Chapter 49: Confrontation

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The phone wouldn't do. Leah could lie too easily over the phone.

Meeting her in private would not do either. There was no telling what she would do without witnesses. There was no telling what he would do without witnesses, either.

No, it had to be done somewhere she could not run and hide. Somewhere she could not openly assault him verbally. Somewhere she could be . . . held accountable should things go awry.

Lying next to Rachel, Frank's thoughts were in torment. She slept so peacefully beside him, her smooth skin bathed in the gauzy glow of moonlight from the window. Her belly protruded enough that he could see the swell of it even beneath the covers. She was a vision. In the safety of her slumber, he lovingly examined her hands, fantasizing about the ring he had chosen, finally ensnaring that finger. There was still a very primal part of him that relished in the long-forgotten art of forcing her to comply with his demands. The Frank Farmer she had hired in 1992 would have had no problem insisting on her marriage to him if it had meant preserving her life. But as he was always reminding himself, their life was not a movie.

He would protect her at all costs. It was not the demands of duty, but the demands of his body that required it. And now that they were going to be parents together, it made every effort so much more critical.

He could scarcely imagine it – in fact, the closer they got to the baby's due date, the more impossible it seemed that it would become a reality. Frank had never considered himself the fatherly type. His brief interactions with the delicate young Crystal Broadbank had shown him just how accurate his assumptions had been. But he had certainly always desired a family – even if it would be unconventional. There had been a time during his marriage to Leah that he had been quite at peace with the concept of adoption. Ironically enough, he'd been all too willing to adopt Fletcher, but as it happened the boy was now beyond the age where it would have been a legal necessity.

He wasn't a fool; he'd known things would be complicated for them no matter what. Being in a relationship with Rachel had in some ways proven easier than he'd thought. The physical side of things had always been easy – too easy. The emotional side of things was a work in progress, but they were growing more in tune with each other each day. The logistical side, however, was the issue. No matter how close they became, no matter how much they developed their trust bond, they would never be truly compatible. Compatibility implied minimal friction in day-to-day life. But their lives were consumed by friction. Whether it was between the two of them alone, or between them and the rest of the world, it would always exist.

He could never seem to fall asleep when he had those thoughts.

After sleeping only three hours, Frank woke just before seven in the morning and made his way down to the library to use the house phone. He had devised a tentative starting point for how to approach his ex-wife, but he first had to confirm her place of employment.

The marketing firm she used to work for in Los Angeles was a mid-sized company with only one main office and several smaller satellite offices in the suburbs of the city. Before they moved from California, Leah had always worked for the North office, and so that was the one he'd called first.

All he'd had to do was pretend to be a client, and the administrator revealed to him that Leah Christensen did indeed work there. Without hesitation, Frank requested to set up a consultation with Leah, claiming to be a small business owner in need of assistance with advertising. He gave a fake name, and set the appointment for that same day at noon.

He approached the dining room during breakfast while Ricky was eating with the others. Pausing in the doorway, Frank waited until he caught only Ricky's attention and beckoned him with one discreet finger before moving out into the hall.

"I need to take care of some business today," Frank murmured to the young man as he stood outside the dining room.

Being well-indoctrinated by his line of business, Ricky knew when not to ask questions.

"I'll get the car."

Frank stopped him with one hand on his chest, cautiously peering back into the dining room to make sure no one else was watching.

"Not the Rolls Royce," he said quietly. "I need something less conspicuous."

Ricky whispered, "Ms. Pentecost has a black Land Rover."

"That'll do."

Frank slipped the address of Leah's office into Ricky's pocket before entering the dining room to share breakfast with Rachel and Fletcher.

Again, lying to Rachel was immensely difficult for him.

Frank had devised a false alibi where he needed to take Ricky out and practice his evasive maneuvers for the car. He wasn't sure she'd bought it, but at the very least he knew she wasn't privy to Ricky's history with getaway vehicles. These days, Frank considered himself lucky that Rachel was often just too tired to care.

