MIRROR IMAGE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

''I'll get it."

The front doorbell had rung twice. Avery was the first to reach it. She grabbed the knob and pulled it open.  Van Lovejoy stood between the pots of geraniums.

Avery froze. Her expectant, welcoming smile turned to stone, her knees to water. Her stomach tightened.

Van reacted with similar disquiet. His slumped posture was instantly corrected. A cigarette fell from between his fingers. He blinked numerous times.

Avery, hoping that his pupils had been dilated by marijŭana and not shock, mustered as much composure  as she could. "Hello."

"Hi, uh ..." He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head of stringy hair. "Uh, Mrs. Rutledge?"

"Yes?"

He covered his heart with a bony hand. "Jesus, for a minute there, you looked just like—"

"Come in, please." She didn't want to hear him speak her name. She had barely curbed her impulse to joyously cry out his. It had been nearly impossible to keep from hugging him fiercely and telling him that she was onto the hottest story of her career.

From the beginning, however, she had been in this alone. Telling Van would place him in danger, too. As comforting as it would be to have an ally, she couldn't afford the luxury. Besides, she didn't want to risk blowing the opportunity by confiding in him. Van wasn't all that trustworthy.

She stepped aside and he joined her in the entry. It would have been natural for him to gaze around at the unfamiliar and impressive surroundings, but instead, he stared into her face. Avery pitied him his confusion. "You are ... ?"

"Oh, sorry." He rubbed his palms self-consciously on the seat of his jeans, then extended his right hand. She shook it quickly. "Van Lovejoy."

"I'm Carole Rutledge."

"I know. I was there the day you left the clinic. I work for KTEX."

"I see."

Even though he was making an attempt at normal conversation, his eyes hadn't left her. It was agony to be this close to a friend and not be able to behave normally. She had a million and one questions to ask him, but settled for the one that Carole would logically ask next.

"If you're here representing the television station, shouldn't you have cleared it first with Mr. Paschal, my husband's campaign manager?"

"He knows I'm coming. The production company sent me over.''

"Production company?"

''I'm shooting a TV commercial here next Wednesday. I came today to scout my locations. Didn't anybody tell you I was coming?''

"I—"

"Carole?"

Nelson moved into the hallway, subjecting Van to a glare of stern disapproval. Nelson was always military neat. He never had a wrinkle in his clothing or a single gray hair out of place.

Van was the antithesis. His dingy T-shirt had come from a Cajun restaurant that specialized in oysters on the half shell. The lewdly suggestive slogan on the shirt read, "Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw." His jeans had gone beyond being fashionably ragged to downright threadbare. There were no laces in his scuffed jogging shoes. Avery doubted he owned a pair of socks because he always went without.

He looked unhealthy and underfed to the point of emaciation. Sharp shoulder blades poked against the T-shirt. If he had stood up straight, each rib would have been delineated. As it was, his back bowed over a concave torso.