Chapter 46: On the Payroll
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Exhausted by the recent turn of events and closing in on the latter half of her pregnancy, Rachel just didn't have the energy to fight back anymore. When she really thought about it, she didn't have any reason to tell him no.
The next morning she gave Scott the order to officially hire Frank on.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Rachel?" Scott asked, his face wrought with apprehension.
Rachel couldn't afford to second guess herself. She nodded and walked away.
Frank's official rehire date ended up being September 11th. He kept to himself the entire day and barely said a word to her. She didn't know whether it was because he felt awkward about being her employee again, or because it was 9/11. Either way, Rachel was glad to have an excuse to breathe for a bit. They didn't have anywhere important to be anytime soon, so he wasn't really on duty just yet.
It was becoming less appealing to attend events the further along she got in her pregnancy. Rachel had turned down several invitations to events in September in favor of lounging around the mansion with Fletcher. At least here she felt they could stay safe. Laura seemed to steer clear of Rachel wherever she was in the house, and Julie had incidentally warmed up a bit more to Rachel.
Rachel did, however, accept one invitation to sing "America the Beautiful" at a charity gala for the Bright Foundation, to take place at the end of September at the Omni at California Plaza. Upon accepting the invitation, she also became a guest – with a plus one. But her hired bodyguard could not come as her date.
Rachel was notorious for short practices. The song was something she'd sang hundreds of times, but the venue had insisted she at least show for a rehearsal the morning of. Pettigrew accompanied her, because Frank, though rightfully on her payroll, was still something of a minor celebrity because of her.
She allowed the tabloids a grace period following the drama in NYC. Let them believe Frank's trigger happy fingers had caused them to split. A good few weeks of absence in the public eye would give the media more than enough to speculate about in the meantime. Then, Rachel imagined, she would emerge victorious at the Omni with her best-rested voice and the bodyguard who had taken a bullet for her.
Oxana spent the day of the event with Rachel, coming up with a color palette for her ensemble.
"We need an outfit for him, too, yes?"
"No…" Rachel looked down at her lap as she sat at her vanity. "Frank isn't my date this time."
"No?" Oxana's voice lowered to a scandalized hiss, "You broke up?"
"No," Rachel clarified. "He's my . . . employee now."
Oxana's cat-like eyes were harsh in the mirror. "That's awkward."
"Yeah."
"So, you're actually going to . . . pay him for his services?"
Rachel hadn't thought about it – not logistically, at least – until that moment. "I guess…"
Oxana laughed a scathing sort of laugh. "Rachel, you are caught up in some twisted shit right now."
"Tell me about it."
After Oxana had selected her outfit, Rachel snuck through the hallway into the library where Scott had set up his makeshift office during their stay. She sifted curiously through the pile of paperwork until she came upon the files she was looking for.
Her heart gave a tiny pounce at the sight of his personal information filled out on the forms, the stringent scratch of his signature in black ink at the bottom of each one. His birthday had already passed that very month, and she'd had no idea about it. Of course the last thing he'd have wanted was to call attention to it – the man was truly a vault – and despite her distrust of psychics, he did happen to be a Virgo after all.
Rachel snorted softly to herself as she read the delicate serif typeface of his full name Frank Garrison Farmer on every line of the old payroll documents. God, she'd forgotten his middle name. Garrison. It was befittingly droll. Probably some long-instated family name that he'd gotten stuck with as Herb Farmer's only son.
The documents had not been updated until two days ago, she noticed – just in time to reflect the end of a new pay period. Where a new line had been added, the dates jumped from 1992 to 2003 over a conveniently placed streak of white-out, followed by his name again, Farmer comma Frank, and the amount neatly typed beside it.
$3,344.33
That number had haunted her for years.
She would never forget it. It became a kind of song she sang to herself in her head. Occasionally when she was not even thinking of him, that number would still interrupt her thoughts.
Three thousand, three hundred forty-four dollars and thirty-three cents.
It was a curious sequence of numbers that she didn't understand. How did it just happen to be an angel number; a perfect palindrome on every paycheck? Was it the poor math skills of their prior payroll assistant? The mysterious sense of humor of Bill Devaney?
She shook her head, chuckling to herself as she tucked the papers back into their folder and left the room to go and find Fletcher.
Fletcher was all too happy to attend with his mother as her 'plus one' for the gala. Though maybe not quite as happy to have Oxana style him for the evening.
Frank, on the other hand, was in his element. Just a simple change of title on paper had completely transformed him, from his appearance to his behavior. He strutted around the manor with his God-forsaken suit and his God-forsaken gun, acting all important like he ran the place himself. And pretty soon she would have to watch him prowl about the courtyard of the Omni with his God-forsaken earpiece and his God-forsaken orange juice.
