Mirror Image

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 saw
All 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.”
    “What if it got leaked to Dekker’s staff? He’d blast it from Texarkana to Brownsville.”
    “What if he did?” Avery asked. “It’s an ugly story. Who would believe I’d do 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 his seat and extended a hand down to Zee. “Y’all sort out the rest of this ugliness. I never 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.
    “You got any more skeletons rattling around in your closet?”
    Tate spun around and confronted his brother with more anger than Avery had ever seen him exhibit for anyone in his family. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. “Shut up, Jack.”
    “Don’t tell him to shut up,” Dorothy Rae cried, slamming the vodka decanter back onto the cabinet. “It’s not his fault your wife’s a slut.”
    “Dorothy Rae!”
    “Well, isn’t she, Jack? She got rid of a baby on purpose, while mine… mine…” Tears welled up in her eyes. She turned her back to the room.
    Jack blew out his breath, lowered his head, and mumbled, “Sorry, Tate.”
    He went to his weeping wife, placed his arm around her waist, and led her from the room. For all the aversion she felt toward Jack, Avery was touched by this kind gesture. So was Dorothy Rae. She gazed up at him with gratitude and love.
    Dirk and Ralph, impervious to the family drama, had been talking between themselves. “You’ll sit this trip out,” Dirk told Avery peremptorily.
    “I second that,” Eddy said.
    “That’s up to Tate,” she said.
    His face was cold and impassive. “You stay.”
    Tears were imminent, and she’d be damned before she cried in front of Dirk, his sidekick, and the indomitable iceman, Eddy Paschal. “Excuse me.”
    Proudly, but quickly, she walked out. Tate followed her from the room. He caught up with her in the hallway and brought her around to face him. “There’s just no limit to your deceit, is there, Carole?”
    “I know it looks bad, Tate, but—”
    “Bad?”
Bitter and incredulous, he shook his head. “If you’d already done it, why didn’t you just own up to it? Why tell me there’d never been a child?”
    “Because I could see how much it was hurting you.”
    “Bullshit. You saw how much it was hurting you!”
    “No,” she said miserably.
    “Call her bluff. No corroborating