Chapter 45: Ransacked

}0{

"You wanna tell me what the hell is going on?" Scott demanded in a hiss, grasping Frank's sleeve.

Frank whipped his hand in the direction of the stairs as he strode off toward the other end of the lobby. "She just… did it. Out of nowhere."

"Obviously," Scott said with a taut laugh, glancing over his shoulder to watch Laura casually walking back up the stairs in her red gown. He jogged to catch up with Frank as they entered the opposite hall of the theater. "Why were you even out here?"

"I was just–" Frank stopped mid-sentence, knowing it was useless to explain. Scott's eyes reminded him of his father's in that moment.

"-doing my job?" Scott finished, eyebrows raised.

"Where the fuck is Fitzgerald?" Frank changed the subject, moving faster through the hall.

"Farmer, I hate to say this, but I think Rachel would much rather you be in there," he pointed to the theater door.

Frank stopped, attempting to center himself in the midst of another crisis. He breathed heavily and stared at the dizzying damask wallpaper, lost in his thoughts. If he did what Rachel wanted him to do, he could potentially be endangering her by letting his guard down. If he did what she didn't want him to do, he would be endangering their relationship by failing to support her. Either way, he wouldn't win.

All the while, Rachel's incredible voice filled the air, taunting him with the need to see her face, savor her passion, shower her with praise and applause.

"I won't say anything about Laura," Scott said, breaking Frank's reverie in the most cruel way.

Frank suddenly felt sick.

}0{

Thanks to Rachel's recent bout of pregnancy exhaustion, they did not attend the afterparty following the show this time. And thank God for it, because Frank was in no mood to humor Rachel's acquaintances with pointless smalltalk, and certainly not to be in the same room as Laura Pentecost for any amount of time.

The ride in the limo on the way back to the Sheraton was even more awkward than the ride to the theater had been. Frank could feel the tension from Scott knowing about Laura's kiss on the staircase, and the tension from Rachel knowing he had been M.I.A from the box she had reserved for him along with Tina and Devon.

He thought about complimenting her on her performance that night, but he could just imagine the glare he would receive from her if he even dared to try. At this point it would be too little too late. She was obviously aware of his absence during her time on stage. She didn't look at him the entire way back until he took her hand to help her out of the limo.

Her eyes were like coal.

"I know you're upset with me," he murmured as they moved briskly through the lobby. "But I couldn't just sit there and watch–"

"You did in Chicago," she accused coldly as they entered the elevator.

Scott tucked himself awkwardly into the corner as a weak attempt to give them privacy while they argued.

Frank pressed the frustration out of his body with one hand on the mirrored wall. "After everything that happened this morning, could you blame me?"

She gave an exaggerated sigh. "You know, Frank, this could have been my last live stage performance before giving birth. And you missed it."

He wished she would just scream at him like she used to. Instead he had to face this mature, frigid, mildly disappointed version of Rachel who used his first name instead of his last name.

Dammit. Why couldn't she just call him 'Farmer?'

He followed her through the hallway towards the suite while Pettigrew followed closely behind. When she reached the door, she crossed her arms and looked expectantly at him as he fumbled for the room key.

He unlocked the door and let it swing open.

He no longer had to wish that Rachel would scream.

The entire room had been ransacked. Items had been tossed across the ground to the point where the carpet was barely visible. Suitcases had been unzipped and emptied, cabinets and drawers had been thrown open, and the bed had been torn apart.

Scott used the word 'fuck' so sparingly that Frank's terror increased tenfold at his exclamation.

"The door was still locked…" Frank said ominously. He exchanged glances with Scott, both of them realizing at once that any intrusion would have had to happen with a key.

"Check your room!" Frank urged Scott, waving him out the door.

Rachel grabbed hold of Frank's arm, her face filled with dread. All the pettiness of their conversation in the elevator suddenly made him feel queasy. He knew how exhausted she was, and now all of her belongings had been strewn carelessly around what was supposed to be her safe space.

All she could do was cling to him, because now he was her only safe space.

Though his fear was likely even greater than hers, Frank did what was expected of him, offering her comfort in the form of physical reassurance. He tucked her against his chest and held her tightly until Scott came bolting breathlessly back into the room.

"No one was in my room," he said.

So Rachel was the target.

Frank blanched. Or … was he?

He thought back to the mutilated scarves in Chicago and the suspicious box of chocolates at The Plaza. It was a toss up between the two of them, unless someone was targeting them both. Or two people were targeting each of them for different reasons. Or two people were working in collaboration.