And Rachel had very mixed feelings about it.
To make matters worse, he had returned to wearing the same cologne he'd used to wear before Oxana's intervention. It messed with Rachel's head, which wasn't good for a performance – even one as simple and familiar as "America the Beautiful."
In the privacy of her wardrobe, Rachel attempted to squeeze herself into the long porcelain pink gown that Oxana had selected for her. Her belly had become quite the obstacle. Not to mention her bosom. Rachel laughed at herself as she contorted into several uncomely positions to make the dress fit. Once she had managed, she was clear out of breath, with absolutely no way to zip it herself.
Flushed from her struggle and a little embarrassed, she peeked her head outside of the wardrobe and asked Frank to help her.
She could tell he was trying to keep a straight face, but the dash of humor in his eyes betrayed him. He stepped into the closet behind her, guiding her to face the mirror. She watched him pause to study the back of the dress, then felt the light tracing touch of his fingers along the zipper where it dipped against her lower back. She couldn't tell whether the baby was moving again, or if the butterflies in her stomach had awakened from his touch. He stepped back slightly, angling his head to inspect the dress more closely.
"Oxana does know you're pregnant, correct?" he teased.
"Shut up, Farmer."
He smiled in a way she'd not seen him smile in the longest time. She'd forgotten how animated his face could actually be when he smiled like that. It kind of made her knees weak.
Rachel pressed one hand to the mirror for support as he closed the distance between them again and gently began to tug at the zipper, using both hands to pull the fabric parallel as he worked upwards. She watched his reflection in the mirror, strangely taken by how driven he was to succeed at his task. He was doing that thing again, where the tip of his tongue crept just along the corner of his upper lip as he concentrated. She could feel the tiny pulses of his warm breath on the back of her neck with each tug, could hear the tiny grunts of exertion that reminded her of when he threw those silly knives at the tree.
If he took much longer she would probably end up coming out of the dress anyway…
She shared a smirk with herself in the mirror.
Frank stopped to place his hands on her shoulders briefly. "Pull your shoulders back a little," he instructed, a note of question in his tone.
She took her hand off the mirror and did as she was told, rolling her shoulders back so that her chest jutted out, and her head was all but resting against him. Jesus, if he hadn't been wearing that damn cologne. It felt so forbidden, having him touch her this way. As her employee. Again.
His eyes briefly met with hers in the mirror as he adjusted his position behind her, but it was the glimpse of his suspenders beneath his jacket that did it.
Rachel whipped around and forced him up against the wall with a lust-ridden kiss, so caught up in her exuberance, she'd forgotten why they were both hidden in the closet to begin with.
"Oxana will kill me if I ruin this dress," Rachel muttered against his mouth.
"Then I'd have to kill Oxana," Frank threatened back, tucking both hands beneath the satin to stroke along the bare skin of her back.
"I bet you've wanted to do that since the day you met her," Rachel giggled irreverently, with a vivacity that seemed infectious.
She was filled with a warm surge of joy in response to his vigorous laughter.
Was it unhealthy for them to joke about murdering people who had done no harm to them? Probably. Did their current circumstances make it especially perverse? Absolutely. But did she want them to wash away all of their fucked-up-ness until they were just a boring couple like everyone else? Hell, no.
Besides, if they couldn't laugh, they'd probably cry.
Rachel hadn't planned to let her bodyguard massage the roof of her mouth with his tongue for five minutes in the closet, but somehow that had happened anyway.
He was her employee. Again.
Jesus, why was it kind of hot, though?
"Rachel?" Oxana's muffled voice sounded from outside the door.
Rachel broke feverishly out of the kiss, attempting to straighten herself up as best she could. Still laughing, she helped Frank adjust his suit jacket before telling Oxana she could come inside.
Oxana threw a suspicious glare in Frank's direction, but she was smart enough not to remark on his presence.
"We've been having a little trouble with the um, zipper," Rachel said, doing a poor job at hiding her amusement.
"You ever pull a sword out of a stone?" Oxana asked Frank in her bullish accent.
Frank's eyes helplessly linked with Rachel's in the mirror again. He could barely contain his laughter as he sputtered, "A sword?"
They both began laughing like children then, adding to Oxana's agitation.
The woman forced her way between them and demonstrated the proper, delicate way to lift the zipper on the back of Rachel's dress. "Like this. Barely any force."
Eyes watering from laughter, Frank left the room without a word.
Oxana brushed off the dress, assessing her work with a proud eye. "Men are useless."
Though she could think up about a hundred unique uses for Frank Farmer in that moment, Rachel said in exaggerated agreement, "Ugh, aren't they though?"
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Rachel felt amazing.
