Mirror Image

“That’s right, I did! Literally.” She crossed her arms over her middle. “I saw the bodies, heard those children screaming in terror over what they had discovered when they had come home from school. I saw them weeping over what their father had done.”

“Had allegedly done, dammit. You never learn, Avery. He allegedly killed his wife before blasting his own brains onto the wallpaper.” Irish took a quick drink of whiskey. “But you went live with a report, omitting that technical little legal word, leaving your network vulnerable to a slander suit.

“You lost it on camera, Avery. Objectivity took a flying leap. Tears streamed down your face and then—then—as if all that wasn’t enough, you asked your audience at large how any man, but especially an elected public official, could do such a beastly thing.”

She raised her head and faced him defiantly. “I know what I did, Irish. I don’t need you to remind me of my mistake. I’ve tried to live it down for two years. I was wrong, but I learned from it.”

“Bullshit,” he thundered. “You’re doing the same damn thing all over again. You’re diving in where you have no authority to go. You’re making news, not reporting it. Isn’t this the big break you’ve been waiting for? Isn’t this the story that’s going to put you back on top?”

“All right, yes!” she flung up at him. “That was part of the reason I went into it.”

“That’s been your reason for doing everything you’ve ever done.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’re still trying to get your daddy’s attention. You’re trying to fill his shoes, live up to his name, which you feel like you’ve failed to do.” He moved toward her. “Let me tell you something—something you don’t want to hear.” He shook his head and said each word distinctly. “He’s not worth it.”

“Stop there, Irish.”

“He was your father, Avery, but he was my best friend. I knew him longer and a whole lot better than you did. I loved him, but I viewed him with far more objectivity than you or your mother ever could.”

He braced one hand on the arm of the sofa and leaned over her. “Cliff Daniels was a brilliant photographer. In my book, he was the best. I’m not denying his talent with a camera. But he didn’t have a talent for making the people who loved him happy.”

“I was happy. Whenever he was home—”

“Which was a fraction of your childhood—a small fraction. And you were disconsolate every time he waved good-bye. I watched Rosemary endure his long absences. Even when he was home she was miserable, because she knew it would be for only a short time. She spent that time dreading his departure.

“Cliff thrived on the danger. It was his elixir, his life force. To your mother, it was a disease that ate away her youth and vitality. It took his life quickly, mercifully. Her death was agonizing and slow. It took years. Long before the afternoon she swallowed that bottle of pills, she had begun dying.

“So, why does he deserve your blind adoration and dogged determination to live up to his name, Avery? The most valuable prize he ever won wasn’t the fucking Pulitzer. It was your mother, only he was too stupid to realize that.”

“You’re just jealous of him.”

Steadily, Irish held her gaze. “I was jealous of the way Rosemary loved him, yes.”

The starch went out of her then. She groped for his hand, pressed it to her cheek. Tears trickled over the back of it. “I don’t want us to fight, Irish.”

“I’m sorry then, because you’ve got a fight on your hands. I can’t let you continue this.”

“I’ve got to. I’m committed.”

“Until when?”

“Until I know who threatened to kill Tate and can expose him.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” she groaned miserably.

“And what if this would-be assassin never goes through with it? Suppose he’s blowing smoke? Will you stay Mrs. Rutledge indefinitely? Or will you simply approach Rutledge one day and say, ‘Oh, by the way’?”

Admitting to him what she had admitted to herself only a few days earlier, she said, “I haven’t figured that out yet. I didn’t leave myself a graceful escape hatch.”

“Rutledge has got to know, Avery.”

“No!” She surged to her feet. “Not yet. I can’t give him up yet. You’ve got to swear you won’t tell him.”

Irish fell back a step, dumbfounded by her violent reaction. “Jesus,” he whispered as the truth dawned on him. “So that’s what this is really about. You want another woman’s husband. Is that why you want to remain Mrs. Rutledge—because Tate Rutledge is good in bed?”