Under Suspicion
Under Suspicion
Hannah Alexander
A KILLER LURKS IN THE SHADOWS… UNTIL IT'S TIME TO STRIKE AGAIN.When a prominent senator is murdered in his own home, his daughter Shona Tremaine becomes the prime suspect in his death. Only her estranged husband, Geoff, and younger sister, Karah Lee, believe in her innocence–until an attempt on Shona's own life clears her name.Who would want her dead? As Shona and Geoff work together to solve the mystery, they uncover a web of deceit and corruption in her father's life–and discover the love they thought they'd lost. But will their renewed commitment be enough to save Shona's life?
It looked as if someone had spilled red paint.
As she dabbed at the spot, it came up easily. “Is anyone here?” Shona called, feeling a twinge of unease.
The stain looked like blood.
“Dad?” she called more loudly as she rushed through the kitchen. She saw another splotch of red by the stairs.
Following one droplet after another, Shona climbed to the second floor. In the dim light she saw a dark form splayed at the head of the stairs.
“Dad!” She rushed to him and fell to her knees at his side.
Blood streaked down his face from his nose and caked his thick gray hair. He opened his eyes and tried to speak.
Shona pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called 9-1-1.
“Please hurry,” she said to the dispatcher over the telephone. “My father is in bad shape.”
As the voice reassured her that help would be there soon, she wanted to scream. Soon might be too late.
HANNAH ALEXANDER
is the pseudonym of husband-and-wife writing team Cheryl and Mel Hodde (pronounced “Hoddee”). When they first met, Mel had just begun his new job as an E.R. doctor in Cheryl’s hometown, and Cheryl was working on a novel. Cheryl’s matchmaking pastor set them up on an unexpected blind date at a local restaurant. Surprised by the sneak attack, Cheryl blurted the first thing that occurred to her, “You’re a doctor? Could you help me paralyze someone?” Mel was shocked. “Only temporarily, of course,” she explained when she saw his expression. “And only fictitiously. I’m writing a novel.”
They began brainstorming immediately. Eighteen months later they were married, and the novels they set in fictitious Ozark towns began to sell. The first novel of the series, Hideaway, published in the Steeple Hill Women’s Fiction program, won the prestigious Christy Award for Best Romance in 2004.
Under Suspicion
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
—Proverbs 3:5–6
Many thanks to Lorene Cook for living a life of love and giving that constantly inspires us. Thanks to Harry Styron, attorney-at-law, for supplying vital personal and professional information for this story. Thanks, as always, to Joan Marlow Golan and our other wonderful editors for gently helping us bring this story to life. Thanks to Nancy Moser, Till Fell, Colleen and Dave Coble, Stephanie and Dan Higgins, Rene Gutteridge, Judy Miller and Deborah Raney for the great brainstorm session. Thanks to Barbara Warren, Jackie Bolton and Bonnie Schmidt for your valuable input.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ONE
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 guests were members of the Drug Task Force, including State Representative Paul Forester, one of Dad’s dearest friends, an old hunting buddy. Paul—who had dropped out of medical school thirty years ago—had a son who had been in a medical residency program with Shona’s younger sister Karah Lee. For a while, the two fathers had hoped there might be a romance between their children. It never happened. But to Shona, the Foresters would always be like family.
Also attending was another of Dad’s old friends, State Representative Linda Plinkett. Shona suspected her father had been fraternizing with Linda quite often in the past months, until very recently. Missouri politics was a tight, if often uneasy, community.
Tonight would be interesting, Shona mused, since Dad and Linda had barely spoken to one another in the past two weeks. They’d even been avoiding 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 particularly fine. She wished she had time to appreciate it properly.
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 her father and her husband to serve the residents of Missouri.
As time passed, however, she and Geoff had both realized that Dad was losing the ideals with which he had begun his career. His professional ethics had gone the way of his personal morals.
Why should she have been surprised?
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. And 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 been experiencing 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, spurred 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 a reporter and anchor for the six-o’clock news on Jefferson City’s Channel 6.
Shona seldom missed the news these days, and yet she found it painful to watch. It just made her miss her husband 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 officially resign and offer to 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 Senate office when he made his bid 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 what he was to wear tonight—the understated dark gray Armani suit, with a fit that hinted at the power behind the facade. Whenever he was in public, he wanted to dress the part, although he had little fashion sense, much like Karah Lee, his younger daughter.
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 the dark red paint that a crew had been using for a touch-up job on the garage.
She winced at the thought of her father’s reaction when he saw it. Kemper MacDonald had never had a lot of patience with mistakes or messes.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, had Friday afternoons off, so Shona didn’t call out. She pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen to get a paper towel to clean the mess.
Her father was probably upstairs in his suite, showering.
She dabbed at the spot. It came up easily. It was obviously fresh. Examining the paper towel more closely, she felt a twinge of unease. She sniffed it. Not paint. Not catsup. Was that a coppery scent?
Don’t panic. It’s your imagination. Dad has always teased you about your vivid imagination. She tossed the paper towel in the trash as she rushed through the kitchen, suddenly noticing another splotch of red by the back door.
Following one droplet after another, she turned left into Dad’s home office. In the dim light of the setting sun, she saw a human form—a man—splayed on the floor, faceup, between a corner of the desk and the French windows. A stain of blood fanned out from beneath his head.
Shona’s breath stopped.
“Dad!” She rushed to him and fell to her knees at his side. “Dad?”
Blood streaked down his face, running from his nose, pooling in his thick, silvery hair. His eyes came open as if with great effort, and he tried to speak. Blood speckled his teeth.
Shona forced herself not to cry out. “Dad, hold on. I’ll call for help.” She reached for the cordless desk phone. It wasn’t in its cradle. Dad must have tried to call for help and dropped it somewhere. She pulled her cell phone from her purse and punched in 911.
“Shot…” her father murmured, his voice a hushed croak.
“What do you mean? Did someone shoot you?”
He grimaced, more blood dribbling down his chin. “Get away from…Geoff….”
The dispatcher came on the line, and Shona asked for an ambulance. “My father is badly injured. He says he’s been shot.” As the dispatcher asked for more information, Dad grabbed her by the arm. His sleeve slid back, and she saw a hideous bruise on his forearm, black and swollen. Shot? He looked as if he’d been beaten.
“Hang on, Dad. Help’s coming.”
“You need your little one…get…away…” His eyes glazed over and his face fell slack.
“No. Dad, stay with me!”
More blood trickled down his face from his nose. His head fell sideways, and she saw a huge bruise on the side of his face. His whole body was hemorrhaging.
She felt for a pulse at his carotid artery. His heart was still beating, and his warm breath touched her face when she leaned close.
“Please,” she said to the dispatcher over the telephone. “My father is in bad shape. Tell them to hurry.”
As the voice reassured her that help would be there soon, Shona wanted to scream. Soon might be too late.
TWO
Geoff Tremaine faced the camera and read the final words of the evening newscast from the telepromter. His image would continue to be present for a few moments in homes throughout the central Missouri viewing area. It was a concept to which he still had not grown completely accustomed, and he tended to avoid watching himself on television.
He said good-night and held his smile until the lights dimmed.
Once, the camera crew had continued filming after the director told them to cut, and Geoff’s coanchor had made a snide comment about the governor. That coanchor no longer had a job with this station. Competition was fierce in the broadcasting business; deadly mistakes were not tolerated.
Because of the competition, Geoff considered himself fortunate to be an anchor after working full-time at Channel 6 for only a year. He tried to convince himself that his split with Kemper MacDonald had not been the reason he’d landed the job, but sometimes he wondered. Most television stations preferred younger talent. Though thirty-eight wasn’t exactly over the hill, television cameras did tend to emphasize age.
He knew he had established himself here; he now carried his own weight. Nonetheless, he had always suspected that his initial employment with this station had come about because the director, Wendy Phillips, had long held animosity toward Kemper MacDonald.
His coworkers had implied she might have had other reasons, as well. Tall and statuesque, with a strong will and the ability to lead a diverse news team, Wendy usually got what she wanted. She had never made a secret of the fact that she found him attractive.
Geoff loosened his tie and shrugged out of his sport coat before opening the door to his dressing room. The lights on the set were hot, and one of the challenges during the show was to keep perspiration to a minimum.
Before he could step through the door, a familiar contralto called to him from the hallway.
“Heads up, Tremaine. We need you on a scene.”
He turned to see Wendy quick-stepping toward him, her face slightly flushed with that familiar, excited look she got when a good story landed in her lap. Wendy was considered beautiful by most standards, with her slightly tilted dark eyes and fiery highlights in her golden brown hair. Geoff had always kept her at arm’s length, even more so in the past few weeks.
“Sally just called from the scanner room,” she said, as always stepping slightly too close, invading his personal space. “There’s an ambulance on its way to Kemper MacDonald’s address.”
Geoff stiffened. “Kemper? What happened?”
“They say his daughter called 911.” Wendy’s perfume, with a hint of sweet spice, wafted around her even at the end of a long day. “The senator’s been injured. His daughter reported something about a shooting, so I’m sure the police are already swarming the place.”
Geoff reached back to the rack for his coat and pulled it on again. “Someone shot Kemper? What about Shona? Is she okay?”
“Nothing was said about her, it’s the senator everyone will be concerned about.”
He tossed her a glance over his shoulder. “You do realize we’re talking about my wife.” He heard the chill in his voice, but was unable to warm it, even as Wendy’s eyes narrowed at him. She always demanded respect for her authority, brooking no argument from anyone—except, occasionally, from him. He didn’t exploit his advantage, but he did disagree with her when he felt it was appropriate.
“I thought you were divorced,” she said.
“Separated.” Big difference. At least, to him. “I care very much about what happens to my wife.”
Wendy’s dark gaze slid away from him. “Obviously if she’s the one who called for help, she’s okay. They’re taking Senator MacDonald to Bradley-Cline Hospital. Why don’t you go intercept them?”
“Why Bradley-Cline? St. Mary’s is closer.”
“That isn’t our concern. We have a camera crew out right now, so I’ll send them to meet you there. You know other stations will already be scrambling to get their crews to the hospital, to try to get a statement from the doctor or the daughter or any other family members who might be there.”
“What about the mansion?”
“We’ll be covering that, too. I want you at the hospital.”
“I’m on my way, but I warn you, this is still my family, and I may not be the most unbiased—”
“Just get there.” Her impatience surfaced with her words. “You’ll have an insider’s view that no other station can provide, and the whole region knows about your relationship with Shona. We’ve got the advantage.”
Geoff winced at the eagerness in her voice as he turned to leave.
“Let me know as soon as you find out anything,” Wendy called as he rushed down the hallway. “And take a recorder with you. The hospital won’t allow a camera crew into the ER.”
He grimaced. She was hallucinating if she thought he would stick a tape recorder under his father-in-law’s nose at the hospital and ask him how he felt.
They called that kind of interviewing technique “a Sally” at the station because once, in the field, Channel 6’s reporter, Sally Newton, had held a microphone in the face of a man who was watching his home burn with his wife in it. In the excitement of the moment, Sally had not only betrayed her eagerness for a story, but had neglected to school her face to show proper respect for the man’s agony. She’d smiled pertly for the camera, and the man’s mother had promptly socked her in her pretty mouth.
Sally Newton’s public exposure had been greatly reduced since then.
As soon as Geoff climbed into his truck, he set his cell phone on its cradle and hit Shona’s speed dial.
Shona’s hands shook so badly she could barely hold on to the steering wheel. She was guided only by the flashing lights on the big, boxy ambulance in front of her as it led the way to Bradley-Cline Hospital.
Would Dad even make it there? The blood had been so horrifying…so much of it.
What would cause a person to bleed out like that?
Her cell phone beeped. It was the VIP chime for a high-priority number. Only two people had numbers programmed to that particular tune. One was a passenger in the ambulance ahead of her. This caller could only be Geoff.
With shaking hands, Shona pulled the phone from her pocket, ignoring the hands-free law, and brought the phone to her face. “Geoff?”
“Are you okay?”
The deep timbre of his voice, filled with concern, forged past her controls. Tears sprang to her eyes. The road blurred before her. “I can’t talk right now. Dad’s…something’s wrong with him.”
“A report said he’d been shot. How bad is it?”
“There was no sign of an entry wound.” The paramedics hadn’t wasted a lot of time looking, but if there were a wound, it would have been bleeding. Every orifice in his body seemed to be hemorrhaging, but no bullet wound was evident. “The police are inspecting the mansion.”
“Is there someone with you?”
“No, I was told a detective will join me at the hospital.”
“I’m on my way there now.”
She frowned. Of course, Geoff would have already been informed about it. Breaking news was his business, and there were scanners at the station to get a jump on anything newsworthy. She hadn’t thought about that. The hospital would be crawling with reporters looking for her.
She wasn’t well acquainted with Bradley-Cline. It was the newest, state-of-the-art hospital in the area that had begun to give St. Mary’s and Capitol Region Medical Center some relief for their overworked staffs and overburdened facilities.
