Mirror Image (40 page)

Fancy arrived several minutes later and flopped into her chair, her disposition as sour as her expression.

"Haven't you got a civil word for anybody, young lady?" Nelson asked sternly.

"Jesus, cauliflower," she mumbled, shoving the serving bowl to the other side of the table.

"I will not abide that kind of language," Nelson thundered.

"I forgot," she shouted with asperity.

His face turned an angry red. "Nor will I put up with any of your sass." He shot meaningful glances at Jack, who ducked his head, and Dorothy Rae, who reached for her wineglass. "Show some manners. Sit up properly and eat your dinner."

"There's never anything decent to eat around here," Fancy complained.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Francine."

"I know, I know, Grandpa. All those starving kids in Africa. Save the sermon, okay? I'm going to my room."

"You'll stay where you are," he barked. "You're part of the family, and in this family, everyone has dinner together."

"There's no need to shout, Nelson," Zee said, touching his sleeve.

Fancy's face swelled up. She glared at her grandfather mutinously, at her parents contemptuously, but she remained seated.

As though nothing had happened, Nelson picked up the conversation where it had left off when she had come in. "The Wakely and Foster team is setting up another trip for Tate." He imparted this piece of information for the benefit of the women, who hadn't heard it firsthand.

Avery looked at Tate. "I just found out this afternoon," he said defensively, "and didn't have time to tell you before dinner. You'll get a schedule."

"Where are we going?"

"Just about every corner of the state."

Zee blotted her mouth. "How long will you be away?"

"A little over a week."

"Don't worry about Mandy, Carole," Nelson said. " Grandpa'lltake care of her. Won't he, Mandy?"

She grinned at him and bobbed her head up and down. The child never minded being left with them. Ordinarily, Avery would have had no qualms about leaving her. However, Mandy had had another nightmare the night before—the second that week. If she were on the brink of a breakthrough, Avery hated to be away from her. Perhaps Mandy could go with them. It was something she needed to discuss with Tate before final plans were made.

Eddy suddenly appeared in the arched opening of the dining room. Mona, who was clearing away the main course dishes, told him she had kept his dinner warm. "I'll bring it right out."

"Never mind." His eyes darted around the table, lighting briefly on everyone seated. "I'll have to eat later."

Fancy's mood brightened considerably. A light came on behind her sullen eyes. Her sulky pout lifted into a smile. She sat up straight in her chair and looked at him with admiration and lust.

"I hate to ruin everyone's dinner," he began.

Nelson waved his hand dismissively. "You seem upset."

That was a gross understatement, Avery thought. Eddy was bristling with rage.

"What's the matter? Did we slip in the polls?"

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm afraid so," Eddy said, choosing Zee's question to respond to. "Ralph and Dirk are with me, but I told them to wait in the living room until I'd had a chance to speak with the family privately."

Ralph and Dirk were the two men from Wakely and Foster who were assigned to Tate's campaign. Their names frequently cropped up in conversation. Avery always dreaded hearing them referred to, because she usually had a negative reaction to whatever was subsequently said.

"Well?" Nelson prompted impatiently. "Best to get bad news over with."

"It concerns Carole." Every eye in the room moved to where she sat between Tate and Mandy. "Her abortionist is about to tell all."

THIRTY-FIVE

A quality necessary to bomber pilots is the ability not to crack under pressure. Nelson didn't. Avery reflected on his aplomb later when she reviewed those heart-stopping moments following Eddy's appalling announcement.

His lack of response was remarkable to her, because she had felt like she might very well shatter. She'd been rendered speechless, motionless, unable to think. Her brain shut down operation. It seemed the planet had been yanked from beneath her, and she floated without the security of gravity in an airless, black void.

Nelson, with admirable resilience, scooted back his dining chair and stood up. "I believe we should move this discussion to the living room."

Eddy nodded his head once, glanced at Tate with a mix of pity and exasperation, then left the room.

Zee, drastically pale but almost as composed as her husband, stood also. "Mona, we'll skip dessert tonight. Please entertain Mandy. We might be occupied for some time."

