Why hadn’t Gertrude asked for assistance? All she had to do was push the call button on her bed.
Why hadn’t she done this? If she had, why hadn’t anyone answered?
I changed the subject. “Did she find her book?”
“What book, dear?”
Dear. I took a deep breath, tried to hide my reaction to the word.
Bad enough when it came from Bernadette, but a stranger? No way
“Her notebook went missing yesterday, the one she uses for Mrs. Dempsey’s writing class.”
I saw it first in her eyes; there was a kind of narrowing. Then in her smile. Lopsided, what Bernadette called a smirk.
She knows what I’m talking about
“Oh, that. Yes. I heard Gertrude mention it to her roommate, Clare, when I brought in their breakfast trays yesterday. She wasn’t speaking above a whisper but I caught it.”
Hopefully she got her breakfast on time
“Did someone find it?”
“Find what?”
Jesus
“The book.”
“Oh, no. Not that I’m aware.”
There was that nasty smirk again.
Damn her!