was to try talking first. The Glock would come into play only as a last resort.
Ali was disappointed to find no sign of April’s bright red Volvo there in the driveway, and no sign of Edie Larson’s Olds, either. It was possible both cars were parked in the spacious five-car garage. Maybe that was where they had been parked when Ali and Dave had come to the house earlier and decided no one was there. It was also possible, Ali realized, that she was wrong and there was no one at the house now, either.
Hurrying up onto the porch, Ali reached past a tangle of crime scene tape and tried the front door. It was locked. Ali headed for the back of the house, wondering as she went if the alarm system had ever been reengaged. She tried the slider from the pool patio into the family room. No luck. That was locked, too. Finally she tried the door into the kitchen. The knob turned easily in her hand.
“I wondered how long it would take you to get here,” April said.
Ali stopped just inside the door. April was across the room, seated on a chair at the kitchen table. A pistol Ali recognized as one of Paul’s lay nearby on the tabletop, well within April’s reach. Ali knew that had she come into the house with her own weapon drawn, they both might have died in a hail of gunfire.
“What’s going on?” Ali demanded. “What have you done to my mother?”
“She kept trying to tell me what to do. I got sick of it. So I decided to show her a thing or two.”
“My mother told you what to do so you’re holding her prisoner in the basement? Are you nuts?”
“Maybe,” April conceded. “Maybe a little.”
Ali took a step into the room. As soon as she did, April picked up the gun and pointed it in Ali’s direction. “Don’t come any closer,” she said. “Put your hands behind your head and stay where you are.”
“Is my mother hurt?” Ali asked.
“I didn’t hit her that hard,” April said. “I was tired of listening to her. I just wanted her to shut up.”
“I asked you if my mother’s all right.”
“She’s still breathing, if that’s what you want to know,” April allowed. “I came upstairs to get more duct tape. When I went back down, I found her phone. I heard it ringing. Someone named Bobby called—whoever that is.”
Bobby was Robert Larson, Ali’s father, although Edie hardly ever called her husband by that pet name to his face.
“And that’s when I saw Edie had called you,” April continued.
“You’re right,” Ali agreed. “She did call me, and I heard everything that was said between you, April. All of it. And when she mentioned being in a basement, I knew you had to be holding her here at the house. But why? What do you think you’re doing? What’s this all about? Whatever it is, we’ve got to put a stop to it.”
“We?” April returned bitterly. “There you go doing the same thing your mother did—ordering me around, telling me what to do. Why does everyone think they can get away with that? It’s been that way all my life. It’s like people think that just because someone is pretty they’re also stupid. I’m not, you know.”
“What exactly did my mother tell you to do?” Ali asked.
“She told me to stop smoking—like I was in junior high. She sounded just like my mother. Exactly like my mother. It was like a flashback or something.”
“So your mother was always ordering you around, too?” Ali asked the question more to sustain the conversation than anything else. She knew she needed to keep April talking while she figured out what to do next.
“Are you kidding?” April demanded. “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t notice. She was the worst one of all—talking to the lawyers, firing the cook and the gardener, acting like it was her house and her life instead of mine.”
For the first time it occurred to Ali that April herself might have been responsible for her mother’s fatal plunge down the stairs.
“Your mother was trying to look out for you,” Ali said reasonably. “For you and your baby both.”
“Screw the baby,” April said. “I never even wanted a damned baby. I never should have told Paul about it in the first place. He’s the one who talked me into keeping it. If it had been up to me, I would have had an abortion just like I did those other times. But as soon as Paul knew about it, he was wild to get married, have the baby and everything.”
April’s words hit Ali hard. She remembered that she and Paul had talked some about having kids shortly after they married, but Chris was already a teenager by then. Ali had been happy with the way her career was going. She hadn’t wanted to start the motherhood program over again, especially knowing full well that no matter how much paid help she’d have had, most of the responsibility for the new arrival would fall to her. She had already raised one only child. She hadn’t wanted to do that again, but she certainly hadn’t wanted to have two more children, either. So she hadn’t exactly said no to Paul, but she hadn’t ever stopped taking her birth control pills, either. The upshot of that had been that Paul had resented Chris—resented everything about Chris—and had never really accepted him.
Once Ali had learned about April, she had moved out of the house. In the months since then, she had blamed Paul for everything that had been wrong with their marriage. Now, though, standing with her fingers locked around the back of her neck, facing her husband’s armed mistress across an expanse of kitchen, Ali Reynolds came face-to-face with her own culpability. For the first time she had to admit that it had taken two people to destroy her marriage—three, counting April.
But that wasn’t the real issue here. The real bottom line had to do with April and her gun. If she had gone totally off her rocker, was anyone going to come out of this confrontation alive?
“You killed your mother?” Ali asked.
“What if I did?” April replied. “It was an accident. We were arguing in the upstairs hallway. It got physical. I pushed her and down she went.”
April’s dispassionate confession was calm, conversational, and utterly chilling.
“But she was still alive when she landed,” Ali argued. “She was still alive hours later when we found her. Why didn’t you try to help her? Why didn’t you call for an ambulance?”
