J. Jance - Web of Evil

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 didordering 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 smokinglike 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 alltalking 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 Chrisresented everything about Chrisand 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 marriagethree, 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 knowcloser 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?"