Mirror Image (Capitol Chronicles Book 4)

by Shirley Hailstock

  Then there was Aurora Alexander. He studied her from his darkened seat at the edge of the gallery. She'd grown up in Rocky Hill. Her mother had taught music at the local high school and her father had run the rat race in New York six days a week working as the chief financial officer for an architectural firm. Her parents divorced shortly after she graduated from college. When downsizing became a household word her father had taken the package and retired. He now lived in Japan and worked as a consultant. Coop hadn't suspected him of anything. However, he did have him checked out. He hadn't left Japan in the last six years. Aurora had visited him twice for a summer holiday.

  After getting her master's degree Aurora had worked in social services, bouncing from area to area. The hope was to keep people from burning out. It didn't work, Coop knew. Social services was worse than police work. No one ever came in without a problem. At least in police work there was resolution. Not always what you wanted, but it did end. In the services there was always another battered wife, teenage runaway, abused child. It came to a point where the counselors couldn't survive the stress of other people's lives. Aurora had survived there for five years, two years longer than most people. She'd also taken to the streets, a process reserved for specifically trained people. She'd searched back alleys, poured through bars and flophouses looking for her kids.

  Coop came back to the woman on the stage. This was a cleaner atmosphere—no drug addicts or pimps here—yet Aurora was doing the same thing. She was searching, saving, looking for a way to get help for a child in need.

  She had a record, however. She'd been arrested for assaulting an off-duty officer. The charges were dropped when it was discovered that the officer had abused his child. Aurora had been sent to take the child to a doctor. She'd been confronted with the officer and when he threatened her with bodily harm and raised his arm to hit her she'd blackened his eye.

  Luckily, she wasn't alone. She'd been accompanied by a burly Social Services agent who subdued the officer and prevented him from doing anything. Still, he'd pressed charges against her for blackening his eye.

  Three years ago she'd begun her Marsha Chambers impersonation and today she stood to lose her life over it.

  ***

  By one o'clock the next afternoon Fred Loring finished the editing. Duncan viewed the final cut immediately and transmission to the affiliate station had ended an hour ago. The show would air today. If Gillie saw that program, she'd have to be a hardhearted veteran of the streets to not call one of those numbers. He remembered the kid, his mother, and Aurora's performance. When it was over the crew talked of her, how well she'd done, how they were bound to lose her to another talk show.

  Duncan agreed with them. He'd known she'd be good at interviewing even before he knew she'd worked with people in trouble. Noreen and Adam Moore were in trouble. Aurora couldn't do anything but help. It was ingrained in her. She'd studied helping, knowing when to speak, when to listen, how much to push, and when to back off. Duncan had been on the receiving end of her interview techniques. He had the film of it to prove her power on camera. He'd seen the essence of her ability the day they visited her mother, too—the way she spoke to the nurses, remembering their families, asking about other patients, and the way she talked to her mother. She thought Noreen Moore was strong. She didn't understand her own strength or the influence she had over other people. She'd only been sitting in for Marsha for a short time. Her actual interviews had only been on the air for a few days. This one coming up would garner her an Emmy. Duncan had no doubt of it. It made people want to help, made them feel good about themselves.

  They had a show scheduled on volunteering in local communities. He wondered what the percentage increase in volunteerism would be after that show aired. Right now he had an overwhelming need to call his parents and tell them he loved them.

  Picking up the phone Duncan dialed a Chicago number.

  "Mom, it's Duncan." Her voice was always the same. He thanked God she was there and she was whole, healthy. He didn't envy Aurora and her relationship with her mother. It affected him to the point that he closed his eyes and thanked heaven for his parents.

  "Duncan!" He heard the excitement in her voice. Then the concern kicked in. "Are you all right?"

  "Of course."

  "We just watched your program,” his mother said.

  "Already?" He knew they watched it every day, although he had only been on camera once.

