This is an absolute beast of a chapter (double the length of chapter 6!) so I hope it's worth the wait!
On Thursday morning, Frank wakes to two text messages on his cell, both sent within the last twenty minutes. One, predictably, is from Annalise, asking him to meet her at the county jail since they're not due in court until 1pm so she wants to see Richard first thing. He replies quickly to confirm that he'll meet her there shortly, and then he addresses the more unexpected message.
We need to talk, is all it says. But it's from her, so the simple message becomes intriguing and exciting all at the same time. It's embarrassing the effect just four words from her can have on him.
He hits reply and taps out a response: Working this morning but I'll see you in court at 1pm? F
Laurel's response is immediate: No. Somewhere private.
I can come to yours after court is finished? F
Maybe I could come to your place this time.
Frank smiles a little at the forwardness, though inside he's sure she just wants to be able to escape him if she gets flighty. He wants to diffuse the awkwardness between them with a joke about giving his neighbours a show this time, but thankfully Frank has learned a little about women over the years and he thinks that would only serve to fuel the fire of her fury. So he sends her his address, minus any lewd comments.
When no reply comes through, Frank finally rouses himself from his bed and hits the shower, preparing for a busy day ahead.
"Thank you for making the time to see us," Annalise says to Richard when the three of them are all sitting round the familiar metal table, Richard's now-frail wrists cuffed to the centre.
"It's not as though I had to cancel any prior engagements," he jokes weakly, though he doesn't smile.
Annalise opens up her notepad with her prepared questions and then continues to search through her purse on her lap. "Do you mind if I record the conversation, Richard?" Catching the surprise on his face, she hastens to add, "Not that you're in trouble. It may help us in court to have your original answers to these questions."
Frank nods when Richard looks at him, backing up Annalise's story. He knows not to mention that they're really here to get his first reactions to discussing his wife's cheating. To record and retain his emotional reaction to his supposed motive, hoping that it's not the kind of anger that could drive a man to murder. Frank had questioned whether such a recording would be admissible as evidence, but Annalise had waved him off and told him that was for the judge to decide. Frank could read between the lines, though. He could tell that, for once, she was almost as unsure as he was, but she was also pretty desperate.
"Damn it," Annalise murmurs a moment later. "Frank, can you record this? I must've left my phone in the car."
"Sure." Frank pulls out his cell, sets it to airplane mode to prevent any interruptions and hits record.
"The time is 9.20am and the date is Thursday September 21st," Annalise says smoothly, for the purpose of the recording. "This is Annalise Keating and I'm with Richard Dryden and Frank Delfino. Now, Mr Dryden, please confirm that we have not discussed this meeting beforehand and you do not know what this conversation is in relation to?"
"Uh… I do not," Richard says, leaning into talk to Frank's cell like a microphone.
Frank shakes his head at him, and Richard leans back again.
"No," he repeats carefully. "I do not."
"We want to talk to you about your wife," Annalise tells him then. "How did you know about her affair with Edward Reed?"
Richard looks surprised to be asked this question. He shuffles in his chair uncomfortably. "Well, she told me."
"She told you she was having an affair?"
"She said she felt guilty, she didn't want there to be any secrets in our relationship anymore."
Annalise nods understandingly. "And what was your reaction to hearing about this? Mr Reed was one of your closest friends, after all."
"Well…" The man's shoulders sag and his eyes become a little vacant, as he remembers. "I was angry… upset. Embarrassed. Of course I was. But mostly… I felt guilty."
"Guilty?" Her eyebrows frown at the unexpected response.
"I'd let Mandy down. I had secrets, too, but I couldn't tell her. How can you tell your wife that you're visiting a strip club multiple times a week? It was my fault our relationship was failing, I'd been pushing her away, I knew it."
"Did you fight? You and Mandy? After she'd told you?"
Richard pauses, his brow furrows. "Not really… I… I told her I was going to sleep on the couch. I went out for the evening to clear my head… distract myself…"
"But what about before you went out?"
