Chapter 52: Square Peg, Round Hole
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It was Halloween night.
On Halloween night, Rachel normally would have been seen at some outlandish costume party in Los Angeles with all the other celebrities, but tonight she did not set foot outside of Pentecost Manor. It wasn't because she didn't want to – part of her still very much wanted to go out and party, despite how pregnant she was. But there was a bigger part of her now that wanted to stay contained, purely to please him. Because her boyfriend was not the type of man who would go out and party. She could never force him to do it. Not in a million years. No more than he could force her to keep her mouth shut when someone insulted her. No matter how much they loved each other, those tendencies were there to stay.
That was the most interesting part of their relationship, Rachel thought. Neither of them had really changed for the other. They were both deep down very much the same people that had butted heads all those years ago. Being in a relationship with Frank Farmer was just constantly jamming a square peg into a round hole – from every angle, with every ounce of force, never relenting, trying fruitlessly to break the very laws of physics.
For the first time since they'd decided to move in together, Rachel worried about their longevity. She had thought often of marrying Frank, as unrealistic and idealistic as it seemed. She still had to tamp down those little nagging voices in her head, the doubts that were ingrained in her from all her time spent in Hollywood. Marriage doesn't work – it's a PR move, an excuse for a glitzy wedding, a quick snag for attention. Marriage was never taken seriously in Hollywood by any of her peers, and so she'd never expected to take it seriously herself. But by the discreet osmosis of being Frank Farmer's lover, Rachel found herself letting go of those beliefs little by little every day.
That didn't change the fact that they were still a square peg and a round hole.
One of them would have to be chiseled, sooner or later.
The fact that Dr. Evers wanted to medicate Frank worried her, but not for the reasons he thought it did. Rachel worried because she knew the only reason Frank had gotten to the point where he needed medication was because he was with her. His paranoia had taken over him completely being in the eyes of the public. Whether she liked it or not, Frank was not built for this lifestyle. He was well-built enough for a plethora of other things – sadly, her life was not it. Selfishly, Rachel didn't want to give up either him or her lifestyle. She could sense that he knew this as well, and yet he never threatened to leave her. He only threatened the people around them – but that wasn't healthy either.
"You look like you've been up all night," the voice of Laura Pentecost interrupted Rachel's reverie.
Rachel looked over at the woman from where she sat, perched in the bay window of the sitting room. "Close to it," Rachel replied with a sigh.
"Trouble in paradise?"
Rachel snorted. "You call this paradise?"
Laura crossed the room to pour herself a glass from the wet bar. "You're lucky you're still here."
"Oh, am I?" Rachel asked mockingly.
Laura shrugged, lifting the glass to her lips. "For how many stalkers you both must have at this point…"
"Stalkers I can handle," Rachel assured.
Laura looked up, her mint green eyes sharp. "But Frank can't."
Rachel glared. She could not even respond because she knew it was true.
"He seems more on edge every day," Laura said thoughtfully as she walked towards Rachel. "I worry about him."
"You worry about him?"
Leaning against the opposite side of the bay window, Laura looked solemnly down at Rachel. "He's opened up to me about things."
Rachel felt the sticky hands of betrayal climbing the inside of her ribcage. A kiss was one thing – just about anyone could force a kiss on Frank Farmer and he would be witless to fight them. But not just anyone could get him to share intimate details about his feelings. Rachel wondered if he'd told Laura things that he didn't tell her.
Laura said softly, "I don't know how much longer he'll be able to last, Rachel."
Swallowing hard, Rachel forced her lips into a self-assured smirk. "You don't know anything about how long that man can last."
The tiniest falter showed in Laura's eyes before she smoothly continued, "I know you're just trying to ruffle me, Rachel. But it won't work. I'm trying to look out for you, but you're too stubborn and proud to see it."
Rachel crossed her arms. "Enlighten me."
Laura raised her glass to her lips again, the crystal clink of ice cubes oddly agitating. "Wake up, honey. You're not compatible."