  "You know your father. He may be in his sixties, but he's still an eleven-year-old kid who has to have every new toy that comes along."

  Duncan chuckled. "What's he bought now?"

  "A big screen TV. Calls it high-definition, and on top of that he got a satellite dish."

  Duncan had visions of a eight-foot diameter radar-type dish sitting in his family's backyard. He hoped he was wrong, and the dish was the eighteen-inch one.

  "... says it'll pull the signal right out of the sky," his mother was saying. "He's done nothing but watch it since."

  "Hey, Duncan. Is that you?" His father got on the phone. He could see his dad wrenching the phone from his mother. He smiled at the image of loving banter created in his head. They had been that way his whole life, but up to now he hadn't realized how truly lucky he was.

  "Yeah, Dad, it's me."

  "You know that new gal...Rory? I like her a lot better. Not that I didn't like Marsha, but this Rory, now she even makes me cry."

  Duncan leaned his head against his hands. She could make him cry, too.

  "You know, Duncan, if she's anything like she is on the screen you ought to think about her." Duncan knew exactly what his father meant. Since his former marriage had broken up, his father had been the one pushing him to get married again.

  "I do, Dad."

  "What did you say?"

  "You heard me."

  "Is it serious?" He could hear his mother in the background asking what was serious.

  "I don't know yet.”

  "Do you want to protect her, Duncan? Do you wake up thinking about her, wondering if she's all right, and finding yourself rushing to her to make sure?"

  Duncan didn't want to admit he had these feelings, even to his dad. He'd been with Aurora when someone tried to hurt her and he'd been there when the pearls arrived, when she'd comforted her mother and her insides bled with the helplessness that he could not fill. It had torn him apart. Yes, he wanted to protect her.

  "You don't have to answer," his father said seriously. "I can hear it in the phone line. It's serious."

  Deadly serious, Duncan thought.

  Chapter 14

  Aurora wanted to walk, run, swim, do anything to get out of the house. The walls were closing in on her. She felt as if she were going to scream. She needed something to do, someplace to go. The phone hadn't stopped ringing since the show with Noreen Moore and her son aired. Producers, directors, and agents bombarded her with questions, offers, invitations to meetings or lunches.

  Duncan had told her it would happen. Like everything about this business it came in bursts. You were a nobody today but tomorrow the world clamored for you. She couldn't think, decide.

  She didn't know if she wanted to stay in this business. She admitted she liked being a hostess. She liked the programs that had been aired. She got to meet all kinds of interesting people from mega-stars to people like Noreen Moore.

  The phone rang again. She stared at it, afraid it would be the stalker. Often she turned on the answering machine and let it take the calls. She hadn't answered one directly since the night he had called. Now she was avoiding an array of strangers who invited her to become one of them. She couldn't distinguish a real producer from a killer over the phone. He might be smart enough to have seen the program and decided to call and have her set up an appointment with him.

  Hadn't he said he knew television? What did that mean? Was he in television? Was he here, on the set? Had she passed him going to and from the studio?

  Aurora stopped. She had to get out of here. She
was making up ghosts, seeing killers in every face. She needed something to do. Go shopping, she thought, then doused the idea. She hated shopping.

  Since the call she'd been jumpy. Why didn't whoever it was identify himself? At least she'd know what she was up against. This waiting and watching and having her heart pound each time the phone rang was too much. She looked at the instrument. In the bedroom the telephone was a standard white fixture, but now it seemed like an ominous snake ready to strike. She picked it up before it rang again and dialed Duncan's office.

  "I've got to get out of here," she said when he answered.

  "Anything wrong?"

  "I'm going stir crazy. I haven't been off this compound in days and I can't stand it anymore."

  She listened, waiting for him to sigh.

  "It’s the phone," she said. "It rings constantly. I thought this was an unlisted number. It appears that only the general public doesn't know it. Every producer, director, and agent in the business calls it directly."