"Well, she yelled at me, sure. She asked why wasn't I angry, why wasn't I furious with her, with Eddie…"
"And why weren't you?"
He shrugs. "Shock? I don't know. I love my wife, I really do, I didn't want to lose her. But I was numb to it." The man looks between Frank and Annalise. "I've never been reactive, I'm a thinker. I just… I needed to process what had happened, I needed to get my thoughts under control, understand what had gone so wrong and what we could do to fix our marriage. Because it was always fixable, you see. I'd never dream of leaving Miranda, no matter what she's done."
"What about Mr Reed? Were you so forgiving of his wrongdoing, too?" Annalise probed.
Richard sighed. "I was furious, Ms Keating. That night, I lay on my sofa and I hated him so much that I could feel it, as though the hatred were a physical object crushing my chest. That he could come to dinner every week – he came almost every Friday since his wife left him three years ago – and sit opposite me and Miranda, and sometimes our children, too, and laugh and joke and all the while he'd been…" He shakes his head. "But… it made sense."
"What do you mean?"
"Well… Eddie took his wife leaving hard. Mandy and I, after a year of him moping around, we suggested he might try to date someone. We set him up with some of Mandy's friends, but he was never interested in getting to know them. Well." He stops himself and Frank notices Richard's neck turn a little pink. "He would… get to know them in certain ways."
Annalise raises her eyebrows at him. "In the biblical sense?"
"Exactly. And then he'd never call them and… oh, Mandy would get so cross with him. 'That Eddie,' she'd say, and she'd always have her hands on her hips. She'd tell me about whatever friend of hers he'd 'used' that time. I'd laugh and tell her that it takes two to tango, but Mandy would get so angry about these things. Sex is sacred, she used to tell me. Not to be taken lightly. And Eddie would take it so lightly; it's all he could do, you see. He didn't want to get to know these women, he was still pining after Brit. But, like he said, a man's got needs. That's what he said when he took me there, to the club. He was the one who introduced me to those girls, he started our Tuesday nights out; we told Mandy we were at the bar." Richard's voice clogged then, and he stopped, face falling. "She'll be so mad at me now that she knows the truth about those nights out. Is she cross?"
Annalise glances to Frank, whose lips set a thin line, hidden in the coarseness of his beard.
"Tell me, please," Richard begs, the recording practically forgotten, the screen of Frank's phone long since faded to black, though still catching every word. "Does Mandy hate me? For the… girls?"
"But if Mandy hated casual sex so much, why'd it make sense for her to sleep with Reed?" Frank asks, putting off answering his question by prompting the inmate to complete his unfinished response.
Richard just looked at him sadly. "I slept with eighteen-year-olds on a weekly basis. Eventually… Mandy and I just… didn't have sex anymore. I wasn't taking care of her. If she wanted someone then… well, Eddie would be the only man she knew who would jump at the chance of no-strings-attached sex." He sighs. "She hates me, doesn't she?" His eyes drift to his lawyer. "Annalise?"
"You're a lucky man, Richard," she responds. "All your wife wants is for her husband to be free. Her character witness is glowing." Annalise smiles softly. "I think you'll be okay. Your wife is more loyal than I'd be."
Richard nods, a small smile lifting just one side of his dry lips. "Did you have any other questions?"
"Yes, actually." Annalise glances down at her notepad, scrawls a note to herself and then elaborates: "What did Edward Reed say when you spoke to him about the affair? Was he sorry? Did you fight?"
Richard stares at Annalise for a moment, looks vaguely affronted.
"Richard?"
"Annalise…" he says, and his voice is gravely serious. "I never spoke to Eddie about it. He was dead the very next morning."
"A mixed bag then…" Frank says as they leave the jail, his downbeat tone not matching his optimistic words.
