“Great,” Eddy muttered. “This is just fuckin’ great.”
“Mind your language in front of my wife, Mr. Paschal!” Nelson roared.
“I’m sorry, Nelson,” the younger man shouted back, “but do you have any idea what this will do to the Rutledge campaign if it gets out?”
“Of course I do. But we have to guard against responding in a knee-jerk fashion. What good will flying tempers do us now?” After tempers had cooled, Nelson asked, “How did you find out about this… this abomination?”
“The doctor’s nurse called headquarters this afternoon and asked to speak to Tate,” Eddy told them. “He had already left, so I took the call. She said Carole had come to them six weeks pregnant and asked for a D and C to terminate pregnancy.”
Avery sank down onto the padded arm of the sofa and folded her arms across her middle. “Do we have to talk about this with them in here?” She nodded toward the public relations duo.
“Beat it.” Tate nodded them toward the door.
“Wait a minute,” Eddy objected. “They have to know everything that’s going on.”
“Not about our personal lives.”
“Everything, Tate,” Dirk said. “Right down to the deodorant you use. No surprises, remember?
Especially not unpleasant ones. We told you that from the beginning.”
Tate looked ready to explode. “What did this nurse threaten to do?”
“Tell the media.”
“Or?”
“Or we could pay her to keep quiet.”
“Blackmail,” Ralph said, playing a tune with the change in his pocket. “Not very original.”
“But effective,” Eddy said curtly. “She got my attention, all right. You might have ruined everything, you know,” he shot at Avery.
Trapped in her own lie, Avery had no choice now but to bear their scorn. She didn’t care what any of the others thought of her, but she wanted to die when she thought of how betrayed Tate must feel.
Eddy strode to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a straight scotch. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“What about the doctor?” Dirk asked him.
“The nurse doesn’t work for him anymore.”
“Oh?” Ralph stopped jingling coins. “How come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Avery, who had given the sharp command, came to her feet. She saw only one way to redeem herself in Tate’s eyes and that was to help get him out of this mess. “Find out why she no longer works for the doctor, Eddy. Maybe he fired her for incompetency.”
“He? It’s a woman doctor. Jesus, don’t you even remember?”
“Do you want my help with this or not?” she fired back, bluffing her way through a dreadful error. “If the nurse has been fired, she wouldn’t be a very believable extortionist, would she?”
“Carole’s got something there,” Ralph said, glancing around the circle of grave faces.
“You got us into this jam,” Eddy said, advancing on Avery. “What do you plan to do, brazen it out?”
“Yes,” she said defiantly.