  She was ready for an argument, dying for one. At least if she couldn't leave, she could vent. If he tried to stave her off this course, she'd scream so loud whoever was after her would know exactly where she was.

  "All right," he finally agreed. "Wear jeans. Get your coat and meet me in front of the studio."

  Aurora's mouth hung open as she heard the phone go dead in her ear. He was going to take her somewhere. She sprang into action, discarding the skirt and blouse she had on for a pair of jeans and a Howard University sweatshirt. Ten minutes later she came around the path leading to the studio and headed for the parking lot. Naturally suspicious, she checked the front of the building before stepping openly into the light.

  Duncan backed his car out of the space and stopped as she approached.

  "Where are we going?" she asked moments later as they sped out of Princeton heading toward Lawrenceville.

  "Mercer County Airport.”

  Airport! "Sounds like someplace good," she said hopefully. She imagined them boarding one of the smaller planes and winging over to another part of the state to spend the day.

  "You could say that.”

  "Mysterious, too."

  Mercer County Airport sat off of Interstate 95 in West Trenton. Its runways were long enough to handle small jets, commuter planes, and an occasionally 727. Aurora's father used to take her there as a child to watch the planes take off and land. She wondered why seeing planes held such a fascination for children. Maybe because flight was so against gravity. Seeing the huge, silver machines defy nature made everything possible. If planes could fly, then was there anything she couldn't do?

  "Its a flight to nowhere."

  She turned to look at Duncan. "I don't understand. I'm familiar with the cruise to nowhere. It leaves from a New York port.” She been on it several times playing the Marsha Chambers look-alike.

  "Same principle." He glanced at her. "This one is over land...about ten thousand feet over land."

  She let her mind mull that over. Ten thousand feet was below the cloud level. She checked the sky. Clear. The air was warm, in the sixties. Colder weather was predicted by the end of the week. Maybe they were flying into Philadelphia and having lunch somewhere. She decided to wait and enjoy the ride. It was a joy just to be in the car and away from The Marsha Chambers Show. Turning onto the highway Duncan accelerated to the maximum speed, and quickly the powerful car ate up the miles.

  "This is your idea of helping me get over someone threatening to kill me," she said moments later when it became apparent where they'd been heading. "I'm supposed to save the man the trouble and kill myself."

  Duncan laughed at her. "You don't have to do this."

  Aurora looked at the hangar with Skydiving Lessons painted in huge white letters on its side. "Come on, you'll love it." He took her arm and pulled her inside. Across from them was a man in a flight suit. Duncan called to him.

  He came forward and they shook hands. "After yesterday I didn't think you'd be back until the next good weather day, but I expected that would be at least a week away."

  Aurora looked from Duncan to the man. He had long, blonde hair and a cherubic face which didn't allow Aurora to guess his age. His teeth were straight and even and under the flight suit she could see he was muscular.

  "Aurora, meet Ennis Grey. We did a segment about skydiving a couple of years ago and used his school as the base."

  Aurora offered her hand only to have it swallowed by the calloused palm of Ennis Grey.

  "That segment brought me a lot of new students, Duncan included." Aurora's eyes widened and she glanced at Duncan. "He tells me you're going up for a tandem freefall."

  "A what?"

  Ennis laughed, a hearty sound that said the man enjoyed what he did. "Come on in. You have a forty-five minute class before we fly."

  He turned toward the door and she looked at Duncan. "You can back out any time before you actually go through the airplane door."

  She followed Ennis inside and found a room looking much like a classroom. It had a blackboard and ten desks floating in the center of an expanse meant for small aircraft. An engine sat discarded in the corner and cans lined the floor under windows that couldn't have been any lower than thirty feet off the ground. It smelled slightly of chalk and machine oil.

  Ennis offered her one of the desks. Apparently she was the only student today. He began teaching, telling her she would jump with Duncan—two people...one parachute. Duncan smiled when she looked at him. It was called tandem, because the two of them would be acting as if there were only one. It was the fastest way to go about skydiving. If she wanted to do more later she'd have to take a class that was at least five hours and do several jumps to be an expert.