The dress flattered her pregnant figure in a way she never thought possible. She had to tear her eyes away from every mirror she passed on their way through the hotel lobby, at the risk of being called a narcissist.
Fletcher made a wonderful date. She considered it a clean way to control his introduction to the media, by openly stating to the other guests that he was indeed her son, and he did indeed exist for nineteen years without the public knowing.
Not only did she feel amazing, she also felt safe. Ricky, Tony, Scott, and Frank were all armed that night. She was almost beginning to feel left out without a gun of her own.
The courtyard looked magical. It was early evening when they arrived, the sky aglow with a deep pink sunset. There were about forty tables set up on the cobblestone terrain, surrounded by greenery, all of them decorated with ornate floral centerpieces. The stage was set behind a series of small waterfalls cascading into a brightly lit pool at its base. Even the servers who glided amongst the tables all looked beautiful. And nearly everyone stopped to say hello to her, ask for a picture, compliment her, or praise her.
It always happened this way. Rachel would find herself at an event like this, feeling so powerful and excited and adored, and she would wonder why they were so worried about her being a target again. She would wonder if all those incidents that had occurred at her last two concerts had just been unfortunate coincidences, and maybe they were all overreacting.
But then, she would get ready to go on stage, and she would question herself all over again. Because that backstage fright just kept getting to her. Every time, she would remember the way she felt leading up to the Academy Awards. Every time, she would remember the feel of Clive Healy's bony fingers gripping her arm as he stood with her at the podium. The terror of the unknown lingering just beyond the orchestra pit. The little red lights of live cameras staring threateningly at her from the darkness…
She shook her head adamantly to rid herself of such thoughts. This wasn't the same at all. They were outdoors this time. The stage could barely be called a stage. "Backstage" was really just a carefully partitioned section of the courtyard where people bustled in and out, fiddling with amplifiers and audio equipment, and telling speakers where to go.
She was supposed to be receiving instructions from the event coordinator, but the words went in one ear and out the other. Rachel was too busy watching Frank. All the while, he seemed to exude that calm, masculine confidence that she had grown to expect from him back when he was her bodyguard. Maybe it was for the better that she'd chosen to humor him by allowing him to have his role back. It wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. And it certainly didn't upset her that her best marksman was armed again. But it was distracting.
The coordinator asked if she understood her directions. Rachel nodded absently. Farmer was doing the blood-pressure cuff stare again. The young woman who was speaking to Rachel didn't look convinced, but wished her good luck anyway. Frank swiftly made his way across the backstage area towards Rachel.
"I'm looking forward to hearing you sing."
It was not the kind of thing he would have ever said when he'd been her bodyguard before. It made her unreasonably happy.
She smiled shyly at him, reminding herself to exercise restraint in a professional setting. After all, he wasn't technically her date tonight.
"You just like it when I sing these patriotic songs," she teased.
The sheer fondness in his eyes had her momentarily convinced that she was staring at her future husband.
So her subconscious was going there…
"I'd wish you good luck, but I doubt you need it," he murmured. She knew he would have kissed her on the cheek before walking away, but he couldn't now. He was on duty.
Rachel was simultaneously frustrated and thrilled.
She looked over her shoulder to watch as Frank disappeared around the partition, briefly allowing Fletcher a moment to peek across and wave to his mother.
She grinned at him, a tear prickling in her eye, wanting to stay in that sweet moment forever. It was almost too much for her to bear, having Fletcher there. Some part of her was saddened at the idea that he had missed seeing her perform on stages all those years, but damn, was she going to make up for it now.
The music accompaniment was sparse, which was what she preferred. One piano, three strings, bass, and drums. She didn't need any of it, but it suited the song just fine. She had intended to sing the song more gently that evening, but her voice had a mind of its own.
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He would never get used to hearing her sing.
For as much time as he'd spent in her presence outside of a public setting, Rachel Marron didn't sing as often in private as Frank thought she would. She would hum or sing bits and pieces of songs here or there, just to herself, but she certainly wasn't a gratuitous performer. All it did was tease him more, because hearing her singing voice – her real singing voice – was a rare treasure.
Having to be vigilant of the crowd while he watched her had proved more challenging than Frank had remembered. Of course the last time he'd been on her payroll, he hadn't been involved with her to the degree that he was now.
He couldn't comprehend it. How she managed to hit those impossible non-notes in between notes that could never be played on any instrument. How her voice never faltered, even through the most daunting parts of the song, was fascinating. Her voice was a part of her that he could not touch or hold, but it seemed to define her as a woman in so many more ways than her body could. As an intellectual man, Frank hungered for some feasible means by which to conceptualize the clarity and power of that voice. But there were no words, no scientific laws, nothing that could define it.