“Geoff, don’t make this a public spectacle.”
“You know I’ll do my best to keep any interviews tasteful and gentle.”
She caught her tongue between her teeth. She wasn’t up to this. “Look, I’m barely functioning. You either come to the hospital as a concerned family member, or stay away.”
“Someone will show up anyway. Wouldn’t you rather it be me?”
“Why would I?”
“Because I’ll keep everything off the record that you want off the record, and I won’t misquote you. I wouldn’t be doing this, but Wendy’s pulling rank.”
“If you come to the hospital as a reporter, you’ll be treated as a reporter. You’re not taking advantage of your connection to me in order to build ratings for Wendy Phillips.”
“That isn’t the reason I’m coming.”
“Then leave your job at the door, just as you asked me to do, Geoffrey Tremaine.”
“Shona, I want to be there for you. At the same time, I don’t want someone else approaching you from my station. Reports will be made, one way or the other. I want to give a fair one, for your sake, and for Kemper’s.”
She knew his argument made sense. “Off the record, I don’t know if Dad’s even going to make it to the hospital,” she said. Brake lights flashed ahead. She barely saw them in time to stop. Her tires squealed. Why weren’t they taking her father to the closest hospital? St. Mary’s was excellent.
“I’ll call Karah Lee for you,” Geoff said.
“No,” she snapped. “Stay out of this.”
“You shouldn’t be alone, and your sister deserves to know what’s happening.”
“Why?” Karah Lee had chosen to distance herself from their father from the moment of Mom and Dad’s divorce. Not only had she refused financial assistance from Dad for college, but she had also, in a fit of rebellion that had broken Dad’s heart, taken her mother’s maiden name. She barely knew Dad’s second wife, Irene. To be fair, neither did Shona. The woman had taken little interest in her stepdaughters. And now, Dad and Irene were separated. Shona had no intention of calling her, either.
“This isn’t your affair anymore, Geoff,” Shona said.
“I’m still family. I’ll see you at the hospital in a few minutes,” he said gently. “Meanwhile, I’ll call Karah Lee.”
“Geoff, I don’t—”
He disconnected. She started to toss her cell phone on the seat beside her. Instead, she dialed 911 again.
“Yes, this is Shona Tremaine. I’m currently following the ambulance unit 948 to Bradley-Cline Hospital. I need you to contact that ambulance via private line and redirect them to St. Mary’s. That’s where I want my father taken. It’s closer. Also would you redirect the police to St. Mary’s, on a private line, as well? I don’t want anyone else to know my father’s location.” Not Geoff. Not Karah Lee. Not Irene.
After the dispatcher agreed to do as she asked—sometimes political power had its perks—Shona expressed her thanks, disconnected and tossed the phone onto the seat, focusing on the lights ahead.
Geoff Tremaine could cool his heels at the fancy new hospital. Meanwhile, Dad would have the best of care at a place she trusted. She should have insisted on St. Mary’s from the beginning.
THREE
Karah Lee Fletcher sat in front of the picture window in her lakeside cottage on the edge of Hideaway. She tried hard not to be distracted by the magnificent purples and deep indigoes of the evening sky at late sunset. There was work to be done.
This evening, it was her job to look fascinated by the display of material samples spread out before her on the coffee table. Bored already, she tapped her foot in time with the music her foster daughter had playing on the CD.
“I’m not wearing pink.” Fawn held up a swatch of hot pink satin. “Unless it’s this.”
Karah Lee tore her gaze from the window scene and studied the brilliant, shimmery material. “Looks good to me.”
Fawn rolled her eyes. “Do you realize how badly this color would clash with that red hair of yours?”
“So? You’d be the one wearing it, not me.”
“But you’ll be the bride. Everything should focus on you on your wedding day. You’re one of those people who should never be allowed out on the street before they check in with the fashion police.”
“And you, of course, would be my own personal fashion police, I suppose.”
“Well, sure, you can do that now, but what are you going to do when I’m in college this fall?” Fawn combed her fingers through her short blond hair, eyeing Karah Lee with a devious grin.
“I guess I’ll just have to live in my scrubs. You’ll be home in the evenings, so you can prevent disaster.”
“Only if you can get me a car before I start school. I can’t exactly walk there from here.”
“You can use my car or ride with Blaze.” Since Karah Lee merely had to walk across the street and up two blocks for work and groceries, she seldom needed to drive these days.
Fawn grumbled, but she did so with good nature. By the time she started college, Karah Lee and Taylor would be married. Fawn had made it clear that the wedding was going to be her priority from now until the final vows were spoken. Thanks to Fawn, heaven and everyone in Hideaway knew Karah Lee wasn’t capable of planning and executing a wedding of the caliber everyone expected without a great deal of help from friends.
Karah Lee was not a style maven, nor did she wish to become one at this stage of her life. At thirty-four, she was set in her ways and happy with that.
Fawn’s entry into her life still filled her with awe and gratitude. As a sixteen-year-old runaway last year, Fawn had witnessed a murder in Branson—one of the last places on earth one would expect a murder. When she had arrived here in Hideaway—a stow-away on a tour bus filled with senior citizens—she’d been sick, in the middle of a miscarriage.
Karah Lee had become her guardian with a great deal of trepidation, after discovering that the teenager’s home life was unbearable. Her mother didn’t want her back.
What a blessing Fawn Morrison had been in Karah Lee’s life since then.
The telephone rang before Fawn could launch into a long-winded explanation about why she needed her own car, and her plan about how to pay for it while working at the school for her tuition.
Karah Lee answered quickly. “This is Dr. Fletcher.”
“Karah Lee?” came a familiar male voice. It was her brother-in-law.
“Geoff?”
“I take it Shona hasn’t called you.”
At the sound of urgency in Geoff’s voice, and the mention of her sister’s name, Karah Lee braced herself. Typically, when a phone call concerned her family, things got tense in a hurry.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Your father is being taken to the hospital at this moment.”
“What happened? Where’s Shona?”
“She’s on her way there, as well. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him yet. Earlier, it was suggested he might have been shot.”
Karah Lee’s grip tightened on the receiver. “Shot? Like, with a gun?”
Fawn looked up, then got up from the table and walked to Karah Lee’s side. “What is it?” she whispered.
Karah Lee placed a hand on her arm, more for strength than to silence her.
“I’m sorry,” Geoff said. “I don’t know more than that. As I said, Shona is on her way to the hospital. She isn’t doing well. You know she doesn’t get rattled easily.” There was a pause. “She isn’t sure Kemper’s going to make it.”
Karah Lee caught her breath. Shona thought Dad’s life was in danger?
“Karah Lee, is there any way you could—”
“I’ll be on my way shortly.”
“It’s a little after seven now.” There was a pause. “You might want to be prepared for the worst.”
At that moment, Karah Lee realized that she never would be.
Shona rushed to the ER reception desk, breathless from her run from the parking lot. “I need to see my father, Kemper MacDonald. He was just brought in by ambulance.”
“Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry,” the secretary said gently. “Your father is in critical condition in the trauma room. They’re doing everything they—”
Shona saw the door to the ER swing open as someone stepped out. She rushed forward and grabbed it before it could close and lock her out.
An older nurse looked up from her work at the busy central desk and intercepted Shona. “May I help you?”
“I need to find the trauma—” Shona spotted a room where several medical personnel were gathered and headed in that direction.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, rushing forward to catch her by the arm. “You can’t go in there right now. We’ll call a chaplain and show you to the family waiting room.”
“Kemper MacDonald is my father. My name is Shona Tremaine.”
“I know who you are, ma’am. I’ve seen you on the news.”
Shona tried to pull free, but found the woman surprisingly strong. “Please, I need to get to him.”
“Not right now, you don’t,” the nurse assured her gently. “They’re attempting to resuscitate him.”
Shona gasped. The room threatened to fade around her. “Resuscitate! He’s dead?”
“I assure you, they’re doing everything they can. He’s unresponsive right now. We’ll do our best to keep you updated.”
“Please.” Shona took a deep breath to steady herself. “I need to be there. The doctor may have questions only I can answer. I live with my father, and I know more about him than anyone. I promise not to get in the way.”
The woman’s grip eased slightly, the lines around her brown eyes deepening as she focused on Shona, as if to measure her words. “It isn’t a pretty sight.”
“I’m the one who found him. I don’t expect it to be pleasant.”
The nurse nodded and released Shona’s arm, though with obvious reluctance. “You can stand by the window over there, but don’t get in the doorway. There’ll be people coming in and out.”
“The press may come looking for me here. Would you please not give out any information about my father?”
“It’s against federal regulations to do so, Mrs. Tremaine. Anyone who does will be fired.”
Shona nodded. “Thank you. My…husband may show up looking for me. His name is—”
“Geoff Tremaine? He won’t be hard to recognize. Do you want us to let him know where you are?”
She wanted her husband, Geoff, not the reporter. She sighed. “If he does show up, it’s okay, but no camera team, and no one except Geoff.”
“We wouldn’t do it any other way.”
Shona thanked her. She knew her switch wouldn’t deter him for long. He would figure out soon enough where she had taken Dad.
Steeling herself for what she might see, Shona rushed to the trauma room and tried to peer in the glass windows through small gaps between the slats in a blind.
She could see little except medical equipment, a monitor and people in multicolored scrubs and masks standing around the trauma bed. She strained to hear anything encouraging through the verbal cacophony that filtered through the door.
“Central line is in. Stop CPR. What’s the rhythm?”
“Still PEA.”
Shona caught her breath. She’d learned enough from her sister to know that meant pulseless electrical activity.
Very bad.
“Continue CPR.”
“Got it.”
“We need to push some volume back into his circulation. Get that O negative blood in now. How much longer on those four units of fresh frozen plasma?”
“Lab said just a few more minutes. They have to thaw them first.”
“Where’s the 20 milligrams of vitamin K? I wanted it stat.”
“Right here, Dr. Morris.”
“Give it IV push.”
“But doctor, what about the risk—”
“I’m not worried about the risk of anaphylactic shock at this point, Carrie.” There was tension in the doctor’s voice. “He’s bleeding to death, and we don’t know what’s causing it. He needs it IV. Now. And someone see if there’s a family member here who knows what’s going on.”
Shona caught her breath. “I’m his daughter!” she called, stepping to the door. She gasped, suddenly overwhelmed by what she saw.
Blood. There was blood everywhere, on the bed, on Dad’s body, on the hands of the staff, on the instruments they were using on Dad’s hideously battered flesh.
Without warning, a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. She turned away, doubling over, fighting to keep her gorge down.
Someone caught her from behind and placed a basin in front of her just in time.
“That’s why we don’t like people coming back at times like this,” came the gentle-sad voice of the older nurse as Shona gave up all pretense of dignity.
Past humiliation, Shona retched, miserable and terrified. No one could bleed as much as Dad was doing and live. She was losing him.
Geoff raced into the parking lot of the ER at Bradley-Cline Hospital and pulled into a nearby slot, scanning the area for Shona’s Escalade or Kemper’s Seville, which she often drove. He recognized none of the vehicles.
He frowned at the ambulance bay. There was no way he could have beat the ambulance here, but he couldn’t have been so far behind them that the ambulance was already gone, could he?
It was possible, if they had another hot call.
Still…something didn’t feel right. Shona’s car should be here. She had been following the ambulance when he spoke to her; he’d heard the siren over the line.
She might have parked elsewhere in an effort to avoid notice, as much as possible. Her car and Kemper’s had government plates.
While waiting for the camera crew, Geoff parked and went inside to check with the receptionist.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he asked about Kemper’s arrival. “We’re unaware of anyone here by that name.”
He didn’t argue, but returned to his car, backed out of the slot and cruised slowly around the parking lot. He saw nothing familiar. He dialed Shona’s number again, but she didn’t answer. He did recognize a film crew from Channel 32, and a newspaper reporter for the Jefferson City Herald. He was sure more reporters would be arriving soon.
His own camera crew had not yet made it here, and he had a sneaking suspicion they wouldn’t have anything to film once they arrived. He knew Shona too well. She didn’t want a media circus tonight.
Typically, she was gracious and outgoing to all members of the media, as was her father. This was different. He couldn’t blame her for wanting her privacy during this crisis.
Instead of calling Wendy, which he knew would be expected of him with this switch, he pulled from the parking lot and turned left, in the direction of St. Mary’s. Traditionally, Shona’s family had always used that hospital. He would follow his hunch without alerting others.
FOUR
After the nurse carried away the basin, Shona collapsed gratefully in a chair someone pushed over from the central desk.
Another member of medical staff in bloodstained blue scrubs knelt beside her, his eyes compassionate, but his tone brisk. “Ma’am, does your father have any history of hemophilia?”
“No.” Didn’t he think she would have told them immediately if that were the case?
“Does he take any kind of blood thinner like Coumadin? Or a lot of aspirin?”
“Nothing like that. He seldom even takes a painkiller.” Shona accepted some wet paper towels from an aide and dabbed at her face and mouth.
“Has he been ill recently, running a high fever?”