  "You sure you want to go on?" Duncan asked.

  "You're sure he's safe?" she asked Ennis.

  "I can show you my diploma," Duncan teased.

  "All right.” Aurora nodded. She'd been bitten by the wonder bug long before Duncan ever parked the car. When her father had brought her here there was no skydiving school. However, the thought of how airplanes work and how she'd seen skydivers performing air ballets made her want to try it. Aurora was a participant, not a spectator. She loved to try new ventures. It was how she'd ended up in classes in painting, auto mechanics, and flower arranging. Why she'd attended the first interview for the Marsha Chambers look-alike. And now she was about to fall out of a plane, on purpose.

  "There will be no air ballets," Ennis cautioned. "This is a straight jump. You'll exit the plane at ten thousand feet. In forty-five seconds you'll freefall five thousand feet. The remaining five will be spent releasing the parachute and gliding to earth."

  When he finished he'd answered most of her questions, but she still had a few. "Where will we land?"

  "Right here. Behind the airport is a field we use."

  "How come the wind won't throw us off course and send us to Remington, or into the Delaware River?"

  He laughed and she knew she'd asked a "whuffo” or—as he'd already explained—a non-skydiver question. "You're remembering World War Two movies of sky jumpers."

  She had thought of that but refused to acknowledge it.

  "They had parachutes that looked like big umbrellas. The ones we'll be using are square parachutes. I say square, but they're really rectangular. These have hand controls so we can steer, and pretty much land where we want to. Another thing from the World War Two films—people landed like a sack of flour. That doesn't happen anymore. In those films, a jumper would roll, and could break a leg or some other body part."

  "Since I'll be controlling the landing," Duncan interjected, "It'll be soft enough for us to remain standing and complete it."

  Ennis took over again, completing his instruction, telling her how to breathe while falling and then pointing her in the direction of the women's locker room. She suited up in the flight suit left for her and joined both Ennis and Duncan, who were dressed exactly as she was. Duncan, however, was fastening a parachute to h
is back.

  Ennis flew the plane as Aurora sat nervously on one of the benches. Did she really want to do this? She had wanted to get out of the house, but jumping from a plane, from 10,000 feet had never crossed her mind. Did she still have a mind, or had she lost it along with her heart? She looked at Duncan.

  He took her hand. "You'll be fine," he said.

  Aurora gave him a crooked smile. Duncan stood up and pulled on gloves.

  "It's time."

  She mimicked the action, pulling her own gloves over her hands until they connected with the flight suit. Duncan pulled the door open. Air rushed inside, taking her breath away. She turned away from it. She was really going to do this, she told herself. She was going to jump from a plane in flight.

  Duncan handed her a helmet and she pulled it over her head. He snapped his strap under his chin and took a step toward her.

  "You'll love it," he said, then kissed his finger and pressed it against her mouth. "Turn around."

  She did and he attached the two of them together with the parachute.

  "Remember everything Ennis told you," he shouted above the wind. Then he walked her toward the door. Aurora took a deep breath. "Ready?"

  She wasn't sure. Looking through the door she could see the ground in the distance. Once she'd thought of the rolling green hills as a patchwork quilt. Now she looked at them as sturdy, immovable objects that would come into contact with her when she hit them.

  Duncan pushed her a step closer. She resisted, straining her neck to look at him.

  "I'm with you," he assured her.

  She turned back. The wind whipped at the small amount of hair that poked out from her helmet Duncan held her hands. They took another step together. Closer to oblivion, she thought. Suddenly she was falling. Duncan was holding her. His arms were strong about her. The tendency to close her eyes was enormous. She forced herself to keep them open. Her jaws were tightly clenched. The wind forced her body to contour to Duncan's. Her knees were bent and she held her arms out like extended wings.