Square peg, round hole, Rachel thought with a bitter laugh.
"Hell, Laura, I know that."
"Are you just gonna keep stringing him along like every other guy you've dated?" Laura asked, her lovely features contorted with pity. "You don't have what it takes to commit, and you know it."
"Get back to me when you can manage to keep a loving, stable relationship," Rachel challenged, finally standing up.
Laura's eyes were like crushed ice. "I have good reasons for never getting serious with anyone."
"And by 'good reason' you mean Mommy Dearest doesn't want you to get married."
"You won't be getting married, either, Rachel. Let's face it."
Rachel whipped around and headed for the bar, only realizing when her hands met with the cold glass decanter that she could not drink. She slowly let it go, awaiting the very words she feared would come next from Laura's mouth.
"The only reason he's still here is because you're carrying his child."
Rachel's heart sank. That tiny seed of doubt had been planted long ago, the moment she heard Frank shoot that God-forsaken rifle in the field of Leona Valley. It crossed her mind for a fleeting second, that his recent manic protective episode was not even about her – it was about his baby. The baby they just happened to share.
Nothing Laura Pentecost could say would ever devastate Rachel as much as the simple thought that Frank would leave her as soon as their baby was born. And the worst part of it was, she didn't even have to hear it from Laura. She'd already heard it from the voices in her head.
Rachel stood there, stock still at the bar, her hands clutching the countertop, chest heaving with every breath.
"You have a damn lot of nerve talking to me like this after what I did to you," Rachel whispered.
"I know you won't hit me again this time," Laura murmured back from somewhere close behind her, "because you know I'm right."
Rachel couldn't look at Frank the same way that night at dinner. He was so aloof, so removed, so inward – all qualities that he had ruthlessly exhibited every day she'd known him. Yet somehow now they scared her. That tremor of panic in her chest returned with a vengeance – the same feeling she'd felt when he had lost his temper with her that one morning in 1992.
"I can't protect you like this."
She shuddered at the memory, recalling the weight of disgust he'd placed on the last two words. Like this.
And like a fool, she'd allowed him back onto her payroll. His name was right there with Scott Pettigrew and Tony Scibelli and Ricky Bianco and Crystal Broadbank. And his paycheck amount mocked all the others with its pretty palindrome of numbers: $3,344.33.
She was basically paying him to stay.
His eyes met hers across the table and she quickly looked away. She wasn't going to let him take her blood pressure again. His stare was fucking inhumane. She didn't even like him – she'd never liked him. She had only ever loved him. Went from zero to one hundred, the second she'd laid eyes on him. She couldn't even bother to care if he was a good person or a bad person – she would have been obsessed with him either way. Deep down, she knew that he was obsessed with her too, and that made everything so much fucking harder. Maybe they would be stuck this way forever, in this sick spiral of a never ending honeymoon phase, feeding into each other's obsessions because they could never outlive the memories of 1992.
For the first time in the second trimester, Rachel felt nauseated again.
"What have you been telling Laura?" she asked Frank following dinner.
She saw the flinch in his fierce eyes as he stared questioningly at her.
"She told me you shared things with her," Rachel said. "Private things."
He was cryptic. "I needed something from her."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
His face was strained as he stared up and down the hallway. "I can't explain."
"You'd damn well better explain, or I'll assume it was more than just a kiss this time," Rachel warned.
"She didn't lay a hand on me," he murmured. "I told her about my divorce."
Rachel gaped at him. "Why?"
He promptly pulled her into the nearest room and shut the door behind them.
"I needed information from her," he hissed.
"What information?"
She could just barely make out the glint of his gaze in the dark as her eyes adjusted.
"You're going to hate me when I tell you," he said, his voice disturbingly deep.
Rachel felt her knees wobble slightly as she grasped his sleeve. "Frank, what on earth have you done now?"
He stared to the side, his lips set into a belligerent pout. "I paid off the press."
"You what?"