“No. He had a cold, but nothing serious. Please, do you know what’s happening?”
The man shook his head. “That’s what we’re still trying to find out.” He returned to the trauma room.
“Got something here, Dr. Morris,” someone said. “He could be coming back around. We’ve got a better rhythm.”
“Stop CPR. Is there a pulse?”
There was a waiting silence for a few seconds.
“No, Doctor.”
“Okay, continue CPR.”
Shona couldn’t take it. She had always thought she would be strong in a situation like this. She wasn’t. She had never felt so alone in her life.
Geoff pulled into St. Mary’s parking lot behind a police car. He saw another unmarked car at the curb, and an ambulance hovered in the bay, as if it had recently made a delivery. He was pretty sure he had found the right place, though Shona’s vehicle was not in sight.
As he pulled into an empty spot, his cell phone beeped. He checked the screen and saw Wendy’s number.
He pressed the talk button. “Wendy, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. Do you mind if I call you back—”
“Where are you?” Her words were clipped, impatient.
“I’m at the hospital.”
“No, you aren’t. The crew can’t find you.”
“I think the ambulance was diverted to another hospital.”
“Which one?”
“I’m at St. Mary’s right now, but I haven’t made it inside, and they have a sign at the entrance that requests we turn all cell phones off. I’ll call you as soon as—”
“We didn’t hear about it on the scanner.”
“They could have used a private line. I’m not sure yet. I’m checking it out now, but it’s obvious Shona doesn’t want media attention right now.”
“She doesn’t have the liberty to pick and choose when she receives coverage and when she doesn’t,” Wendy snapped.
Geoff gritted his teeth. Careful, Wendy, your antagonism is showing. “You know the hospital won’t allow a crew into the emergency department,” he said. “I’m sure Shona won’t leave her father’s side. On the other hand, there will be lights flashing and police cars lining the street around the MacDonald mansion. What’s going to give us better ratings?”
There was a buzzing silence, then a sharp sigh. “Fine. We already have a crew at the mansion, but I need you there to report. I don’t want to trust Sally with this.”
“Can’t Megan or Emily do it? I need to be with my family right now, Wendy.”
“You have a job to do, Tremaine. I suggest you follow orders if you want to keep your cushy position with all its perks.”
He swallowed a sharp retort. “Think about the ratings. If Megan comes on the screen live from the MacDonald mansion, filling in for Geoff Tremaine, who’s with his wife and father-in-law at the hospital, don’t you think that’s going to catch the attention of viewers?”
“Not as well as Geoff Tremaine himself.”
“But what if your man on the scene is able to get exclusive, timely updates from the source?”
There was another thoughtful pause. Wendy could ride roughshod over everyone when she wanted her way, but she did, on occasion, accept input. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”
He got out of the car, locked it, and started toward the ER entrance, dropping his keys into his right front pocket. “Is it working?”
Another sigh. “Call me when you find something out. Anything.”
“Thanks, Wendy, you’re all heart.”
“No, I just want that exclusive. Make time while you can. The others will catch on soon enough.”
He disconnected and slid the phone into his jacket pocket.
Shona looked up to see a man coming toward her. He wore a navy suit without a tie, and she recognized him as a police detective with whom she had spoken a couple of times in the past.
“Mrs. Tremaine? I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Detective Milt Davis. Are you okay?” He bent toward her, his eyes filled with concern.
She nodded and stood, reaching to shake his hand, allowing her public persona to settle into place even as the hospital crew battled for her father’s life. It felt like a physical weight.
“Of course, Milt. You’ve called me Shona in the past. I hope that hasn’t changed.”
The man was tall and slender, with graying hair around the temples and a lined face that emphasized his fiftysomething years of age combined with long hours on the force. He glanced toward the trauma room, where the staff continued to work over their patient. At least, they were still working.
“Thank you for calling to alert us to your change of location. I hate to interrupt you at a time like this,” he said, “but when you called for help initially, you suggested that this might have been a shooting. If that’s so, we need to follow any leads we can find as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll tell you everything I can,” she said. “Which is very little.”
Milt Davis spoke briefly with a nearby nurse, then led Shona to a conference room down the corridor.
“I’m afraid I’m not focusing very well,” Shona said, seating herself in a vinyl chair at the table.
“That’s understandable.” He took out his recorder and a notebook and asked her permission to tape their conversation. “Tell me what happened.”
“Dad wasn’t very coherent when I found him, and what he said didn’t make sense to me. If he was shot, no one has found a bullet wound. The blood was everywhere, coming from his nose, his teeth, bruising under his skin, but no wound, so that makes it clear to me that he must have been talking about something else.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through this. I know it’s been awful for you, but just because there is no evidence of a shooting doesn’t mean we’re willing to rule out foul play. When did you first notice something was wrong?”
Karah Lee pressed her foot on the imaginary brake on the passenger’s side, gripping the armrest with her right hand. “Fawn, it’s a good four hours to Jefferson City on a clear day. Don’t try to make it in an hour at night.”
“I can do it in less than four. You drive like my great-grandma.”
“She’s probably still alive, too. Which we won’t be if you don’t slow down.”
Instead of arguing as she normally did, Fawn allowed the car to slow enough that they took the next curve on all four wheels. Karah Lee loosened her death grip on the armrest and flexed the cramping muscles of her right foot.
“You doing okay?” Fawn asked.
“I’m trying not to think about things. It would help if I could drive.”
“You’re upset. You don’t need to be distracted with driving when you’re so upset. Older people don’t focus as well as—”
“Don’t start with me, young lady. Thirty-four isn’t old. You’re just looking for an excuse to drive, and I think using my anxiety as an excuse is reprehensible.”
“How can you say that when—”
“Slow down. Don’t forget four-legged creatures reign over this road at night.” Karah Lee felt herself relax in spite of Fawn’s aggressive driving. She suspected that had been Fawn’s purpose from the beginning—that and her natural urge, like every teenager’s, to sit behind the controls of a speeding vehicle.
“We should have packed more.” Fawn made a cursory show of braking and turned onto Highway 76. “What if your father’s in the hospital for a while? All we have is an overnight case.”
Karah Lee swallowed hard, staring ahead at the glow of headlights from a car coming over the next hill. “You should concentrate on driving right now.”
From the corner of her eye she saw Fawn look at her.
“Keep your eyes on the road.”
“I’m watching the road. Haven’t you been praying all these months that Kemper would see the error of his ways and change them?”
Karah Lee winced. That sounded so…fundamentally Christian. Of course, she was fundamentally Christian, but…
“I’ve been told often enough that if I pray for something in God’s will, He gives it to me. Don’t you think it’s God’s will for Kemper to get to know Him?” Fawn dimmed her headlights for the oncoming car, then when the oncoming lights didn’t dim, she muttered, “Jerk! You’re trying to blind me!”
Karah Lee reached for the seat belt and tightened it, once more pressing her imaginary brake. Why didn’t cars come equipped with optional brakes on the passenger’s side, too? They did that on driver’s-ed vehicles.
The car passed without mishap.
“So, where’s your faith?” Fawn asked.
Karah Lee sighed and sat back. It was hard to imagine that her father might have had a change of heart after all these years. She had noticed, however, that his attitude seemed to have undergone a change when he met his son for the first time.
Jerrod Houston, her newly discovered illegitimate brother, had been a shock to the great State Senator Kemper MacDonald. Karah Lee hoped it wasn’t her imagination that her father had encountered an authority more powerful than himself as he sought to make peace with his past.
She only wished she knew what to expect next.
FIVE
Geoff sat in the crowded waiting room, watching the inner door for Shona to come out and the outer door for the first news crews to arrive.
Shona was unreachable right now, in conference with the police. Ordinarily, the hospital personnel wouldn’t have told him even that much, except Shona had left word for him. At least she had relented somewhat.
He still wasn’t sure what his reception would be when he and Shona met. They had parted on a note of anger last year, and nothing that had passed between them in eleven months had given Geoff any reason to think she had had a change of heart. He, on the other hand, had endured plenty of second thoughts. Why had he been so demanding?
And yet, he still meant what he’d said. For several years, Shona had been evolving into her father’s puppet, scrambling to do whatever it took to keep Kemper MacDonald content. She had overlooked more and more of Kemper’s unethical behavior, even when he lied, manipulated and ingratiated himself to win votes to assure the completion of his own agenda. Until a couple of weeks ago, that agenda had been the advancement of his own career—and Shona’s.
It was at that time, during a private, late-night visit from his father-in-law, that Geoff had discovered a thread of hope that all was not lost.
Geoff checked again with the receptionist at the ER desk and was told that Kemper was still in critical condition. At least he was alive.
An older lady stood behind Geoff when he turned around. “Mr. Tremaine?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She held her checkbook out with one hand, an ink pen with the other. “Could I get your autograph? This is all I could find to write on.”
He hesitated. He had never been able to fathom why anyone would be interested in his autograph, but Wendy insisted it was good PR. With a smile, he relented and did as he was asked. He signed with a flourish he had practiced, the writing as much unlike his normal writing style as he could make it in order to protect himself from identity theft—good advice from an attorney who had visited the station.
“Do you have someone in the ER tonight?” he asked the lady as he handed her the signed book.
She nodded. “My mother. She has congestive heart failure. I just saw you over here and—”
“I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“Oh, she’ll recover as soon as they pull off the fluid. They’ve done it before.”
“I hope she’ll be okay.”
The lady gazed up at him. “Thank you, Mr. Tremaine,” she said on a sigh. “You know, I never miss the Channel 6 news now that you’re there.”
He smiled, refusing to take the woman’s admiration seriously.
As the lady returned to her seat, Geoff realized he and Shona had always been two of a kind. They lived in the public eye, and though they didn’t particularly enjoy the attention their jobs brought them, they had learned to cope with the fish-bowl syndrome years ago.
At least, most of the time.
To his relief, Shona stepped through the door from the ER. She spotted him immediately and started toward him, looking very tense. He knew that look well.
Though his wife had always been beautiful, the years had graced her, giving her a polish that didn’t fully emerge until her midthirties. She now had silver-blond highlights in her short, thick dark hair, and her eyes, which had always been large, no longer made her appear ingenuous but astute. Amazing what a few years of seasoning could do for a woman. She was more beautiful than ever.
Unfortunately for him, she was also less easy to read.
He was stepping forward to meet her when the entry door opened, admitting Sally Newton and a cameraman from the station.
Sally, spotting Shona, wove her way through the crowded room. “Mrs. Tremaine, can you tell us how the senator is doing?”
All eyes in the waiting room suddenly focused on Shona.
Sally was in her midtwenties, and she had not yet learned many lessons in diplomacy. She advanced on Shona with a microphone in her hand, gesturing for the cameraman to follow her.
Shona raised a hand of entreaty toward Geoff. “Please, not now,” she said softly. “I can’t talk right—”
“Sal,” Geoff said, smoothly stepping in front of Shona to shield her from the camera, “the senator’s family will have a statement for the press as soon as possible. At this moment we don’t have sufficient information to relay, only that Senator MacDonald is in critical condition.”
The pretty blonde blinked at him. “But Wendy told me—”
Shona took Geoff’s arm.
“We’ll contact you as soon as we have a statement,” he told the reporter. “You must understand our concerns. Shona needs to focus all her attention on her father at this time.”
“Can you at least tell us what happened? Was this a murder attempt?” Sally asked.
Geoff heard Shona catch her breath at the question. He lowered his voice. “I just told you, Sally, that there will be a statement later. There’s nothing here for you to see.” Without staying to argue, he ushered Shona back through the doors into the bustling ER.
“That young woman needs to learn some manners,” Shona snapped.
“As Wendy would say, she’s simply doing her job.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what Wendy would say. I’m just glad you decided there was something more important at the…moment….” Shona stopped, gazing toward the trauma room where a team of hospital personnel surrounded someone—Kemper? Her hand tightened on Geoff’s arm.
“We don’t need to be here right now,” he said. “Is there a private room where we can wait?”
She led him along a corridor to a conference room with a table and chairs, love seat and recliner.
She released his arm at last, and sank onto the love seat. He resisted the urge to assure her that everything would be okay. He’d learned long ago not to make assurances he couldn’t keep, especially to Shona Tremaine, who would not hesitate to call him on it.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
She grimaced. “I discovered I don’t handle medical emergencies well. Karah Lee would be ashamed of me. I held together until I tried to watch them work on Dad in the trauma room.” She wiggled her fingers in front of her stomach, giving him a good idea about what had happened.
“I called her,” Geoff said. “She’s on her way.”
Those large, dark gray eyes narrowed. “I asked you not to do that.”
“She’s his daughter, too, and she’s coming. Give her some credit.”
Shona’s grimace told him she was irritated but not really angry. He hadn’t pushed it too far…yet.
“Only because you called,” she said. “Karah Lee likes you better than she does me.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
“Of course, it is.” She glanced up at him, then quickly looked away. “She even told me that once.”
