Pushing her long chestnut hair out of her face, Franny laughed. She couldn’t believe that she was even engaging in conversation with this girl. ‘Let me tell you something, Vaughn would never be your friend, so wherever you got that idea from, think again. Like I say, you don’t know anything.’

Red-faced and trying not to let what Franny said hurt her, Shannon yelled, her voice echoing around the large, empty church. ‘It’s you who doesn’t know anything … you don’t even know where the baby is.’ And without another word, Shannon turned away, stomping off down the aisle.

In the greyness of the day, Franny’s face was a picture of shock. It took her a moment to register what Shannon had meant, but then with her heart pounding, she ran back through the church, catching up with Shannon in the foyer. She roughly grabbed hold of her arm. ‘What did you say?’

Haughtily, Shannon shrugged. ‘Oh, so you want to talk to me now?’

Shaking her hard, Franny hissed, ‘You said, the baby. Tell me what you know about her.’

‘Say please!’

Lunging at her, Franny squeezed Shannon’s face between her fingers as she pushed her against the stone wall. ‘Don’t play games with me, understand? So go on, tell me what you know.’

Pushing her off, Shannon spat out her words. ‘I know that it’s Bree’s baby.’

Franny’s head began to spin again and although she tried to keep her cool, she stuttered her words. ‘How … how do you know about Bree?’

‘There’s a lot of things that I know … Roses are red, violets are blue, we’ve got the baby, so what ya going to do?’

Franny screamed, causing the old lady who was walking into the church to hurry away in fright. ‘You! You! You took Mia. Where is she? Where is she? I said, where the fuck is she? You better not have hurt her!’

Shannon shouted back, ‘No, of course not, we’re looking after her.’

Beside herself with anger, Franny pushed Shannon hard, banging her against the walls of the foyer as questions ran through her head. ‘Who’s we? Who’s we? And … and that letter you wrote, it was …’

Shannon shrugged and interrupted, ‘… like the ones that Alfie had. Yeah, I know. I know all about them because I saw them.’

Confused, Franny quizzed, ‘What? How?’

‘I just did.’

Shaking her head, Franny said, ‘I don’t know how you saw them, but I do know you’re a nasty little bitch! What did Alfie ever do to you?’

Shannon seemed surprised. ‘Alfie! He ain’t done anything. It’s you! It’s you who’s the horrible cow.’

‘This is crazy. I don’t even know you, so just tell me where Mia is. You really don’t want to mess with me.’