Hannah Alexander - Under Suspicion

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.

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.

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.

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

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.