“And if nothing else, he has given us a gift of getting us all together. April is with Judith in Spring Falls, and we’ll see them when we find what we need to find here.”

  Bree patted Cindy on the hand as she smiled at Marsha and said, “That will be wonderful, won’t it?” before standing and heading to the bathroom.

  When she was gone, Cindy whispered to Marsha, “She doesn’t seem thrilled about going to Spring Falls, does she? Doesn’t she want to see Judith and April?”

  “Maybe what she ran away from is still there?”

  “Probably. Or at least Bree is afraid that it is. Is what you ran from still there, Marsha?”

  “I didn’t run away. I ran towards. You know why. I wanted to be a Broadway sensation, singing and dancing on stage forever. New York was fun and exciting, but I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. However, even though I was never the sensation I had hoped to be, I did do some small things.”

  “Did you love it as much as you expected?”

  “More. I loved it more than I expected. But the parts I could play became fewer and fewer, and I gave up. Moved away and started a small dance school. Made a living.”

  “A living, but not a life?”

  Marsha uncrossed her legs and started clearing the table. Cindy joined her, neither one of them speaking. When they finished, Marsha looked down at her friend. People always teased them when they were together.

  Tall Marsha. almost as tall as Judith, and short Cindy. She wondered if it had bothered Cindy to be teased about being so small. Cindy and April were the short ones in the group, although April was the smallest. Did they mind?

  She had never asked. Maybe that was why she hadn’t had a life. She had never asked others how they felt. Yes, she thought about how they felt, but never asked.

  Perhaps that was why Cindy was right about her. She had made a living, but not a life. She was more worried about her feelings, worried that people didn’t care enough to be there for her when she needed them. So she set herself apart so they wouldn’t let her down. She let them down instead.

  Marsha looked at Cindy, her blue eyes still clear and kind, wanting, as always, to be helpful. Marsha sighed and looked away before answering.

  “You’re right, Cindy. It was a living, but not a life. But I want one now.”

  Bree had come out of the bathroom, heard what Marsha said, and reached out for both Cindy and Marsha’s hands before saying, “Me too. I made a living. And I had a life with Paul, but it’s gone, and it’s possible that what I thought was real was all a lie. So, me, too, Marsha, I want to build a new life now.”

  “Well,” Cindy said, laughing and breaking the somber mood, “The pact lives on!”

  “And solves mysteries together,” Marsha added.

  “And solves mysteries together,” Bree agreed.

  And even though her head was pounding because of the fear she felt at what they would find, she didn’t care. She’d been living in the dark too long.

  Yes, it was time to build a new life for herself, and this time she would do it with her friends.

  Thirty-One

  Ron came home at the same time as he always came home. He knew how important it was for April to have a feeling of security, and keeping a schedule that made her life with him safe and comfortable was easy to do.

  When he had to go out of town, April understood he couldn’t check-in, but he always returned to her, and April accepted that as enough.

  Besides, she had told him it gave her a sense of freedom to do her own thing while he was gone. Neither of them added that her freedom remained within previously set guidelines. But that was only to keep her safe.

  Ron thought back to the first time he saw April in class. She was perfect. Her brown curly hair made a kind of halo around her head when the light hit it a certain way, and when April turned her dark brown eyes to him, he felt as if he was the most important person in the world to her. She had captivated him from the beginning. She was his rock—always there for him and the kids.

  It was uncharacteristic of him to have lost his temper that morning. He was proud of how cool and logical he always was, so it took him by surprise almost as much as it surprised April. And his anger and frustration had built until he was afraid of it himself and had to leave before he did something he regretted.

  But it had been a one-time thing, and he was sure April would have forgotten it by now. They had an agreement. They were a unit together. When they were in college, they even named themselves Unit One. Their favorite song was “Just The Two Of Us.”

  April gave him the freedom to be himself, and she was always there for him, as he was for her. Their children were an extension of the two of them. But now that the children had moved away, and they were back to just the two of them, he was even happier than before.

  Then she got that letter and started talking about visiting Spring Falls, and to him, that meant she was breaking their agreement.

  He was so used to her wanting and needing just him it had shocked him that she would think of needing anyone or anything else.

  That’s what had set him off. April said she was going even if he wasn’t happy about it. Hadn’t just the two of them always been enough? Wasn’t it enough that she and Judith talked almost every week?

  Yes, he knew about that. He hadn’t liked it, but it seemed harmless enough until that morning when he realized it was a crack in his control that he should have shut down long ago.

  Didn’t April know he only wanted to keep their life the way it always had been? And of course, that’s what she wanted too. She just had forgotten for a moment.

  So sure was Ron that he and April were still and always Unit One, that when he opened the garage door and didn’t see her car, he wasn’t worried. She had probably dashed off to the store to get something she needed for their dinner.

  Only when he smelled nothing cooking, and the mess was still on the floor underneath a towel, did he feel the tremor of anxiety and anger. April knew what time he would be home and what time he expected dinner. It was always waiting for him. And if she ran off to the store, there would be something cooking and a note.