The drive to Leah's office was not very long. Frank had told Ricky where to park, at the back entrance to the office building where no passing cars could spot him. Though he'd never been to Leah's office in person before except to pick her up or drop her off on occasion, the interior of the building was easy enough to navigate.

He blended in rather well in his business casual clothes, looking very much like everyone else who filtered in and out of the lobby. He was greeted by the administrative assistant and escorted promptly back to a smaller office where Leah's maiden name was engraved on the plaque outside the door.

The assistant knocked, and Leah's mild voice welcomed them in.

She looked about as shocked as he'd imagined she would, especially considering that he'd been introduced with a false name upon entering her office. Her appearance was mostly unchanged from when they'd been married, save for the slightly lighter tone of her curly brown hair. She stood, stock still in her conservative gray dress and cardigan, wiry and meek looking as ever. When the door closed behind them, leaving them alone, Leah was visibly shaking, her face white as a ghost.

"Why are you here?" she asked him in a weak voice.

"You know why I'm here," he answered, his tone deadly.

"No, I don't."

So she was going to play coy.

Frank moved further into the small room, so that his hands came into contact with the edge of her desk. "I was there, in Chicago…"

She gave him a forced blank look.

"...I saw the scarves."

Leah stammered back, "What are you talking about? What scarves?"

He slammed both hands down on the surface of her desk, jaw twitching. "I'm not putting up with this bullshit."

Tears started to fall from her eyes. She was shaking so hard she had practically collapsed into the computer chair.

Frank swiftly moved around to the other side of her desk and trapped her on the chair, genuflecting at eye level with her.

"I'm not leaving until I hear it from your mouth," he said.

"What?" she cried.

"Are you responsible?"

"For what?"

"Leah, stop fucking around with me." He smoothly lifted his jacket just enough to reveal his pistol. She broke down.

"Yes. Yes, I'm responsible!" she sobbed, tears streaming from her eyes which were now tightly shut in shame. "I'm sorry, Frank, please. . . I'm sorry!"

"Why did you do it?"

"Fuck you! You know why!" she cried out hysterically. He squeezed her wrists in an attempt to quiet her down.

"Who are you working with?" he hissed.

"No one!"

"Come on, Leah, I know you'd never get your hands dirty. Who did it for you?"

"Some girl."

His grip on her wrists tightened in warning. "What girl?"

Leah let out a shuddering breath, choking out the words through her sobs, "Some girl who worked at the theater."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't have a name?"

"I don't remember. I think it was…"

"What?"

"Rebecca?"

Frank finally backed away, remembering the name tag from the young woman who had taken the roses into Rachel's dressing room during her performance. The sound of other employees chatting dangerously close to Leah's office door in the hall entreated him to make haste.

He looked Leah square in the eyes and threatened, "You pull one more stunt like this, and I'll be on your ass faster than you can read the headline. Do you understand?"

She nodded fervently, her face red from crying.

"And speaking of headlines–" Frank reached into his jacket to pull out the article that had blamed him for Reagan's assassination. "–you like talking shit about your ex-husband to the media, don't you?"

Her mouth dropped open as she read the headline. At the prompting of his forceful hand on her elbow, she made a feeble protest. "That could've been any one of your former colleagues who leaked it."

"I'm not fucking stupid, Leah," he said, the corner of his mouth turning up darkly. "You can't afford to live alone in L.A. on a part time salary."

She swallowed hard, her face glistening wet with her tears, completely silent.

"So, is there anything else you wanna tell the press about me for cash?" He dislodged his gun and held it to her mouth like a microphone. She shook her head at him, terrified.

"Didn't think so," he whispered before standing up to place the pistol back in his holster.

He turned to leave, but stopped just before he could open the door. "And when I find out why you had our room ransacked in New York, I'll be back to visit."

She began to fight him on it, shouting that she once again didn't know what he was talking about. He left her with one final glare before slamming the door on her cries.

As soon as he got into the car, Frank called the Oriental Theater and asked to speak to Rebecca. The young woman was clearly confused as to why he was calling, but when he inquired about the incident with the scarves, she admitted responsibility for it immediately as if she didn't think she would be in any trouble for it.