"It was for our own good, Rachel."
"Excuse me? I still see my name on those headlines every d–"
He interrupted her, eyes fixed on the ground. "My name… Just my name."
Her breathing was harsh in the quiet room as she stared at him in disbelief, waiting until he finally had the courage to make eye contact with her again.
"Don't fucking look at me like that, Rachel. We both know damn well I can't afford to make your name disappear."
Her face was flushed as she suddenly let go of his sleeve. "You want to control the narrative, Farmer – you're well on your way."
"It's not like that, Rachel–"
"Then what is it like? Huh?" she spat, still trying to contain her rage so no one else could hear. "What is it like being so desperate to erase yourself from someone's life you have to pay away your entire trust fund to make it happen? I thought you were man enough to handle the media, Farmer. I guess I was wrong."
She knew he would lose it when she challenged his masculinity.
"Rachel, you have no fucking clue why I needed to do this!" he whisper-shouted at her in the dark – and for the briefest moment she remembered what it was like being alone in a power outage with him.
"Why then? Why did you need to do this?" Rachel whispered shrilly back. "So you can finally put this paranoia to bed? So Dr. Evers doesn't have to force feed you those pussy pills you're so afraid of?"
His eyes were full of fire. "Dammit, Rachel! It was because of Leah!"
Rachel felt her lungs turn to stone in the moment he said it. She stared at him for so long, waiting for the darkness to swallow them both whole.
"What the hell does any of this have to do with your ex-wife?" she asked, her voice breaking on the words.
"Leah's been selling information about me to the press," he said darkly.
"How do you know?"
"I confronted her. Right before we went after Brock." He took a deep breath. "She took responsibility for your dressing room in Chicago."
"The scarves?"
He nodded. "That was her."
Conflicted, Rachel felt herself soften reluctantly at the revelation. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted to find out first if she had anything to do with the ransacking in New York."
"Did she?" Rachel demanded.
He looked torn. "She denied it."
"But you said Brock was innocent. So maybe it was her."
"It wasn't," he said with certainty. "I know Leah. She's not capable of something like that."
"Then who is?" Rachel asked brokenly, tears welling in her eyes as she grasped his arms. "Who the fuck did it? Why did they do it?"
All of a sudden his expression was overwhelmingly tender. "I don't know, sweetheart," he whispered, his grip strong as he pulled her against him in a haphazard embrace. "I'm trying to figure this out. I'm doing everything I can think of."
He called her 'sweetheart.' His voice was so rough when he said it. It weakened her completely.
Rachel shook her head adamantly against his chest. "Stop it, Frank. Just stop. Stop 'doing everything.' You're losing your mind." She looked up at him pleadingly, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You need to tell me these things…"
"I wasn't planning to keep this from you forever, Rachel," he insisted.
"What about what happened with Laura?"
He hesitated. "I would've told you about that, too."
Rachel pulled away just enough to stare up at his face again, her voice trembling. "She's vicious, Frank. She wants us apart."
He looked back at her wearily. "I feel like the whole world wants us apart, Rachel."
Time seemed to pause as they stared at each other, using touch more than sight to determine their distance in the dark. She could feel the words on the tip of her tongue, the most sincere lament of her heart.
"We're not compatible," she mourned, slowly shaking her head.
He almost looked relieved. "I know."
"None of this would be happening to us if we weren't together."
"I know," he repeated, stronger this time.
"Do you want to leave me?" she asked.
His lips parted infinitesimally as he stared at her. "No."
There was something chilling about the way he'd said it.
"You're staying just because of the baby?" she asked.
Even though they were miles away from Dr. Evers' office, Rachel swore she could hear that damned clock ticking.
"Rachel . . . why would you ever think that?"
He recoiled. Just the faintest bit. But it was just enough to throw her over the edge.
She sobbed. He kept touching her places. Her elbow, her neck, her shoulder. He didn't know where to settle his hands. She sobbed harder.
