Frannie's Lament
by Tanya Reed
Disclaimer: Due South is owned by Alliance Atlantis.
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"So, did you get all that stuff done that he wanted you to?" Frannie asked, putting on her make up in preparation for Mario's expected visit.
Meg looked at the papers in her hand and grimaced, but all she said was, "Yeah."
If they had indeed missed a bug, it wouldn't do to say anything too obvious. With a sigh, she dropped the papers and headed to the window. It was a beautiful day out there, and she would have given anything to be riding instead of locked here in this opulant room. But at least she wasn't wearing a suit. Meg was so tired of dressing to impress; sometimes those nice clothes felt like they were squeezing the life right out of her. Today, she had opted for jeans and a loose t-shirt. If she was going to have to stay in this posh prison, she was at least going to be comfortable.
Frannie, on the other hand, had on her usual short skirt and tight fitting cropped shirt. She was also wearing a smile for some reason, and Meg wished she could borrow some of her good cheer.
Frannie finished up and turned to face Meg. "How do I look?"
"Stunning, Renata, as always," she replied dryly and was rewarded with Frannie's sticking out her tongue.
"Well, I could have said you looked like sh..."
Meg's grin was cut off by the sound of the lock. Frannie sobered just as quickly, and Meg could see her putting together the fragments of Renata. Meg hurried to follow suit, and had mastered a doe-eyed expression by the time the door opened.
Mario entered, a cloak of tension surrounding him. At first, he was staring down at the keys in his hand but, after a few seconds, his eyes rose. The moment Meg saw his face, she knew something was wrong. It was rigid, frozen, as if all the bones in it had turned to stone. Lips stretched thinly over teeth clenched in strong emotion. The most startling was his eyes-- heated pools of molton steel, full of rage and hate and something that burned like death. Meg could not look away.
"Good morning, ladies." His voice was to his eyes what ice is to fire. "Did you sleep well?"
Meg found herself unable to answer as his gaze chilled her to the bone. Frannie had come up to stand beside her, and she was just as silent.
"What, you have nothing to say? Yesterday, Renata, you ran to my arms." He sneered and turned all of his attention on Frannie. "Has something changed, my dear?"
"You look different this morning, Mario. You're scaring me."
The sound of Frannie's voice shook Meg out of her stupor. Remembering she was Angelique, she asked, "Have we done something wrong, sir?"
Mario barked out a laugh. "Wrong? No, Angelique. Whatever gave you that idea?" His eyes swept over her form, gliding over flesh more surely than fingers. Meg wasn't sure whether to shudder or stand her ground. Mario seemed to note this indecisiveness because he smiled cruelly.
"I have been doing some thinking." His gaze this time swept over Frannie. "You see, I knew that Harvey could not have been working alone, and so I asked myself how could a simple groom acquire my secrets?" He spoke softly, though his words were tinged with menace. "After all, he had no access to the house. In fact, I barely saw him for minutes each week. The only way he could know my affairs was if someone in my household was telling him."
His blue eyes were back on Meg, boring into her. She could almost feel them crawling into her skin, seeking answers.
"Then, I realized that someone did see Harvey every day, and I began to wonder why someone who had admitted she wasn't much for horses on the day we met suddenly went riding every day. And I wondered why this certain someone only went riding with my personal assistant, who was hired when my previous assistant disappeared under mysterious circumstances. And, coincidences of coincidences, this happened within a couple of months after I had met the first someone.
'Why did these two women--women with such strikingly different personalities--become such fast friends?"
He coldly raised an eyebrow, and Meg suppressed another shudder. She resisted the impulse to glance at Frannie. Instead, she continued to stare impassively into those cruelly calculating eyes.
Mario's next question snapped at Meg like a whip as he demanded, "Who are you?
"I am Angelique Marceau," she replied in the slightly accented speech that she had picked up the year she was an exchange student in France.
"Angelique Marceau does not exist," he snarled, ice replacing fire in his eyes. In a way, the chilly calm was more frightening than the anger.
"I am Angelique Marceau," she repeated.
