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then sneered, “I can’t believe I’m standing here listening to this shit. You’ve been living a lie all these months. Now you expect me to believe that a total stranger sneaked into your hospital room and put a bug in your ear that he was going to assassinate me?” He shook his head as though marveling over her audacity and his culpability.
    “Not a stranger, Tate. Someone close. Someone in the family.”
    His jaw relaxed. He stared at her with patent incredulity. “Are you—”
    “Think! Only family members are allowed into the ICU.”
    “You’re saying a member of my family is plotting my assassination?”
    “It sounds absurd, I know, but it’s the truth. I didn’t make it up. I didn’t imagine it, either. There have been notes.”
    “Notes?”
    “Notes left for Carole in places only she would have access to, letting her know that the plan was still in place.” She rushed to the luggage rack in the closet and opened a zippered compartment of one of her suitcases. She carried the notes, including the desecrated campaign poster, back to him.
    “They were typed on the typewriter at the ranch,” she told him.
    He studied each one at length. “You could have made these yourself just in case I caught on and you needed a scapegoat.”
    “I didn’t,” she cried. “This was Carole’s partner’s way of—”
    “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” He tossed the notes aside and held up both hands. “This is getting better all the time. Carole and this would-be assassin were in it together, right?”
    “Absolutely. From the time she met you. Maybe before.”
    “Why would Carole want me dead? She had no political leanings whatsoever.”
    “This isn’t political, Tate. It’s personal. Carole set her sights on becoming your wife. She became exactly what you wanted, and once they teamed up she was coached on how to behave so you’d have to fall in love with her. Who introduced you?”
    “Jack,” he said with a small shrug. “When she came to apply for a job at the firm.”
    “It might not have been an accident that she sought employment in your law office.”
    “She had impeccable credentials.”
    “I’m sure she did. She would have seen to it.”
    “She could type,” he added drolly, “which shoots your theory all to hell.”
    “I know I’m right.”
    “I guess you can prove it,” he said, implying the opposite. He even folded his arms complacently across his chest.
    “I don’t have to. Zee can.”
    He reacted with visible shock. His arms dropped to his sides. “My mother?”
    “She has a whole portfolio on Carole Navarro. I’ve seen it. Believing me to be Carole, she threatened me with exposure if I made you unhappy.”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “She seemed to think you were falling in love with your wife again.” Avery looked at him meaningfully. “After last night, I have good reason to think that, too.”
    “Forget last night. As you well know, it was all a hoax.” Angrily, he turned away.
    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