"Who told you to do it?" he demanded. He couldn't wait to hear what fake name Leah had been using.

"You did, sir," Rebecca answered bluntly.

Frank blinked several times in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You told me to leave the roses in there, too," she added, still using that casual tone.

"I remember the roses, but I never told you to mutilate Rachel Marron's wardrobe!" he said shakily.

"Yes, you did. You told me the plan weeks before the show," Rebecca said, her voice wary. He heard the shuffling of papers on the other line. "I have your letter right here. It was sent with your return address and everything. It was signed, 'Frank Farmer.'"

His heart came to a halt. Leah must have sent fraudulent mail using his old stationary. He wondered if this was the only case in which she'd done it. Or had she been using his certified stationary to make other demands under his name? As Frank looked up at the rear view mirror and met Ricky's dark eyes, he briefly entertained the idea of asking him to turn the car around and head right back to Leah's office.

But with a great amount of effort Frank maintained control. "Did this letter ask you to do anything else?" he asked.

Rebecca scanned the contents for a moment before replying, "No, that was it."

"Someone else sent that without my knowledge," Frank clarified, "please have it destroyed, along with anything else you receive in my name."

Later that evening, Frank sent one threatening text to Leah telling her that if she did not burn the rest of his stationary envelopes, he would have the FBI parked outside her business office the next morning.

She immediately responded with a photo of her hand holding a lighter to the stack of envelopes.

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"I need the unadulterated security cam footage from the Sheraton at NYC."

"Frank, it's been weeks," Rachel said tiredly, "We may never know who broke into our room at the Sheraton. Nothing was taken, so does it really matter now?"

"Yes," he said, too quickly. From the way Rachel and Scott were looking at him, he could tell he'd done a poor job at containing the wildness in his eyes. He needed to know if the ransacking was connected to Leah, but Rachel still could not know.

Rachel bit her lip, thinking, until finally it hit her. "Tina worked at the Sheraton before. She might still be able to gain access to things like security footage. Maybe she can help us."

Frank shook his head. "Rachel, I know you don't want to hear this, but Tina is as much of a suspect as anyone else – maybe more so because she worked there before."

Rachel just stared at him.

Scott awkwardly gathered his things and left the library, wanting to be as far away as possible before a war broke out.

"You really think Tina ransacked our room?" Rachel asked, dubious.

"Who else would have had access and been able to cover the footage?"

"She was at the theater all night! When would she have had time to do it?" Rachel challenged, "Maybe it was Laura!"

He hushed her. "Laura was at the theater too, remember?"

Rachel crossed her arms and said tartly, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about your little smooch on the stairs."

Frank heaved a sigh. "You say that like it was my fault."

"I would expect a martial arts expert like yourself to have better self-defense skills in a scenario like that."

He slammed his hand down on the desk. "We're not talking about Laura, Rachel!"

Rachel was silent for a moment, seemingly reigning in a hundred things she wanted to shout at him. But she instead calmly stated, "You really think it was Tina."

He swallowed hard. "Maybe it wasn't her, but maybe she knows something."

"Well, maybe Laura knows something. She's the one with the motive to make my life a living hell."

"Either way, we have to get one of them talking–"

"I'll call Tina," Rachel said forcefully before he could continue. "I'll see if she can get access to the security footage, and we'll go from there."

Frank would have preferred he could have the conversation with Tina himself, but he knew that it wouldn't go over well with Rachel. Exercising trust with another person in a relationship was perhaps the most difficult adjustment he'd had to make.

"Fine," he consented, and left her in the library alone to make the call.

In the meantime, it was his turn to corner Laura.

Frank perused the halls of the mansion until he came across the partially open doors to the conservatory, and there she sat beneath the starry glass roof, the dim golden light of the outdoor lamp causing her glass of wine to sparkle in her hand.

"Mr. Farmer…" Laura straightened up when she saw him enter, a note of surprise in her smooth voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure at this hour?"

He closed the door behind him carefully, in an effort not to make a sound. But the finality of such an action was not lost on her, and the silence of the glass room was amplified to an oppressive degree with just the two of them inside.

