Mirror Image

endearing personality trait. It was evidence of character degeneration. The last time she’d seen him, his hair had been salt-and-pepper. Now it was almost solid white.
    She had done this to him.
    “Oh, Irish, Irish, forgive me.” With a sob, she collapsed against him, wrapping her arms around his solid bulk and holding on tight.
    “Your face is different.”
    “Yes.”
    “And your voice is hoarse.”
    “I know.”
    “I recognized you through your eyes.”
    “I’m glad. I didn’t change on the inside.”
    “You look good. How are you?” He set her away from him and awkwardly rubbed her arms with his large, rough hands.
    “I’m fine. Mended.”
    “Where have you been? By the Blessed Virgin, I can’t believe this.”
    “Neither can I. God, I’m so glad to see you.”
    Clinging to each other again, they wept. At least a thousand times in her life, she had run to Irish for comfort. In her father’s absence, Irish had kissed scraped elbows, repaired broken toys, reviewed report cards, attended dance recitals, chastised, congratulated, commiserated.
    This time, Avery felt like the elder. Their roles had been reversed. He was the one who clung tightly and needed nurturing.
    Somehow, they stumbled their way to his sofa, though neither remembered later how they got there. When the crying binge subsided, he wiped his wet face with his hands, briskly and impatiently. He was embarrassed now.
    “I thought you might be angry,” she said after indelicately blowing her nose into a Kleenex.
    “I am—damn angry. If I weren’t so glad to see you, I’d paddle your butt.”
    “You only paddled me once—that time I called my mother an ugly name. Afterward, you cried harder and longer than I did.” She touched his cheek. “You’re a softy, Irish McCabe.”
    He looked chagrined and irascible. “What happened? Have you had amnesia?”
    “No.”
    “Then, what?” he asked, studying her face. “I’m not used to you looking like that. You look like—”
    “Carole Rutledge.”
    “That’s right. Tate Rutledge’s wife—late wife.” A light bulb went on behind his eyes. “She was on that flight, too.”
    “Did you identify my body, Irish?”
    “Yes. By your locket.”
    Avery shook her head. “It was her body you identified. She had my locket.”
    Tears formed in his eyes again. “You were burned, but it was your hair, your—”
    “We looked enough alike to be mistaken for sisters just minutes before the attempted takeoff.”
    “How—”
    “Listen and I’ll tell you.” Avery folded her hands around his, a silent request that he stop interrupting. “When I regained consciousness in the hospital, several days after the crash, I was bandaged from head to foot. I couldn’t move. I could barely see out of one eye. I couldn’t speak.
    “Everyone was calling me Mrs. Rutledge. At first I thought maybe I did have amnesia because I couldn’t remember being Mrs. Rutledge or Mrs. Anybody. I was confused, in pain, disoriented. Then, when I remembered who I was, I realized what had happened. We’d switched seats, you see.”
    She talked him through the agonizing hours she had spent trying to convey to everyone else what only she knew. “The Rutledges retained Dr. Sawyer to redo my face—Carole’s face—using photographs of her. There was no way I could alert them that they were making a mistake.”
    He pulled his hands from beneath hers and dragged them down his loose jowls. “I need a drink. Want one?”
    He returned to the couch moments later with a tumbler three-quarters full of straight whiskey. Avery said nothing, though she eyed the glass meaningfully. Defiantly, he took a hefty draught.
    “Okay, I follow you so far. A gross error was made while you were unable to communicate. Once you
were
able to communicate, why didn’t you? In other words, why are you still playing Carole Rutledge?”
    Avery stood up and began roaming the untidy room, making ineffectual attempts to straighten it while she arranged her thoughts. Convincing Irish that her charade was viable and justified was going to be tricky. His contention had always been that reporters reported the news, they did not make it. Their role was to observe, not participate. That point had been a continual argument between him and Cliff Daniels.
    “Somebody plans to kill Tate Rutledge before he becomes a senator.”
    Irish hadn’t expected anything like that. His hand was arrested midway between the coffee table and his mouth as he was