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He smiled, sleepy.

He went into the kitchen to get the flashlight while Jessica went out on the front porch.

"Psst! Wendy! Wendy!"

"What?" came a voice from behind her, scaring the heck out of Jessica.

"Sorry," Wendy said, appearing out of the shadows on the porch.

"I

didn't mean to sneak up on you. "

"Listen, Mrs. Peel, Will's going to his cabin, so don't shoot him or anything, okay?"

"Okay."

Jessica whispered, "But shoo, will you? Just beat it for a minute or two?"

"Sure." As Wendy went skipping down the steps and off into the night.

Will came out onto the porch and almost immediately took Jessica into his arms. She slid her hands around his waist and they kissed. But not for long, because they wouldn't/be able to stay in control for long.

The kind of sexual desire she felt for Will was new to Jessica in sobriety. It wasn't a tide; it felt more like a tidal wave of sensation.

"After they catch this stalker of yours," Will murmured, kissing her forehead, her eyes and then her neck.

"You and I, Jessica Wright," he continued, kissing her ear, her cheek and then bringing his head back up to look at her, "are going to spend days and days and days getting to know each other."

She knew exactly what he had in mind, for their lower bodies were already working their way toward the unstated goal.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said after kissing her briefly once more and breaking away.

"Sleep tight," she called softly.

At the bottom of the stairs he stopped.

"You do know that I'm falling in love with you, don't you? And that it started a long, long time ago? Like maybe seven years ago, the very first moment I saw you?"

After a moment, she said, "I know." She didn't know;

what else to say because she didn't know what it was, exactly, that she felt. Other than physically, that was. Not yet.

"Good night."

She went back inside and locked the front door. She stood in the front foyer, feeling very wide-awake. Nowl^ what? ^1 Hot chocolate and something to read for fun. She| went into the kitchen and heated some skim milk, stirring some Nestle's Quik into it. Then she went into At^ exandra's library and looked around on the shelve^j Ah, Vanity Fair. Surely Thackeray had been dead lo '" enough that no publicist would be trying to book h on her show.

Jessica poured her hot chocolate in a mug, set t saucepan in the sink with some water in it, picked iq her book, turned out the lights and went upstairs to her room. She turned on the bedside lamp, put down the mug of hot chocolate and went back to the door to turn the overhead light. She closed the drapes, went into bathroom and washed up, slipped into her nightie an<|| came back to slide under the sheets. As she was puffing up the pillows, her hand felt something undemeaa|| She closed her fingers around it and pulled. It was a fAg packet of hot chocolate and a note.

Dear Jessica, Sleep well, my precious. I hold the vision of you in my heart, of your body against mine.

Love, Leopold

Jessica cried out, clawing her way out of the bed covers and flying out of the bedroom, nearly falling over Wendy in the hall.

"How the hell did he get in here?" she asked as Wendy rushed into her room.

Alexandra came running down the hall, hastily tying a silk robe around her.

Wendy came back out of Jessica's bedroom, barking into a walkie-talkie.

Georgiana appeared next, knotting her robe securely around her waist.

"What's happened?" she asked, taking Jessica's elbow in hand.

"That freak's been in my room!" Jessica said.

"God damn it!" she cried, slapping her hand against the wall.

"The son of a bitch has been in my bed!" A stalker was one thing, but a creep actually touching her things, her private places. Her bed! Here!

The front door opened and Slim came barreling up the stairs.

"Are you all right?"

"Find him!" Jessica yelled, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Shoot the son of a bitch, I don't care, just get this guy out of my life and out of my stuff!"

Slim went into the bedroom with Wendy. Alexandra went in, too. When she came back out she handed Jessica's robe to her.

"Come on, come downstairs to the kitchen. They're going to be a while."

"I'm not going back in that bedroom, Alexandra. I'm sorry, but there's no way until you fumigate it!"

"No, no, of course not," the anchorwoman said, lead ring her friend downstairs.

"We'll go back to New York. We'll have some hot chocolate" -- "That's what he left me under my pillow!" Jessica shrieked.

"I'm never having hot chocolate again!"

"Come downstairs, Jessica," Alexandra urged, pulling her along.

"I'm telling you, I'm getting a gun," Jessica declared.

"And if that guy comes near me, I swear I'm blowing his head off. How dare he trespass on my private life!"

Alexandra left Jessica under Georgiana's care in the kitchen and returned to Jessica's room.

"How is she?" Wendy asked her.

"Furious. She says she's going to get a gun and blow his head off."

"Scared to death, then," Wendy said.

"It gets real when it gets personal." She turned to Slim, who was bagging the note.