  But there was neither. No note. Nothing in the oven. A dirty floor. Completely unlike his wife. The house felt cold. April hated the cold and kept the heat on, even in the spring. Where was she?

  A frisson of fear spread throughout his body, temporarily overriding the anger. What if something happened to April?

  He knew bad things happened to people. What if they happened to his April? Moving quickly through the dining room and living room, he saw no signs of disturbance.

  Maybe she’s upstairs sleeping, he said to himself, forgetting that her car wasn’t in the garage.

  But she wasn’t. And it was only then that Ron let himself see what was obvious. April wasn’t home, even though she expected him to be.

  “No,” he shouted to the empty bedroom. April had to be there! She was the light of his life, the rock that held their life together.

  Collapsing on the bed, he dropped his head into his hands and moaned. What had he done? He couldn’t lose her. He had made a mistake. It had seemed so minor to him, but he had been wrong. It hadn’t been minor to April.

  Had he broken their life forever? It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t let that happen.

  Trying her phone, it just rang and rang. He hung up before her message came on. What could he say? Apologize? What would she want to hear that would bring her back and restore their unit?

  Opening the closet, he saw that some of her clothes were missing, and so was his suitcase. Now he was terrified. She had his suitcase.

  He wanted to tear into everything in the bedroom and wreck it. But he knew that would not help. It wouldn’t bring April back to him.

  No, he needed to do what she wanted. She wanted him to be with her where she felt she needed to go. He should have understood. If he hadn’t been so satisfied with their lives, he might have noticed the crack in her satisfaction. And he could have fixed it.

  But it wasn’t too late. He would go to Spring Falls and be there for her. Then, once she had that out of her system, they could come home and return to the life he loved.

  No, he didn’t want to go back to Spring Falls, but it had been years since they had been there. Perhaps all the reasons he didn’t want to return were gone.

  And even if they weren’t, April was the most essential thing in the world to him. Nothing had changed that for him. He thought about texting April and telling her he was coming to see her, and then decided that it would be better to surprise her.

  Besides, he needed some food and a good night’s sleep before going. And he needed a new suitcase. He would stay with her in Spring Falls until she was ready to come home. As long as it took, he had patience. April still loved him. He was sure of that.

  Besides, there was this mystery about why Paul and Bree had left, and the girls were off chasing it. It might be fun to be part of that unraveling. Perfect Paul might not be so perfect after all.

  If there was one thing Ron was sure of it was that no one was as perfect as they seemed to be. Well, almost no one. April was, and he would do whatever it took to get her back. In the morning.

  He was sure she’d be waiting for him. Maybe waiting for him would help her see the mistake she had made. If not, he’d do the waiting until she did.

  Thirty-Two

  “What if we throw you a belated birthday party?” Judith asked April, putting her favorite sandwich in front of her.

  Judith was trying everything she could to cheer April up, but it wasn’t Judith’s strong suit, and she was failing. April had arrived distraught and stressed, and Judith hoped the sandwich and birthday party idea might make her feel better.

  April attempted to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. She thanked Judith for remembering how much she liked peanut butter sandwiches with raspberry preserves, sliced bananas, and a few potato chips on top of the bananas.

  She knew that Judith probably didn’t have any of these ingredients and had shopped for them just for her and she sincerely appreciated the effort. Still, April felt as if a hundred-pound weight was pinning her underwater, and she had to keep struggling to breathe. She ate half the sandwich and then said she was too tired to eat more.

  Judith wrapped the other half of the sandwich. She put it in the refrigerator just in case April got hungry in the night and then took her upstairs to the guest bedroom and tucked her in, leaving a night light on since she knew April didn’t like to sleep in totally dark rooms.

  Judith did all of this from the place inside of her that took care of things, keeping at bay the part of her that wanted to grab Ron around the neck and shake him.

  There are two sides to every story, she kept saying to herself, but seeing her friend in such distress made what the Ruby Sisters called “the warrior queen” come alive. Righting wrongs was her thing.

  Sometimes it was just numbers that added up wrong or ideas that someone didn’t think through correctly, but when people did something for the wrong reasons, it made her furious, and she wanted to challenge them and make it right no matter what it took.

  Her warrior queen quality made her great at her job but sometimes terrible at friendships, which is why she treasured her friendship with the Ruby Sisters. Throughout school, no matter what, they stuck together and loved her even when she embarrassed them or called them out. And she was grateful it worked both ways. They weren’t afraid to tell her when she was wrong, too. Back then, they had always worked it out together. She hoped it would be like that again.

  Sitting in the dark at her desk after putting April to bed, she had to ask herself if it was true that they had stuck together. Because if they had, would April be in such a mess, or Bree, Cindy, and Marsha looking for past mysteries? And maybe that was why she was so angry? Perhaps she was mad at herself for not finding Bree and Paul, for not going to see Marsha when she moved away.