“Because I didn’t want to help her,” April returned. “Because I was tired of having her scream at me. I just left her where she was and went shopping. I figured someone else would find her eventually, and I was right.”
“My mother never screamed at you,” Ali said.
“No,” April agreed. “But every time I was around her, she kept telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing for the baby. Smoking is bad for the baby. Drinking is bad. Eating spicy food is bad. Coffee is bad. I’m sick and tired of the damned baby. She’s not even born yet, and even Sonia Marie gets to tell me what to do.”
She really is crazy,
Ali thought.
Totally nuts!
“How did my mother get here to the house?” Ali asked.
“She figured it out,” April said.
“Figured what out?”
“About my mother. She came to my room after the interview while I was changing clothes. She saw the scratches on my arms and asked me about them, so I decided to get rid of her, too. And since she liked the baby so much, I used the baby against her. I came here to the house and then I called Edie. I told her where I was and that I needed her to come quick and pick me up because my contractions had started. Worked like a charm. She couldn’t get here fast enough. She was surprised when I pulled the gun on her, though. I think she thought I was kidding. I wasn’t.”
So Edie’s ability to see through people was what had gotten her in trouble.
“My arms are getting tired,” Ali said. “My hands are going to sleep. Can I put them down now?”
“Stay on that side of the room then,” April ordered. “Over against the sink. Don’t come any closer.”
“What about Paul?” Ali asked, changing the subject ever so slightly. “Did he ever tell you what to do?”
“Sort of,” April admitted. “I didn’t mind that much because he was nice about it, at least at first. It got worse after I moved in here. That’s when I really noticed it. He started sounding more and more like my mother. He was closer to her age, you know—closer to hers than he was to mine.”
“You killed him, too, then?” Ali asked.
“Of course I didn’t kill him,” April said indignantly. “I keep telling you, I’m not stupid. Why would I kill Paul when we weren’t married and he hadn’t even signed his new will yet? That makes no sense.”
“I thought you didn’t know whether or not he had signed it.”
“There are a lot of things I know that people don’t think I know,” April returned with a grim smile. “That’s the one nice thing about people thinking I’m stupid. They always underestimate me.”
April had already nonchalantly admitted to one murder, and Ali knew she had most likely attempted another. Given that, when she denied having been involved in Paul Grayson’s death, Ali had to concede there was a possibility April was telling the truth.
“So what are you going to do now?” Ali asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve admitted to me that you killed your own mother. You’ve attacked mine, and you’re holding her prisoner. You’re holding me at gunpoint. How is this all going to end, April? Do you have a plan?”
“Not really,” April said with a shrug of her shoulders. “After everything that’s happened, I really don’t care that much one way or the other.”
To Ali’s ear, that sounded very much like an implied suicide threat. Dealing with someone in that distraught state who was also armed with a lethal weapon was a very bad idea.
“What if I’ve called the cops?” Ali asked.
April shrugged again. “If you had, they’d be here by now.”
“What if I’ve called someone else?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Tell me about Tracy McLaughlin.”
“What about him? He’s a friend of mine and a lot closer to my age than anybody else around here.”
“How good a friend?” Ali asked.
“That’s what your mother wanted to know, too,” April said bitterly. “She even asked me if Trace was the father of my baby. Of course he isn’t. You think I’m dumb enough to try passing somebody else’s baby off as Paul’s? What if he’d asked for a paternity test? What do you think would have happened to me then? If the baby wasn’t his, I would have been out in the cold, just like I am anyway. So what does it matter?”
“Look,” Ali said, trying to sound reassuring. “Let’s go down to the basement and check on my mother. Once I’m sure she’s all right, we can work together to figure out what’s best for you and for your baby.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” April said. “It’s over.”
“What’s over?”
“There’s not going to be a baby. I’m going to end this whole thing today. Now. What kind of a life would Sonia Marie have with her father dead and me in prison? Even if the cops arrest Jesus Sanchez, sooner or later they’re going to figure out what really happened, the same way your mother did. Then they’ll come after me. What’s the point?”
“You might be in prison, but the baby would be alive.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s much of a favor. I already told you, there isn’t going to be a baby. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll burn this house down while I’m at it. That would be pretty funny, wouldn’t it? If you’re gone and I’m gone and the baby’s gone, who gets Paul’s money then?” April’s question trailed off in a mirthless giggle.
Before Ali could attempt an answer, her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket. A glance at the caller ID window told her it was Dave calling.
“It’s my father,” Ali said to April. “I need to take this call. Otherwise he might come here looking for me.”
April nodded. “All right,” she said. “Answer it.”
Ali pressed the “talk” button.
“Hi, Dad,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “How close are you?”
“Dad!” Dave repeated. “I’m not your father. It’s Dave, for God’s sake. Don’t you ever check the caller ID before you answer? And what the hell do you mean, going over to the house all by yourself?—”
“No,” Ali said calmly, interrupting his angry outburst. “We still haven’t found her. I called in a report to Missing Persons, but I haven’t gone to the cops directly. If you want to, that’s up to you.”
“What’s going on—” Dave stopped abruptly, and then seemed to tumble. “I see,” he said. “It’s April, isn’t it? I’m almost at the house now, just turning up the hill. I’ll be there in a matter of minutes.”