FORTY-FIVE
Since they were scheduled to leave very early that morning, Avery got a head start by waking up before Tate. She disentangled their limbs. Getting her hair unsnarled from his fingers wasn't easy, but she finally managed.
She glanced over her shoulder at him as she left the bed. He was beautiful when he slept, one leg sticking out of the covers, his bearded jaw dark against the pillowcase. Sighing with the sheer pleasure of looking at him, and with the stirring memories of last night's lovemaking fresh in her mind, she crept into the bathroom.
The water taps screeched when she turned them on. Avery winced at the noise. Tate needed as much sleep as he could get. Today's agenda was arduous. He would spend hours in an airplane. In between, he would be delivering speeches, pressing hands, and soliciting votes.
This day before Election Day was possibly the most important one of his campaign. Today the fence- straddlers, vital to the outcome of any election, would make up their minds.
Avery stepped beneath the pounding spray. After shampooing her hair, she lathered her body. It still bore traces of Tate's fervent lovemaking. His mouth had left a faint bruise on her soft inner thigh. The hot water stung her whisker-rasped breasts. She was smiling over that when the shower curtain was suddenly whipped back.
"Tate!"
"Good morning." "What—"
"I thought I'd shower with you," he drawled, smiling lecherously. "Save time. Save the hotel some hot water."
Avery stood quaking, as guilty in her nakedness as Eve must have been in Eden when God spotlighted her iniquity. The jets of hot water seemed to turn icy and sharp; they pricked her skin like frigid needles. Color drained from her face. Her lips turned blue. Her eyes seemed to recede into her skull, making the sockets appear huge and cavernous. She shivered.
Puzzled, Tate cocked his sleep-tousled head to one side. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Did I scare you?"
She swallowed. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't form a sound.
"Carole? What's the matter?"
He looked for something amiss. His eyes scaled down her pale, trembling body, then back up. Avery's heart sank heavily in her chest as she watched his baffled gaze move down her once again. It was arrested at her breasts, belly, pubis, thighs—places only seen by a lover's eyes, a husband's eyes.
He saw the appendectomy scar, ancient and faint and almost undetectable unless bared to clinical fluorescent lighting. Avery had wondered, but now she knew. Carole had never had her appendix out.
"Carole?" His voice echoed the mystification in his eyes.
Though the protective gesture was a dead giveaway, Avery covered her lower body with one hand and extended the other toward him in appeal. "Tate, I. . ."
As sharp and deadly as swords, his eyes slashed upwards to clash with hers. "You're not Carole." He stated it softly, while his brain still sifted through conflicting facts. Then, when the impact of it hit him full force, he repeated with emphasis, "You're not Carole!"
His arm shot through the shower's spray to grab hold of her wrist and yank her from the tub. Her shins banged into the porcelain; her wet feet slipped on the tiles. She emitted a tortured cry, more of the spirit than the body.
"Tate, stop. I'll—"
He slammed her wet, naked body against the wall and pinned it there with his own. His hand closed tightly around her neck, just beneath her chin.
"Who the fuck are you? Where is my wife?Who are you?"
"Don't shout," she whimpered. "Mandy will hear."
"Talk, goddamn you." He lowered his voice, but his eyes were still murderous and his hand exerted more pressure against her adam's apple. "Who are you?"
Her teeth were chattering so badly she could barely speak.
"Avery Daniels."
"Who?"
"Avery Daniels."
"Avery Daniels? The TV . . .?"
She bobbed her head once.
"Where's Carole? What—"
''Carole died in the plane crash, Tate," she said. "I survived. We got mixed up because we had switched seats on the plane. I was carrying Mandy when I escaped. They assumed—''
He trapped her dripping head between his hands. "Carole'sdead!"
"Yes," she gulped. "Yes. I'm sorry."
"Since the crash? She died in the crash? You mean you've been living. . . all this time . . .?"
Again, she gave a swift, confirming nod.
Her heart broke apart like an eggshell as she watched him try to comprehend the incomprehensible. Gradually, he released his stranglehold on her cranium and backed away from her.
She snatched her robe off the hook on the back of the bathroom door and pulled it on, hurriedly knotting the tie belt. She reached into the tub and cut off the faucets, which she instantly regretted doing. The resulting silence was deafening, yet it shimmered with the brassy reverberation of disbelief and suspicion.
Into that silence lie threw her one simple question. "Why?"