Frank stopped himself before his brain could short circuit considering all of the frightening possibilities. He wanted nothing more than to leave New York City and run away into the mountains somewhere with Rachel where no one would find them again.

"What were they looking for?" Rachel asked, her voice still shaking.

"Only one way to find out," Scott said darkly.

}0{

They sent Rachel into Scott's room to sleep while hotel security came to investigate.

After two hours of reorganizing and scouring the contents of the room, Frank was able to confirm that nothing was missing.

Scott pulled him aside to ask, "Do we need Rachel to check, too?"

"Photographic memory," Frank murmured. "Everything she brought is still here except what she took into your room."

"Then why did someone break in?" Scott wondered.

The two security officers chatting by the door looked up when Frank interrupted their conversation. "Someone used a key to get in here," he said. "There were no signs of forced entry. I'd like to see the security footage."

"We can check the footage for you," one of the officers said simply.

Frank stared at the man and repeated slowly, "I want to see it."

"Sir, we can't release security footage to just anyone."

It was then when Frank remembered: he was just a civilian. Without a gun. Without the title of 'bodyguard,' or 'agent,' or 'officer.' Without a reason to make any such demands.

Trying to be helpful, Scott stepped in. "I'm Rachel Marron's guard. I'd like to see the footage."

The officers exchanged glances. "We'll talk to our supervisor in the morning."

"Why can't I see it now?"

"We can't share footage without a supervisor present. But if you want, we can watch it tonight and report back to you what we find."

"This is fucking ridiculous," Frank muttered, dangerously close to throwing something across the room.

"If you can't prove that anything was taken, the hotel can't be liable," one of the officers said.

"What the hell do you mean?" Frank demanded.

The officer replied smugly, "What I mean is, you are liable for leaving the door to your room unlocked, sir."

"I didn't– I never–"

They were in such a rush to leave earlier that evening for the show… Had he? He couldn't have. He wasn't the last to leave the room. Rachel was. Unless… Tina.

Frank felt his blood begin to boil.

"We can send housekeeping up to help with the mess," the officer supplied curtly.

"I don't want anyone from your staff in this room until I know for sure that they weren't responsible for this!" Frank yelled. "But I would like to speak to the hotel manager."

"She's not on duty tonight."

Frank gave an empty laugh. "Of course she's not."

Scott interjected, "If you're not going to let us see the footage, we really don't need anything further from you two."

"Fine," the officer replied, signaling his counterpart toward the door.

"I'll be down at security at 6 A.M. tomorrow," Scott said brusquely to the officers as he shut the door behind them.

As soon as they were gone, Frank exploded. "Someone at the hotel is in on this. Someone's getting paid off."

"Frank, will you please calm down? They're probably just trying to protect their own asses."

Frank stared at the mess surrounding him, sinking into that dangerous, dark place that he could not climb out of.

"Do you want me to get the cops involved?" Scott asked a bit forcefully.

Even considering it seemed pointless. For one, nothing was taken. And Frank certainly couldn't afford to risk drawing more attention to himself after he'd lost control at The Plaza that morning with the shooting. Frank shook his head.

"Then there's nothing more we can do right now," Scott said more gently this time. "I'll get down there first thing in the morning, watch the footage, and we'll deal with it then." He handed Frank the key to his hotel room. "Go stay with Rachel and get some rest. I'll finish picking this place up."

Frank tossed and turned all night. He normally would have worried about waking Rachel but her exhaustion must have been substantial—she slept like a rock. The combination of performing while pregnant clearly had taken its toll on her.

He looked over at her beautiful face in the darkness, in wonder that the voice he had heard from the stage last night—and the woman who owned it—could belong to him. But the worrying words of Laura Pentecost echoed in his mind. "She isn't sure about marriage."

Hell, it was too soon to be thinking of proposing. He had really jumped the gun by bringing it up to Fletcher in Chicago. Still, he'd gotten the boy's blessing, along with the encouragement that Rachel would say 'yes' if he'd offered her a ring…

Obviously Fletcher knew Rachel better than Laura. Didn't he?

Frank rolled onto his back and kneaded his fingers into his forehead. A proposal should be the last thing on his mind. That didn't keep him from wanting to shake her awake right now and force a ring onto her skinny finger whether she liked it or not. His therapist wouldn't have approved of such a tactic. Communication is key: words he'd heard too often in his therapy sessions. There was no way to know how Rachel felt about marriage now than to just ask her. But it was so much easier said than done. To stand in front of this confident, gorgeous firecracker of a woman and ask such a question was… intimidating.

