Issues [Frollie]

Chapter 10

“Who the hell told the press?” Una demanded, looking around at the others as if they could possibly know anything more about it than she did. “Who could have done that to her?”

Frankie was listening intently to the dial tone buzzing in her ear, waiting for Mollie to pick up, but her gaze was steely enough on its own to convey her displeasure. For the third time, the phone went to voicemail, and she was finally forced to acknowledge the possibility that Mollie did not want to answer her mobile at the current time.

“I don’t know,” Rochelle said heavily, “but obviously someone did.” Then, she swivelled in her chair to fix them with a puzzled frown. “Although I don’t know who could have done it.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“No, I mean literally,” she said. “Who could have done it? We didn’t exactly spread the news of it around like we did with the accident, and the only people that knew are all of us in this room, families, management – though I doubt they would do it – and the doctors.” Rochelle ticked each suspect off on her fingers as she spoke, leaving only her little finger held down by the end, and she lifted her hand as if asking who she was supposed to add to the list. “Who out of those would have been able to tell anyone, let alone motivated to? Her doctor wouldn’t have been allowed to.”

“I think you can take all of us out of suspicion,” Vanessa pointed out, and reached over to push one of her fingers down for her. “I know I didn’t tell anyone, and I’m pretty sure none of you did, either.”

“Nope, I didn’t,” Una said solemnly. “I hadn’t even spoken to my family about it.”

“Me neither,” Frankie spoke up,

“Maybe it was one of the nurses,” Vanessa suggested, shrugging. “I know I got nasty looks from more than one of them, and I don’t know if they’ve got the same restrictions as the doctors.”

“They all loved Mollie,” Frankie disputed. “They may have hated us, but they loved her. I don’t think it was any of them, anyway, why would they care?” She thought for a moment longer, and then twitched like somebody had jabbed her in the ribs. “What are we even talking about this for?” she demanded abruptly. “Shouldn’t we be focussing on finding Mollie now? Do you know how guilty she is going to feel after reading these? She’s probably just left. If we go now, we could probably catch up to her before she has a chance to leave.”

Frankie was anxious to go out and find her, but she watched as Rochelle shook her head. “No, we would have passed her in the hall on the way up here, remember? She was already gone by then and if she’s left the building, we’re not going to catch up.”

An impatient groan slipped from the short-haired woman’s lips; a noise that she would not have normally directed at her friend had she not been worrying about Mollie’s state. “I don’t care,” she told them all, trying to keep her irritation in check as she spoke. “I’ll go anyway.”

Una immediately stepped up beside her. “So will I.”

A sigh passed Vanessa’s lips as she sent them both a levelled look. “We’re all going to go, guys. Rochelle’s just saying that we can’t hope she’s going to be heading out the door right at the moment that we show up.” Rochelle gave her a small nod of thanks for the explanation. “So we’ve got to figure out where we’re going to look to find her -where would she go?”