Mirror Image (Capitol Chronicles Book 4)

by Shirley Hailstock

  "You think I should go back there?" She turned away, making herself busy by grabbing the coffee pot and dumping the dregs of this morning's brew, then refilling it with fresh water. "Maybe Marsha sent you to do her dirty work."

  Suddenly her arm was yanked hard and she was spun around like a child's top. Her hand had barely released the pot handle before she found herself pressed against Duncan’s chest and his face so close she could identify the pores on his skin. The pain in her knee was nothing compared to the thumping of her heart.

  "Let's get this out of the way at the beginning." The anger in his voice scared her. "I am not Marsha Chambers’ errand boy. I came here to make you a valid offer of a job. She was part of the decision. There is nothing strange about that. We often discuss personnel for the show."

  Just as suddenly, he released her and stepped back, as if the closeness was electric.

  "I suppose I owe you an apology," she said. "I didn't mean to say—"

  "Forget it.” He waved his hand in the air as if there were nothing important they should discuss. "The job offer is still open."

  Aurora took a deep breath. Working at the station would mean seeing him regularly. The thought of that disturbed her but didn't make her feel bad. In fact, it made her feel good. He was certainly attractive and he'd had his arms around her, carried her into the infirmary. For a big man he'd been gentle and caring with her, physically and emotionally. She remembered her neighbor, Megan, telling her Duncan had sent her over to make sure she was all right. A moment ago he'd whirled her into his arms and she'd wanted only to hang there for an eternity.

  "Aurora?"

  She shook her head, trying to snap out of the cocoon that enveloped her, trying to make her heart return to a normal cadence.

  "I'm thinking about it," she said. Turning away she prepared them coffee and offered him a cup. He took it, stepping close to her. She looked up, raising the cup to give herself something to do, but she kept her eyes on him while she tasted the hot liquid.

  She did need a job. There were bills to be paid and her mother's nursing home stipend. That took a lot out of her budget and was the primary reason she'd exploited her look-alike potential. Before that she'd moved around in social services. She could return there. There was always a need for trained counselors for runaways or abused women. The pay wasn't very good, and it would never cover all of her expenses. In the end she'd have to get a second job.

  "If I take this job," she began, sagging back against the sink. "What will I have to do?"

  "It's in production—film editing, actually. You'd watch all the takes from the program and edit them in the manner that shows continuity without long instances of applause or long periods of a one-sided conversation. You'd be surprised how often people go on and on."

  "I won't have to go before the cameras?"

  He shook his head. "The production is all done behind the cameras. Marsha, however, did request that you sit in the audience during the taping."

  "I don't want to."

  "I'm sure we can work that out. There may be some shows you'll want to view."

  Aurora forced herself not to frown. She couldn't think of a reason to be in the same room with Marsha Chambers. Why the woman wanted her to be in the audience was a mystery. She must have some reason she was hiding from Duncan.

  Pushing herself upright, Aurora stared directly into Duncan's dark eyes. He was at least a head taller than she, but looking up at him from her position didn't make her feel as if she were turning him down. Shaking her head, she said, "I think it's better if I don't take this job. Marsha doesn't really want me there, and I'm not sure I want to be someplace where people don't want me."

  "Marsha isn't the only person on the show," he said. The tone of his voice made hers catch.

  "What?"

  "There's the entire crew," he pointed out. "Since this is the only show filmed here, we're closer than most crews who have other people they can interact with. When someone is out, there's a missing link. It's a lot like having a family. People care about each other, even if Marsha gave the impression that they don't."

  She dropped her chin so he couldn't see her eyes. For a moment she'd thought he wanted her to take the job.

  "The Marsha Chambers Show couldn't go on the air without the hundred or so people writing, directing, editing, doing set design and prop inventory, lighting, audience preparation and control, and special effects. There's a small city of workers who get that show on the air, and I'm asking you to join that team."