The clock on the nightstand read 5:01 A.M., so Frank reluctantly got out of bed to go shower. He decided that if he couldn't be completely honest with Rachel yet, he should at least be honest with Scott Pettigrew, the man who seemed to accidentally know all of Frank's secrets.

After showering and dressing, he knocked on the door to Rachel's suite. Scott opened the door. "How'd you sleep?" he asked.

"I'm not even sure I did sleep," Frank admitted. "You?"

"Oh, I got about two hours," Scott said, returning to the mirror to adjust his necktie.

Frank looked around the room to see that mostly everything had been sorted back into its proper place. This man went way above his pay grade for them.

"Before you go down to security, I have to tell you about something," Frank said.

He then proceeded to confide in Scott about the mysterious chocolate box with the Secret Service flag embedded under the lid that he'd discovered back at The Plaza. Scott looked deeply perplexed.

"That can't be a coincidence," Frank finished, looking to Scott for answers.

Scott thought for a few moments then said in a low voice, "Maybe you are the target."

"I've thought of that," Frank said, "but why? What would someone have against me?"

"Maybe someone is trying to break you," Scott supplied. "With you out of the picture, Rachel's a much easier target."

Frank's chest tightened. The irrational urge to force a ring on her finger surged within him again. He put his hand on his jaw and turned to look out the window. A thought crossed his mind then. A wicked idea. An idea that would need both Rachel and Scott's approval. But it wasn't the time quite yet. He looked back at Scott and said resolutely, "We have to get out of here today."

"Oh, we are," Scott said as he put on his suit jacket. "I've already changed our flights to this afternoon."

Frank felt a wave of relief. "Good luck down there."

Scott smirked. "I'll let you know what I find."

}0{

"I still can't believe the camera feed didn't pick up anyone entering our room last night," Rachel shook her head, incredulous, as she stared at Scott in the airplane seat beside her.

"Not even housekeeping," Scott shrugged, accepting a can of Mountain Dew from the stewardess in the aisle. "They showed me from the hour we checked in until the second we returned from the theater."

"That's insane."

"I told you someone at the hotel is lying," Frank alluded. "There's a reason they refused to show him the footage last night. Someone tampered with the feed."

Rachel looked regretfully over at him. "Well, I'm just glad I got to do the show before we had to get out of there."

"Did you tell Tina about any of this?" Frank asked.

Rachel sighed. "No, I didn't want her to worry."

Some time passed in silence until the sound of Scott's snoring rose above the hum of the plane engine.

Rachel glanced at Frank in amusement.

"He only slept two hours last night," Frank explained with a smirk. "I guess even the caffeine can't help." He gestured to the half-drunk can of soda on Scott's tray table.

"He needs a raise," Rachel conceded.

"No shit."

"I wish he'd told me he was going to spend all night cleaning the room and packing all our things up for us," Rachel sighed.

Frank looked down at his lap, suddenly feeling convicted about his own lack of honesty. He wondered if it was really the time or place to start revealing things to her – but the more he thought about it, he supposed that here, 40,000 feet above every other distraction, was as good a place as any to start.

"Rachel," he began, already needing to clear his throat.

She looked over at him, eyebrows raised, beauty unmatched, a ticking time-bomb of unforeseen reactions.

He swallowed hard and quietly revealed, "Last night, at the theater… Laura kissed me."

Rachel's expression was unmoved as she stared at him, her dark eyes flitting questioningly across his face. She blinked a few times, then her mouth dropped open, then she almost — almost — smirked. "That hoe!" she hissed. Then she laughed.

She actually laughed.

Frank was stunned. "You're not mad?"

"Oh, hell, I'm furious," Rachel assured him, clawing the armrest with an unsettling grip. "But it's kinda funny she even thinks she's got a chance with you."

Frank remained silent as he watched her shake her head in amusement, still beside himself as he tried to process her reaction.

"What?" Rachel asked, "You thought I'd be mad at you?"

"Well, I–"

"It's just a kiss, Frank. If you'd told me she pulled your pants down and started sucking your cock on that staircase, then we'd have a problem."

Frank desperately hoped that no one else in first class could overhear this conversation.

She laughed again. "As long as no one saw, we're fine."

"Well, Pettigrew saw," Frank murmured.

Rachel glanced over at her snoring bodyguard and laughed even harder.

