MIRROR IMAGE

CHAPTER TWO

Tate Rutledge stood at the window of his hotel room, gazing down at the traffic moving along the freeway. Taillights and headlights were reflected on the wet pavement, leaving watery streaks of red and white.

When he heard the door opening behind him, he turned on the heels of his boots and nodded a greeting to his brother. "I called your room a few minutes ago," he said. "Where have you been?"

"Drinking a beer down in the bar. The Spurs are playing the Lakers."

"I'd forgotten. Who's winning?"

His brother's derisive frown indicated the silliness of that question. "Dad's not back yet?"

Tate shook his head, let the drape fall back into place, and moved away from the window.

"I'm starving," Jack said. "You hungry?"

"I guess so. I hadn't thought about it." Tate dropped into the easy chair and rubbed his eyes.

"You're not going to do Carole or Mandy any good if you don't take care of yourself through this, Tate. You look like shit.''

''Thanks.''

"I mean it."

"I know you do," Tate said, lowering his hands and giving his older brother a wry smile. "You're all candor and no tact. That's why I'm a politician and you're not."

"Politician is a bad word, remember? Eddy's coached you not to use it."

"Even among friends and family?"

''You might develop a bad habit of it. Best not to use it at all."

"Jeez, don't you ever let up?"

"I'm only trying to help."

Tate lowered his head, ashamed of his ill-tempered outburst.

''I'm sorry."  He toyed with the TV's remote  control, punching through the channels soundlessly. "I told Carole about her face."

"You did?"

Lowering himself to the edge of the bed, Jack Rutledge leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Unlike his brother, he was clad in suit slacks, a white dress shirt, and a necktie. This late in the day, however, he looked rumpled. The starched shirt had wilted, the tie had been loosened, and his sleeves were rolled back. The slacks were wrinkled across his lap because he'd been sitting most of the day.

"How did she react when you told her?"

"How the hell do I know?" Tate muttered. "You can't see anything except her right eye. Tears came out of it, so I know she was crying. Knowing her, how vain she is, I would imagine she's hysterical underneath all those bandages. If she could move at all, she would probably be running up and down the corridors of the hospital screaming. Wouldn't you be?"

Jack hung his head and studied his hands, as though trying to imagine what it would feel like to have them burned and bandaged. "Do you think she remembers the crash?" "She indicated that she did, although I'm not sure how much she remembers. I left out the grisly details and only told her that she and Mandy and twelve others had survived." "They said on the news tonight that they're still trying to match up charred pieces and parts of bodies and identify them.'' Tate had read the accounts in the newspaper. According to the report, it was a scene straight out of hell. Hollywood couldn't have created a slasher picture more gruesome than the grim reality that faced the coroner and his army of assistants.

Whenever Tate remembered that Carole and Mandy could have been among those victims, his stomach became queasy. He couldn't sleep nights for thinking about it. Each casualty had a story, a reason for being on that particular flight. Each obituary was poignant.