“You two are always pulling each other’s chains.” Shona retained her privacy with dignity in the public eye, but, despite their separation, she seemed to be as candid as always with him. The key word was seemed. He no longer knew if he could take her at her word, especially since he knew she felt she must be on guard with him.
“How did it go with the police?” he asked.
“Is this Geoffrey Tremaine, reporter for Channel 6 news asking, or Geoff, my husband?”
“It’s always just me, Shona.”
She leaned forward. “And who, exactly, is that? When I spoke with you on the phone you seemed determined to interview me.”
“And you were just as determined not to be interviewed. You gave me no choice. For me, family has to come first.”
She blinked and looked away, and he realized, belatedly, the effect his words would have on her.
“That’s laudable.” Her voice had suddenly gone soft.
“I’m sorry, Shona. I wasn’t trying to—”
“For me, it seems I allowed the job, and my father, to come first.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Milt Davis interviewed me,” she said. “Then he warned me the mansion will remain a crime scene until further notice. The FBI might be stepping in if the evidence suggests the attack on Dad—if that’s what happened—could be political in nature.”
“Did Milt give you any indication whether or not the police thought that could be the case?”
“We don’t know what happened yet. Dad is just bleeding for no reason, bruising beneath his skin, as if his clotting factor has suddenly failed.”
“That isn’t a naturally occurring event,” Geoff said. “I know your father doesn’t have hemophilia.”
“That’s why the police are suspicious of foul play. I’m sure they’re looking for a weapon at the house, but I don’t know of anything that would cause that kind of bleeding.”
“You won’t be able to stay at the mansion, obviously.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave here anyway while Dad’s critical. A policewoman is going to pack some things and bring them by for me later. I’ll stay at The Capitol Plaza.”
“You can come home with me. You’ll be safer there.”
She looked up at him, her eyes misting. Then she dropped her gaze and shook her head. “Not this way,” she said softly.
He sat down in the chair across from her. “Did anyone actually see a wound?”
“No. As much as Dad was bleeding, the doctor would have seen blood coming from a specific wound, but there was nothing.”
“Where did you get the idea that this was a shooting?”
“He said the word,” Shona told him. “He said, ‘Shot.’”
“That’s it?”
She spread her hands. “Then he said for me to…” She gave him a quick glance, then looked down at her fingers. “He said to get away.”
“From what? From him? Why would he—”
“He might have been trying to tell me to get out of Jefferson City.”
“What else did he say?” Geoff asked.
She didn’t look at him. “I think he must have been hallucinating. He said something about getting the little one out…I’m not sure exactly what he said. It made no sense.”
Geoff studied her expression as she continued to avoid eye contact. What was she not telling him?
His cell phone rang, and he groaned. He was supposed to turn it off when he entered the hospital. In the excitement, he had ignored the sign, even after mentioning it to Wendy.
To his relief, he saw the caller was not Wendy, nor did the number belong to anyone else with his news team. It was Linda Plinkett, Kemper’s old friend, fellow committee member on the Drug Task Force, and, quite possibly, a whole lot more. He answered in spite of the hospital policy restricting cell phones, knowing there were no machines in this section of the building that would be disrupted by the electronic transmission.
“Yes, Linda?”
“Geoffrey Tremaine, what on earth is happening to Kemper? I just heard on the news that he’s been shot!”
“He’s still in critical condition.”
“Where? I can’t reach Shona.”
“We’re here at the hospital.”
“Which hospital? I can’t find him, and these blasted federal regulations prevent the hospital staff from telling me where he is.”
Geoff glanced at Shona. “We’re at St. Mary’s.” Linda might as well jump into the investigation with both feet. She would be embroiled in it soon enough.
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
Shona couldn’t face Geoff with the swift rush of suspicion that held her mute. Dad couldn’t have been talking about Geoff. He must have meant Jefferson City. Longtime residents often called it just plain “Jeff.”
She hugged herself, unable to stop shivering. How many times would she have to repeat Dad’s words in the next few days? Geoff was bound to hear it from someone. The police would want to question him, if only because of that one statement Dad made.
And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Geoff. For these few moments, they were being more civil with each other than they had been since before their separation. She didn’t want to break the spell because of her inability to trust.
Geoff stood up and shrugged out of his sport coat, then gently placed it around her shoulders. She could smell the warm, woodsy scent of his aftershave as his hands rested briefly on her shoulders.
It would be so comforting to allow him to take care of everything.
That was impossible, of course. Too many issues remained between them to simply erase the past. And besides, there was this suspicion….
Instead of returning to his chair, Geoff sat on the arm of the love seat. “Do you have any idea what your father might have been talking about? What did he want you to get away from?”
“He was practically incoherent, and he lost consciousness while he was still talking. He could have even been hallucinating.”
“But you got the impression he was warning you about something?”
She glanced up at him. Why did he insist on pursuing the subject? “I didn’t get any impressions at all at the time, okay, Geoff?” she said more sharply than she’d intended. “He was bleeding badly. All I cared about was getting help.”
“The police are combing the mansion for evidence of a crime. It would be foolhardy to consider going alone to a hotel room if there is any danger at all. Can’t we forget the issues between us long enough to see this through? Your safety is more important than—”
She raised a hand to silence him. “Dad’s in the other room, fighting for his life. That’s all I can think about.” She wrapped his coat around her more tightly and stood up. She never had been able to sit still in a crisis.
She glanced over her shoulder at Geoff. Her husband could be a model for a clean-cut, all-American grown-up Boy Scout. His blue eyes were clear beneath straight, light brown eyebrows. She knew him so well, had known him for so long, since they were love-struck teenagers in high school. So why did he suddenly seem like a stranger to her? Not a stranger, exactly, but…somehow different.
She reached into her pocket for some change, but it was empty. She had locked her purse in her car. Why had she done that?
“Coffee?” he asked.
She nodded. “Anything to take this sour taste out of my mouth.”
He pulled some coins from the pocket of his slacks. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched him leave, then paced the room, unable to sit down. There were no windows, and suddenly the walls seemed too confining, suffocating.
For the first time in years, Shona considered prayer. She dismissed the idea immediately, but she understood why people turned to God in times of distress.
How good it would feel—how comforting—to be able to allow someone else to take the load from her that she always seemed to be carrying. But was there anyone to take it? She’d shouldered the weight alone for so long with no help from anyone.
Okay, maybe Geoff had tried to share her burdens, but he always insisted on doing things his way. That had been one of the problems between them. They handled situations so differently.
Moments later, he stepped back into the room with two mugs of coffee. “The nurse took pity on us.”
“Thanks.” Shona took one and inhaled the steam that rose from the hot liquid.
“Cream, no sugar,” he said. “I tried to get you decaf, but that pot was empty. You have enough to worry about without more stress. Are you still trying to cut back on caffeine?”
She knew he was trying to distract her. He’d always been good at that. And she had often resented the tactic. “Trying, but I haven’t—”
The door opened, and in stepped the doctor who had led her father’s medical team. Shona froze.
“Mrs. Tremaine? I’m Dr. Morris.” He wore a fresh, white coat, but his green scrubs were still bloodstained.
“Yes, Doctor,” Shona said. “How is my father?”
Dr. Morris gestured for Shona and Geoff to sit on the love seat. He sat across from them on the recliner. “I’ve asked our hospital chaplain to join us. He’s on his way.”
Shona felt her strength drain away at his words. “You can just tell us, Doctor. I don’t need a preacher to translate for me.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tremaine, we did all we could to resuscitate your father. He responded for a few minutes, and then succumbed. Kemper MacDonald is dead.”
Shona felt herself go numb. She knew medical personnel had to speak that way. Euphemisms for death could lead to misunderstandings. Still, it sounded so harsh.
Geoff placed an arm around her shoulders, and she stiffened, resistant. He’d tried to destroy her relationship with her father. He would not intrude into her grief.
He removed his arm. “Dr. Morris, was there any evidence of a gunshot wound?”
“None.”
“When can I see him?” Shona asked.
The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry, that wouldn’t be—”
“I won’t fall apart on you this time, Dr. Morris. I need to see my father.”
There was a long hesitation. “Give us time to clean him up, Mrs. Tremaine. We don’t want to cause you any more grief than necessary.”
“Do you have any idea yet what might have killed him?” Geoff asked.
The doctor shook his head. “There will be an autopsy, of course. That should give us some answers.” He gently touched Shona’s shoulder. “The chaplain will help you with the final arrangements. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
She nodded and leaned her head against the sofa. Dad was dead. There was no going back. He was gone.
SIX
Karah Lee received the call as Fawn exited I-44 and headed north toward Lake of the Ozarks. It was Geoff.
“How far out are you?” he asked.
“Couple of hours, maybe less the way Fawn’s breaking every speed limit.” She cast a glare in Fawn’s direction, to no avail. Fawn was resolute. She either wanted to get them to Jefferson City in record time, or she wanted to be mangled in a tragic accident.
“You can slow down now,” Geoff said quietly.
Her hand tightened on the tiny phone. “Tell me he’s better.”
“I’m sorry, Karah Lee, I can’t do that.”
She didn’t want to hear this. Denial would be welcome for a while longer.
“The medical personnel did all they could, but your father couldn’t be resuscitated. He’s gone.”
For a moment, she didn’t respond, watching the traffic in front of her. The glare of headlights merged into a string of brilliant pearls as sudden, warm tears tickled her cheeks. No, Dad. Don’t leave this way, not with this thing still between us.
“Karah Lee?” Geoff said.
“Should we turn around and go back home, then?” She knew that sounded callous, and she didn’t mean for it to. She suddenly just felt so…cut off. Adrift. How was Shona feeling?
“No. Come to Jefferson City. You’re needed now, more than ever.”
“I’m not. It’ll be awkward with me there.”
“And you don’t think it’s awkward between Shona and me? Your father is gone, Karah Lee. Your presence is needed here now.”
She heard the impatience in his voice. This was hard on him, too. “Sorry, but really, Geoff, my presence there will be stressful for Shona right now, and she doesn’t need that.”
“You don’t have any idea what Shona needs, do you?” Again, the impatience, barely there, and restrained by a strong dose of Geoff Tremaine manners.
“What do you mean?”
“She and I are still legally separated, and there’s still tension between us. She just lost her father. There’s a murder investigation going on, and—”
Karah Lee gasped. “There really is a murder investigation?”
Fawn gasped, and the car slowed momentarily.
“Yes, and Shona’s already been questioned. She doesn’t have anyone close to her here. She needs you, even though she probably doesn’t realize it herself.”
Again, the headlights seemed to become a stream of attack against Karah Lee’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say. What would she do when she arrived in Jefferson City?
“You need to be watchful when you arrive, though,” he continued. “As I’ve said, the police suspect your father was murdered.”
“Then Fawn shouldn’t even be with me.”
“Please don’t return to Hideaway now, Karah Lee. My home will be secure for you.”
“The mansion wasn’t safe for Dad, even with all the security measures he took.” Karah Lee closed her eyes. Murder was such a horrible word. Who would want to kill Dad? Oh, sure, he was controversial, and politics could be messy, ugly, dirty. Dad had always known how to play the game.
Had he offended someone too many times? Had his political platform threatened someone? In the past few months, Dad had become very outspoken against the illegal methamphetamine situation and had called for more police intervention, stiffer sentences.
Last summer, when Karah Lee called Dad for help against the insidious Beaufont Corporation that was attempting to take over Hideaway, he had ridden into town with the feds like a knight in shining armor and cleaned house. It turned out Beaufont had connections with organized crime. Those people held grudges.
Why hadn’t she told him more often that she appreciated his heroics last year? Why had she allowed this gulf to remain between them until it was too late? Yes, they had always clashed. Dad tended to ride roughshod over everyone to get what he wanted, even when it involved meddling in her professional life. She’d resented it. Being her father’s daughter, she didn’t take his manipulations in silence.
“Karah Lee?” Geoff said, his voice gentle. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure.” Could her run-in with the Beaufont Corporation last summer have something to do with this? What if she had been the indirect cause of her father’s death?
“The police are questioning everyone right now,” Geoff said. “Please just come up here. They’ve taken blood and urine samples for screening. The FBI may take control of this investigation.”
She watched the spread of dark Missouri countryside pass around them as Fawn sped into the night. “How’s Shona holding up?”
“She seems to have withdrawn from everyone around her, although she’s still able to compose herself for the cameras.”
“Of course.” Shona had always been capable of shoving her feelings aside for the needs of others, and especially for Dad and her work.
“You need to be advised,” Geoff said, “that at this moment, she insists she will stay at the Capitol Plaza, no matter how impractical.”
“No surprise there. Any idea how long before anyone can return to the mansion?”
“The investigation is taking time. It could be days.”
“Can you convince Shona to stay with you if she knows Fawn and I would be at the house, as well?”
