Free We'll Meet Again by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

Daniels had been contacted by Molly Lasch and was expecting Fran’s call. He readily suggested that if she wanted to come up that afternoon, he would be able to see her. Although seventy-five on his last birthday, and semiretired, he had not been able to completely give up his practice, despite the coaxing of his wife. There were too many people who still depended on him and whom he could help.
    One of the few he felt he had failed was Molly Carpenter Lasch. He had known her since she was a child and would sometimes come to dinner at the club with her parents. She had been a beautiful little girl, unfailingly polite, and composed beyond her years. Nothing in either her makeup or in the battery of tests he conducted after her arrest suggested she might be capable of the violent outburst that had resulted in Gary Lasch’s death.
    His receptionist, Ruthie Roitenberg, had been with him twenty-five years and, with the privilege of longevity in a job, was not above stating her frank opinions and passing along gossip. It was she who, after being told Fran Simmons was expected at two o’clock, said, “Doctor, you do know whose daughter she is?”
    “Am I supposed to know?” Daniels asked mildly.
    “Remember that man who stole all the money from the library fund, then shot himself? Fran Simmons is his daughter. She went to Cranden Academy with Molly Carpenter.”
    John Daniels did not allow her to see how startled he was at her news. He remembered Frank Simmons all too well. He himself had donated ten thousand dollars to the library fund drive. Money down the drain, as it turned out, thanks to Simmons. “Molly didn’t go into that. I guess she felt it wasn’t important.”
    His mild reproof went unnoticed. “If I were in her boots I’d have changed my name,” Ruthie said. “As a matter of fact, I think Molly would be smart to change
her
name, move away from here and make a fresh start. You know, Doctor, everybody thinks it would be a lot better if, instead of stirring everyone up again, she’d just come out and say how much she regrets having killed that poor man.”
    “Suppose there is another explanation for his death?”
    “Doctor, anyone who believes that still looks under the pillow for a dime from the tooth fairy.”
     
    Fran was not scheduled to appear on the news broadcast until that evening, so she was able to spend the morning in her office, lining up interviews. Once she was done, she bought a sandwich and soda to eat in the car and set off for Greenwich at 12:15. She left early so that she would have time before her appointment with Dr. Daniels to drive around the town and reacquaint herself with the places she had known when she lived there.
    In less than an hour she arrived at the outskirts of Greenwich. During the night, a light dusting of snow had fallen, and the trees and bushes and lawns were shimmering under the late winter sun.
    It
is
a lovely place, Fran thought. I can’t blame Dad for wanting to be part of it. Bridgeport, where her father had been raised, was only half an hour farther north, but there was a world of difference in the lifestyles of the two places.
    Cranden Academy was located on Round Hill Road. She drove past the campus slowly, admiring its mellow stone buildings, remembering the years she had spent there, thinking about the girls she had known best, and those she’d known only at a distance. One was Jenna Graham, who was now Jenna Whitehall. She and Molly were always close, Fran thought, even though they were very different. Jenna was much more take-charge and affirmative, while Molly was really quite reserved.
    With sudden warmth she thought of Bobbitt Williams, who had been on the basketball team with her. Is it possible that she still lives around here? Fran wondered. She was a good musician too, she recalled-she tried to make me take piano lessons with her, but I told her I was hopeless. The Lord left musical talent out of my genes.
    As she turned the car toward Greenwich