"I thought you were afraid to be alone in a room with me," she said wryly, taking a sip of her wine.

He watched her set the glass down on the table beside her. "I'm not afraid of you."

She stared at him for a moment, studying his expression. "Are you armed?"

Without a reply, he took his jacket off and laid it on the back of the chair, revealing the absence of his holster.

He noticed the subtle increase in her breathing. So far, his plan was working.

"That night at the theater, I told you I didn't know you," he said, coming to sit on the armchair across from her. "But I realized that was because I'd never taken the time to get to know you better."

She continued to stare at him, confusion dancing in her green eyes. He could tell she wanted to be suspicious of him, but her interest got the better of her.

"I wish there was more to tell about myself. My mother snuffed out any semblance of substance I thought I had as a person," she said bitterly. "For the past fifteen years I've had to clamor with all the other dolls for the top shelf in Hollywood. I'm sick of it."

"I don't blame you."

She tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and sighed. "I doubt there's very much competition in your line of work, Mr. Farmer. You either live or you die."

"I prefer to keep things simple," he said darkly.

"Yes, I can tell." There was a caustic edge to her voice as she lifted her wine glass to her lips. "One has to wonder why you're still in a relationship with Rachel Marron."

Frank treaded carefully at the mention of Rachel. "I think everyone has doubts about who they're with from time to time."

Laura set her glass of wine down on the table again, inspecting his face for a long moment. "I think we're very similar, you and I. We struggle to trust people." Her face turned menacing, "I blame my mother. I can't imagine who you have to blame."

"Did you know that I was divorced?"

She looked stunned by the suddenness of his question. "No."

He looked down at the ground as he spoke. "It took almost two years after my wife and I split before I felt that I could trust a woman again."

Laura's confident eyes were filled with something like grief. "If I were to marry a man, I would be loyal to a fault."

"I don't doubt that, Laura," he said quietly. "You seem very much like the kind of woman who knows what she wants and stops at nothing to achieve it."

The corner of her lips turned up tentatively. "I guess in that way, I am like Rachel."

Cautious to keep his barriers up, Frank leaned back in his armchair and gave Laura an appraising look. "Rachel isn't as… calculated as you."

Laura looked up at him, intrigued. "Calculated?"

"You know what words to say to someone to weaken them, how to evade your bodyguard in a public place for hours at a time, and exactly when to sit strategically alone in a room with the door left open just enough…"

Her expression had grown more smitten with every word he uttered, until at last she said breathlessly, "It's a bit disturbing, you know."

"What is?"

"How observant you are."

He smirked.

She tilted her head so that her jewelry caught the light. "I bet you even know what color bra I'm wearing right now."

"Black," he replied without shifting his gaze from hers. "The strap shows along the edge of your collar when you lean forward."

With a knowing smile, she discreetly stretched out her leg to tuck her foot against his. That was when he noticed.

Panty-hose without shoes.

It wasn't part of the plan, but he would persist for his own good.

"Now you tell me," he murmured, voice hoarse.

"What?" she whispered, eyebrows perfectly arched.

"Your observations."

Clutching her glass of wine, Laura crossed one leg coyly over the other and assessed him from head to toe.

"You're overprotective. You're evasive. You're… too quiet."

Too quiet.

Even now, years after hearing the repetitive accusation from his ex-wife, the words still stung.

"I'm quiet because I am trying to maintain my privacy," Frank asserted. "Unfortunately, it seems I've failed."

Her eyes grew dark. "I despise the media as much as you do, Frank."

"Then maybe you'll do me a favor."

She looked at him questioningly, her eyes glittering in the dim light.

"You have far more experience with negative publicity than I do," he said, not caring if it came off as callous. "But in the last two months your name has all but disappeared from the tabloids."

Her cheeks turned pink. "I'm surprised you noticed."

"You said it yourself, I notice everything," he reminded her, leaning towards her. "So who is it?"

She feigned confusion, hesitant to give him what she now realized he wanted.

"Who are you paying off?"