The day of reckoning had arrived. She'd known it would come eventually. She just hadn't counted on it being today. She wasn't prepared.
"It's complicated."
"I don't give a damn how complicated it is," he said in a voice that vibrated with wrath. "Start talking to me now before I call the police."
"I don't know how or when the initial mix-up was made," she said frantically. "I woke up in the hospital bandaged from head to foot, unable to move or to speak. Everybody was calling me Carole. At first I didn't understand. I was in such pain. I was afraid, confused, disoriented. It took several days for me to piece together what must have happened."
"And when you realized it, you didn't say anything? Why?"
"I couldn't! Remember, I couldn't communicate." She caught his arm in appeal. He slung it off. "Tate, I tried to get the message to you before my face was restored to look like Carole's, but it was impossible. Every time I began to cry, you thought it was from fear over the upcoming surgery. It was that. But it was also because I was being robbed of my own identity and having another imposed on me. I was powerless to get that message across."
"Jesus, this is science fiction." He plowed his fingers through his hair. Realizing he was still naked, he grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around his middle, "That was months ago."
"I had to remain Carole for a while."
"Why?"
She threw back her head and gazed up at the ceiling. The first explanation had been a breeze, compared to what was coming. "It's going to sound—"
"I don't give a shit how it sounds," he said menacingly. "I want to know why you've been impersonating my wife."
"Because someone wants to kill you!"
Her urgent reply took him by surprise. He was still poised to do battle, but his head snapped back like he'd taken an uppercut on the chin."What?"
"When I was in the hospital," she began, clasping her hands together at waist level, "someone came to my room."
"Who?"
"I don't know who. Hear me out before asking me a lot of questions." She drew in a deep breath, but the words continued to tumble rapidly over her lips. "I was bandaged. I couldn't see well. Someone, addressing me as Carole, warned me not to make any deathbed confessions. He said that the plans were still in place and that you'd never live to take office."
He remained unmoved for a moment, then a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Eventually, he barked a hateful laugh. "You expect me to believe that?"
"It's the truth!"
"The only truth is that you're going to jail. Now." He turned and headed for the telephone.
"Tate, no!" She caught his arm and brought him around. "I don't blame you for what you're thinking about me."
"Your worst guess couldn't even come close."
The invective smarted, but for the time being, she had to ignore it. "I'm not lying about this. I swear it. Someone plans to assassinate you before you take office."
"I'm not even elected."
"As good as, so it seems."
"You can't identify this mystery person?"
"Not-yet. I'm trying."
He studied her earnest face for a moment, then sneered, "I can't believe I'm standing here listening to this shit. You've been living a lie all these months. Now you expect me to believe that a total stranger sneaked into your hospital room and put a bug in your ear that he was going to assassinate me?" He shook his head as though marveling over her audacity and his culpability.
"Not a stranger, Tate. Someone close. Someone in the family."
His jaw relaxed. He stared at her with patent incredulity. "Are you—"
"Think! Only family members are allowed into the ICU."
"You're saying a member of my family is plotting my assassination?"
"It sounds absurd, I know, but it's the truth. I didn't make it up. I didn't imagine it, either. There have been notes."
"Notes?"
"Notes left for Carole in places only she would have access to, letting her know that the plan was still in place." She rushed to the luggage rack in the closet and opened a zippered compartment of one of her suitcases. She carried the notes, including the desecrated campaign poster, back to him.
"They were typed on the typewriter at the ranch," she told him.
He studied each one at length. "You could have made these yourself just in case I caught on and you needed a scapegoat."
"I didn't," she cried. "This was Carole's partner's way of—"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." He tossed the notes aside and held up both hands. "This is getting better all the time. Carole and this would-be assassin were in it together, right?"
"Absolutely. From the time she met you. Maybe before."
"Why would Carole want me dead? She had no political leanings whatsoever."
"This isn't political, Tate. It's personal. Carole set her sights on becoming your wife. She became exactly what you wanted, and once they teamed up she was coached on how to behave so you'd have to fall in love with her. Who introduced you?"
"Jack," he said with a small shrug. "When she came to apply for a job at the firm."
"It might not have been an accident that she sought employment in your law office."
"She had impeccable credentials."
"I'm sure she did. She would have seen to it."
"She could type," he added drolly, "which shoots your theory all to hell."
"I know I'm right."
"I guess you can prove it," he said, implying the opposite. He even folded his arms complacently across his chest.
