Mirror Image by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

it will be fully restored, but I want you to hear it from me. I'll make you look like a better Carole Rutledge than you were before."
    Beneath the bandages, her body tensed. She tried to shake her head vigorously, and she began to make desperate guttural sounds.
    "What the hell is she trying to say?" Tate asked the doctor.
    "That she doesn't believe me," he calmly replied. "She's frightened. That's customary." He leaned over her. "Most of the pain you're experiencing is from the burns, but they're superficial. The burn specialist here at the hospital is treating them with antibiotics. I'm going to delay surgery until the risk of infection both to your skin and your lungs is minimal.
    "It will be a week or two before you can move your hands. You'll start physical therapy then. The damage isn't permanent, I assure you."
    He bent down closer. "Now, let's talk about your face. X-rays were taken while you were still unconscious. I've studied them. I know what must be done. I have a staff of excellent surgeons who will assist me during the operation."
    He touched her face with the tip of his ballpoint pen, as though tracing over the bandages. "We'll rebuild your nose and cheekbones by using bone grafts. Your jaw will be put back into place with pins, screws, and wires. I've got a whole bag of tricks.
    "You'll have an invisible scar across the top of your head from temple to temple. We'll also make incisions beneath each eye at the lash line. They're invisible, too. Some of the work on your nose will be done from inside, so there will be no scars at all there.
    "After the surgery you'll be swollen and bruised and you'll generally look like hell. Be prepared for that. It will take a few weeks before you're a raving beauty again."
    "What about her hair, Dr. Sawyer?" Zee asked.
    "I'll have to shave off a patch because I'll be taking a graft from her skull to use as part of her new nose. But if you're asking if the hair that was burned off will grow back, the burn specialist says yes. That's the least of our problems," he said, smiling down into the bandaged face.
    "You won't be eating solid foods for a while, I'm afraid. A prosthodontist will take out the roots of your teeth during the surgery and install implants. Two or three weeks later, you'll get your new teeth, which he'll make to look exactly like the ones you lost. Until you get the replacements, you'll be fed through a tube from your mouth to your stomach, then progress to a soft diet."
    Tate noticed, even if the surgeon failed to acknowledge it, that Carole's eye was roving as though looking for a friend among them, or possibly a means of escape. He kept telling himself that Sawyer knew what he was doing. The surgeon might be accustomed to anxiety like this among his patients, but it was as disturbing as hell to Tate.
    Sawyer extracted a glossy eight-by-ten color photograph from the folder he had carried in with him. "I want you to look at this, Mrs. Rutledge." It was a picture of Carole. She was smiling the beguiling smile that had caused Tate to fall in love with her. Her eyes were shining and mischievous. Glossy dark hair framed her face.
    "It'll be an all day, bring-your lunch operation," he told her, "but my staff and I will fix you up. Give us eight to ten weeks from the day of your surgery and this is what you'll look like, only younger and prettier, and with shorter hair. Who could ask for more than that?"
    Apparently Carole could. Tate noticed that, rather than assuaging her fears, the surgeon's visit had seemed to heighten them.
    Avery tried moving her extremities and coaxing motion out of her fingers and toes, but her limbs still felt too heavy to lift. She couldn't move her head at all. Meanwhile, each passing minute brought her closer to a disaster she seemed incapable of preventing.
    For days—it was difficult to calculate exactly how many, but she guessed around ten—she had tried to figure out a means of letting everyone else in on the truth that only she