"You don't really want to be here, I know it! If you stay, you'll grow resentful of me, and then you might—" She couldn't bring herself to speak the words.
Finally, he found his grasp—his square, sturdy hands on either side of her face. "I'm not Fletcher's father, Rachel. I would never do what he did to you. Do you hear me?"
Because she could not turn her head away, she was forced to look him in the eye.
"If you left me now, I wouldn't hate you for it," she murmured tearfully. She meant every word.
He hugged her fiercely against him so that her body was beautifully smothered by his.
"I'm not leaving you, Rachel. I'm not leaving." His voice was equal parts steel and gossamer in the darkness.
She surrendered herself fully into his embrace, enough that without his grasp she would have collapsed onto the ground. Her fingers dug into his hard shoulders, marveling at how real he was. How miraculous it was that he was still here, holding her, choosing her after all she'd put him through. All the while, pressed between their bodies, their unborn child tumbled blissfully about as if trying to draw their attention away from their troubles.
She could tell from the way his hands gripped her, that he wanted to lift her up and carry her again, even though he had no good reason to. She could just tell. It seemed to be a persistent ache within him, some strapping demand to continually prove himself to her. She tried to quell it by kissing him, but it only seemed to make his ache stronger. Her heart skipped a beat from the territorial tug of his hands on her hips as he pulled her into him. She felt her feet lift just the tiniest bit off the ground.
She would shove a square peg into a round hole until the day she died.
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It felt like it'd been months since she'd seen him smile. Not just those sly half-smiles or miniscule smirks he'd offer every now and again. The true smile whose ridiculous expanse speared his cheeks with uncountable lines and made her blush every single time. She would have jumped off a cliff to see that smile. Sometimes she wondered if she'd ever see it again.
There was still a tension between them that Rachel couldn't place. Frank had done everything in his power to comfort her and assure her of his loyalty, but the words of Laura Pentecost had been drilled into the back of Rachel's skull like a brand. It was worse when they were all in the same room together. Things were semi-normal, which was almost weirder than just being tense all around. Julie was talking to Fletcher and Frank. Laura was engaged in conversation with Ricky and Crystal. And Tony was laughing with Pettigrew and Fitzgerald by the bar. Rachel supposed after all these months they had to make things work somehow.
The last call Frank had made to their building site had been an encouraging one. The house was nearly finished – thanks to Rachel's knack for influence – and it was set to be move-in ready by Christmas. All that remained were finishing touches, coatings and furnishings and paint colors and tiles. Frank had taken care of those things through phone calls. She hadn't really expressed an interest in having a part in deciding those little details. She probably should have, considering her dream was to make the house her 'forever home.' But she was almost scared to do it. Because deciding on those little details made it too real. The less real it seemed, the better she could function.
One hurdle at a time.
The doorbell rang, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. That doorbell so rarely rang in a house so vast, where anyone who came in was admitted by appointment – it was an odd sound – an almost ominous sound.
"If those are fucking trick-or-treaters, I'll be throwing eggs from the balcony," Julie moaned.
Fitzgerald chuckled as he headed for the foyer, "Wonder what their costumes are."
Fletcher followed him, laughing along. Curiosity got the better of Rachel, too.
When Fitzgerald opened the door, they were stunned to see a grown man – middle-aged, nicely groomed – dressed as a priest.
"Not what I was expecting," Fitzgerald murmured.
The man stood up straighter, clutching a bag to his side. "Sir, I just received an urgent call. Someone sent me here to read them their last rites."
The group was silent for a moment.
"Is this a Halloween prank or something?" Fitzgerald asked, looking over his shoulder at Rachel.
Rachel exchanged a concerned glance with Fletcher.
"It wasn't me, Mom."
The priest shook his head. "This isn't a prank, sir. I don't respond to house calls unless I'm needed."
Rachel looked back to see that Julie, Frank, and Scott had all entered the foyer to watch the exchange.
"What parish are you with?" Fitzgerald asked urgently.
"Father Peter; St. Paschal Baylon."