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Hannah Alexander
A KILLER LURKS IN THE SHADOWS… UNTIL IT'S TIME TO STRIKE AGAIN.When a prominent senator is murdered in his own home, his daughter Shona Tremaine becomes the prime suspect in his death. Only her estranged husband, Geoff, and younger sister, Karah Lee, believe in her innocence–until an attempt on Shona's own life clears her name.Who would want her dead? As Shona and Geoff work together to solve the mystery, they uncover a web of deceit and corruption in her father's life–and discover the love they thought they'd lost. But will their renewed commitment be enough to save Shona's life?
It looked as if someone had spilled red paint.
As she dabbed at the spot, it came up easily. “Is anyone here?” Shona called, feeling a twinge of unease.
The stain looked like blood.
“Dad?” she called more loudly as she rushed through the kitchen. She saw another splotch of red by the stairs.
Following one droplet after another, Shona climbed to the second floor. In the dim light she saw a dark form splayed at the head of the stairs.
“Dad!” She rushed to him and fell to her knees at his side.
Blood streaked down his face from his nose and caked his thick gray hair. He opened his eyes and tried to speak.
Shona pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called 9-1-1.
“Please hurry,” she said to the dispatcher over the telephone. “My father is in bad shape.”
As the voice reassured her that help would be there soon, she wanted to scream. Soon might be too late.
HANNAH ALEXANDER
is the pseudonym of husband-and-wife writing team Cheryl and Mel Hodde (pronounced “Hoddee”). When they first met, Mel had just begun his new job as an E.R. doctor in Cheryl’s hometown, and Cheryl was working on a novel. Cheryl’s matchmaking pastor set them up on an unexpected blind date at a local restaurant. Surprised by the sneak attack, Cheryl blurted the first thing that occurred to her, “You’re a doctor? Could you help me paralyze someone?” Mel was shocked. “Only temporarily, of course,” she explained when she saw his expression. “And only fictitiously. I’m writing a novel.”
They began brainstorming immediately. Eighteen months later they were married, and the novels they set in fictitious Ozark towns began to sell. The first novel of the series, Hideaway, published in the Steeple Hill Women’s Fiction program, won the prestigious Christy Award for Best Romance in 2004.
Under Suspicion
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
—Proverbs 3:5–6
Many thanks to Lorene Cook for living a life of love and giving that constantly inspires us. Thanks to Harry Styron, attorney-at-law, for supplying vital personal and professional information for this story. Thanks, as always, to Joan Marlow Golan and our other wonderful editors for gently helping us bring this story to life. Thanks to Nancy Moser, Till Fell, Colleen and Dave Coble, Stephanie and Dan Higgins, Rene Gutteridge, Judy Miller and Deborah Raney for the great brainstorm session. Thanks to Barbara Warren, Jackie Bolton and Bonnie Schmidt for your valuable input.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ONE
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 guests were members of the Drug Task Force, including State Representative Paul Forester, one of Dad’s dearest friends, an old hunting buddy. Paul—who had dropped out of medical school thirty years ago—had a son who had been in a medical residency program with Shona’s younger sister Karah Lee. For a while, the two fathers had hoped there might be a romance between their children. It never happened. But to Shona, the Foresters would always be like family.
Also attending was another of Dad’s old friends, State Representative Linda Plinkett. Shona suspected her father had been fraternizing with Linda quite often in the past months, until very recently. Missouri politics was a tight, if often uneasy, community.
Tonight would be interesting, Shona mused, since Dad and Linda had barely spoken to one another in the past two weeks. They’d even been avoiding 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 particularly fine. She wished she had time to appreciate it properly.
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 her father and her husband to serve the residents of Missouri.
As time passed, however, she and Geoff had both realized that Dad was losing the ideals with which he had begun his career. His professional ethics had gone the way of his personal morals.
Why should she have been surprised?
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. And 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 been experiencing 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, spurred 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 a reporter and anchor for the six-o’clock news on Jefferson City’s Channel 6.
Shona seldom missed the news these days, and yet she found it painful to watch. It just made her miss her husband 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 officially resign and offer to 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 Senate office when he made his bid 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 what he was to wear tonight—the understated dark gray Armani suit, with a fit that hinted at the power behind the facade. Whenever he was in public, he wanted to dress the part, although he had little fashion sense, much like Karah Lee, his younger daughter.
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 the dark red paint that a crew had been using for a touch-up job on the garage.
She winced at the thought of her father’s reaction when he saw it. Kemper MacDonald had never had a lot of patience with mistakes or messes.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, had Friday afternoons off, so Shona didn’t call out. She pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen to get a paper towel to clean the mess.
Her father was probably upstairs in his suite, showering.
She dabbed at the spot. It came up easily. It was obviously fresh. Examining the paper towel more closely, she felt a twinge of unease. She sniffed it. Not paint. Not catsup. Was that a coppery scent?
Don’t panic. It’s your imagination. Dad has always teased you about your vivid imagination. She tossed the paper towel in the trash as she rushed through the kitchen, suddenly noticing another splotch of red by the back door.
Following one droplet after another, she turned left into Dad’s home office. In the dim light of the setting sun, she saw a human form—a man—splayed on the floor, faceup, between a corner of the desk and the French windows. A stain of blood fanned out from beneath his head.
Shona’s breath stopped.
“Dad!” She rushed to him and fell to her knees at his side. “Dad?”
Blood streaked down his face, running from his nose, pooling in his thick, silvery hair. His eyes came open as if with great effort, and he tried to speak. Blood speckled his teeth.
Shona forced herself not to cry out. “Dad, hold on. I’ll call for help.” She reached for the cordless desk phone. It wasn’t in its cradle. Dad must have tried to call for help and dropped it somewhere. She pulled her cell phone from her purse and punched in 911.
“Shot…” her father murmured, his voice a hushed croak.
“What do you mean? Did someone shoot you?”
He grimaced, more blood dribbling down his chin. “Get away from…Geoff….”
The dispatcher came on the line, and Shona asked for an ambulance. “My father is badly injured. He says he’s been shot.” As the dispatcher asked for more information, Dad grabbed her by the arm. His sleeve slid back, and she saw a hideous bruise on his forearm, black and swollen. Shot? He looked as if he’d been beaten.
“Hang on, Dad. Help’s coming.”
“You need your little one…get…away…” His eyes glazed over and his face fell slack.
“No. Dad, stay with me!”
More blood trickled down his face from his nose. His head fell sideways, and she saw a huge bruise on the side of his face. His whole body was hemorrhaging.
She felt for a pulse at his carotid artery. His heart was still beating, and his warm breath touched her face when she leaned close.
“Please,” she said to the dispatcher over the telephone. “My father is in bad shape. Tell them to hurry.”
As the voice reassured her that help would be there soon, Shona wanted to scream. Soon might be too late.
TWO
Geoff Tremaine faced the camera and read the final words of the evening newscast from the telepromter. His image would continue to be present for a few moments in homes throughout the central Missouri viewing area. It was a concept to which he still had not grown completely accustomed, and he tended to avoid watching himself on television.
He said good-night and held his smile until the lights dimmed.
Once, the camera crew had continued filming after the director told them to cut, and Geoff’s coanchor had made a snide comment about the governor. That coanchor no longer had a job with this station. Competition was fierce in the broadcasting business; deadly mistakes were not tolerated.
Because of the competition, Geoff considered himself fortunate to be an anchor after working full-time at Channel 6 for only a year. He tried to convince himself that his split with Kemper MacDonald had not been the reason he’d landed the job, but sometimes he wondered. Most television stations preferred younger talent. Though thirty-eight wasn’t exactly over the hill, television cameras did tend to emphasize age.
He knew he had established himself here; he now carried his own weight. Nonetheless, he had always suspected that his initial employment with this station had come about because the director, Wendy Phillips, had long held animosity toward Kemper MacDonald.
His coworkers had implied she might have had other reasons, as well. Tall and statuesque, with a strong will and the ability to lead a diverse news team, Wendy usually got what she wanted. She had never made a secret of the fact that she found him attractive.
Geoff loosened his tie and shrugged out of his sport coat before opening the door to his dressing room. The lights on the set were hot, and one of the challenges during the show was to keep perspiration to a minimum.
Before he could step through the door, a familiar contralto called to him from the hallway.
“Heads up, Tremaine. We need you on a scene.”
He turned to see Wendy quick-stepping toward him, her face slightly flushed with that familiar, excited look she got when a good story landed in her lap. Wendy was considered beautiful by most standards, with her slightly tilted dark eyes and fiery highlights in her golden brown hair. Geoff had always kept her at arm’s length, even more so in the past few weeks.
“Sally just called from the scanner room,” she said, as always stepping slightly too close, invading his personal space. “There’s an ambulance on its way to Kemper MacDonald’s address.”
Geoff stiffened. “Kemper? What happened?”
“They say his daughter called 911.” Wendy’s perfume, with a hint of sweet spice, wafted around her even at the end of a long day. “The senator’s been injured. His daughter reported something about a shooting, so I’m sure the police are already swarming the place.”
Geoff reached back to the rack for his coat and pulled it on again. “Someone shot Kemper? What about Shona? Is she okay?”
“Nothing was said about her, it’s the senator everyone will be concerned about.”
He tossed her a glance over his shoulder. “You do realize we’re talking about my wife.” He heard the chill in his voice, but was unable to warm it, even as Wendy’s eyes narrowed at him. She always demanded respect for her authority, brooking no argument from anyone—except, occasionally, from him. He didn’t exploit his advantage, but he did disagree with her when he felt it was appropriate.
“I thought you were divorced,” she said.
“Separated.” Big difference. At least, to him. “I care very much about what happens to my wife.”
Wendy’s dark gaze slid away from him. “Obviously if she’s the one who called for help, she’s okay. They’re taking Senator MacDonald to Bradley-Cline Hospital. Why don’t you go intercept them?”
“Why Bradley-Cline? St. Mary’s is closer.”
“That isn’t our concern. We have a camera crew out right now, so I’ll send them to meet you there. You know other stations will already be scrambling to get their crews to the hospital, to try to get a statement from the doctor or the daughter or any other family members who might be there.”
“What about the mansion?”
“We’ll be covering that, too. I want you at the hospital.”
“I’m on my way, but I warn you, this is still my family, and I may not be the most unbiased—”
“Just get there.” Her impatience surfaced with her words. “You’ll have an insider’s view that no other station can provide, and the whole region knows about your relationship with Shona. We’ve got the advantage.”
Geoff winced at the eagerness in her voice as he turned to leave.
“Let me know as soon as you find out anything,” Wendy called as he rushed down the hallway. “And take a recorder with you. The hospital won’t allow a camera crew into the ER.”
He grimaced. She was hallucinating if she thought he would stick a tape recorder under his father-in-law’s nose at the hospital and ask him how he felt.
They called that kind of interviewing technique “a Sally” at the station because once, in the field, Channel 6’s reporter, Sally Newton, had held a microphone in the face of a man who was watching his home burn with his wife in it. In the excitement of the moment, Sally had not only betrayed her eagerness for a story, but had neglected to school her face to show proper respect for the man’s agony. She’d smiled pertly for the camera, and the man’s mother had promptly socked her in her pretty mouth.
Sally Newton’s public exposure had been greatly reduced since then.
As soon as Geoff climbed into his truck, he set his cell phone on its cradle and hit Shona’s speed dial.
Shona’s hands shook so badly she could barely hold on to the steering wheel. She was guided only by the flashing lights on the big, boxy ambulance in front of her as it led the way to Bradley-Cline Hospital.
Would Dad even make it there? The blood had been so horrifying…so much of it.
What would cause a person to bleed out like that?
Her cell phone beeped. It was the VIP chime for a high-priority number. Only two people had numbers programmed to that particular tune. One was a passenger in the ambulance ahead of her. This caller could only be Geoff.
With shaking hands, Shona pulled the phone from her pocket, ignoring the hands-free law, and brought the phone to her face. “Geoff?”
“Are you okay?”
The deep timbre of his voice, filled with concern, forged past her controls. Tears sprang to her eyes. The road blurred before her. “I can’t talk right now. Dad’s…something’s wrong with him.”
“A report said he’d been shot. How bad is it?”
“There was no sign of an entry wound.” The paramedics hadn’t wasted a lot of time looking, but if there were a wound, it would have been bleeding. Every orifice in his body seemed to be hemorrhaging, but no bullet wound was evident. “The police are inspecting the mansion.”
“Is there someone with you?”
“No, I was told a detective will join me at the hospital.”
“I’m on my way there now.”
She frowned. Of course, Geoff would have already been informed about it. Breaking news was his business, and there were scanners at the station to get a jump on anything newsworthy. She hadn’t thought about that. The hospital would be crawling with reporters looking for her.
She wasn’t well acquainted with Bradley-Cline. It was the newest, state-of-the-art hospital in the area that had begun to give St. Mary’s and Capitol Region Medical Center some relief for their overworked staffs and overburdened facilities.
“Geoff, don’t make this a public spectacle.”
“You know I’ll do my best to keep any interviews tasteful and gentle.”
She caught her tongue between her teeth. She wasn’t up to this. “Look, I’m barely functioning. You either come to the hospital as a concerned family member, or stay away.”
“Someone will show up anyway. Wouldn’t you rather it be me?”
