Chapter 1

It’s time to get a new life.

Shona Tremaine tapped the brake and turned into the curving, tree-lined drive that led to her father’s mansion. For now it was home to her, but a break was coming soon.

She needed to distance herself from the cutting edge of Dad’s politics in Jefferson City, Missouri. That edge was serrated, and she had allowed it to slice right down the middle of her marriage—and everything else in her life.

Two weeks ago had been the final straw, and their showdown had been loud and public. How could she have let that happen? She knew better, but she’d been so furious with Dad for breaking a promise to his constituents that for once she couldn’t help herself.

When she and Geoff separated last year, for some reason it had made sense to her to move into her old bedroom suite in Dad’s massive home. She spent a lot of time in his office in that very house on his behalf. So now, not only was she grieving the loss of her marriage, she was grieving the increasingly bad choices Dad had been making lately—she saw too much from her front row seat here at the mansion.

State Senator Kemper MacDonald trusted few people in this town—or even in the whole state of Missouri. As his top aide/personal assistant, Shona topped that short list.

Instead of pulling into the five-car garage in back, she parked her white Cadillac Escalade beneath the willow trees in front of the mansion. She and Dad would be guests at a dinner hosted by the Citizens for a Drug Free Missouri.

Other guests were members of the Drug Task Force, including State Representative Paul Forester, one of Dad’s oldest and dearest hunting buddies. His son had been in a residency program with Karah Lee, and for a while, Paul and Dad had hoped there might be a romance between them. It never happened.

Also attending was State Representative Linda Plinkett, with whom Shona suspected Dad had been fraternizing quite often in the past months. Dad and Linda had been friends for many years, as well. Missouri politics was a tight, if often uneasy, community.

Tonight would be interesting, since Dad and Linda had barely spoken to one another in the past two weeks. They’d even avoided eye contact when in the same room. In fact, Shona had noticed this sudden coolness soon after her own fight with Dad.

Very curious, indeed.

As Shona stepped from her SUV into the cooling air this Friday evening, mature oaks, maples, and majestic broadleaf pines whispered to her on the breeze. May had always been one of her favorite months, and this one promised to be a particularly fine one. She wished she had time to properly appreciate it.

She ascended the wide steps to the verandah, unable to resist a glance toward the state capitol building to the west, its white dome turning pink and gold in the glow of the setting sun. Below, the Missouri River meandered with lazy abandon in its journey toward the Mississippi.

She’d always loved this city. For many years she had loved her job, working with Dad and Geoff to serve the residents of Missouri.

As time passed, however, she and Geoff both realized Dad was losing the ideals with which he had begun his career. His professional ethics had gone the way of his personal ethics.

Why should she have been surprised?