I’m scaring him? He’s married to April and I’m the one he’s scared of?
Elliot follows me into my car. In the moonlight, I can just barely make out dark circles under his eyes. He looks exhausted and he doesn’t even know that his secretary is pregnant. I dig around in my purse until I come up with the photograph I had printed—I told Brianna I would be delivering the news tonight. I hand the photo to him, watching his expression. I could have made sure he got it some other way, but I want to see the look on his face. I deserve that, after what happened to Leo.
Elliot frowns down at the photo. “It’s April and Mark Tanner.”
“Right. You see what they’re doing, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I’m not stupid.” He hands the photo back to me. “Is that it?”
My mouth falls open. “You don’t care?”
“Oh, I care, but…” He lifts a shoulder. “Look, I’m not clueless. I know April messes around on me. You think you’re the first person to talk to me about it?”
“And you’re just going to stay with her?”
Elliot narrows his eyes at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be April’s best friend?”
I stare at him. This isn’t going how I expected it to go at all. I expected him to be furious right now. I thought he’d drive right home and tell April it was over.
He nods down at my purse. “I would get rid of that photo if I were you. You better hope April never finds out what you tried to do to her.”
And all of a sudden, I get it. Elliot is scared of April too. Maybe not scared enough to keep it in his pants, but scared enough that he would never ever leave her.
Right after Elliot leaves my car, I get out my phone and text Brianna:
Don’t tell Elliot anything yet. It didn’t go like I thought it would.
A second later, my phone starts to ring. It’s Brianna’s number. I glance out my window to make sure Elliot is gone, then I accept the call. “Brianna. You can’t tell him yet.”
“Julie, I have to.” Her voice is shaky but firm. “I’m three months pregnant. I can’t wait any longer. He’s going to figure it out.”
“Yes, but—”
“I have to.” She’s silent for a moment. “If he stays with her, then… that’s just the way it is. But he has to know.”
“April is dangerous,” I blurt out. “You have to be careful.”
Another long silence on the other line. “I know about that other secretary. But you don’t think April is the one who…”
“Yes. I think she is.”
I hear something that sounds like a sob on the other line. “I have to tell him, Julie. I’ll be careful.”
I grip the phone tighter. “Look, whatever happens, I’m going to get you a fair deal. I’ll be your lawyer. I… I haven’t practiced in a while, but I’m pretty tough.”
Brianna’s laugh sounds strangled—ugh, bad word. “I can imagine.”
“Be careful. If you have any concerns, call me. Or the police.”
“I will.”
But when I hang up, I still have a terrible feeling. This isn’t going to work out well. April got rid of Courtney, and Courtney hadn’t even been pregnant. What will she do to Brianna?
Chapter 50
With Leo home from school for a few days, I distract myself by throwing myself into PTA work. We earned a ton of money at the fall carnival, and I have some catching up to do, since I was in the emergency room with Leo most of the evening of the carnival.
The biggest fundraiser by far was the silent auction. I have to admit, April does a good job with it.
Except as I’m looking at the bids, it doesn’t seem to add up. The winning bids seem greater than the amount deposited in the PTA account. I finally get a calculator and do the math. It turns out I’m right. There’s a big discrepancy.
There’s money missing. A lot of money.
I spend the next hour on the phone with the bank. It takes some investigating, but it turns out some of the money was being filtered into a second account. One that isn’t affiliated in any way with the PTA.
Meaning somebody stole the money.
And then I do something really sickening. I go back to last year’s numbers. To my horror, there was a discrepancy last year too. How did I miss it? I thought I was so careful and organized.
Somebody stole money from the PTA account for the last two years. And there’s only one person who could have done it.
April.
I can’t believe it. After everything else she’s done, she also stole money from her child’s school? What is her encore going to be? Is she going to set an orphanage on fire while poisoning puppies?
The worst part is, I’m not sure how to handle it. I would love to turn this over to the police. I would love for April to go to jail for this, if nothing else. I mean, this is a lot of money. We’re talking grand larceny. That’s a felony.
But at the same time, I’m afraid of the scandal. The PTA has been my life for the last few years. If people found out that money was being stolen, we’re never going to be able to raise money again in the future. My best bet is to try to get the money back and sweep it under the rug.
I have to confront April.
The next morning, after Leo returns to school, I call April into my office at school to talk to her about the silent auction. My heart is thudding so loudly, April must be able to hear it. She has to know how terrified I am of her.
And now I’m going to confront her for the first time. I have no idea how she’s going to take it.
She doesn’t even look nervous when she sits down across from me at the conference table. April is never nervous. Not really. She sometimes tells people she’s nervous about this or that, but she isn’t really. I wonder if she ever feels any real human emotions or if she’s faking everything.
“Sit down,” I tell her.
“No ‘please’？”
There’s an edge to her voice that makes a chill go down my spine. I lift my eyes and her own eyes are boring into me. Do I really want to do this?
I take a deep breath. Be brave, Julie. You’ve brought down worse people than her. “I was looking at the app you used to record the bids and accept money into the PTA fund. And I noticed that there was a second account recorded. That a percentage of the money was being filtered into an account that wasn’t related to the school.”
She blinks innocently. “What do you mean?”
Okay, she’s going to play dumb. “I mean, somebody created another bank account that’s been stealing money from the silent auction that was supposed to have been going to the PTA.”
She clamps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. Who would do something like that?”
But of course, she knows. And she knows I know. She’s still going to make me play this game though.
“You,” I say. “You did it.”
“Julie, I would never do that.” She reaches out and before I can yank my hand away, her hand is on mine. “You know you can trust me.”
Her hand is gripping mine, applying an uncomfortable pressure. I take another deep breath and yank my hand away. “I’m sorry. But I know you did it.”