"I can't believe you're laughing about this," Frank said, still afraid to smile.

"Honey, I am secure. And I know you," she said, a bit more seriously, "You're nothing if not loyal, Frank. Although you should work on your self-defense skills when it comes to anticipating attacks of a sexual nature." She smirked.

"I can't hit a woman," he admitted stiffly, which sparked another fit of giggles from his girlfriend.

"Don't worry," she said. "When we get back to Pentecost Palace, I'm gonna get her. I am gonna. Get. Her." She slapped her thigh twice to emphasize each word.

}0{

Laura's flight landed just an hour after theirs. An unfortunate convenience for Rachel, who insisted she be the first to greet the woman at the manor upon her arrival. Fitzgerald took a back seat in the wake of Rachel's fury, knowing perhaps that his client deserved some of the heat, and that it was partially his own negligence at the theater which had allowed such an incident to occur.

"So your tongue, just, accidentally ended up in my boyfriend's mouth?" Rachel said, within the fragile limits of sardonic rage.

Laura took off her shades as she entered the foyer with a wry smile. "There was no tongue."

"Honey, you'll be lucky to have a tongue by the time I'm finished with you," Rachel threatened.

Rachel was not skilled in the art of physical attacks. An assault from her could have easily been prevented. As a bodyguard himself, Frank knew that Fitzgerald had fully allowed her hand to come in contact with Laura's cheek. The loud 'thwack' echoed in the vast room in a way that everyone found satisfying. Even Julie Pentecost, who watched from her safe perch on the staircase, glass of scotch in hand. Fletcher stood, not far behind the woman, mouth agape.

"Come on, then? Afraid to chip your nails?" Rachel attempted to egg her on, but Fitzgerald was merciful enough to intervene. With little effort, he took Laura's shaking arms and guided her into the hall, giving Frank an apologetic look as they passed.

"Well, that was entertaining," Julie said dryly before knocking back the rest of her drink.

After dinner, Fitzgerald formally apologized to Frank for the mishap at the theater. If Rachel had reacted any less favorably to the incident, Frank might not have accepted the apology. Under the circumstances, he was in no position to burn any bridges with the man, especially since he was already privy to countless details of their personal lives which could offer daunting ammunition for future blackmail.

Blackmail? Fucking blackmail? Frank was in desperate need of a therapy session.

But everyone was a threat. Everyone.

And Fitzgerald was someone who knew about the Secret Service.

He couldn't be too careful.

That night, Rachel seemed to expect Frank to be proud of her for hitting Laura. He didn't remark on it, as much as he may have wanted to. A secret part of him reacted with boyish glee to her passionate display, but he couldn't let her see that. He wasn't about to be that honest – besides, one of them needed to maintain some self-control.

He did, however, express his frustrations in how he'd been treated by the Sheraton staff after the ransacking.

"I feel less in control than I've ever felt in my life," he admitted darkly, his eyes meeting hers in the bathroom mirror as she washed her face.

"We've been through a lot of shit the past few months," she conceded.

"It's only going to get worse, Rachel."

He saw a flinch in her eyes. She couldn't deny it.

"Unless we do everything within our power to prevent it," he said.

"How do you expect to do that?"

She met his gaze in the mirror again, and he was certain she'd seen the twinkle of tyranny in his eyes.

She turned to face him. "I'm scared to ask."

"Put me back on your payroll."

"What?"

"You heard me. Hire me back on as your bodyguard."

"Farmer, you're insane!" She tossed her washcloth violently into the sink.

She was calling him Farmer again. It felt good.

"If I'm your employee they can't deny me access to camera footage, I can carry my gun on secured property, I can get lists of names at these venues, I can protect you better than I can now."

"Scott is my bodyguard," she said with conviction. "He's doing those things already."

"We both know the workload is too heavy for him, and we both know that Tony doesn't have the capacity for these kinds of details." Frank moved closer to her as he made his case. "Scott can spot a gunman from the opposite side of the room, and Tony can crush a man's skull with one hand, but neither of them can remember every single name and face of every person they interacted with last week. I can."

Rachel's eyes darted about his face, genuine fear brewing just beneath the surface.

"This isn't just an obsessed stalker, Rachel. This is a calculated attack. And we don't know if you're the target or . . . if I am."

She was getting smarter when it came to these things, surely she understood his logic. If he was her employee, it could help protect him, too.

Though Rachel looked very much like she wanted to resist, she gave in.

"I'll talk to Scott."