“Why would I?”
“Because I’ll keep everything off the record that you want off the record, and I won’t misquote you. I wouldn’t be doing this, but Wendy’s pulling rank.”
“If you come to the hospital as a reporter, you’ll be treated as a reporter. You’re not taking advantage of your connection to me in order to build ratings for Wendy Phillips.”
“That isn’t the reason I’m coming.”
“Then leave your job at the door, just as you asked me to do, Geoffrey Tremaine.”
“Shona, I want to be there for you. At the same time, I don’t want someone else approaching you from my station. Reports will be made, one way or the other. I want to give a fair one, for your sake, and for Kemper’s.”
She knew his argument made sense. “Off the record, I don’t know if Dad’s even going to make it to the hospital,” she said. Brake lights flashed ahead. She barely saw them in time to stop. Her tires squealed. Why weren’t they taking her father to the closest hospital? St. Mary’s was excellent.
“I’ll call Karah Lee for you,” Geoff said.
“No,” she snapped. “Stay out of this.”
“You shouldn’t be alone, and your sister deserves to know what’s happening.”
“Why?” Karah Lee had chosen to distance herself from their father from the moment of Mom and Dad’s divorce. Not only had she refused financial assistance from Dad for college, but she had also, in a fit of rebellion that had broken Dad’s heart, taken her mother’s maiden name. She barely knew Dad’s second wife, Irene. To be fair, neither did Shona. The woman had taken little interest in her stepdaughters. And now, Dad and Irene were separated. Shona had no intention of calling her, either.
“This isn’t your affair anymore, Geoff,” Shona said.
“I’m still family. I’ll see you at the hospital in a few minutes,” he said gently. “Meanwhile, I’ll call Karah Lee.”
“Geoff, I don’t—”
He disconnected. She started to toss her cell phone on the seat beside her. Instead, she dialed 911 again.
“Yes, this is Shona Tremaine. I’m currently following the ambulance unit 948 to Bradley-Cline Hospital. I need you to contact that ambulance via private line and redirect them to St. Mary’s. That’s where I want my father taken. It’s closer. Also would you redirect the police to St. Mary’s, on a private line, as well? I don’t want anyone else to know my father’s location.” Not Geoff. Not Karah Lee. Not Irene.
After the dispatcher agreed to do as she asked—sometimes political power had its perks—Shona expressed her thanks, disconnected and tossed the phone onto the seat, focusing on the lights ahead.
Geoff Tremaine could cool his heels at the fancy new hospital. Meanwhile, Dad would have the best of care at a place she trusted. She should have insisted on St. Mary’s from the beginning.
THREE
Karah Lee Fletcher sat in front of the picture window in her lakeside cottage on the edge of Hideaway. She tried hard not to be distracted by the magnificent purples and deep indigoes of the evening sky at late sunset. There was work to be done.
This evening, it was her job to look fascinated by the display of material samples spread out before her on the coffee table. Bored already, she tapped her foot in time with the music her foster daughter had playing on the CD.
“I’m not wearing pink.” Fawn held up a swatch of hot pink satin. “Unless it’s this.”
Karah Lee tore her gaze from the window scene and studied the brilliant, shimmery material. “Looks good to me.”
Fawn rolled her eyes. “Do you realize how badly this color would clash with that red hair of yours?”
“So? You’d be the one wearing it, not me.”
“But you’ll be the bride. Everything should focus on you on your wedding day. You’re one of those people who should never be allowed out on the street before they check in with the fashion police.”
“And you, of course, would be my own personal fashion police, I suppose.”
“Well, sure, you can do that now, but what are you going to do when I’m in college this fall?” Fawn combed her fingers through her short blond hair, eyeing Karah Lee with a devious grin.
“I guess I’ll just have to live in my scrubs. You’ll be home in the evenings, so you can prevent disaster.”
“Only if you can get me a car before I start school. I can’t exactly walk there from here.”
“You can use my car or ride with Blaze.” Since Karah Lee merely had to walk across the street and up two blocks for work and groceries, she seldom needed to drive these days.
Fawn grumbled, but she did so with good nature. By the time she started college, Karah Lee and Taylor would be married. Fawn had made it clear that the wedding was going to be her priority from now until the final vows were spoken. Thanks to Fawn, heaven and everyone in Hideaway knew Karah Lee wasn’t capable of planning and executing a wedding of the caliber everyone expected without a great deal of help from friends.
Karah Lee was not a style maven, nor did she wish to become one at this stage of her life. At thirty-four, she was set in her ways and happy with that.
Fawn’s entry into her life still filled her with awe and gratitude. As a sixteen-year-old runaway last year, Fawn had witnessed a murder in Branson—one of the last places on earth one would expect a murder. When she had arrived here in Hideaway—a stow-away on a tour bus filled with senior citizens—she’d been sick, in the middle of a miscarriage.
Karah Lee had become her guardian with a great deal of trepidation, after discovering that the teenager’s home life was unbearable. Her mother didn’t want her back.
What a blessing Fawn Morrison had been in Karah Lee’s life since then.
The telephone rang before Fawn could launch into a long-winded explanation about why she needed her own car, and her plan about how to pay for it while working at the school for her tuition.
Karah Lee answered quickly. “This is Dr. Fletcher.”
“Karah Lee?” came a familiar male voice. It was her brother-in-law.
“Geoff?”
“I take it Shona hasn’t called you.”
At the sound of urgency in Geoff’s voice, and the mention of her sister’s name, Karah Lee braced herself. Typically, when a phone call concerned her family, things got tense in a hurry.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Your father is being taken to the hospital at this moment.”
“What happened? Where’s Shona?”
“She’s on her way there, as well. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him yet. Earlier, it was suggested he might have been shot.”
Karah Lee’s grip tightened on the receiver. “Shot? Like, with a gun?”
Fawn looked up, then got up from the table and walked to Karah Lee’s side. “What is it?” she whispered.
Karah Lee placed a hand on her arm, more for strength than to silence her.
“I’m sorry,” Geoff said. “I don’t know more than that. As I said, Shona is on her way to the hospital. She isn’t doing well. You know she doesn’t get rattled easily.” There was a pause. “She isn’t sure Kemper’s going to make it.”
Karah Lee caught her breath. Shona thought Dad’s life was in danger?
“Karah Lee, is there any way you could—”
“I’ll be on my way shortly.”
“It’s a little after seven now.” There was a pause. “You might want to be prepared for the worst.”
At that moment, Karah Lee realized that she never would be.
Shona rushed to the ER reception desk, breathless from her run from the parking lot. “I need to see my father, Kemper MacDonald. He was just brought in by ambulance.”
“Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry,” the secretary said gently. “Your father is in critical condition in the trauma room. They’re doing everything they—”
Shona saw the door to the ER swing open as someone stepped out. She rushed forward and grabbed it before it could close and lock her out.
An older nurse looked up from her work at the busy central desk and intercepted Shona. “May I help you?”
“I need to find the trauma—” Shona spotted a room where several medical personnel were gathered and headed in that direction.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, rushing forward to catch her by the arm. “You can’t go in there right now. We’ll call a chaplain and show you to the family waiting room.”
“Kemper MacDonald is my father. My name is Shona Tremaine.”
“I know who you are, ma’am. I’ve seen you on the news.”
Shona tried to pull free, but found the woman surprisingly strong. “Please, I need to get to him.”
“Not right now, you don’t,” the nurse assured her gently. “They’re attempting to resuscitate him.”
Shona gasped. The room threatened to fade around her. “Resuscitate! He’s dead?”
“I assure you, they’re doing everything they can. He’s unresponsive right now. We’ll do our best to keep you updated.”
“Please.” Shona took a deep breath to steady herself. “I need to be there. The doctor may have questions only I can answer. I live with my father, and I know more about him than anyone. I promise not to get in the way.”
The woman’s grip eased slightly, the lines around her brown eyes deepening as she focused on Shona, as if to measure her words. “It isn’t a pretty sight.”
“I’m the one who found him. I don’t expect it to be pleasant.”
The nurse nodded and released Shona’s arm, though with obvious reluctance. “You can stand by the window over there, but don’t get in the doorway. There’ll be people coming in and out.”
“The press may come looking for me here. Would you please not give out any information about my father?”
“It’s against federal regulations to do so, Mrs. Tremaine. Anyone who does will be fired.”
Shona nodded. “Thank you. My…husband may show up looking for me. His name is—”
“Geoff Tremaine? He won’t be hard to recognize. Do you want us to let him know where you are?”
She wanted her husband, Geoff, not the reporter. She sighed. “If he does show up, it’s okay, but no camera team, and no one except Geoff.”
“We wouldn’t do it any other way.”
Shona thanked her. She knew her switch wouldn’t deter him for long. He would figure out soon enough where she had taken Dad.
Steeling herself for what she might see, Shona rushed to the trauma room and tried to peer in the glass windows through small gaps between the slats in a blind.
She could see little except medical equipment, a monitor and people in multicolored scrubs and masks standing around the trauma bed. She strained to hear anything encouraging through the verbal cacophony that filtered through the door.
“Central line is in. Stop CPR. What’s the rhythm?”
“Still PEA.”
Shona caught her breath. She’d learned enough from her sister to know that meant pulseless electrical activity.
Very bad.
“Continue CPR.”
“Got it.”
“We need to push some volume back into his circulation. Get that O negative blood in now. How much longer on those four units of fresh frozen plasma?”
“Lab said just a few more minutes. They have to thaw them first.”
“Where’s the 20 milligrams of vitamin K? I wanted it stat.”
“Right here, Dr. Morris.”
“Give it IV push.”
“But doctor, what about the risk—”
“I’m not worried about the risk of anaphylactic shock at this point, Carrie.” There was tension in the doctor’s voice. “He’s bleeding to death, and we don’t know what’s causing it. He needs it IV. Now. And someone see if there’s a family member here who knows what’s going on.”
Shona caught her breath. “I’m his daughter!” she called, stepping to the door. She gasped, suddenly overwhelmed by what she saw.
Blood. There was blood everywhere, on the bed, on Dad’s body, on the hands of the staff, on the instruments they were using on Dad’s hideously battered flesh.
Without warning, a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. She turned away, doubling over, fighting to keep her gorge down.
Someone caught her from behind and placed a basin in front of her just in time.
“That’s why we don’t like people coming back at times like this,” came the gentle-sad voice of the older nurse as Shona gave up all pretense of dignity.
Past humiliation, Shona retched, miserable and terrified. No one could bleed as much as Dad was doing and live. She was losing him.
Geoff raced into the parking lot of the ER at Bradley-Cline Hospital and pulled into a nearby slot, scanning the area for Shona’s Escalade or Kemper’s Seville, which she often drove. He recognized none of the vehicles.
He frowned at the ambulance bay. There was no way he could have beat the ambulance here, but he couldn’t have been so far behind them that the ambulance was already gone, could he?
It was possible, if they had another hot call.
Still…something didn’t feel right. Shona’s car should be here. She had been following the ambulance when he spoke to her; he’d heard the siren over the line.
She might have parked elsewhere in an effort to avoid notice, as much as possible. Her car and Kemper’s had government plates.
While waiting for the camera crew, Geoff parked and went inside to check with the receptionist.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he asked about Kemper’s arrival. “We’re unaware of anyone here by that name.”
He didn’t argue, but returned to his car, backed out of the slot and cruised slowly around the parking lot. He saw nothing familiar. He dialed Shona’s number again, but she didn’t answer. He did recognize a film crew from Channel 32, and a newspaper reporter for the Jefferson City Herald. He was sure more reporters would be arriving soon.
His own camera crew had not yet made it here, and he had a sneaking suspicion they wouldn’t have anything to film once they arrived. He knew Shona too well. She didn’t want a media circus tonight.
Typically, she was gracious and outgoing to all members of the media, as was her father. This was different. He couldn’t blame her for wanting her privacy during this crisis.
Instead of calling Wendy, which he knew would be expected of him with this switch, he pulled from the parking lot and turned left, in the direction of St. Mary’s. Traditionally, Shona’s family had always used that hospital. He would follow his hunch without alerting others.
FOUR
After the nurse carried away the basin, Shona collapsed gratefully in a chair someone pushed over from the central desk.
Another member of medical staff in bloodstained blue scrubs knelt beside her, his eyes compassionate, but his tone brisk. “Ma’am, does your father have any history of hemophilia?”
“No.” Didn’t he think she would have told them immediately if that were the case?
“Does he take any kind of blood thinner like Coumadin? Or a lot of aspirin?”
“Nothing like that. He seldom even takes a painkiller.” Shona accepted some wet paper towels from an aide and dabbed at her face and mouth.
“Has he been ill recently, running a high fever?”
“No. He had a cold, but nothing serious. Please, do you know what’s happening?”
The man shook his head. “That’s what we’re still trying to find out.” He returned to the trauma room.
“Got something here, Dr. Morris,” someone said. “He could be coming back around. We’ve got a better rhythm.”
“Stop CPR. Is there a pulse?”