Her voice somehow both invigorated and soothed him, the inherent nationalism within the lyrics filling him with a nostalgic vigor for his time at the White House. It was hard to believe he hadn't even known of her existence back then. She had consumed his life to a terrifying degree ever since.
The way her voice carried throughout the venue was arresting. Every person watching was rapt with attention, having no hope of looking away until the very last note of the song. From the most rigorous roar to the most delicate bell, her voice had a range which beckoned the existence of infinity. To say nothing of how radiant she looked, how the lights paled in comparison to the glow she gave off all on her own. Pregnancy was so becoming on her, enhancing her curves and brightening her lovely face with the delicate swell of youth.
Who was he kidding? He wasn't watching the crowd. He was just as much of a sucker as the rest of them, just as ensnared by her charms, just as bound by her spell. And she was right, patriotic songs were his weakness. He felt chills like he'd never felt them before from hearing her sing tonight.
There was absolutely no way he was going to make it through another month without dropping his entire trust fund on a ring.
The song ended too soon. He wondered if it had always been that short. He wondered a lot of things after listening to Rachel sing. Usually he took a few minutes to recalibrate in the aftermath.
Fletcher was grinning from ear to ear as he embraced his mother following her performance.
The dinner was expectedly long and boring. Frank recalled the menu from his photographic memory. Chateaubriand Wellington, duxelle with shallots and prosciutto. Escargots with parsley butter. Glazed carrot medallions. Pommes Frites Béarnaise. There was no way Rachel would be leaving early. Certainly not with Fletcher as her date.
"You think giving the kid a gun was a good idea?" Tony nudged him.
Frank glanced at Fletcher from across the courtyard. "I applied him for a CCL while we were in Leona Valley. He knows how to shoot," he said confidently. "Besides, I don't think any of us should be unarmed."
"By 'us,' you mean 'the guys?'" Tony guessed.
Frank smirked to himself. "Would you really trust Rachel with a pistol?"
"Rachel is a pistol," Tony snickered. "She don't need no gun."
Frank stared at Rachel, her perfect skin illuminated by the candlelight as she laughed with the others at her table. His smirk blossomed into a grin. "No."
Little did he know, he would have to pay the price for that pistol later that evening.
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"You gave my baby a gun!?"
They all came to a halt outside the limo where Rachel had happened to notice Fletcher's poorly concealed sidearm as he was getting into the vehicle.
Intrigued by the commotion, Ricky put the limo into park and hopped out to light a cigarette and watch the scene unfold.
"A fucking gun! At a charity event!"
Tony covered his ears comedically. "Jesus, Rachel! If you'd written that sentence out, it would be in all caps, with sixteen exclamation points!" He walked around the other side of the limo to open the door. "And one of those little upside down Spanish exclamation points before it even started!"
Rachel hadn't been this livid in a very long time. Her hands were shaking and sparks were flying from her eyes. All in that pretty, pale pink dress that had been a pain in the ass to try to zip up.
"What the hell were you thinking, Farmer?"
Her voice was exactly like it had been the day Devaney hired him. And the faintest glottal scrape from her performance had given it that same raspy edge he'd always found insanely sexy. And, she'd called him by his last name again.
He was excited by it. Too excited.
Fuck. This couldn't be healthy.
Fletcher looked imploringly up at Frank from just inside the limo, his hand laying guiltily atop the holster at his hip.
"He deserves to be safe, too," Frank reasoned, a hilariously calm contrast to Rachel's shrieks.
She gaped at him. "The boy can't even have a Goddamn legal drink yet, and you're lettin' him run around with that thing?"
"Mom, it's fine," Fletcher said meekly, "I know how to shoot."
"Fletcher, I'm in no mood to discuss it right now," Rachel said firmly. "Give Frank the gun back."
Fletcher obediently removed the pistol from his holster.
"Was that one of mine, Frank?" Tony asked casually from over the roof of the limo.
"No, it's my 1911," Frank replied, accepting the weapon back from Fletcher.
"Nice!" Ricky nodded in approval.
Under Rachel's glare, his smile faded and he hastily put out his cigarette.
"So are you all planning to take your hounds out hunting tomorrow in Thousand Oaks?" Rachel asked sarcastically, staring around the limousine at her team.
Tony scrunched his face up in disapproval, "You wouldn't take pistols out hunting, Rachel."
"Get in the fucking car," she ordered. "All of you!"
Frank remained outside the vehicle, waiting for her to enter first. She pinned him in place with a glittering glare of warning, and a rough wave of desire plowed its way through his lower belly.
"I'll deal with you later tonight." Her voice cracked in the most beautiful way as she threatened him.
Frank gently nudged her into the back seat with the confiscated pistol.
"You guys are gonna have a tough time compromising on parenting styles," Ricky chuckled to Frank before he hopped back into the driver's seat.