"And you?" he asked Frannie, who visibly flinched.
"My name's Renata Mancini."
He shook his head. "Then those will be the women who die," he replied with a shrug. "As I said, I have done some digging, and I know that neither of you exist...at least your identities do not exist. This is enough to convince me that you were Cantrel's informants... and I will find out everything I want to know or kill you trying."
As Mario turned to go, Meg caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She stopped herself from letting out a surprised yelp as Frannie lashed out with something, smashing it against the back of their captor's head. The man folded over like an accordian.
Meg turned horrified eyes on Frannie, whose face was triumphant.
"Gotcha."
"What did you do that for?"
"Because he was going to kill us. Now we can get away."
"All right, Miss Rambo. Any ideas as to how to get by the two guards--who are both heavily armed--outside our door?"
Frannie's face fell. "I didn't think of that."
"Obviously. Oh, well, nothing can be done about it now. Let's tie up this..."
Meg nudged him none too gently with her foot. It felt very good to see him lying there helpless. His grabby hands had often reminded her of her months with Cloutier. She fought the urge to give Mario a kick and instead went to help Frannie rip up a couple of silk sheets.
It didn't take them long to have Mario trussed up like a chicken and secured in a closet. If Meg hadn't known better, she would have sworn Frannie had done that before. She mulled this thought over as they quickly and quietly finished.
"Now what?" Frannie whispered, some of her earlier fear again in her voice.
"Now we distract and disable the guards."
"How do we do that?"
Meg bit her lip thoughtfully. "Do you watch a lot of movies, Frannie?"
The Italian shrugged as puzzlement passed over her features. "Some, I suppose. Why?"
"Well, I was thinking if we cry for help--say that something befell Mario..."
"Which it did," Frannie grinned evilly through her fear.
Despite their grave circumstances, Meg returned the grin. "And when they come to investigate, we hit them. Too bad we didn't have two fireplace pokers."
"They work real well. Lots of clunk for your buck."
"Indeed."
A hurried search of their two rooms revealed that the shower curtain rod was loose. With minimal effort, Meg pried it from the wall, hoping it would proove to be harder than a guard's head.
Once the two of them were armed, they were ready to put their plan into action. Meg's heart was pounding and she wasn't even marginally sure this would work. She kept this from her face, determined not to show Frannie her uncertainty. She raised an eyebrow questioningly, and her Italian partner nodded.
Moving closer to the door, Meg loudly said, "Oh, my God! What happened?"
"I think he passed out," Frannie answered, just the right amount of anxiousness in her voice. "Should we call the guards?"
"If we don't, they'll probably think we did this...Guards! Something is wrong with Mario."
To Meg's disbelief, it worked better than in any movie. The guards rushed in, and Frannie brought the poker down on the head of the first with a loud clang. He dropped like a stone. The man behind him stumbled slightly, and Meg hit him with her shower pole. He turned in anger to see who had dared to hit him, and Meg's stomach flip flopped. Before she had to defend herself, Frannie came down with the poker against his head.
As he fell, Meg grunted, "Thanks."
Then she bent and searched the men for weapons. Finding three guns, she armed Frannie and herself. Frannie cautiously opened the door and peered into the hallway.
"It's clear."
That was something, at least. "Good. Let's go."
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"So, what was all that about, Benton, buddy?" Kowalski asked curiously as the three of them trumped into his rented room.
"I was wondering that myself," Vecchio added, shutting the door and turning to look at his friend.
Ben rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow, wondering how to tell them what he had heard. He had managed to put it off while they were in the car, but he could put it off no longer. They had to know.
"Frase?" Kowalski prodded, a flicker of fear in his voice.
"Trouble, Ray."
"I guessed that much. What kind?"
Wearily, Ben walked to the bed and sat down. Looking at the Rays' expectant faces, he knew he had to face things head on.
"Francesca is in danger."
"We know that, Benny. She's a spy working under cover in a crazy guy's house."
"Yes, that's true, but something has changed."
"Changed how?"