"I don't have to. Zee can."
He reacted with visible shock. His arms dropped to his sides. "My mother?"
"She has a whole portfolio on Carole Navarro. I've seen it. Believing me to be Carole, she threatened me with exposure if I made you unhappy."
"Why would she do that?"
"She seemed to think you were falling in love with your wife again." Avery looked at him meaningfully. 'After last night, I have good reason to think that, too."
"Forget last night. As you well know, it was all a hoax." Angrily, he turned away.
Avery quietly gave first aid to the puncture wound in her heart. It would have to be thoroughly nursed later. For now, she had to deal with more critical matters.
"Even if you didn't originally see Carole for what she was, Zee did. She hired a private investigator to delve into her past."
"And what did he find?"
"I'd rather not discuss—"
"What did he find?" he asked tightly, spinning around to confront her again. "For God's sake, don't get squeamish now."
"She was a topless dancer. She'd been arrested for prostitution, among other things." At his stricken expression, she reached for his hand. He jerked it beyond her reach. "You don't have to believe me about this," she said, raising her voice in anger over his stupid, stubborn, masculine pride.
"Ask your mother to show you the data. She was saving it to use against Carole if she ever felt it was warranted. And you can't be all that surprised, Tate, because you have scorned me, as Carole, for having affairs, aborting your child, and using drugs. For months I've borne the brunt of your antipathy for this woman."
He considered her for a moment, gnawing his inner cheek. "Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that you're right about this cock-and-bull assassination plot. Do you expect me to believe that you placed yourself in harm's way out of the goodness of your heart? Why didn't you alert me to it months ago, the first chance you got?"
"Would you have believed me then, any more than you believe me now?" He had no answer, so she answered for him. "No, you wouldn't have, Tate. I was helpless. I didn't have the strength to protect myself, much less you. Besides, I couldn't afford the risk. When the person, whoever it was—is—found out that he'd whispered his plans to Avery Daniels, television news reporter, how long do you think I would have lived?"
His eyes narrowed. Slowly, his head began to nod up and down. "I think I see now why Avery Daniels, television news reporter, pulled this charade. You did it for the story, didn't you?"
She wet her lips, a signal of guilt and nervousness as good as a signed confession. "Not entirely. I'll admit that my career factored into it initially." She reached for his arm again and held on this time. "But not now, Tate. Not since I've come to love. . . Mandy. Once I got in, I couldn't get out. I couldn't just walk away and leave things unresolved."
"So how long were you going to pretend to be my wife? Were we going to fuck with the lights out for the rest of our days? Was I never going to see you naked? How long were you going to live a lie? Forever?"
"No." Her hand slid off his arm and she slumped with despair. "I don't know. I was going to tell you, only—"
"When?"
"When I knew Mandy was okay and that you were safe."
"So we're back to the assassination plot."
"Stop saying that so blithely," she exclaimed. "The threat is real." She glanced at the poster. "And imperative."
"Then tell me who you suspect. You've been living with the same people I have been ever since you came out of the hospital." He shook his head again and laughed bitterly at his own stupidity. "Jesus, this explains so much. The memory lapses. Shep . The riding horse." He looked over her body. "It explains so many things," he said gruffly. After clearing his throat, he said, "Why didn't I see it?"
"You weren't looking. You and Carole hadn't been intimate for a long time."
He seemed disinclined to address that. He picked up his previous train of thought. "Who do you suspect of wanting to kill me? My parents? My brother? My best friend? Dorothy Rae? No, wait-—Fancy! That's it." He snapped his fingers. "She got pissed off at me a couple years ago when I wouldn't loan her my car, so she wants me dead."
"Don't joke about it." Avery shook with frustration.
"This whole thing's a joke," he said, lowering his face close to hers. "A dirty rotten joke played on all of us by a conniving bitch with big ambitions. Granted, I've been a blind, deaf idiot, but now I'm seeing it all crystal clear.
"Didn't you commit a journalistic faux pas a year or so back—something about making allegations before all the facts were checked out? Yeah, I think you were the one. You devised this scheme to rectify that mistake and reinstate yourself among your colleagues. You're a reporter who needed a hot story, so, when the opportunity presented itself, you cooked this one up."
She shook her head and whispered mournfully, but without much conviction, "No."