  The offer was tempting, but Aurora was already shaking her head. Then he mentioned the salary and her head snapped up.

  "You're kidding," she said.

  Duncan shook his head.

  "I could—" She finished the sentence silently. She could pay her mother's fees and her bills with that much money and she wouldn't have to peddle her face and body for people to ogle at, thinking she was Marsha Chambers.

  "Is that a yes?" Duncan asked.

  Aurora bit her bottom lip, something she hadn't done since she was a child. She'd broken herself of that habit in high school, after her first date told her he knew when she was thinking seriously about something because she'd bite her lip. Now the habit was back. She was thinking seriously. She knew she could get a job, but could she live on the salary? If she took this one, could she work with Marsha Chambers?

  Of course you can do it, she told herself. It was a phrase she'd often used when counseling women with low self-esteem. She could do this. She could work with Marsha Chambers and eliminate the need for a second job to make ends meet.

  "Yes," she said. Her voice hadn't been strong and sure, but quiet and fearful. Duncan didn't say anything. Then the doorbell rang, startling Aurora.

  A shiver ran through her and the thought that someone had stepped on her grave sprang to mind.

  ***

  Aurora peered through the curtains. "There's no one there." She looked cautiously to the left and right, then reached for the doorknob. Duncan grabbed her arm and her hand at the same time. "Don't open that," he said.

  "Why not?"

  "I'm not sure, but we don't want you getting mistaken again."

  "I thought you said the kidnapping wasn't real."

  "The first kidnapping wasn't real," he explained. "Yesterday's attempt could have been harmless, too, but I'm sure we should be cautious."

  "Now you're scaring me. I've never been the object of a stalker." She had faced drug addicts and pimps, but never had anyone set out with a systematic plan to destroy her. She'd been in the arms of the man trying to abduct her, and she had felt only hatred and vehemence in his body. He hadn't uttered a word while he'd fought with her, but his purpose was clearly menacing and evil. She shuddered.

  Duncan pushed in front of her and checked the area outside the oval door-windows. Then he opened one and stepped outside. He kicked something and they both looked down.

  "What is it?" she asked, looking at the blue velvet jewelry box a step away from Duncan's foot. It looked abandoned on the black asphalt drive.

  She moved to pass him. His hand came back to keep her behind him. Otherwise he didn't move, didn't reach for the box, but stared around him, looking at the traffic that rushed up and down the road. "Stay here," he told her. Then he went to the side of the house and looked toward the back. After disappearing around the side he reappeared several moments later, from the other direction. Aurora wondered what he was looking for.

  "Whoever left this is gone." He rejoined her, reaching down and scooping up the unwrapped velvet package. Inside, he closed the door and lifted the blue lid of the case.

  Aurora gasped. "They're beautiful." Laying on a bed of white velvet was a string of matching pearls. She reached for them, pulled them off the bed, and felt them roll over her fingers like cool water dangling from her arm. "Why would someone leave these in front of my door?"

  Duncan wondered that, too. The pearls were obviously expensive. The box, however, had no store name imprinted in the
soft satin at the back of the box. Turning it over, he found nothing. He pulled the velvet insides out, looking for anything that might identify the place the pearls had come from, but there was nothing. Whoever had left them intended them for Aurora and intended them to be hard to trace. Duncan didn't like this. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if this wasn't another case of mistaken identity.

  The show often received gifts addressed to Marsha. Costume jewelry, flowers, cakes and other foods, even an occasional diamond ring with a proposal of marriage, but this hadn't been sent to the studio. It had been hand delivered to Aurora's house.

  Why ? Duncan wondered. Was this a crazed fan who'd mistaken Aurora for Marsha and was now fixated on her? Did Marsha have an enemy who'd seen Aurora and now thought she was Marsha?

  What could this person have in mind? Why did he leave pearls at her doorstep with no note and no indication as to what she should do with them or what they represented? Marsha might know, might understand, but would she volunteer anything if Duncan asked her? He doubted it.

