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Orderlies prepped her for surgery. Nurses monitored her blood pressure. She tried to catch someon
e’s eye and alert them to the mix-up, but no one paid any attention to the mummified patient.
Tate stepped out for a while, and when he returned, Dr. Sawyer was with him. The surgeon was brisk and buoyant. “How are you, Carole? Mr. Rutledge told me you spent some anxious hours last night, but this is your big day.”
He methodically perused her chart. Much of what he said was by rote, she realized. As a human being, she didn’t like him any better than Tate did.
Satisfied with her vital signs, he shut the metal file and passed it to a nurse. “Physically, you’re doing fine. In a few hours, you’ll have the framework of a new face and be on your way to a full recovery.”
She put all her strength into the guttural sounds she made, trying to convey the wrongness of what they were about to do. They misinterpreted her distress. The surgeon thought she was arguing with him. “It can be done. I promise. In about half an hour we’ll be underway.”
Again, she protested, using the only means available to her, her single eye. She batted it furiously.
“Give her a pre-op sedative to calm her down,” he ordered the nurse before bustling out.
Avery screamed inside her head.
Tate stepped forward and pressed her shoulder. “Carole, it’s going to be all right.”
The nurse injected a syringe of narcotic into the IV in her arm. Avery felt the slight tug on the needle in the bend of her elbow. Seconds later, the now-familiar warmth began stealing through her, until even the pads of her toes tingled. It was the nirvana that junkies would kill for—a delicious jolt of numbness. Almost instantly she became weightless and transparent. Tate’s features began to blur and become distorted.
“You’re going to be all right. I swear it, Carole.”
I’m not Carole.
She struggled to keep her eye open, but it closed and became too heavy to reopen.
“… waiting for you, Carole,” he said gently.
I’m Avery. I’m Avery. I’m not Carole.
But when she came out of the operating room, she would be.
Six
“I don’t understand what you’re so upset about.”
Tate spun around and angrily confronted his campaign manager. Eddy Paschal suffered the glare with equanimity. Experience had taught him that Tate’s temper was short, but just as short-lived.
As Eddy expected, the fire in Tate’s eyes downgraded to a hot glow. He lowered his hands from his hips, making his stance less antagonistic.
“Eddy, for crissake, my wife had just come out of a delicate operation that had lasted for hours.”
“I understand.”
“But you can’t understand why I was upset when hordes of reporters surrounded me, asking questions?” Tate shook his head, incredulous. “Let me spell it out for you. I was in no mood for a press conference.”
“Granted, they were out of line.”
“Way out of line.”
“But you got forty seconds of airtime on the six and ten o’clock newscasts—all three networks. I taped them and played them back later. You appeared testy, but that’s to be expected, considering the circumstances. All in all, I think it went in our favor. You look like a victim of the insensitive media. Voters will sympathize. That’s definitely a plus.”
Tate laughed mirthlessly as he slumped into a chair. “You’re as bad as Jack. You never stop campaigning, measuring which way this or that went—in our favor, against us.” He dragged his hands down his face. “Christ, I’m tired.”
“Have a beer.” Eddy handed him a cold can he’d taken from the compact refrigerator. Taking one for himself, he sat down on the edge of Tate’s hotel room bed. For a moment they drank in silence. Finally, Eddy asked, “What’s her prognosis, Tate?”
Tate sighed. “Sawyer was braying like a jackass when he came out of the operating room. Said he was perfectly satisfied with the results—that it was the finest work his team had ever done.”