"What's going on here?" Julie demanded.
Fitzgerald ignored her and continued to question the priest. "Who called you?"
"A man named Frank Farmer."
All eyes in the room looked at Frank.
"What?" Frank was incredulous.
Fitzgerald carefully turned to Frank and muttered quietly, "He said he received a call to read last rites."
Rachel could see the panic in Frank's eyes as he bolted forward, grasped the arm of the priest, and urged him back out the front door where they could speak privately.
"Well, that was freaky," Fletcher said.
Julie sipped from her drink. "Damn, I thought maybe he was a stripper."
Fitzgerald's forehead fell into his palm.
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Ten minutes later, they had all regrouped in the dining room to hear what Frank had discovered.
"He showed me the phone number," Frank said adamantly, "the call didn't come from anyone in this house."
"Could he describe the voice?" Scott asked.
"He said it sounded like a young man."
"How young?"
"Younger than me," Frank asserted.
"It still could have been a prank," Laura supplied. "Someone in the neighborhood may have called the church as a joke."
"Or it could have been an honest mistake, Frank," Rachel said. "Maybe he had the wrong house?"
"No, he confirmed the address," Frank said emphatically. "Someone sent him here on purpose, using my name as a cover."
"But why would they do that?" Rachel asked.
Fitzgerald's voice was grim. "Someone knows you're here."
Rachel looked to Frank as he murmured, "The same 'someone' who ransacked our room in New York."
An ominous silence fell over the room.
"What do you want to do?" Scott asked Frank.
"We have to leave."
Rachel's mouth fell open. "What?"
"We said as soon as someone finds out our location we would move out," Frank reminded her, his eyes dark.
Rachel protested. "Frank, it's almost midnight, we can't just up and leave right now!'
"Then we'll leave in the morning for the new house," Frank said firmly before turning to Tony and Ricky. "Get the guns."
"Are you fucking serious?" Rachel shouted.
Frank ignored her and fell into stride with Fitzgerald and Pettigrew as they headed for the hall. Before she could stop Fletcher, he had already started to follow them, leaving her alone with Laura, Crystal, and Julie.
"Well, girls, I think this calls for another drink," Julie hiccupped, glancing amusedly at Rachel's belly. "Rachel . . . coffee?"
She herded them into her study, wavering slightly from the alcohol. "Exciting stuff, huh?"
Crystal looked downright terrified, and even Laura looked genuinely frightened for once.
Rachel stuffed her face into her hands as she fell into the chair beside Julie's massive desk.
"Don't worry, sweetie, those boys are all hard for this kinda shit," Julie chortled. "Let them get it outta their systems tonight. We'll all be laughing about it tomorrow."
"Mom, maybe you should lay off the highballs for a bit," Laura suggested, clearly embarrassed by her mother's excessive slurring.
Julie ignored her daughter, shuffling over to the bar for a second helping of whiskey. "Fuck, I really wish that priest had been a stripper."
Crystal blushed furiously. Laura stiffened and squeezed her eyes shut in frustration.
"So, Rachel, honey, what are you gonna name that baby of yours?" Julie asked cheerfully, knocking back another glass.
"We don't know yet."
"You should pick a family name," Julie suggested, gesturing drunkenly to her daughter. "Laura was my grandmother's name. God knows, this one was cut from the same cloth. She was a bitch and a half."
Rachel felt a strange stir of sympathy as she stared at Laura. Softly, Rachel said, "Frank and I aren't really a family though, are we?"
Rachel couldn't recall a time when Laura had looked so rattled. She seemed to be suppressing panic, similar to the way she'd seen Frank do on so many occasions. It was quite disturbing to see.
Before Julie could embarrass her daughter any further, the doors to the study burst open and the men stormed in like the gestapo with their weapons in hand.
Rachel could sense Crystal's inner turmoil, and she kindly reached out a hand to comfort the girl where she stood beside her.