Annalise shakes her head and comes to a stop at the bottom of the steps. "His wife told him about the affair the same night he was murdered, that is not a mixed bag, Frank. That's the nail in the coffin for this case. We can't put him on the stand, the prosecution would have a field day with that."
"Surely it might come out when they put his wife on the stand anyway? Better he can defend himself?"
"Defend himself, how?" Annalise snaps. "Not one word he said in there helps. He admitted he was angry with Reed the night of his murder and then he stormed out of the house."
"But he went to sleep with Lola…"
"Who won't testify and confirm that's where he went."
"He also said it made sense for his wife to sleep with the guy…"
"He's had months to think on it, Frank. There's no saying that's what he thought when Miranda actually told him." She sighs and looks skyward. "I don't know what we can do. Miranda's our key witness but when the prosecution cross her, this might all come out and Richard will only look guiltier than he already does. And he already looks pretty damn guilty."
"We just gotta find a way to make someone else look guiltier," Frank suggests, frowning. "Or make Dryden look innocent enough to cast doubt."
Annalise thinks for a long while, staring out across the road, and then looks to Frank. "Kauffman's case doesn't reconvene until 1pm. Until then, dig up everything you can on Edward Reed. Ex-lovers, girlfriends, friends, business partners, enemies. His ex-wife. I don't care how you do it, just… find someone, or something, that can be useful to us, Frank. I'll see you at the courthouse."
He starts at the police station, asks to see the paperwork for the State VS Dryden case. When the woman at the desk refuses, he flirts a little, pretends like he's from the DA's office until she hands him the file – and her number – with a furtive, "Just ten minutes, okay?"
He flicks through the file on the bench, taking photos of anything useful on his cell, but comes out with little more than he went in with. He sits in his car and flicks through the pictures he took of the photos in the file. Graphic photographs of Reed's corpse, close-ups of his neck, which had been stabbed violently in the side several times before the attacker had moved on to stab him in the chest, according to the coroner's report. Whoever did this was angry, that was for sure. Also, the notes stated, the attacker must have been known to the victim for him to have allowed them close enough to have stabbed him in the chest. Far more common for people to be stabbed in the back, or have their neck sliced by someone sneaking up behind them.
Frank knows he needs more than anything he'd find in that folder to have a hope of finding something useful. And he does have one other potential lead on Edward Reed.
He seeks her out in the corridor of the courthouse shortly before 1pm; finds her at the edge of a small group of students, ignoring them in favour of something clearly more interesting on her phone. He taps her shoulder. "Can I talk to you?"
"Uh…" Laurel looks at her classmates who are glancing over at them curiously.
"It's about the assignment," he lies smoothly.
"Sure." She excuses herself from the conversation she wasn't participating in and follows him to a quiet corner, where her tone immediately turns slightly sour. "What do you want now?"
"Charmin'," Frank quips, feeling his lips lift automatically into that easy grin he sports when he wants to flirt something out of a woman. "Hello to you, too."
Laurel huffs and rolls her eyes; she's clearly not quite over their latest disagreement. "So you don't want something, then?"
Frank finds her anger mildly amusing, and surprisingly hot so he pokes the bear a little. "No, I do."
"Stop smirking like that," she says impatiently.
"Like what?"
"You're doing that smirk that I'm sure gets girls falling into bed with you, but it doesn't work on me so stop."
"I'm not-"
"You can get rid of the voice, too."
"Voice?"
"The smug, smarmy, I'm-better-than-you voice. Always comes with the smirk. It's like buy one, get one free."
Frank laughs once.
"See? I'm right, you can't argue with me."
"Regardless," Frank says, forcing himself to remove the so-called smirk, bringing the conversation detour to a close, "of whether you're right or not-"
"I am."
"I do need to ask you something."
"What?"
"At the club, what kind of data do you keep about your clients?"
