“I couldn’t! Remember, I couldn’t communicate.” She caught his arm in appeal. He slung it off. “Tate, I tried to get the message to you before my face was restored to look like Carole’s, but it was impossible. Every time I began to cry, you thought it was from fear over the upcoming surgery. It was that. But it was also because I was being robbed of my own identity and having another imposed on me. I was powerless to get that message across.”
“Jesus, this is science fiction.” He plowed his fingers through his hair. Realizing he was still naked, he grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around his middle. “That was months ago.”
“I had to remain Carole for a while.”
“Why?”
She threw back her head and gazed up at the ceiling. The first explanation had been a breeze, compared to what was coming. “It’s going to sound—”
“I don’t give a shit how it sounds,” he said menacingly. “I want to know why you’ve been impersonating my wife.”
“Because someone wants to kill you!”
Her urgent reply took him by surprise. He was still poised to do battle, but his head snapped back like he’d taken an uppercut on the chin. “What?”
“When I was in the hospital,” she began, clasping her hands together at waist level, “someone came to my room.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know who. Hear me out before asking me a lot of questions.” She drew in a deep breath, but the words continued to tumble rapidly over her lips. “I was bandaged. I couldn’t see well. Someone, addressing me as Carole, warned me not to make any deathbed confessions. He said that the plans were still in place and that you’d never live to take office.”
He remained unmoved for a moment, then a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Eventually, he barked a hateful laugh. “You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth!”
“The only truth is that you’re going to jail. Now.” He turned and headed for the telephone.
“Tate, no!” She caught his arm and brought him around. “I don’t blame you for what you’re thinking about me.”
“Your worst guess couldn’t even come close.”
The invective smarted, but for the time being, she had to ignore it. “I’m not lying about this. I swear it. Someone plans to assassinate you before you take office.”
“I’m not even elected.”
“As good as, so it seems.”
“You can’t identify this mystery person?”
“Not yet. I’m trying.”
He studied her earnest face for a moment, then sneered, “I can’t believe I’m standing here listening to this shit. You’ve been living a lie all these months. Now you expect me to believe that a total stranger sneaked into your hospital room and put a bug in your ear that he was going to assassinate me?” He shook his head as though marveling over her audacity and his culpability.
“Not a stranger, Tate. Someone close. Someone in the family.”
His jaw relaxed. He stared at her with patent incredulity. “Are you—”
“Think! Only family members are allowed into the ICU.”
“You’re saying a member of my family is plotting my assassination?”
“It sounds absurd, I know, but it’s the truth. I didn’t make it up. I didn’t imagine it, either. There have been notes.”
“Notes?”
“Notes left for Carole in places only she would have access to, letting her know that the plan was still in place.” She rushed to the luggage rack in the closet and opened a zippered compartment of one of her suitcases. She carried the notes, including the desecrated campaign poster, back to him.
“They were typed on the typewriter at the ranch,” she told him.