"Exactly what are we expecting to happen here?" Laura asked, agitated. "Our house is practically impenetrable. Do you really think we're in danger?"
"Whoever sent that priest here was implying that they planned to kill someone," Fitzgerald said. "We can't be too careful."
Rachel craned her neck to watch as Julie sank from her chair onto the ground. At first it looked like she'd fainted, but with fumbling hands Julie dragged out the bottom drawer of her desk, then threw down a decorative case on the floor. She opened the case to reveal a gold revolver, and stood up with a lopsided smile as they all stared at her.
"What? It's the 21st century. You fellas think a lady can't shoot for herself?"
Fitzgerald murmured discreetly to Frank, "That one wasn't part of my inventory."
"She shouldn't be armed right now," Frank said, "I bet she'd blow a point two." He walked over to the other side of the desk to confiscate the revolver from her.
"I'd blow more than that, handsome," Julie slurred, inching her bejeweled fingers up his arm.
"This is not the night," Frank muttered, shrugging out of her grasp with the gold revolver safely in his hand.
Rachel stood up, still loosely gripping Crystal's hand, and glanced nervously over at Fletcher. She had very mixed feelings watching him carry a gun so comfortably. By being involved with Frank, she supposed she had implied permission for him to teach her son these things. It was probably one of the thousands of things they should have discussed before. But now they were forced to make flash decisions as the scenarios unraveled before them.
"I've assigned everyone to a separate entrance," Fitzgerald said. "The women can stay in here."
"I've already played the damsel in distress about a hundred times in my career," Julie complained. "I'm not just gonna sit here and watch while you overeager fuckers defend my house!"
With an imploring look back at Laura, Fitzgerald promptly left the room with the others. Rachel sighed in resignation, about to settle back into her chair when she heard a resounding thump from behind Julie's desk.
"Oh, God," Laura groaned, rushing over to drag her mother's limp form over to the chaise.
Crystal, always the saint, scurried right over to help. Rachel followed reluctantly, but was gently brushed aside by Frank. She looked up in surprise, not realizing he'd stayed behind.
"I've got her," he told them, bending down to lift Julie up off the carpet.
Laura stood back awkwardly, her thin fingers covering her mouth as she watched Frank lay Julie's body on the chaise and check her breathing. Thinking fast, Rachel ran over to the wet bar and brought a damp tea towel over to place it on Julie's forehead.
"Does she pass out often from drinking?" Frank asked Laura as he began to arrange Julie's limbs into recovery position.
Laura's voice was devoid of all emotion. "Not often enough."
Frank and Rachel exchanged a glance as Laura slumped into the armchair across from where her mother lay. Moments later, Julie began to cough as she came to.
"Keep her in that position," Frank instructed Rachel, holding Julie's neck from behind. "Give her a minute."
After a few more spluttering coughs, Julie seemed to recover enough that she was able to raise her head, looking around in confusion.
"Oh, God, who did I fuck?"
Crystal let out a mortified little squeak.
"No one, Mom," Laura replied forcefully. "You just passed out."
Squinting at each of them in turn, Julie finally demanded, "Where's my gun?"
Taking the gold revolver out from his waistband, Frank discreetly emptied the cylinder and pocketed the cartridges before returning it to Julie.
She looked up at him with an adoring smile. "Thank you, darling."
Without smiling in return, Frank rose to his feet and walked over to the doors to stand guard.
Rachel did not miss Laura's gaze as it followed him carefully across the room.
The next few hours passed in uncomfortable silence. It hadn't taken long for Julie to start snoring softly on the chaise, clutching her empty revolver as if it were a beloved stuffed animal. Laura nodded off a few times throughout the night, her pretty blond head resting against the side of the armchair, her slender arms clasped around a decorative pillow. Rachel, however, was still wide awake on the sofa, with Crystal sleeping soundly against her shoulder.
Rachel faced the doors where she knew Frank stood just outside, her mind racing in the dark. When the clock on the mantle read 3 A.M., she rose carefully from her spot until Crystal was lying flat on the sofa. She walked over to gently knock on the inside of the door.