There was a waiting silence for a few seconds.
“No, Doctor.”
“Okay, continue CPR.”
Shona couldn’t take it. She had always thought she would be strong in a situation like this. She wasn’t. She had never felt so alone in her life.
Geoff pulled into St. Mary’s parking lot behind a police car. He saw another unmarked car at the curb, and an ambulance hovered in the bay, as if it had recently made a delivery. He was pretty sure he had found the right place, though Shona’s vehicle was not in sight.
As he pulled into an empty spot, his cell phone beeped. He checked the screen and saw Wendy’s number.
He pressed the talk button. “Wendy, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. Do you mind if I call you back—”
“Where are you?” Her words were clipped, impatient.
“I’m at the hospital.”
“No, you aren’t. The crew can’t find you.”
“I think the ambulance was diverted to another hospital.”
“Which one?”
“I’m at St. Mary’s right now, but I haven’t made it inside, and they have a sign at the entrance that requests we turn all cell phones off. I’ll call you as soon as—”
“We didn’t hear about it on the scanner.”
“They could have used a private line. I’m not sure yet. I’m checking it out now, but it’s obvious Shona doesn’t want media attention right now.”
“She doesn’t have the liberty to pick and choose when she receives coverage and when she doesn’t,” Wendy snapped.
Geoff gritted his teeth. Careful, Wendy, your antagonism is showing. “You know the hospital won’t allow a crew into the emergency department,” he said. “I’m sure Shona won’t leave her father’s side. On the other hand, there will be lights flashing and police cars lining the street around the MacDonald mansion. What’s going to give us better ratings?”
There was a buzzing silence, then a sharp sigh. “Fine. We already have a crew at the mansion, but I need you there to report. I don’t want to trust Sally with this.”
“Can’t Megan or Emily do it? I need to be with my family right now, Wendy.”
“You have a job to do, Tremaine. I suggest you follow orders if you want to keep your cushy position with all its perks.”
He swallowed a sharp retort. “Think about the ratings. If Megan comes on the screen live from the MacDonald mansion, filling in for Geoff Tremaine, who’s with his wife and father-in-law at the hospital, don’t you think that’s going to catch the attention of viewers?”
“Not as well as Geoff Tremaine himself.”
“But what if your man on the scene is able to get exclusive, timely updates from the source?”
There was another thoughtful pause. Wendy could ride roughshod over everyone when she wanted her way, but she did, on occasion, accept input. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”
He got out of the car, locked it, and started toward the ER entrance, dropping his keys into his right front pocket. “Is it working?”
Another sigh. “Call me when you find something out. Anything.”
“Thanks, Wendy, you’re all heart.”
“No, I just want that exclusive. Make time while you can. The others will catch on soon enough.”
He disconnected and slid the phone into his jacket pocket.
Shona looked up to see a man coming toward her. He wore a navy suit without a tie, and she recognized him as a police detective with whom she had spoken a couple of times in the past.
“Mrs. Tremaine? I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Detective Milt Davis. Are you okay?” He bent toward her, his eyes filled with concern.
She nodded and stood, reaching to shake his hand, allowing her public persona to settle into place even as the hospital crew battled for her father’s life. It felt like a physical weight.
“Of course, Milt. You’ve called me Shona in the past. I hope that hasn’t changed.”
The man was tall and slender, with graying hair around the temples and a lined face that emphasized his fiftysomething years of age combined with long hours on the force. He glanced toward the trauma room, where the staff continued to work over their patient. At least, they were still working.
“Thank you for calling to alert us to your change of location. I hate to interrupt you at a time like this,” he said, “but when you called for help initially, you suggested that this might have been a shooting. If that’s so, we need to follow any leads we can find as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll tell you everything I can,” she said. “Which is very little.”
Milt Davis spoke briefly with a nearby nurse, then led Shona to a conference room down the corridor.
“I’m afraid I’m not focusing very well,” Shona said, seating herself in a vinyl chair at the table.
“That’s understandable.” He took out his recorder and a notebook and asked her permission to tape their conversation. “Tell me what happened.”
“Dad wasn’t very coherent when I found him, and what he said didn’t make sense to me. If he was shot, no one has found a bullet wound. The blood was everywhere, coming from his nose, his teeth, bruising under his skin, but no wound, so that makes it clear to me that he must have been talking about something else.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through this. I know it’s been awful for you, but just because there is no evidence of a shooting doesn’t mean we’re willing to rule out foul play. When did you first notice something was wrong?”
Karah Lee pressed her foot on the imaginary brake on the passenger’s side, gripping the armrest with her right hand. “Fawn, it’s a good four hours to Jefferson City on a clear day. Don’t try to make it in an hour at night.”
“I can do it in less than four. You drive like my great-grandma.”
“She’s probably still alive, too. Which we won’t be if you don’t slow down.”
Instead of arguing as she normally did, Fawn allowed the car to slow enough that they took the next curve on all four wheels. Karah Lee loosened her death grip on the armrest and flexed the cramping muscles of her right foot.
“You doing okay?” Fawn asked.
“I’m trying not to think about things. It would help if I could drive.”
“You’re upset. You don’t need to be distracted with driving when you’re so upset. Older people don’t focus as well as—”
“Don’t start with me, young lady. Thirty-four isn’t old. You’re just looking for an excuse to drive, and I think using my anxiety as an excuse is reprehensible.”
“How can you say that when—”
“Slow down. Don’t forget four-legged creatures reign over this road at night.” Karah Lee felt herself relax in spite of Fawn’s aggressive driving. She suspected that had been Fawn’s purpose from the beginning—that and her natural urge, like every teenager’s, to sit behind the controls of a speeding vehicle.
“We should have packed more.” Fawn made a cursory show of braking and turned onto Highway 76. “What if your father’s in the hospital for a while? All we have is an overnight case.”
Karah Lee swallowed hard, staring ahead at the glow of headlights from a car coming over the next hill. “You should concentrate on driving right now.”
From the corner of her eye she saw Fawn look at her.
“Keep your eyes on the road.”
“I’m watching the road. Haven’t you been praying all these months that Kemper would see the error of his ways and change them?”
Karah Lee winced. That sounded so…fundamentally Christian. Of course, she was fundamentally Christian, but…
“I’ve been told often enough that if I pray for something in God’s will, He gives it to me. Don’t you think it’s God’s will for Kemper to get to know Him?” Fawn dimmed her headlights for the oncoming car, then when the oncoming lights didn’t dim, she muttered, “Jerk! You’re trying to blind me!”
Karah Lee reached for the seat belt and tightened it, once more pressing her imaginary brake. Why didn’t cars come equipped with optional brakes on the passenger’s side, too? They did that on driver’s-ed vehicles.
The car passed without mishap.
“So, where’s your faith?” Fawn asked.
Karah Lee sighed and sat back. It was hard to imagine that her father might have had a change of heart after all these years. She had noticed, however, that his attitude seemed to have undergone a change when he met his son for the first time.
Jerrod Houston, her newly discovered illegitimate brother, had been a shock to the great State Senator Kemper MacDonald. Karah Lee hoped it wasn’t her imagination that her father had encountered an authority more powerful than himself as he sought to make peace with his past.
She only wished she knew what to expect next.
FIVE
Geoff sat in the crowded waiting room, watching the inner door for Shona to come out and the outer door for the first news crews to arrive.
Shona was unreachable right now, in conference with the police. Ordinarily, the hospital personnel wouldn’t have told him even that much, except Shona had left word for him. At least she had relented somewhat.
He still wasn’t sure what his reception would be when he and Shona met. They had parted on a note of anger last year, and nothing that had passed between them in eleven months had given Geoff any reason to think she had had a change of heart. He, on the other hand, had endured plenty of second thoughts. Why had he been so demanding?
And yet, he still meant what he’d said. For several years, Shona had been evolving into her father’s puppet, scrambling to do whatever it took to keep Kemper MacDonald content. She had overlooked more and more of Kemper’s unethical behavior, even when he lied, manipulated and ingratiated himself to win votes to assure the completion of his own agenda. Until a couple of weeks ago, that agenda had been the advancement of his own career—and Shona’s.
It was at that time, during a private, late-night visit from his father-in-law, that Geoff had discovered a thread of hope that all was not lost.
Geoff checked again with the receptionist at the ER desk and was told that Kemper was still in critical condition. At least he was alive.
An older lady stood behind Geoff when he turned around. “Mr. Tremaine?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She held her checkbook out with one hand, an ink pen with the other. “Could I get your autograph? This is all I could find to write on.”
He hesitated. He had never been able to fathom why anyone would be interested in his autograph, but Wendy insisted it was good PR. With a smile, he relented and did as he was asked. He signed with a flourish he had practiced, the writing as much unlike his normal writing style as he could make it in order to protect himself from identity theft—good advice from an attorney who had visited the station.
“Do you have someone in the ER tonight?” he asked the lady as he handed her the signed book.
She nodded. “My mother. She has congestive heart failure. I just saw you over here and—”
“I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“Oh, she’ll recover as soon as they pull off the fluid. They’ve done it before.”
“I hope she’ll be okay.”
The lady gazed up at him. “Thank you, Mr. Tremaine,” she said on a sigh. “You know, I never miss the Channel 6 news now that you’re there.”
He smiled, refusing to take the woman’s admiration seriously.
As the lady returned to her seat, Geoff realized he and Shona had always been two of a kind. They lived in the public eye, and though they didn’t particularly enjoy the attention their jobs brought them, they had learned to cope with the fish-bowl syndrome years ago.
At least, most of the time.
To his relief, Shona stepped through the door from the ER. She spotted him immediately and started toward him, looking very tense. He knew that look well.
Though his wife had always been beautiful, the years had graced her, giving her a polish that didn’t fully emerge until her midthirties. She now had silver-blond highlights in her short, thick dark hair, and her eyes, which had always been large, no longer made her appear ingenuous but astute. Amazing what a few years of seasoning could do for a woman. She was more beautiful than ever.
Unfortunately for him, she was also less easy to read.
He was stepping forward to meet her when the entry door opened, admitting Sally Newton and a cameraman from the station.
Sally, spotting Shona, wove her way through the crowded room. “Mrs. Tremaine, can you tell us how the senator is doing?”
All eyes in the waiting room suddenly focused on Shona.
Sally was in her midtwenties, and she had not yet learned many lessons in diplomacy. She advanced on Shona with a microphone in her hand, gesturing for the cameraman to follow her.
Shona raised a hand of entreaty toward Geoff. “Please, not now,” she said softly. “I can’t talk right—”
“Sal,” Geoff said, smoothly stepping in front of Shona to shield her from the camera, “the senator’s family will have a statement for the press as soon as possible. At this moment we don’t have sufficient information to relay, only that Senator MacDonald is in critical condition.”
The pretty blonde blinked at him. “But Wendy told me—”
Shona took Geoff’s arm.
“We’ll contact you as soon as we have a statement,” he told the reporter. “You must understand our concerns. Shona needs to focus all her attention on her father at this time.”
“Can you at least tell us what happened? Was this a murder attempt?” Sally asked.
Geoff heard Shona catch her breath at the question. He lowered his voice. “I just told you, Sally, that there will be a statement later. There’s nothing here for you to see.” Without staying to argue, he ushered Shona back through the doors into the bustling ER.
“That young woman needs to learn some manners,” Shona snapped.
“As Wendy would say, she’s simply doing her job.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what Wendy would say. I’m just glad you decided there was something more important at the…moment….” Shona stopped, gazing toward the trauma room where a team of hospital personnel surrounded someone—Kemper? Her hand tightened on Geoff’s arm.
“We don’t need to be here right now,” he said. “Is there a private room where we can wait?”
She led him along a corridor to a conference room with a table and chairs, love seat and recliner.
She released his arm at last, and sank onto the love seat. He resisted the urge to assure her that everything would be okay. He’d learned long ago not to make assurances he couldn’t keep, especially to Shona Tremaine, who would not hesitate to call him on it.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
She grimaced. “I discovered I don’t handle medical emergencies well. Karah Lee would be ashamed of me. I held together until I tried to watch them work on Dad in the trauma room.” She wiggled her fingers in front of her stomach, giving him a good idea about what had happened.
“I called her,” Geoff said. “She’s on her way.”
Those large, dark gray eyes narrowed. “I asked you not to do that.”
“She’s his daughter, too, and she’s coming. Give her some credit.”
Shona’s grimace told him she was irritated but not really angry. He hadn’t pushed it too far…yet.
“Only because you called,” she said. “Karah Lee likes you better than she does me.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
“Of course, it is.” She glanced up at him, then quickly looked away. “She even told me that once.”
“You two are always pulling each other’s chains.” Shona retained her privacy with dignity in the public eye, but, despite their separation, she seemed to be as candid as always with him. The key word was seemed. He no longer knew if he could take her at her word, especially since he knew she felt she must be on guard with him.
“How did it go with the police?” he asked.
“Is this Geoffrey Tremaine, reporter for Channel 6 news asking, or Geoff, my husband?”
