Sharp Edges by Jayne Ann Krentz Page B

recovered the cup, he would be relieved of it. And then he would be killed. This time, the ex-Damien March thought, he would make certain of the results.
    He had always known that sooner or later he would have to get rid of Colfax. It was the old story of the tortoise and the hare. Eventually, through sheer, dogged persistence, the tortoise always caught up with the fleeter, smarter hare, leaving the hare with no choice but to make turtle soup.
    Assured that things were moving forward on the main front, the ex-Damien March opened another computer file. For the past three years he had kept his eye on a politician from California who had shown excellent potential.
    Zackery Elland Chandler II was now running for the Senate. It was a very tight race against an incumbent, but Chandler was two points ahead in the polls.
    The man who had once been Damien March had owned many fine things in his life, but he had never owned a U.S. Senator. It was time to think about adding one to his collection.

    The blackmail note was waiting for Zackery Elland Chandler II when he booted up his computer to read his e-mail.

Old sins cast long shadows. The young woman from Second Chance Springs died a long time ago, but her connection to you has survived. I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the link to your past can be kept quiet. For a price.

    Zackery stared at the screen in disbelief. A crank, he thought. It had to be a crackpot. He double-checked the e-mail account to see if he had accidentally accessed the wrong one. He maintained two. One had an address that was widely available to the public. The second was for his business and personal use.
    He was in his private account, the one with the address that was not widely circulated.
    He read the note again. Politicians got a lot of strange mail. Most of it could be ignored. It would have been easier to dismiss this message if it were not for the reference to Second Chance Springs. The name of the small spot in the road near the California-Mexican border rang a very distant bell.
    There had been a woman once, a student at the small college he had attended his freshman year. She had worked part-time as a waitress in a coffee shop near the campus. He had dated her for a while. Slept with her a few times. He could not recall her name, but he had a vague recollection of her telling him about her boring life in a place called Second Chance Springs and how she yearned to escape.
    She had made him nervous, however, when she talked about her future. He had made it clear that she should not look to him for help with her plans. He had his own agenda, and it definitely did not include marriage for several more years.
    He had not spelled out the rest of it, which was that when he did marry, his bride would not be an unsophisticated little nobody from a place like Second Chance Springs.
    His goals had been mapped out for him by his father at a very early age. Zackery was headed for a law career followed by public office.
    When he was young, Zackery had done everything he could to please his impossible-to-please father. But by the time he went off to college he had internalized the elder Chandler's goals. Zackery wanted the future that had been decreed for him. After the death of his father, he had wanted that future with even more fervor.
    He had achieved the first goal with a lucrative law career. When the time had come, he had moved into the political arena. He had used his success in California state politics to establish a reputation that, according to the polls, could take him into that most exclusive of all clubs, the U.S. Senate.
    It had all been astonishingly easy up to this point. He was fifty-four years old, and he was doing what he had been born to do. There had been no serious setbacks in his life, no major tests, no hard choices to make.
    Maybe it had been too easy.
    He tore his eyes off the computer screen and looked at the framed picture of his wife, Mary, and his son and daughter.
    The coffee