  Aurora was fastening the string around her neck. Duncan almost ordered her to stop. For some reason he didn't want them touching her. Rationally, he knew they had no mystical power, but in his mind he'd connected the man in the van with the pearls Aurora was trying to fasten.

  He took the knotted rope from her fingers and fastened them. When he secured the clasp he didn't withdraw his hands from her shoulders, but let them rest there. Looking past her into the mirror he saw their reflections. Their eyes met in the glass, and reflected there was a man he'd never seen before, a man who could feel. After his marriage disintegrated he thought he'd never feel anything again, and he hadn't met anyone he wanted to see for more than a couple of dates. Yet yesterday afternoon when he'd swung Aurora into his arms unfamiliar feelings had surfaced, and now they threatened to swamp him. This should be his cue to run, get away while his heart was uninvolved and his skin still intact, but he found he didn't want to run away. He'd wanted to protect.

  ***

  Aurora fingered the pearls around her neck. She'd worn them on each of the three days she'd worked for The Marsha Chambers Show. She'd been sure Marsha would recognize them, and yank them off of her the first time she saw her, but the woman ignored her presence. If they passed each other in the hall Marsha looked through her as if she weren't there. During the taping, in which Aurora did not want to participate but did so at Duncan's request, Marsha refused to make eye contact with her. No matter where Aurora positioned herself in the audience, Marsha made sure her attention was someplace else. Certain the woman didn't want the camera picking up her face, Aurora often smiled at the extremes Marsha went through to banish her to obscurity.

  Why was that, Aurora wondered? Before Gwen Scott threw that newspaper clipping in front her and sent her into the glamorous world of a Marsha Chambers impersonator, the two of them had worked in social services. They were best friends and often relied on each other in some tough situations. What Aurora and Gwen knew about relationships could keep Marsha Chambers in programs for the next year. Although Aurora was no longer part of the world of personal problems, she couldn't help wondering why people did the things they did, made the decisions they made. Why did Marsha Chambers want Aurora on the set? Why wouldn't she look her in the eye when they passed each other in a corridor?

  Of course, Marsha could have a real fear of being kidnapped. Even if her abductors had been benevolent and kind, Aurora understood she would have felt violated and helpless, at the whim of someone else. Observation was the key. She'd wait and observe Marsha, find out what secret she hid. Aurora was certain there was one.

  "Daydreaming?" someone asked from behind her. She'd recognize that sexy voice anywhere—Duncan's. Other than when she was in the audience, she hadn't seen him.

  She swung around on her seat in front of the editing machine. He wasn't dressed like most of the people who worked behind the camera. Their uniforms were jeans, sweaters, and various brand name tennis shoes. Duncan looked like a Philadelphia lawyer, with a crisp, white shirt and red suspenders. He was clean shaven, providing no mustache camouflage for those sensual lips. Aurora noticed that he lowered his gaze to the pearls, then looked back at her face. Instinctively, she touched them.

  "I came by to see how you were doing."

  "Well, in the last three days I've learned how to fit three hours of programming into a fifty minute format, how to insert commercials, make seamless transitions, and splice digital segments together if the need occurs. I've mastered this little computer here." She shifted around to pat the cream-colored box on the worktable, then turned back.

  "I'm told you have a real flair for this kind of work."

  "Who told you that?" she asked with a smile. Fred Loring ran the film editing department and she'd been able to work with him and his crew. She'd learned a lot but by no means had she mastered the craft. That would take years.

  Duncan's gaze went back to the pearls. His hand reached for them. Aurora's breath became shallow as his hand grazed her skin.

  "Any word on these yet?"

  She opened her mouth to speak but it was dry. She closed it and shook her head.

  "They worry me," he said, letting them fall against her skin.

  Aurora put her hand where his had been. She could feel her accelerated heartbeat. Taking slow breaths she asked, "Why?"

