10
“What?” Franky asked, unable to process Bridget’s words.
Bridget blinked, forcing her mind to work past her own shock. She watched Franky’s mouth open and close. She watched her inability to speak, to comprehend. She saw the moment when Franky’s reflex coping mechanism—anger—swung into action, desperately trying to protect Franky’s enormous, soft heart.
“It was the Freak,” Franky stated unequivocally.
“No, oh, Franky…” Bridget now wrapped her own arms around Franky, gently rocking their bodies together. “No. Ferguson was released earlier today. You know it can’t be her.”
“It was her, Gidge!” Franky exclaimed emphatically, her voice rising. “I know it. I can feel it!”
“Shhh,” Bridget cooed quietly. “That’s your anger talking, Franky. You haven’t had time to process this news yet.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel!” Franky cried, pulling away from Bridget’s arms. She stood up, swinging around to face Bridget. “You don’t know the Freak like I do! She always had this weird obsession with Red. And Bea was strong, Gidge—hell, I know! I tried to take her out a couple of times myself! No one but the Freak could have done this. No one would even have tried…”
“Franky,” Bridget said, trying to calm her, “she was Top Dog. She had a permanent target on her back…”
“She wasn’t!” Franky returned. “She told me today! She gave it up to be with Allie.” Franky turned, pacing across the kitchen floor. “She can’t be… she can’t be dead…” she repeated to herself, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.
Bridget looked at her with anguish. Franky would need so much help to process Bea’s death. This could be, in all likelihood, a crossroads for her. Would she allow anger and revenge to rule her life again?
But Bridget also needed to get to Wentworth. She needed to be there when Vera revealed the truth.
Franky abruptly stopped, pivoting to face Bridget. “Don’t you see?” she asked her, spreading her hands wide. “Red was no longer a threat to anyone! No one had any reason to hurt her! It had to be the Freak!
“And now she’s coming after each of us!”
***
Joan efficiently dialed Derek Channing’s home telephone number.
“Derek,” she said softly, purringly, when he answered, her voice like a lover’s.
“Joan,” Channing retorted flatly. “You have some bloody nerve calling me at home. Just can’t wait to be Governor again, can you?”
Her lips curled into a smile. “I go where I’m needed.”
“Well, you’re not needed at Wentworth,” came the tight reply.
Joan’s hand gripped the telephone. “Would you care to explain what you mean by that comment?” she asked acidly.
“Exactly what I said,” Channing replied. “There is no position for you at Wentworth. There will never be a position for you at Wentworth. Hell, if I do it right, there won’t be a job for you in corrections anywhere in this entire country!”
Joan was silent.
“Have you considered emigration, Joan?” Derek taunted lazily. She could hear the smile in his voice. “Perhaps somewhere on the other side of the world? I hear Canada’s nice this time of year. Maybe a bit cold…”
Joan’s eye twitched. “You have no grounds for this…” she started.
“No grounds? Come on, Joan. You and I both know that your ‘acquittal’ was shady at best. Do you really think the Board would simply allow you to return? You probably burnt down the prison, Joan! You were in a mental asylum! And, in all likelihood, you paid a hitman to murder Harry Smith! You’re fucking psycho, Joan!”
Joan’s damaged hand clenched. It pulled at her hair. This was not how she had envisioned this telephone call. This was not going according to plan.
Channing laughed. “No nasty comeback? You don’t even know what to say, do you, Joan? You were so certain that you would simply resume the governorship…”
“Have you forgotten,” Joan replied sharply, “that I know about your… indiscretions, Derek? The brothels? The parolees?”
“Oh no, Joan. I cleaned house—and really cleaned it, this time. You can’t play that against me again. You have nothing!”
“I have the law,” she retorted. “How do you think the Board will feel once I sue them for illegally replacing me while I was… indisposed?”
“Joan, you and I both know that there are no legal grounds here. You were hardly on maternity leave—you were in prison, awaiting a trial! The Board’s replacement was entirely legal. And consider the optics; how would it look if we replaced Vera—the new media darling, by the way—with you?” He laughed again. “Face it, Joan: you’re done!”
Joan was breathing heavily. Her nostrils flared. She must think…
She abruptly hung up on Channing.
‘Optics,’ he had said…
She pulled her hand away from her hair, forcing the tightened fingers to relax.
Focus.
Think.
Plan.
She had not gone through all of this to lose the governorship—especially not to Vera.
She would be Governor, again.
***
Bridget gently took both of Franky’s hands, pulling her toward her. When she was close, Bridget wrapped her arms around Franky, holding her still. “Breathe, Franky,” she instructed. “Just breathe.”
Franky felt her anger well up inside her, stronger and stronger. She had to call on all of her control not to shove Bridget, not to break from her arms. She knew that she wasn’t angry with Bridget, but the fury continued to build, nonetheless. Her body started to shake with tension.
“Just breathe,” Bridget whispered again, still clutching Franky tightly to her, pinning Franky’s arms to her sides as her own arms continued to encircle her. “Breathe.”
Instead of lashing out, instead of pushing Bridget and running away, as she so desperately wanted to do, Franky released a loud, piercing wail. Into it she poured all of her love for Bea, for her girls; her rage and hate at the Freak; her frustration that she hadn’t been there to stop it, to save Bea; and finally the one aspect that underlay all of her other emotions: her fear that she was alone, that she had lost the one person in the world who truly understood what it meant to be Wentworth’s Top Dog, and what it meant to give that up. She loved Bridget, but Bridget could never understand that part of her life. Only Bea could. Only Bea had experienced it, too.
In that moment, Franky’s anger merged with her first stages of grief, and her wail turned into a cry for all that she had lost. “Bea!” she keened. “Bea! You can’t leave me alone like this!”
Bridget, comprehending Franky’s loss but unable to feel it, to understand it in the same way, continued to hold her tight. Vera and the women be damned. She would get to Wentworth when she could. In this moment, Franky needed her, and Franky would always be her priority.