Mirror Image

notion had distressed Avery very much. She had hoped it was only an alcohol-inspired delusion that Dorothy Rae had drummed up while sequestered in her room with her bottles of vodka. “It’s preposterous,” she said, thinking aloud. “Carole had Tate. What could she possibly have wanted with Jack?”
    “There’s no accounting for taste.”
    “I guess you’re right.” Avery was so lost in her own musings, she missed his wry inflection. “Anyway, I denied having any designs on Dorothy Rae’s husband. She called me a bitch, a whore, a home wrecker—things like that.”
    Irish ran a hand over his burred head. “Carole must have really been something.”
    “We don’t know for certain that she wanted either Jack or Eddy.”
    “But she must have put out some mighty strong signals if that many people picked up on them.”
    “Poor Tate.”
    “What does ‘poor Tate’ think of his
wife
?”
    Avery lapsed into deep introspection. “He thinks she aborted his baby. He knows she had other lovers. He knows she was a negligent parent and put emotional scars on his daughter. Hopefully, that can be reversed.”
    “You’ve taken on that responsibility, too, haven’t you?”
    His critical tone of voice brought her head erect. “What do you mean?”
    Leaving her to stew for a moment, Irish disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a fresh drink. Feet spread and firmly planted, he stood before her. “Are you leveling with me about that midnight caller you had in the hospital?”
    “How can you even doubt it?”
    “I’ll tell you how I can doubt it. You came to me, what was it, almost two years ago, with your tail tucked between your legs, needing a job—any job. You’d just been fired from the network for committing one of the worst faux pas in journalism history.”
    “I didn’t come here tonight to be reminded of that.”
    “Well, maybe you should be reminded! Because I think that’s what’s behind this whole damned scheme of yours. You plunged in that time over your head, too. Before you got your facts straight, you reported that a junior congressman from Virginia had killed his wife before blowing his own brains out.”
    She pressed her fists against her temples as that horrible sequence of events unfolded like a scroll in her memory.
    “First reporter on the scene, Avery Daniels,” Irish announced with a flourish, showing her no mercy. “Always hot on the trail of a good story. You smelled fresh blood.”
    “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