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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.

FORTY-SIX

Van's search came to an end on the eve of Election Day. For several seconds, he stared at the color monitor screen, not believing that he'd finally found what he had been looking for all this time.

He had taken a catnap at daybreak, realizing when he saw light leaking around the tattered shades in his apartment windows that he had been up all night, viewing one videotape after another. After he had slept for about an hour, he'd drunk a pot of strong, caffeine-rich coffee and returned to his console. The desk area was littered with junk food wrappers, empty soda cans, empty cigarette packs, and rank, overflowing ashtrays.

Van hadn't noticed the untidiness. He didn't care. Nor did it matter to him that he hadn't eaten a square meal or showered in over forty-eight hours. His compulsion to watch videotapes had become his obsession. His passion had grown into a mission.

He accomplished it at nine-thirtyp.m. as he sat looking at a tape he had shot three years earlier while working at an NBC affiliate station in Washington state. He didn't even remember the station's call letters, but he remembered theassignment. He had used four tapes in all, each containing twenty minutes of unedited video. The reporter had compressed those eighty minutes into a five-minute special feature for the evening news during a ratings sweep week. It was the kind of piece people shuddered over and woefully shook their heads at, but consumed like popcorn.

Van watched all eighty minutes several times to make certain there was no mistake. When he was positive he was right, he flipped the necessary switches, inserted a blank tape, and began to make a duplicate of the most important, and most incriminating, one of the four.

Since it had to be duplicated at real time, that left him with twenty minutes to kill. He searched through the crumpled packets littering the console and finally produced a lone, bent cigarette, lit it, then picked up the phone and called the Palacio Del Rio.

"Yeah, I need to talk to Mrs. Rutledge. Mrs. Tate Rutledge."

"I'm sorry, sir," the switchboard operator said pleasantly, "I can't put that call through, but if you leave your name and number—"

"No, you don't understand. This is a personal message for Av. . . uh, Carole Rutledge."

"I'll give your message to their staff, who is screening—"

"Look, bitch, this is important, got that? An emergency."

"Regarding what, sir?"

"I can't tell you. I've got to speak to Mrs. Rutledge personally."

"I'm sorry, sir," the unflappable operator repeated. "I can't put that call through. If you leave your—"

"Shit!"

He slammed down the receiver and dialed Irish's number. He let it ring thirty times before giving up. "Where the hell is he?"

While the tape was still duplicating, Van paced, trying to figure out the best way to inform Irish and Avery of what he'd found. It was essential that he get this tape into Avery's hands, but how? If he couldn't even get the hotel operator to ring her suite, he couldn't possibly get close enough tonight to place the tape into her hands. Shehadto see it before tomorrow.

By the time the duplication was completed, Van still hadn't thought of a solution to his dilemma. The only possible course of action was to try to locate Irish. He would advise him what to do.

But after keeping the phone lines hot for half an hour between his apartment, KTEX's newsroom, and Irish's house, he still hadn't spoken to his boss. He decided to take the damn tape to Irish's house. He could wait for him there. It would mean driving clear across town, but what the hell? This was important.

It wasn't until he reached the parking lot of his apartment complex that he remembered his van was in the shop. His companion reporter had had to drive him home after they'd covered Rutledge's return to the San Antonio airport earlier that evening.

"Shit. Now what?"

The post office box. If contact couldn't be made any other way, that was the conveyance he'd been told to use. He went back inside. Among a heap of scrap papers, he found the one he'd scribbled the post office box number on. He sealed the videotape into an addressed, padded envelope, slipped on a jacket, and struck out on foot, taking his package with him.

It was only two blocks to the nearest convenience store, where there was also a mailbox, but even that represented more exercise than Van liked.