"I'll give you credit, Avery Daniels. You go after your story no matter what it takes, don't you? This time you were even willing to whore for it. Probably not for the first time. Do you go down on all your interviewees? Is that their reward for giving you their secrets?"
She wrapped the robe around her tighter, but it did little to protect her from his chilling rebuke. "I wasn't whoring, Tate. Everything that happened between us was honest."
"Like hell."
"It was!"
"I've been fucking an impostor." "And loving it!"
"Obviously, because you're as good at that as you are at playacting!"
Her anger had been spent with that one verbal volley. Now tears filled her imploring eyes. "You're wrong. Please believe me, Tate. You must be careful." She pointed down at the poster. "He's going to do it on Election Day. Tomorrow."
He was shaking his head adamantly. "You'll never convince me that somebody in my family is going to put a bullet through my head."
"Wait!" she cried, suddenly remembering something she had forgotten to mention. "There's a tall, gray-haired man who's been following you from city to city." She quickly enumerated the times and places she had seen Gray Hair in the crowds. "Van's got the tapes to prove it."
"Ah, the cameraman from KTEX," he said, smiling ruefully. "So that explains him. Who else is in on your little game?''
"Irish McCabe."
"Who's he?"
She explained their relationship and how Irish had mistakenly identified Carole's body. "He has her jewelry, if you want it back."
"What about the locket?" he asked, nodding at her chest.
"A gift from my father."
"Very clever," he remarked with grudging respect. "You think on your feet and cover tracks well."
"Listen to me, Tate. If I get the tapes from Van, will you look at them to see if you recognize this man?" She told him how they had deduced that a professional assassin had been hired.
"You form quite a trio, all figuring to make big bucks at the expense of the Rutledge family."
"It's not like that."
"No?"
"No!"
The sudden knock on the door brought them both around. "Who is it?" Tate called out.
It was Eddy. "We'll meet downstairs in twenty minutes for a last-minute briefing over breakfast before leaving for the airport." Tate glanced at Avery and held her anxious gaze for several moments. "Is everything okay?" Eddy asked.
She placed her clenched hands beneath her chin and silently beseeched Tate not to say anything. "Please, Tate," she whispered. "You have no reason to, but you've got to trust me."
"Everything's fine," he reluctantly called through the door. "See you in the dining room. Twenty minutes."
Avery collapsed with relief on the nearest sofa. "You mustn't say anything, Tate. Swear to me you won't breathe a word of this to anyone. Anyone."
"Why should I trust you above my own family and confidants?"
She answered carefully. "If what I've told you is true, then your silence could save you from assassination. If it'sall a wild scheme, then your silence could save you from public ridicule. Either way, you've nothing to gain right now by revealing me as an impostor. So, I'm begging you not to tell anyone."
He gave her a long, cold stare. "You're as devious as Carole was."
"I hate that you see it that way."
"Ishould have read the signs. I should have known the changes in you, inher,were too good to be true. Like the way you took to Mandy when you came home."
"She's come so far, Tate. Don't I get credit for loving her?"
"You'll get credit for breaking her heart when you leave."
"It will break my heart, too."
He ignored her. "Now I know why you suddenly took an interest in the election, why your opinions were more eloquently expressed, and why. . ." He looked at her mouth. "Why so many things were different." For several moments, he seemed to be struggling against the pull of a powerful magnet that would draw him to her. Then, with a vicious curse, he turned away.
Avery charged after him, catching him before he could lock her out of the bathroom. "What are you going to do?"
"For the time being, not a damn thing. I've come this far. You and your nefarious scheme aren't going to deter me from winning the election for myself, and for my family, and for all the people who've placed their trust in me."
"What about me?"
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "If I expose you, I would expose myself and my family as fools." He grabbed a handful of hair at the back of her head and pulled it back. "And if you expose us, I'll kill you."
She believed him. "I'm not lying, Tate. Everything I've told you is the truth."
He released her abruptly. "I'll probably divorce you, as I'd planned to divorce Carole. Your punishment will be having to remain the former Mrs. Tate Rutledge for the rest of your life."
"You must be careful. Someone is going to try to kill you."
"Avery Daniels has been dead and buried for months. She'll remain dead and buried."
"Watch for a tall, gray-haired man in the crowds. Stay away from him."
"There'll be no career in TV, no smashing story to make you an overnight sensation." His eyes raked over her contemptuously. "You did it all for nothing. Ms. Daniels."
"Idid it because I love you."
He shut the door in her face.