She pauses, and her smile falls a little, leading Frank to think that Laurel wasn't expecting a question like that. When she answers, she's got a strange business-like tone to her voice. "Uh… it depends what they tell us. If they're a one-off and pay by cash then we won't take any details. If they're a regular then sometimes they set up a tab at the bar. Are you looking for someone in particular?"
Frank sighs. "Edward Reed."
"The dead guy?"
"That's the one."
"He was a regular, but I don't know if he had a tab or account." She stops herself, eyes suddenly narrowing suspiciously. "Why? What are you going to do with the information?"
"Nothin' yet. Jus' looking for somethin' to help us move the case on without… Lola's testimony." He eyes her meaningfully.
"I'll check the books," she offers after a small pause. "See what I can find."
"Thanks," Frank says, almost surprised that she's being cooperative.
"Yeah, well." There's an awkward pause, and Frank's just about to dismiss her back to her friends when she says, "We can still… talk… this evening, right?"
"O' course. What…?" Frank starts to ask what it's about when Laurel's eyes widen, and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly, something over his shoulder having caught her eye.
He doesn't have to wait to find out what's got Laurel so antsy.
"Frank, did you find…?" Annalise's voice cuts over his shoulder, but she stops when she sees that Frank is otherwise engaged. "Oh. Good afternoon, Miss…"
"Castillo," Laurel supplies, holding her hand out politely, though she looks chagrined to have been caught whispering with Frank.
"Miss Castillo," Annalise repeats, ignoring the proffered hand.
"Laur- Miss Castillo just had some questions about the midterm assignment," Frank explains, to save face mostly. He knows that Annalise knows that he's lying through his teeth.
"Right. Well, I hope you're watching Gina's case closely, Miss Castillo. Learning something important; it might help." Annalise's gaze appraises the girl for a short moment, before flicking back to Frank. "Frank, we need to talk."
Effectively dismissed, Laurel ducks out of the conversation and returns to the group of students.
"Annalise, we were jus-"
"Save it, Frank. She's the one who came to the office last night?"
"Uh… yeah."
"Don't screw away all of the smart girls, okay?" she instructs, but doesn't wait for an answer before asking her next question, something of an urgency in her voice. "Did you find anything on Reed?"
"Not really. I got a… a lead though," he murmurs back.
Annalise glares at him slightly. "Let's hope this one works out better than the last dead end you brought me." She paces ahead of him then, leading the way into the courtroom where Bonnie and Gina are waiting for them.
Frank sighs, straightens his tie and follows, taking his spot on the back bench and takes the notes Bonnie hands off to him, getting ready for the day's continuation of Gina's trial.
It doesn't go well.
Somehow, the prosecution has obtained video footage of Gina purchasing the exact same aspirin that was used to poison Arthur Kauffman, and suddenly the trial that had been going so well for them has unexpectedly put them on the back foot. Frank feels his jaw clench in frustration as he exchanges a nervous look with Bonnie; Annalise is going to have their asses for this.
"You had one job!" she fumes at Gina after court is done for the day, and their client is suddenly looking sheepish as Annalise's voice rises. "To let us know what bodies we needed to bury. Texts, calls, anything we needed to destroy, and you didn't. So guess what? Guess what!"
Frank glances up from where he's pretending to be reading a file to see Gina flinching up at Annalise. He can't help but wonder whether his boss's anger is entirely about Gina's case. After all, it's hardly the most hopeless case she's got in her docket right now.
"You go to jail," Annalise growls, "and I'm the shoddy lawyer who put you there!"
"I had a headache!" Gina argues, a rehearsed and bland line. "It isn't-"
"Stop lying!" Annalise snaps with a glare. She looks away, turns away from her client. "Get out. I can't think with you here."
Gina hesitates for a moment, but then rises, and Frank watches her as she exits, panic flaring across her face. He wonders, briefly, what Laurel would say were she privy to this particular conversation. What she would say if she heard Annalise talk about burying metaphorical bodies to keep the guilty out of jail. He puts his file down beside him, stays silent; he's not diving headfirst into these shark-infested waters.