  Yes, she had kept in touch with April, but had she? How had she not noticed that April never came to visit? She had visited April and Ron in Silver Lake after their first child was born. But it was so obvious that April and Ron liked to be alone that she felt like an intruder.

  Besides, her work only allowed her to leave for a day or two at a time. She ran a tight ship, and that took constant supervision. The independent accountants and bookkeepers that she hired appreciated her clarity and exactness. They always knew what she wanted and needed, and in return, she took great care of them.

  But they weren’t her friends. She had only four friends, and she had let at least three of them down by not being more diligent. Perhaps she had even let Cindy down and didn’t notice it. She’d deal with that later.

  The following day, looking at April sitting on the couch looking miserable, she tried again. “Okay, not a birthday party right now. Maybe when everyone gets here? We could have a party for all our birthdays and all the ones we missed together these past thirty years.”

  April smiled at Judith, thinking how the years had not softened her spirit and how much she appreciated that Judith had opened her home to give her time to try to understand what had happened to her relationship with Ron.

  Perhaps what happened was a one-time thing, and she should go home.

  As if she heard her thoughts, Judith said, “Let’s go out to breakfast, and then I’ll take you over to Cindy’s art gallery and show you how it works so you can help out. But we need to stop at the store on the way to pick up cat food.”

  “Cat food?”

  “Yep. Cindy’s gallery cat. Not an alley cat, gallery cat. Everyone laughs when she says that. Cindy swears people come in to see the cat and then notice the art.”

  It delighted Judith to see April’s face light up. Maybe the cat was the way to April’s heart. She remembered April talking about her hippy parents and the multitude of cats that came in and out of their house. And all the neighbors that had the same thing at their house. April had loved all the hustle and bustle of cats and people.

  At the time, none of them had known how devastating outdoor cats were to their beloved bird population. Once April’s parents and friends realized what was happening to the birds, they kept the cats indoors.

  But the people kept coming. There was always something going on at April’s childhood home. On one of their calls, April had confided to Judith that she had always wanted to get cats for her and the kids, but Ron had said he was allergic, so they hadn’t.

  For a moment, April wondered how her life had gotten so small when she had loved the crazy outgoing life of her childhood. Her parents were long gone, and maybe that’s why she had let that life go, too. And now, she might be ready to get it back, starting with Cindy’s gallery cat.

  “What’s its name?”

  “Mittens,” Judith answered. “Where do you want to go to breakfast?”

  ”Is the Waffle House still open?”

  “Of course it is! Can you be ready in thirty minutes? I have a few emails to send before we go.”

  Thirty minutes later, April freshly showered, her wet hair springing into curls around her face, they headed out the door.

  Judith pointed to April’s hair. “Still letting it do its own thing?”

  April paused for a moment before answering. “I am. I think it may be the only thing I let stay itself.”

  Judith reached down and hugged April and laughed. “Well, young lady, it’s about time that stops!”

  April nodded, feeling the weight of her decision, and at the same time, for the first time in a long time, feeling a little like the bird her parents used to call her.

  “Our little wren,” they would croon as they enveloped her in hugs. It had been years since she heard their voices in her head calling her that. Perhaps it had been too painful to remember.

  But now that she was in Spring Falls, it was as if a door had opened into her past. Was she ready to face it all? she asked herself and realized she would have to be, because the future was already set in motion.

  Thirty-Three

  Marsha, Bree, and Cindy agreed to meet in the lobby at 8:00 in the morning. They would have breakfast and then head to the library, which opened at 9:00.

  Marsha had slept like the dead and barely heard her alarm clock go off, so she had scrambled to get ready, pulling her hair up into a bun, thinking that eventually, she was going to cut it all off.

  The three of them had stayed up long into the night talking books and movies and their favorite plants and all sorts of things they would have talked about over the years if they had been together.

  What they didn’t talk about was why they were there. It was a night of lovely memories and getting caught up on the trivia of life.

  Judith had called after putting April to bed, and even though they were worried about April, all five of them felt safe for the moment. Not that anyone knew what they were safe from, but it felt that way, so they went with it because they knew that what happened—or didn’t happen—at the library would be a pivot point in all their lives.

  They would either find something, and that would change everything. Or they wouldn’t. And then they would have to decide whether to continue looking or try to help Bree rebuild her life on secrets.

  After Marsha had gone to her room, Bree turned out the light and wished sweet dreams to Cindy, who was already half asleep. Bree envied her. Since Paul had died, she had barely slept, running what-if scenarios around and around in her head.

  Bree knew this was not a wise thing to be doing. As a child, she had learned how to shut down the creative part of her brain at night so she could sleep anytime, anywhere. Paul said she could sleep through anything, which was true when he was alive.

  Since Paul’s death, her superpower of sleeping everywhere had disappeared. Now she was a restless sleeper. First, because of the grief and the hollow place inside herself that missed Paul so much. It was a physical pain as if someone had chopped off her arms and legs.