Close To The Edge (Westen #2) by Suzanne Ferrell

was her third loss in as many months. If she wanted her party’s political backers to support her bid for District Attorney this fall, she needed to make some headlines—fast. Her political career was going to hell faster than a serial killer in the electric chair.
    She slumped down into her leather chair, kicked off her Carmen Ho linen stilettosand turned to stare at the photos on the wall beside her. There was a picture of her shaking hands with the chief of police. The headline read, “Assistant DA Instrumental in Cracking Cocaine Ring”. Another photo showed her at a political fundraiser, arm-in-arm with both the Mayor and Governor. Those photos were nearly three years old.
    It was supposed to be so easy. As a junior assistant, she’d managed to catapult herself into the limelight three years ago with that high-profile drug bust. There should’ve been more of those. After all, she’d had an inside man undercover in the drug scene.
    Gage. The greatest disappointment in her life.
    Frustration rumbled through her like the beginning of a late-spring thunderstorm. They should’ve been the dynamic duo. Him busting the criminals and she prosecuting them, making a name for herself and moving them both into the state’s political realm. Instead he spent the first three years of their marriage undercover following a cocaine trail. Just when the major raid took place and they should’ve been soaring into the limelight, he managed to get himself shot.
    Not just once.
    Not just twice.
    But three damn times.
    A tentative knock sounded on her door.
    She swallowed the urge to yell at the intruder. What little patience she had today had been used up kissing her boss’s ass tonight at dinner. But gossip traveled fast in this office and she had an image to maintain. Screaming like a fishwife at the door wouldn’t help her get anywhere.
    The knock sounded a second time, this time a little stronger.
    Exhaling, she kicked her shoes under the desk, opened a file and pulled out a pen.
    Always give the illusion of being busy.
    “Come in.”
    The door opened and her secretary—plain, efficient, the nondescript type of helper she preferred to make her stand out whenever they were seen together—stepped inside.
    “Sorry to disturb you, Ms. Dudson, but I wanted to give you your phone messages before I left for the night.”
    “Thank you, Lisa.” She held out her hand and took the slips of paper from the mousy blonde, who waited while she flipped through them.
    Damn. Gage hadn’t returned her call. The man was impossible.
    She clenched her teeth to keep from grinding on the expensive orthodontic work she’d paid for to give her a million-dollar smile. Pressure built inside her chest and she stared at the slips in her hands as if thinking, all the while forcing air slowly into and out of her lungs.
    “No message from Sheriff Justice over in Westen?” She never referred to Gage as her ex-husband within earshot of subordinates. That part of her life was in the past. She refused to admit to a failure.
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Thank you. Be here bright and early tomorrow, I’d like to get a head start on the Smith-Johnson case.” She glanced at Lisa, who had edged out of the office and started to close the door. “Leave it open.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Focusing on the papers in front of her, Moira listened for the elevator bell signaling she was alone in the office. She tossed her pen onto the desk and leaned back in her chair once more.
    Gage wasn’t calling her back just to piss her off. The man gave stubborn a whole new meaning. After three years you’d think he’d have forgiven her at least enough to take a phone call. He’d answered her first call to his cell this morning, but hung up immediately. The next three calls had gone directly to his voicemail, which he apparently planned to ignore.
    She opened her phone book and dialed his home number, the one his father had originally given her. It rang and rang. The clock on the