Dorothy Rae reached for her wineglass. Jack took it away from her and returned it to the table. He caught her beneath the arm, lifted her from her chair, and pushed her toward the hall. Fancy went after them. She was fairly bubbling now.

When they reached the archway, Jack said to his daughter, "You stay out of this."

"No way. This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened," she said with a giggle.

"It's none of your concern, Fancy."

"I'm part of this family, too. Grandpa just said so. Besides that, I'm a campaign worker. I have every right to sit in on the discussion. Even more right than her," she said, gesturing toward her mother.

Jack dug a fifty-dollar bill out of his pants pocket and pressed it into Fancy's hand. "Find something else to do."

"Son of a bitch," she mouthed before stamping off.

Tate's face was white with wrath. His movements were carefully controlled as he folded his napkin and laid it next to his plate. "Carole?"

Avery's head snapped up. Denials were poised and ready to be spoken, but the sheer fury burning in his eyes silenced them. Under his firmly guiding hand, she left the dining room and walked across the hall toward the large living room.

It was still twilight. The living room afforded a spectacular view of the western sky, streaked with the vivid shades of sunset. The vista was breathtaking, one Avery often sat and enjoyed. This evening, however, the endless horizon made her feel exposed and alone.

There wasn't a single friendly face to greet her when she entered the room. The men representing the public relations firm were particularly hostile. -. \.

Dirk was tall, thin, saturnine, and had a perpetual, blue-black five o'clock shadow. He looked the stereotype of a hit man from a gangster movie. It appeared that his face would crack if he even tried to smile.

Ralph was Dirk's antithesis. He was round, stout, and jolly. He was always cracking jokes, more to everyone's annoyance than amusement. When nervous, he jangled change. The coins in his pocket were getting a workout now. They rang as noisily as sleigh bells.

Neither of these men, to her knowledge, had ever professed to having a last name. She sensed that omission was to promote a friendly working relationship between them and their clients. As far as she was concerned, the gimmick didn't work.

Nelson took charge. "Eddy, please clarify what you just told us in the dining room."

Eddy went straight to the heart of the matter and turned to Avery. "Did you have an abortion?"

Her lips parted, but she couldn't utter a sound. Tate answered for her. "Yes, she did."

Zee jumped as if her slender body had just been struck with an arrow. Nelson's brows pulled together into a steep frown. Jack and Dorothy Rae only stared at Avery in stunned disbelief.

"You knew about it?" Eddy demanded of Tate.

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell anybody?"

"It wasn't anybody's business, was it?" Tate snapped furiously.

"When did this happen?" Nelson wanted to know. "Recently?"

"No, before the plane crash. Just before."

"Great," Eddy muttered. "This is just fuckin ' great."

"Mind your language in front of my wife, Mr. Paschal!" Nelson roared.

"I'm sorry, Nelson," the younger man shouted back, "but do you have any idea what this will do to the Rutledge campaign if it gets out?"

"Of course I do. But we have to guard against responding in a knee-jerk fashion. What good will flying tempers do us now?" After tempers had cooled, Nelson asked, "How did you find out about this. . .this abomination?"

"The doctor's nurse called headquarters this afternoon and asked to speak to Tate," Eddy told them. "He had already left, so I took the call. She said Carole had come to them six weeks pregnant and asked for a D and C to terminate pregnancy."

Avery sank down onto the padded arm of the sofa and folded her arms across her middle. "Do we have to talk about this with them in here?" She nodded toward the public relations duo.

"Beat it." Tate nodded them toward the door.

"Wait a minute," Eddy objected. "They have to know everything that's going on."

"Not about our personal lives."

"Everything, Tate," Dirk said. "Right down to the deodorant you use. No surprises, remember? Especially not unpleasant ones. We told you that from the beginning."

Tate looked ready to explode. "What did this nurse threaten to do?"

"Tell the media."

"Or?"

"Or we could pay her to keep quiet."

"Blackmail," Ralph said, playing a tune with the change in his pocket. "Not very original."

"But effective," Eddy said curtly. "She got my attention, all right. You might have rained everything, you know," he shot at Avery.