“It’s always just me, Shona.”
She leaned forward. “And who, exactly, is that? When I spoke with you on the phone you seemed determined to interview me.”
“And you were just as determined not to be interviewed. You gave me no choice. For me, family has to come first.”
She blinked and looked away, and he realized, belatedly, the effect his words would have on her.
“That’s laudable.” Her voice had suddenly gone soft.
“I’m sorry, Shona. I wasn’t trying to—”
“For me, it seems I allowed the job, and my father, to come first.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Milt Davis interviewed me,” she said. “Then he warned me the mansion will remain a crime scene until further notice. The FBI might be stepping in if the evidence suggests the attack on Dad—if that’s what happened—could be political in nature.”
“Did Milt give you any indication whether or not the police thought that could be the case?”
“We don’t know what happened yet. Dad is just bleeding for no reason, bruising beneath his skin, as if his clotting factor has suddenly failed.”
“That isn’t a naturally occurring event,” Geoff said. “I know your father doesn’t have hemophilia.”
“That’s why the police are suspicious of foul play. I’m sure they’re looking for a weapon at the house, but I don’t know of anything that would cause that kind of bleeding.”
“You won’t be able to stay at the mansion, obviously.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave here anyway while Dad’s critical. A policewoman is going to pack some things and bring them by for me later. I’ll stay at The Capitol Plaza.”
“You can come home with me. You’ll be safer there.”
She looked up at him, her eyes misting. Then she dropped her gaze and shook her head. “Not this way,” she said softly.
He sat down in the chair across from her. “Did anyone actually see a wound?”
“No. As much as Dad was bleeding, the doctor would have seen blood coming from a specific wound, but there was nothing.”
“Where did you get the idea that this was a shooting?”
“He said the word,” Shona told him. “He said, ‘Shot.’”
“That’s it?”
She spread her hands. “Then he said for me to…” She gave him a quick glance, then looked down at her fingers. “He said to get away.”
“From what? From him? Why would he—”
“He might have been trying to tell me to get out of Jefferson City.”
“What else did he say?” Geoff asked.
She didn’t look at him. “I think he must have been hallucinating. He said something about getting the little one out…I’m not sure exactly what he said. It made no sense.”
Geoff studied her expression as she continued to avoid eye contact. What was she not telling him?
His cell phone rang, and he groaned. He was supposed to turn it off when he entered the hospital. In the excitement, he had ignored the sign, even after mentioning it to Wendy.
To his relief, he saw the caller was not Wendy, nor did the number belong to anyone else with his news team. It was Linda Plinkett, Kemper’s old friend, fellow committee member on the Drug Task Force, and, quite possibly, a whole lot more. He answered in spite of the hospital policy restricting cell phones, knowing there were no machines in this section of the building that would be disrupted by the electronic transmission.
“Yes, Linda?”
“Geoffrey Tremaine, what on earth is happening to Kemper? I just heard on the news that he’s been shot!”
“He’s still in critical condition.”
“Where? I can’t reach Shona.”
“We’re here at the hospital.”
“Which hospital? I can’t find him, and these blasted federal regulations prevent the hospital staff from telling me where he is.”
Geoff glanced at Shona. “We’re at St. Mary’s.” Linda might as well jump into the investigation with both feet. She would be embroiled in it soon enough.
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
Shona couldn’t face Geoff with the swift rush of suspicion that held her mute. Dad couldn’t have been talking about Geoff. He must have meant Jefferson City. Longtime residents often called it just plain “Jeff.”
She hugged herself, unable to stop shivering. How many times would she have to repeat Dad’s words in the next few days? Geoff was bound to hear it from someone. The police would want to question him, if only because of that one statement Dad made.
And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Geoff. For these few moments, they were being more civil with each other than they had been since before their separation. She didn’t want to break the spell because of her inability to trust.
Geoff stood up and shrugged out of his sport coat, then gently placed it around her shoulders. She could smell the warm, woodsy scent of his aftershave as his hands rested briefly on her shoulders.
It would be so comforting to allow him to take care of everything.
That was impossible, of course. Too many issues remained between them to simply erase the past. And besides, there was this suspicion….
Instead of returning to his chair, Geoff sat on the arm of the love seat. “Do you have any idea what your father might have been talking about? What did he want you to get away from?”
“He was practically incoherent, and he lost consciousness while he was still talking. He could have even been hallucinating.”
“But you got the impression he was warning you about something?”
She glanced up at him. Why did he insist on pursuing the subject? “I didn’t get any impressions at all at the time, okay, Geoff?” she said more sharply than she’d intended. “He was bleeding badly. All I cared about was getting help.”
“The police are combing the mansion for evidence of a crime. It would be foolhardy to consider going alone to a hotel room if there is any danger at all. Can’t we forget the issues between us long enough to see this through? Your safety is more important than—”
She raised a hand to silence him. “Dad’s in the other room, fighting for his life. That’s all I can think about.” She wrapped his coat around her more tightly and stood up. She never had been able to sit still in a crisis.
She glanced over her shoulder at Geoff. Her husband could be a model for a clean-cut, all-American grown-up Boy Scout. His blue eyes were clear beneath straight, light brown eyebrows. She knew him so well, had known him for so long, since they were love-struck teenagers in high school. So why did he suddenly seem like a stranger to her? Not a stranger, exactly, but…somehow different.
She reached into her pocket for some change, but it was empty. She had locked her purse in her car. Why had she done that?
“Coffee?” he asked.
She nodded. “Anything to take this sour taste out of my mouth.”
He pulled some coins from the pocket of his slacks. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched him leave, then paced the room, unable to sit down. There were no windows, and suddenly the walls seemed too confining, suffocating.
For the first time in years, Shona considered prayer. She dismissed the idea immediately, but she understood why people turned to God in times of distress.
How good it would feel—how comforting—to be able to allow someone else to take the load from her that she always seemed to be carrying. But was there anyone to take it? She’d shouldered the weight alone for so long with no help from anyone.
Okay, maybe Geoff had tried to share her burdens, but he always insisted on doing things his way. That had been one of the problems between them. They handled situations so differently.
Moments later, he stepped back into the room with two mugs of coffee. “The nurse took pity on us.”
“Thanks.” Shona took one and inhaled the steam that rose from the hot liquid.
“Cream, no sugar,” he said. “I tried to get you decaf, but that pot was empty. You have enough to worry about without more stress. Are you still trying to cut back on caffeine?”
She knew he was trying to distract her. He’d always been good at that. And she had often resented the tactic. “Trying, but I haven’t—”
The door opened, and in stepped the doctor who had led her father’s medical team. Shona froze.
“Mrs. Tremaine? I’m Dr. Morris.” He wore a fresh, white coat, but his green scrubs were still bloodstained.
“Yes, Doctor,” Shona said. “How is my father?”
Dr. Morris gestured for Shona and Geoff to sit on the love seat. He sat across from them on the recliner. “I’ve asked our hospital chaplain to join us. He’s on his way.”
Shona felt her strength drain away at his words. “You can just tell us, Doctor. I don’t need a preacher to translate for me.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tremaine, we did all we could to resuscitate your father. He responded for a few minutes, and then succumbed. Kemper MacDonald is dead.”
Shona felt herself go numb. She knew medical personnel had to speak that way. Euphemisms for death could lead to misunderstandings. Still, it sounded so harsh.
Geoff placed an arm around her shoulders, and she stiffened, resistant. He’d tried to destroy her relationship with her father. He would not intrude into her grief.
He removed his arm. “Dr. Morris, was there any evidence of a gunshot wound?”
“None.”
“When can I see him?” Shona asked.
The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry, that wouldn’t be—”
“I won’t fall apart on you this time, Dr. Morris. I need to see my father.”
There was a long hesitation. “Give us time to clean him up, Mrs. Tremaine. We don’t want to cause you any more grief than necessary.”
“Do you have any idea yet what might have killed him?” Geoff asked.
The doctor shook his head. “There will be an autopsy, of course. That should give us some answers.” He gently touched Shona’s shoulder. “The chaplain will help you with the final arrangements. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
She nodded and leaned her head against the sofa. Dad was dead. There was no going back. He was gone.
SIX
Karah Lee received the call as Fawn exited I-44 and headed north toward Lake of the Ozarks. It was Geoff.
“How far out are you?” he asked.
“Couple of hours, maybe less the way Fawn’s breaking every speed limit.” She cast a glare in Fawn’s direction, to no avail. Fawn was resolute. She either wanted to get them to Jefferson City in record time, or she wanted to be mangled in a tragic accident.
“You can slow down now,” Geoff said quietly.
Her hand tightened on the tiny phone. “Tell me he’s better.”
“I’m sorry, Karah Lee, I can’t do that.”
She didn’t want to hear this. Denial would be welcome for a while longer.
“The medical personnel did all they could, but your father couldn’t be resuscitated. He’s gone.”
For a moment, she didn’t respond, watching the traffic in front of her. The glare of headlights merged into a string of brilliant pearls as sudden, warm tears tickled her cheeks. No, Dad. Don’t leave this way, not with this thing still between us.
“Karah Lee?” Geoff said.
“Should we turn around and go back home, then?” She knew that sounded callous, and she didn’t mean for it to. She suddenly just felt so…cut off. Adrift. How was Shona feeling?
“No. Come to Jefferson City. You’re needed now, more than ever.”
“I’m not. It’ll be awkward with me there.”
“And you don’t think it’s awkward between Shona and me? Your father is gone, Karah Lee. Your presence is needed here now.”
She heard the impatience in his voice. This was hard on him, too. “Sorry, but really, Geoff, my presence there will be stressful for Shona right now, and she doesn’t need that.”
“You don’t have any idea what Shona needs, do you?” Again, the impatience, barely there, and restrained by a strong dose of Geoff Tremaine manners.
“What do you mean?”
“She and I are still legally separated, and there’s still tension between us. She just lost her father. There’s a murder investigation going on, and—”
Karah Lee gasped. “There really is a murder investigation?”
Fawn gasped, and the car slowed momentarily.
“Yes, and Shona’s already been questioned. She doesn’t have anyone close to her here. She needs you, even though she probably doesn’t realize it herself.”
Again, the headlights seemed to become a stream of attack against Karah Lee’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say. What would she do when she arrived in Jefferson City?
“You need to be watchful when you arrive, though,” he continued. “As I’ve said, the police suspect your father was murdered.”
“Then Fawn shouldn’t even be with me.”
“Please don’t return to Hideaway now, Karah Lee. My home will be secure for you.”
“The mansion wasn’t safe for Dad, even with all the security measures he took.” Karah Lee closed her eyes. Murder was such a horrible word. Who would want to kill Dad? Oh, sure, he was controversial, and politics could be messy, ugly, dirty. Dad had always known how to play the game.
Had he offended someone too many times? Had his political platform threatened someone? In the past few months, Dad had become very outspoken against the illegal methamphetamine situation and had called for more police intervention, stiffer sentences.
Last summer, when Karah Lee called Dad for help against the insidious Beaufont Corporation that was attempting to take over Hideaway, he had ridden into town with the feds like a knight in shining armor and cleaned house. It turned out Beaufont had connections with organized crime. Those people held grudges.
Why hadn’t she told him more often that she appreciated his heroics last year? Why had she allowed this gulf to remain between them until it was too late? Yes, they had always clashed. Dad tended to ride roughshod over everyone to get what he wanted, even when it involved meddling in her professional life. She’d resented it. Being her father’s daughter, she didn’t take his manipulations in silence.
“Karah Lee?” Geoff said, his voice gentle. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure.” Could her run-in with the Beaufont Corporation last summer have something to do with this? What if she had been the indirect cause of her father’s death?
“The police are questioning everyone right now,” Geoff said. “Please just come up here. They’ve taken blood and urine samples for screening. The FBI may take control of this investigation.”
She watched the spread of dark Missouri countryside pass around them as Fawn sped into the night. “How’s Shona holding up?”
“She seems to have withdrawn from everyone around her, although she’s still able to compose herself for the cameras.”
“Of course.” Shona had always been capable of shoving her feelings aside for the needs of others, and especially for Dad and her work.
“You need to be advised,” Geoff said, “that at this moment, she insists she will stay at the Capitol Plaza, no matter how impractical.”
“No surprise there. Any idea how long before anyone can return to the mansion?”
“The investigation is taking time. It could be days.”
“Can you convince Shona to stay with you if she knows Fawn and I would be at the house, as well?”
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Hannah Alexander
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A KILLER LURKS IN THE SHADOWS… UNTIL IT′S TIME TO STRIKE AGAIN.When a prominent senator is murdered in his own home, his daughter Shona Tremaine becomes the prime suspect in his death. Only her estranged husband, Geoff, and younger sister, Karah Lee, believe in her innocence–until an attempt on Shona′s own life clears her name.Who would want her dead? As Shona and Geoff work together to solve the mystery, they uncover a web of deceit and corruption in her father′s life–and discover the love they thought they′d lost. But will their renewed commitment be enough to save Shona′s life?