Unfortunately, Bonnie doesn't share his trepidation. "She's not wrong, Annalise." Her voice cuts through the room. "It's aspirin, we all buy it."
Annalise doesn't look up, keeps her eyes on the paper in front of her. "What about you, Frank?" She's cold, accusing, barbed. "What slutty undergrad spread her legs and made you forget your job this time?"
They both know she's talking about Laurel, and, usually, this would be a fair comment, but with Laurel… it's different. Images of her flash through his mind, and he remembers the hurt in her eyes when she'd offered herself up to him the night before, calling herself the slut, and he feels defensive of the bold, stubborn girl. It's not her fault that he dropped the ball on this one; it's Gina's. "Hey, I grilled Gina the minute we got this case. She chose not to tell me this because, well, that's obvious, isn't it?"
Annalise stares at him, and Frank knows he's overstepped. "Just like you grilled this Lola girl?" Annalise says quietly. And her quiet anger is worse than the shouting.
He's backed into a corner and he knows it. "I'm sorry," he apologizes. "It won't happen again. But don't worry; we can fix this."
"We?" Annalise questions bitterly. "No. I'll fix it. You stay here, collect the paycheck." And, with that, she's gone.
"Don't worry too much," Bonnie says without looking up. "She's been like that all day."
Frank just nods, pats Bonnie's shoulder in thanks, but he can't help but feel a little responsible for all the ways these cases are going wrong, and he knows that, for that, he deserves at least some of Annalise's wrath. He and Bonnie tidy up and head back to the house to complete their paperwork for the day.
At the Keating house, Frank gets stuck in with work, and soon finds himself lost in his Google searches for Edward Reed.
He finds the ex-wife, Brittany, with ease, but they can't present her as an alternate suspect; she's been living in London for the past two years and certainly wasn't in the country on the night of the murder.
Annalise's previous determination to put forward Lola as an alternative suspect isn't realistic, either, even if Frank did want to throw Laurel to the lions in that way. Even if they could find a prostitute Reed had slept with that would have a reasonable motive – self-defense, accidental manslaughter, theft – none of them would explain why they then stashed the murder weapon in Richard Dryden's car. Such a defense would only confuse a jury and make them more likely to see Richard as guilty. It's another dead-end, but it's one Frank is thankful for in case Annalise hadn't wanted to let Lola off the hook yet.
The rest of his searches are fruitless, turning up speculation, articles and vile comments which contain few actual facts, and certainly nothing new. Nonetheless, Frank reads them all carefully, determined not to drop this ball, too.
Horrific stabbing… bled out slowly and painfully… murder weapon found in victim's friend's car… local university professor, Richard Dryden… scorned husband… looking at life in jail… possible death penalty under current Pennsylvania law…
"Hey." Bonnie's voice cuts through his concentration and he glances up at her and then back down again.
"What?"
"I'm heading off. I'll see you tomorrow?"
Frank's head snaps up again. "What time is it?"
"Uh… it's almost six o'clock…"
"Shit," Frank snaps. He pinches the bridge of his nose and then turns the laptop to sleep, saving his endless internet tabs for perusal tomorrow.
Bonnie smirks from the doorway. "Hot date?"
"Like I'd tell you."
She smiles and turns to leave. "Oh!" She stops, turns back. "I almost forgot. Annalise wants you to copy the recording from the Dryden meeting to her laptop? She says you'll know what that means."
Frank groans, but nods. "Yeah, sure. I'll do it now. See you."
"Bye." Bonnie waves her fingers and heads out for the night.
Frantically, Frank goes into Annalise's office, fires up her laptop and logs in. He watches the little circle turn as it loads, conscious of time ticking. "Come on," he urges the computer quietly. He hadn't had word from Laurel about what time she'd come round, but he'd kick himself if he missed her. Once the home screen lights up, Frank plugs his cell phone in and scrolls through the files to find the audio recording and the photos he took of Reed's police file, hurriedly hitting copy and then watching the bar flood green as the files copy across.