Quickly, the Mountie sketched out the conversation he'd heard. Watching his friends' faces, he saw realization and fear fill them. Like him, they did not want to lose Francesca now that they had found her again.
"All right, so what are we going to do?" Vecchio asked when Ben was done. "And you can't argue with going to get her now, Fraser."
"Of course not. The time for caution has passed. Now we must employ speed."
Kowalski's eyes were glowing with restrained energy and anger. "I dunno about you guys, but if he's hurt her..."
Vecchio put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure there'll be enough to go around."
"We must also remember," Ben added, "that Francesca has a partner. We must include her in our rescue plans. We cannot let Williams kill her."
"Agreed. Besides, chances are she and Frannie are together."
"Not necessarily, Ray. Just because their superiors equate them together does not mean Williams will do so. In fact, if they were smart, they will have acted as if they despised each other."
"Yeah, well, when has Frannie ever been considered smart?"
Kowalski protested, "Frannies' always been smart, just in her own way."
Vecchio snorted but didn't reply to that. Instead, he said, "Smart or stupid, we've got to get my sister out of there."
"Can't argue with that, but how?"
Ben cleared his throat and admitted, "I think I have an idea."
"Somehow, I knew you were going to say that."
Knowing Ray did not mean this for a dig, Ben gave him a nod and then proceeded to lay out his idea.
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Frannie and Meg slipped through endless corridors. A sense of urgency hurried their feet, but still their passage was taking much too long. The mansion seemed to have expanded exponentially since they had walked it freely, and Frannie wondered if they would ever find a way out.
It was only minutes before the quiet house erupted into activity, and Frannie was sure that the guards had awakened and Mario had been discovered. The belief almost drove the breath right out of her; she had to fight to keep moving. Meg, on the other hand, seemed as calm and collected as always, making Frannie feel both admiration and envy. She was glad of it as well because it was probably the only thing that was keeping her going.
"I wish you would have waited until after dark for this little adventure, Frannie," Meg whispered. "I'd feel a lot better doing all of this slinking around in darkness."
Frannie didn't answer this because she wasn't sure how. Instead, she moved ahead of Meg and peered around the next corner. She froze, startled, as a bullet thunked into the wall beside her head. Only Meg's quick jerk on her arm prevented the next one from hitting its target.
"Now what?" Frannie demanded, her throat tight with fear.
"Now, we fight. That's what all our training was about, remember?"
Frannie expected to see scorn when she met Meg's eyes, but all she saw was support. Feeling slightly better, she drew the gun from her waistband.
"You first or me?"
Meg already had her gun in her hand. "Same time. I'll go high. You go low."
Frannie nodded and croached, pulling up her skirt to move more easily.
"One..."
"...two..."
"...three..."
Both women looked aroiund the corner and started shooting. There were three men exposed by the empty hallway. At the shots, two fell and the third lept for an open doorway. One of the fallen was still shooting, so Meg coldly dispatched him. Frannie felt her stomach heave and her hand begin to shake.
The man behind the door started firing again. Frannie heard Meg swear through clenched teeth as they both ducked back behind their corner.
"Should we keep fighting or turn back and find another entrance?" Frannie asked, noting with disbelief that her voice was steady.
"We can't leave him to tell the others where we've gone." Then she narrowed her eyes. "Are you all right, Frannie?"
"Yes."
Meg just gave a nod and dropped the subject, leaning to fire a couple more shots.
"Frozen horse meat."
"What?"
"If we had some frozen horse meat, we could get out of this easy."
"Are you insane?"
"No," Frannie answered, firing a couple shots of her own. "Just desperate."
She didn't bother to tell Meg the story behind her comment. She just pulled back and took a couple of deep breaths, preparing for her next shot. The air almost choked in her throat as she heard Meg's triumphant whisper.
"Dead centre." Then, she turned to Frannie, saying in her normal voice, "All right. All clear."
She left their saftey zone first, and Frannie followed close behind, keeping her eyes above floor level. She tried not to even think of the men lying dead at her feet, men who had, just minutes ago, been living, breathing human beings.