Trapped in her own lie, Avery had no choice now but to bear their scorn. She didn't care what any of the others thought of her, but she wanted to die when she thought of how betrayed Tate must feel.

Eddy strode to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a straight scotch. "I'm open to suggestions."

"What about the doctor?" Dirk asked him.

"The nurse doesn't work for him anymore."

"Oh?" Ralph stopped jingling coins. "How come?"

"I don't know."

"Find out."

Avery, who had given the sharp command, came to her feet. She saw only one way to redeem herself in Tate's eyes and that was to help get him out of this mess. "Find out why she no longer works for the doctor, Eddy. Maybe he fired her for incompetency.''

"He? It's a woman doctor. Jesus, don't you even remember?"

"Do you want my help with this or not?" she fired back, bluffing her way through a dreadful error. "If the nurse has been fired, she wouldn't be a very believable extortionist, would she?"

"Carole's got something there," Ralph said, glancing around the circle of grave faces.

"You got us into this jam," Eddy said, advancing on Avery. "What do you plan to do, brazen it out?"

"Yes," she said defiantly.

She could almost hear the wheels of rumination turning throughout the room. They were giving it serious consideration.

Zee broke the silence. "What if she has your medical records?"

"Records can be falsified, especially copied ones. It would still be my word against hers."

"We can't lie about it," Tate said.

"Why the hell not?" Dirk demanded.

Ralph laughed. " Lying'spart of it, Tate. If you want to win, you've got to lie more convincingly than Rory Dekker, that's all."

"If I become a senator, I've still got to look myself in the mirror every morning," Tate said, scowling.

"I won't have to lie. Neither will you. No one will ever know about the abortion." Avery stepped in front of Tate and laid her hands on his arms. "If we call her bluff, she'll back down. I can almost guarantee that no local television station would listen to her, especially if she has been dismissed from the doctor's staff."

If the nurse took her story to Irish McCabe—and KTEX

would probably be her first choice, because it had the highest ratings—he would nip the story in the bud. If she took it someplace else. . .

Avery suddenly turned to Eddy and asked, "Did she say she had someone to corroborate her story?"

"No."

"Then no credible journalist would break it."

"How the hell would you know?" Jack asked from across the room.

"I sawAll the President's Men."

"The tabloids would print it without corroboration."

''They might," she said, "but they have no credibility whatsoever. If we nobly ignored a scandalous story like that, readers would consider it a sordid lie."

"Whatifit got leaked to Dekker's staff? He'd blast it from Texarkana to Brownsville."

"What if hedid?"Avery asked. "It's an ugly story. Who would believe I'ddo such a thing?"

"Why did you?"

Avery turned to Zee, who had asked the simple question. She looked stricken, suffering for her son's sake. Avery wished she could provide her with a satisfactory answer to her question, but she couldn't.

"I'm sorry, Zee, but that's between Tate and me," she said finally. "At the time, it seemed like the thing to do."

Zee shuddered with repugnance.

Eddy didn't care about the sentimental aspects of their dilemma. He was pacing the rug. "God, Dekker would love to have this plum. He's got the zealous pro-lifers in his back pocket already. They're fanatics. I hazard to think what he could do with this. He'd paint Carole as a murderess."

"It would look like he was slinging mud," Avery said, ''unless he can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, which he can't. Voter sympathy would swing our way."

Dirk and Ralph looked at each other and shrugged in unison. Dirk said, "She's brought up some valid points, Eddy. When you hear from the nurse again, call her bluff. She's probably grasping at straws and will scare easily."

Eddy gnawed his inner cheek. "I don't know. It's chancy."

"But it's the best we can do." Nelson got up from hisseat and extended a hand down to Zee. "Y'all sort out the rest of this ugliness.Inever want to hear it mentioned again." Neither he or Zee deigned to look at Avery as they went out.

Dorothy Rae headed for the liquor cabinet. Jack was glaring so malevolently at his brother's wife that he didn't notice or try to stop her.

Apparently, no one in the family had known about Carole's pregnancy and abortion until tonight. This development had come as a shock to everyone, even to Avery, who hadn't known for certain herself and had lost by gambling on no one ever finding out.