As soon as it's done, he logs off and grabs up his phone and fires off a text to Laurel: I'm heading home now, come over whenever you're ready.
Frank hasn't been home long and is pouring himself a whisky when the short, sharp knocks come at his door. He wipes a hand across his brow, takes a deep breath and prepares himself to face the spitfire of a girl he knows is waiting, before crossing the room to let her in.
She appraises him wordlessly for a moment, wandering eyes taking in his tired appearance; he's removed his vest and tie, his top few buttons are undone, his sleeves are rolled up, and he can feel the exhaustion on his face. Laurel steps forward and he moves aside for her to pass, automatically revolving around each other like hissing animals poised for a fight, though Frank doesn't think he can take any more confrontation today.
She shrugs her jacket off her shoulders as she enters his apartment, drops the garment on the back of his couch as she takes in his minimalist bachelor pad. Frank is unsurprised when she finds the fresh glass of whisky on the countertop and swipes it, taking a drink as though he'd offered it to her. He rolls his eyes and fetches another tumbler for himself.
"What is it you want?" he asks, pouring another glass. "And," he adds, after a moment of thought, "if you've come here to fight, do me a favour and come back later. I'm not in the mood."
"The opposite, actually," Laurel replies. She perches on the arm of his leather couch, levels him with that calm, penetrating stare. "We need to form a truce of some kind."
Frank leans back against the countertop, raises his eyebrows at her. "A truce, huh? An' what does that mean?"
"Usually it means you be nice to each other."
"So you do want me to get you off again?" He smirks, teasing, goading… hoping.
Ignoring his infantile question, Laurel takes a deep breath and releases it through her nose. A hand comes up to fiddle absently with her oversized necklace, prompting Frank's eyes to wander to her low neckline and exposed collarbone briefly, before returning to her face. "I… I've been thinking," she says eventually. "About what you said. And you're right; I do want to help Dryden."
Frank's eyebrows lift in surprise.
"So I'll see how much I can find out about Reed, okay? I'll try and get hold of the client folder later tonight-"
"Tonight? You're working tonight?" It takes Frank by surprise that she's clearly not planning to stay long, though he's not sure why he hadn't expected as much. Later, he will realise that it's less surprise than it is disappointment, and this unnerving epiphany will keep him awake for hours.
"Yes. And I'll see if I can talk to some of the other girls. The ones who slept with Reed. I'll see what I can find. Because… well, you're right." She glares slightly, like she hates to admit it. "Dryden doesn't deserve to go away for murder, not when we know he's innocent."
"So… you're gonna testify?"
Laurel's shaking her head before he's even finished his sentence. "I've told you, I can't. But I have an idea. What if someone else saw Dryden at the club that night?"
"Like who?"
"A colleague of mine. She remembers him sitting at the bar afterwards."
"Is she sure it was that same night?"
"She'll say she's sure."
"And she'll go under oath and say that?"
"If I ask her to."
Frank takes a drink and ponders the suggestion. "But if she's asked how long she saw 'im for…"
"She won't be able to say she spent a long time with him, I know, but surely it's better than nothing? And then can't Professor Keating prove that if he was at the club at that time, it wouldn't be possible for him to be stabbing Reed?"
He shrugs. "I mean… it could be better than nothing. I'll run it past Annalise."
"How high, right?" she asks, sarcasm flooding her tone.
"What?"
"She says jump, you ask how high?"
Frank manages to crack a smile at that. "Somethin' like that." He crosses the room, sits on the opposite side of the sofa, forcing Laurel to swivel around so that she can continue to look at him. She stays on the arm of the chair, props her feet up on the seat and rests her elbows on her knees, one hand holding her glass and the other hand holding her chin.
"Is Gina going to jail, then?" she asks after a moment.
