Last year was the lowest point, when Geoff gave Dad a letter of resignation and asked Shona to do the same. She’d felt forced to choose between her husband and her father. She’d made the wrong choice.

Geoff was strong and confident, needing help from no one. Dad, on the other hand, had always needed her. She’d felt that if anyone could keep her father on solid ethical ground, it would be her.

How wrong could a woman be?

Lately, more and more, she’d experienced the sting of loss. Could her relationship with Geoff be rectified before the divorce was final? She had been the one to file in the first place. She’d left Geoff, guided by her anger at his defection and his ultimatum that she do the same.

Geoff had landed on his feet after resigning as Dad’s top aide. With his background and degree in communications, he was now key reporter and anchor for the six o’clock news on Jefferson City’s Channel Six.

Shona seldom missed the news these days, and yet she’d found it painful to watch. It just made her miss him more, and realize her loss more sharply.

Tonight, after the dinner, she would have a talk with Dad about her need to be independent from him. She would help him find her replacement, but after that, who knew?

She hated to leave politics altogether, though that was essentially what she would be doing. Dad was the one who had mentored her, grooming her to run for his office when he ran for the governorship.

She only knew she needed out before the compromises she made at Dad’s behest destroyed the final foundations of her character. Since the fight, she and Dad had barely communicated unless it was about work. Dad didn’t seem angry with her, just very preoccupied.

She pressed her electronic key into the plate at the side of the front door and waited for the sequence of numbers to be translated into the main computer that controlled security. The door slid open and she entered, glancing at her watch. There would barely be time to shower, change and slide into the new creation of burgundy silk she had purchased last week for this dinner.

First, she would find Dad and remind him of the Armani he was to wear tonight—understated dark gray, but with a fit that hinted at the power behind the façade. As always, any time he was in public, he wanted to dress the part. He had little fashion sense, much like Karah Lee, Shona’s younger sister.

Halfway across the formal dining room en route to the kitchen, Shona spotted something on the floor. It looked as if someone had spilled some of dark red paint with which a paint crew was doing a touch-up job on the garage.

She winced at the thought of her father’s reaction when he saw it. Kemper had never had a lot of patience with mistakes or messes.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, had Friday afternoons off, and so Shona pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen to find a paper towel with which to clean the mess.

“Dad?” she called.

No answer, of course. He was probably upstairs in his suite showering.