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Avery’s mind quickened. She had envisioned him entering her room and dumping her jewelry onto the bed. “These aren’t Carole’s things,” he would say. “Who are you?” But that scenario hadn’t occurred. Maybe there was hope yet.
“I keep forgetting to stop by the office and pick it up,” he told the nurse with chagrin. “Could you possibly send somebody down to get it for me?”
“I’ll call down and check.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”
Avery’s heart began to pound. She offered up a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Here, at the eleventh hour, she would be saved from disaster. Reconstructive surgery would have to be done to her face, but she would come out of it looking like Avery Daniels, and not someone else.
“The jewelry won’t do you much good in the operating room,” Tate was saying, “but I know you’ll feel better once your things are in my possession.”
In her mind, she was smiling hugely. It was going to be all right. The mistake would be discovered in plenty of time, and she could leave the emotional roller-coaster she had been riding behind.
“Mr. Rutledge, I’m afraid it’s against hospital regulations for anyone except the patient himself or next of kin to retrieve possessions from the safe. I can’t send anyone down for it. I’m sorry.”
“No problem. I’ll try to get down there sometime tomorrow.”
Avery’s spirits plummeted. Tomorrow would be too late. She asked herself why God was doing this to her. Hadn’t she been punished enough for her mistake? Would the rest of her life be an endless and futile endeavor to make up for one failure? She had already lost her credibility as a journalist, the esteem of her colleagues, her career status. Must she give up her identity, too?
“There’s something else, Mr. Rutledge,” the nurse said hesitantly. “There are two reporters down the hall who want to speak with you.”
“Reporters?”
“From one of the TV stations.”
“Here? Now? Did Eddy Paschal send them?”
“No. That’s the first thing I asked them. They’re after a scoop. Apparently word has leaked out about Mrs. Rutledge’s surgery tomorrow. They want to talk to you about the effect of the crash on your family and senatorial race. What should I tell them?”
“Tell them to go to hell.”
“Mr. Rutledge, I can’t.”
“No, you can’t. If you did, Eddy would kill me,” he muttered to himself. “Tell them that I’m not making any statements until my wife and daughter are drastically improved. Then, if they don’t leave, call hospital security. And tell them for me that if they go anywhere near the pediatric wing and try to see my mother or daughter, I’ll sue their asses for all they’ve got.”
“I’m sorry to have bothered you with—”
“It’s not your fault. If they give you any trouble, come get me.”
When his head came back around, Avery noticed through her tears that his face was lined with worry and exhaustion. “Media vultures. Yesterday the newspaper took a statement I had made about the shrimping business along the coast and printed it out of context. This morning my phone rang incessantly until Eddy could issue a counterstatement and demand a retraction.” He shook his head with disgust over the unfairness.
Avery sympathized. She had spent enough time in Washington to know that the only politicians who didn’t suffer were the unscrupulous ones. Men with integrity, as Tate Rutledge seemed to be, had a much more difficult time of it.
It was little wonder that he appeared so tired. He was not only burdened with running for public office, but he had to cope with an emotionally traumatized child and a wife facing her own ordeal.
Only she wasn’t his wife. She was a stranger. She couldn’t tell him that he was confiding in an outsider. She couldn’t protect him from media assaults or help him through Mandy’s difficulties. She couldn’t even warn him that someone might be planning to kill him.
* * *
He stayed with her through the night. Each time she awakened, he instantly materialized at her bedside. The character lines in his face became more pronounced by the hour as fatigue settled in. The whites of his eyes grew rosy with sleeplessness. Once, Avery was aware of a nurse urging him to leave and get some rest, but he refused.
“I can’t run out on her now,” he said. “She’s scared.”
Inside she was crying, No, please don’t go. Don’t leave me. I need someone.
It must have been dawn when another nurse brought him a cup of fresh coffee. It smelled delicious; Avery craved a sip.
Technicians came in to adjust her respirator. She was gradually being weaned from it as her lungs recovered from their injury. The machine’s job had been drastically scaled down from what it had originally done for her, but she would need it a few days more.