He sighs, shrugs. "Dunno. Annalise is fixin' it."
She's silent for a while, then she tips her glass back and finishes off her drink. "You really picked me?" she asks quietly.
Frank looks over at her, confused. "How'd you mean?"
"You're not going to turn me over to Professor Keating? You're not going to keep begging me to testify? You're on my side?"
He smiles slightly. "Yes, Laurel, I'm on your side. Here," he says suddenly. He digs into his pocket and pulls out his cell. He pats the seat next to him. "Sit down."
For once, she follows his instruction, putting her glass on a side table before plopping down unceremoniously beside him on the couch. She watches over his shoulder as he pulls up his photo library and finds the blackmail video he took in the club. Then, with a few swipes of his thumb, he deletes it.
"Yeah, like you only have one copy," she scoffs.
"I swear I never backed it up. I'm not gonna sell you out. I got you, I promise."
She turns her head to look closely at his face, search every pore for the sign of a lie, but she doesn't find one. "That's not what you said yesterday."
He sighs. "Look, you got me on the defensive yesterday. You came in with all these ideas and accusations an' it was annoyin'. This is part of being a defense lawyer, Laurel. Annalise says it all the time: don't ask the client if they did it. It's not your job. If you can't take that, then you won't make it in this world."
"I know," she states, her tone a tad defensive itself. "I just… it's one thing in theory but…"
"I know," he echoes. He looks over at the girl on his couch, a girl who came over to talk, not screw, and it's a new experience for Frank. He's a love 'em and leave 'em type, not the dating and talking type. But, he finds himself thinking, he likes talking to Laurel. And so he doesn't stop himself from asking the question that sits on his tongue. "You wanna go out?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like out for dinner. We could start over, get a drink or somethin'. I know a good hoagie place down the street, it's open 'til late…"
"Frank." She cuts him off, shifts forward on the couch and looks at her feet. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"I'm not technically your professor…" he starts, pulling out the line he's used so frequently before on unsuspecting law students. He's never used it to get dinner out of a girl, though.
"It's not that," she says. "I… don't date." She looks over and grins wickedly at him, though the expression doesn't fill her eyes with brightness. "My job pretty much puts a stop to that."
Frank nods, a neutral expression covering his disappointment like a cheap band-aid. "Right," he says, forcing his emotions to level out. Then he looks back at her, his expression deathly serious. "That's fine, I don't think I'd be comfortable dating someone in your line of work, anyway."
Her eyebrow raises in question, dares him to speak his prejudice aloud.
"Yeah, law students," he elaborates, unable to completely hide his teasing smirk. "They're awful. Stuck-up pricks, the lot of 'em."
Laurel laughs and reaches out to push his leg gently.
Frank puts his glass on the floor, out of the way. He turns his body to face her and then reaches out, clasps his hand over hers, outstretched on her knee. "This is okay though, right?"
She smiles. "Sure."
He moves his hand onto her leg, traces his fingers slowly up her outer thigh until his palm comes to rest on the curve of her ass. "And this?"
"I don't see why not."
His arm snakes up further still until he's reaching around her back, pulling her closer to him until their chests are touching. She plays along, lifts her feet onto the couch as he lowers her back until she's lying flat on his couch and he's hovering carefully above her, his knees either side of her, his elbows propping him up. "And this?" he murmurs, bending his head to place a kiss to that exposed collarbone, the hollow of her throat.
"Mmm-hmm," she responds, the delicate skin vibrating under his lips, and one of her hands drifts up to his hair.
Frank lifts his head so he can bring his face to hers, nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye, breaths mingling between them, only atoms separating them. "And this?" His voice is a coarse whisper.
"Yes," she whispers back. "This is good."
He captures her lips with his, kisses her gently, skilfully, his tongue tracing her lower lip and then meeting hers softly in the space which is neither her nor him. If their kisses before have been battles, then this is a white flag, a surrender, an acknowledgement that they're fighting for the same side.