  "These pearls are worth a lot of money," Duncan explained.

  They had taken them to a jeweler the same day they found them. The appraisal proved that each separately knotted pearl was the exact same size, eight millimeters. They weren't cultured pearls, farmed in a vat of sand induced oysters, but grown in the sea, very likely the South Pacific or Indian Ocean. This necklace was translucent, with a luster that showed none of the reddish or whitish sheen that characterized lesser quality pearls. Their orient was as perfect as the gems were rounded. They'd been grown in the mother-of-pearl shells of at least forty mollusks. Aurora's fingers ran over the smooth surface. She knew that to find forty perfectly matched pearls would take tons of oysters. The probability of this many pearls having the same size and luster had to be off the charts. For a moment she shook. She was be wearing several thousand dollars around her neck.

  "People don't just leave an expensive gift like this and say nothing. Have you received anything else? A note or call?"

  Duncan stabilized her. She stopped shaking at the solid sound his voice.

  "No," she whispered.

  "Good." He smiled at her. "If anything strange turns up, you'll call me?"

  "Strange? What kind of strange?" Her heart began to speed up again. This time it was from fear.

  Aurora could hear the command in his request as she continued. "For the last three days I've assumed the necklace was sent by mistake. I felt someone would come to claim it, and that undertone of something sinister which we've been thinking and not saying would prove untrue. Now, however, I'm scared. I think there is something I don't know. I feel as if I'm being followed whenever I'm out, that someone is watching me from a distance. If I do get any information about these pearls, your number will be the first one I dial." She touched them again. She let her mouth grin, although she didn't feel it. “That is, of course, I would if I had your number."

  Duncan let out a belly laugh. He didn't know whether to comfort her or kiss her. One minute she was scared and the next she was flirting with him. And he liked it. It had been years since anyone made him take notice. He saw beautiful women every day and they often flirted with him. They wanted to be on The Marsha Chambers Show and he was the power that could grant that wish. They were willing to do almost anything to get a chance at the millions of viewers who tuned in each day to hear what Marsha and her guests had to say. Aurora had turned out to be one of the few who didn't want that. Maybe that was part of her attraction. It had to be something. Hardly a day went by when he wasn't thinking of her and looking for her. When she appeared in the audience his attention focused on her several times du
ring the programming. Often she was smiling or intently listening to what was being said.

  She interrupted his thoughts. "It's time I went to the set." Duncan checked his watch. It was time they both went. She stood up and he moved back to give her room. He thought of the women flirting with him to get on the show—even to be a member of the audience Marsha would choose for thirty seconds of fame—and the woman before him who had argued against being there.

  When she stood, neither of them moved. Aurora looked at him. She expected him to step back farther so she could turn toward the door, but he didn't. He took her elbows and stared into her eyes. "I don't want you to be afraid."

  "It's too late." Her hand came up to the pearls, but it wasn't the gems that had her heart tattooing. His gaze followed her hand. The necklace formed a white arc against the dark red sweater she wore under her suit jacket. He took her hand before he knew what he was doing or what he'd planned to do. He found himself pulling her forward, pulling her mouth toward his. Then, at the last moment, he turned slightly and let his lips touch her cheek.

  She was warm, her cheek soft and sweet smelling under his mouth. He wanted to turn into her, feel the full force of his mouth against hers, but something held him back. Pushing his hands in her hair, he used them to anchor her to him, to keep her stationed in place so he wouldn't make a fool of himself, so she couldn't turn her head and let him find her mouth. He knew her mouth already. It was sexy, soft, and wet, and would be heaven under his.

  His arms circled her and pressed her into him while his nose took in the smell of her hair. She was soft against him and he could feel his insides liquefying as she burned his resistance to ashes.

  With strength born of frustration and need he pushed her back. Her eyes were closed. They opened slowly under his gaze, undoing him, making him lean toward her.