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 as a state senator 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 her showdown with her father in the Capitol Building 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, 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 house, working on his behalf. So now, she was not only grieving the loss of her marriage, but also her home, as well as the increasingly unethical choices Dad had been making lately — of which she saw too much from her front-row seat here at the mansion.

As her father's top aide/personal assistant, Shona topped the senator's short list of confidants, for Kemper MacDonald trusted few people in this town — or even in the whole state of Missouri.

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

Other guest