She breaks the kiss first, eyes fluttering open below him. "Frank, I can't. I've got to go to work."
He searches her eyes for a moment and recognizes that she's not pushing him away, only trying not to start something she doesn't have time to finish. "Okay," he relents slowly. "Okay." He shifts his weight, pushes himself up and gives her room to readjust herself.
She's quiet for a while, but her next words give him hope. "Another time, maybe."
"Well," he says carefully, "you know where I am."
"I'd better go."
"Okay."
They stand up together and Laurel turns to look at him. "I'll see what I can find out," she promises. "About Reed. And… let me know if you want my colleague to testify. I can talk to her."
Frank nods, pleased that they've come to a compromise that works. "Sure."
She turns for the door, but then hesitates and turns back. "Give me your cell."
He frowns at her. "Really? We're on the same side, here, I'm not recording-"
"I know," she snaps, seemingly angry with him for bringing that particular transgression up again. "Just… give it to me."
Reluctantly, he unlocks his phone and hands it over.
She types something in and then hands it back with a raised eyebrow. "My real number. You know, so you don't have to keep texting Lola."
"Right." He nods and pockets the phone, shrugs it off as though the gesture isn't the big deal they both know it is. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah. See you." She lets herself out and Frank waits until he can't hear her footsteps on the stairs anymore and then he gets his cell back out again.
Laurel? He sends.
Not ten seconds later, his phone vibrates with a reply. ?
Just checking you didn't fob me off with a fake number.
I didn't.
He smiles and is about to put his phone away and get the leftover meatballs out of the fridge for dinner (he never can cook meatballs for just one person), but it pings again in his hand. He glances down, and her message has him cursing her under his breath.
Just so you know, I'll be thinking of you when they're touching me. Maybe even when I'm touching me. Goodnight, Frank.
This girl was going to be the death of him.
Meanwhile, the Keating house is dark, and Annalise stands in the kitchen, braced against the cool granite of the counter. Sam is out late yet again and she's alone in this godforsaken house, alone with her thoughts and her continuing failures. Letting out a huff of frustration, she goes to the cupboard and finds a bottle of vodka, takes a mouthful right from the bottle before finding a glass and pouring herself a generous measure.
She goes through to her office, sees her laptop on the desk rather than away, where it should be. "Frank," she mutters irritably. But she may as well check the recording of the Dryden meeting, see whether she could build a feeble defense on anything he said. She turns on the laptop, navigates through the folders to find the Dryden folder and, within it, a file labelled Dryden meeting, 09.21. But she's surprised to find several files inside the folder, rather than just the one recording.
Scrolling through, Annalise finds that Frank's been doing his research. There are photos of Dryden's case file, the coroner's report, graphic images of Reed's injuries. At least he's been doing something, Annalise finds herself thinking spitefully of her second-in-command. The last file in the folder is a video, entitled MV0017, the name giving no clue to what it is. So, she opens it.
There's a girl, a brunette, clad only in her underwear. Little else gives away the purpose of the video, but then someone speaks, and Annalise recognizes Frank's deep voice immediately. "I've given you three hundred bucks," he says. "What do you do?"
It's the stripper, the one they've been trying – and failing – to get onside.
"Come back over here and I'll show you," the girl responds.
Annalise's hand stills on the trackpad of the laptop. Because she knows that girl's voice, heard it just earlier today at the courthouse. The video is slightly blurry, not the best quality, but a close look at the girl's face confirms the stripper's identity. Castillo, Annalise remembers, Laurel Castillo.
Just when you think things are starting to go right for these two…
Sorry for the slight cliffie but this chapter was insanely long so I hope that you can forgive me and, in return, leave a little comment? Thanks so much for all the love on the last chapter, you guys make me feel giddy. Special shout-out to the anon on tumblr who left me a lovely message, too! You are all the absolute best.
Only two or three chapters left now! See you for the next one very soon.