The handle moved downward beneath her fingers and Rachel saw his piercing eyes through the cracked open door. She saw that he had removed his necktie, and he'd been idly playing with it between his fingers. "What's wrong?" he whispered.
"I can't sleep."
"Fletcher's alright," he said softly, guessing at the reason for her concern. "He's right down the hall, I can see him from here."
The small wave of relief she felt was not enough to wash away her worry.
"What happens next?" she finally whispered, shivering slightly as the cold air of the hall wrapped around her body. "When we get to our new house?"
Frank blinked as he stared at her, his fingers still nervously twisting his necktie.
"We attempt to live a normal life," he responded, his face solemn.
She felt herself withering from within. "I don't think a normal life is possible for me, Frank."
He had no reaction to her words, which was exactly what she expected.
"I'm so worried about the baby," she revealed shakily, clutching her belly as she leaned into the door.
His eyebrows furrowed as he dropped his necktie to the floor and slipped his arm between the doors to hold her hand. "I won't let anything happen to you," he said. "I promise."
Rachel had never before wanted so badly to run away with him. Why did her life have to be so complicated?
"Farmer!" Ricky hissed from the end of the dark hallway. "Get down here!"
Rachel gasped in protest as Frank's hand tore away from hers. "Stay here," he ordered, and he ran down the hall.
She watched a mingling group of silhouettes gather in the shadows, pointing and whispering to one another. Frustrated, Rachel slipped between the open doors of the study and followed them down the hallway.
She hurried at the sound of footsteps pounding urgently down the stairs to the house's side entrance. She threw open the door and was met with the sight of a single car parked on the cobblestone driveway, just beyond the gate. She could feel her heart beating in her throat as she watched Frank race across the driveway towards the car, followed by Tony and Ricky, guns drawn. The car's tires screeched as it pummeled forward into the gate, inches away from where Frank now stood, causing a deafening alarm to sound off on the property.
"Mom!" Fletcher yelled from behind. She turned around to see her son approaching in agony from the darkness, his hands reaching out to pull her back into the house. But he was too late.
Rachel raced down the stairs and onto the driveway, assaulted by the strong fumes of exhaust in the cold night air.
Suddenly gunshots could be heard from every direction. The car shuddered into reverse, its engine smoking, and backed up again as if preparing to blast through the gate. Rachel ran barefoot over the rough cobblestone until she caught up to where Frank was standing, still shooting at the car from between the gate's complex iron swirls. She grasped him desperately from behind, attempting to pull him away from the gate, but he roughly knocked her backward so that he could realign his aim. The car swerved backward to evade the bullets, but the sound of shattering glass hitting the pavement was the last thing to be heard before it zoomed off into the night.
"Rachel, what are you doing out here!" Tony bellowed from somewhere behind her.
Frank whipped around, suddenly realizing who had interrupted his shot. His eyes were full of horror, glaring down at her as she attempted to rise to her feet.
"Why the hell did you do that?" he shouted. Rachel felt the sudden urge to cry in the wake of his rage. Her legs wobbled slightly as Ricky raced over to help her up.
"That car could have run you over!" she screamed, "I couldn't just stand there and watch you die!"
She wasn't imagining it. There were actual tears in Frank's eyes.
"I work for you, remember?" he roared. The blaring sound of the alarm system still carried on around them, causing her ears to ring.
"Rachel, come on," Ricky urged her, gently attempting to pull her back, "Come back inside."
"I'm not leaving without him!" Rachel kicked in protest, feeling the panic completely take over her body as she stared at Frank.
"Mom, please!" Fletcher's voice was behind her now. She felt delirious, lost, frantic.
Everyone was staring at her. She could feel the judgmental superiority from their eyes, and she weakened steadily with each passing second. A feeling of numbness started in her feet and flowed up her body. The last thing she heard was Frank shouting her name before she blacked out.