"So what do you think?"

"I think we better bring her back to New York."

"That's what I think, too," Alexandra said. She drew her robe closer around her, giving a slight shiver, and looked to Wendy.

"You know how this house is wired. How did he do it? How did he get in here?" She noticed something funny in Wendy's expression and asked, "What? What's wrong?"

"It's just that Slim got some news," Wendy said.

"He was on the phone when he heard Jessica scream."

Alexandra turned.

"What news?"

"It's about Jessica's secretary," he said solemnly.

"Bea? What about her?"

"They just found her body," he said.

"At West End. She's been murdered."

Jessica, Alexandra, Will and Jessica's bodyguards were back at West End on Sunday morning to meet with police.

"I'm fine, just numb," Jessica said to Cassy on her way into the network president's office.

"Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

"If you're up to it," Cassy said gently, "the police would like to ask you some questions."

"Sure." Jessica looked to Alexandra.

"I'll stay with you," Alexandra told her.

"Mr. Rafferty?" a man said.

"I was wondering if you could come with me into the next office?"

"Sure." Then to Jessica, "I'll be right next door if you need me."

Jessica nodded and, head slightly bowed, walked over to take a seat on the couch.

"Jessica," Cassy said as the rest seated themselves around Jessica, "this is Detective Jefferson Hepplewhite from the New York Police Department."

"And my associate," the black detective said, nod ding to a big white guy in the chair across from him who had taken out a pen and pad, "Detective Richard O'Neal."

"How do you do?" Jessica said mechanically.

"As you know, Ms. Wright, your secretary, Bea Blakely, was found here at West End last night."

Jessica felt a blanket of dread and fear descending on her, and the gnawings of pent-up grief.

"How was she killed?"

"I'm afraid we can't discuss the specifics right now."

Jessica stared at him. Finally she said, "Could it have been an accident?"

The detective shook his head.

"No."

"Wonderful," Jessica muttered.

"A murderer's running around here and you can't discuss it." She glared at him.

"How are we supposed to help if we don't even know what happened?"

Cassy and the detective exchanged looks.

"Let me get you some water, Jessica," Cassy said, rising from her chair.

"Thank you, that won't be necessary," Jessica said sharply, prompting Cassy to sit down again.

"Okay, Detective, you've got me here, you won't tell me anything except that someone murdered my secretary. So what do you want to know?"

"Do you know why your secretary was here last night?"

"Oh, God," Jessica said, crashing in an instant and dropping her face into her hands.

"Poor Bea."

"It's possible she could have been trying to get a jump on this week's shows," Cassy said.

"So it was not unusual for her to be here on a weekend."

"It wasn't usual," Jessica said, dropping her hands and sniffing. She took a Kleenex from Alexandra.

"As a matter of fact, I made a point of telling her not to do any work this weekend." She blew her nose.

"I

wish you'd tell me how she was killed. "

"It's not for public knowledge at this time," Detective Hepplewhite said, glancing at Alexandra.

Jessica followed his eyes.

"Oh for God's sake, you aren't reporting this, are you?" Jessica nearly shrieked at the anchorwoman.

"Not who or how the murder occurred," Cassy said quickly.

"But of course DBS News has to report the incident Jessica, you know that."

"That's sick," Jessica said.

"She worked here. You knew her."

"We have an obligation to report the news as it hap pens," Alexandra said quietly.

Jessica stared at her and then turned to the detective.

"Could we please continue this conversation in private, please?"

"Jessica," Alexandra protested, "you don't think I'd " "I'm not about to talk about Bea in front of the press, that's for damn sure!" Jessica told her.

"She wasn't here long, but I don't want her corpse winning anybody a raise around here."

"Jessica!" This was from Cassy.

"It's okay," Alexandra said, getting up to leave.

"I know how she feels."

"Why don't you use your vultures downstairs to find the murderer?"

Jessica wanted to know.

"I will," Alexandra told her, leaving the office and closing the door perhaps a degree or two harder than was required.

Jessica turned her eyes on Cassy then, as though she might throw her out, too.

"So Miss Blakely had a set of keys to your office," Detective Hepplewhite continued.

"Yes, of course she did."

"Did she have keys to your apartment?" he asked next.

"No."

"Have you ever kept keys to your apartment here at West End?" he asked next.

"In your office, perhaps?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Jessica," Cassy said.

"All right. Yes, I keep a set of keys to my apartment hidden in my desk."

"So Miss Blakely had access to them."

"Yes."

"To your knowledge, has she ever been in your apartment?"

"Sure. At least twice, maybe three times. We did some tapings there and she came over with the crew. And then another time, she came for dinner, with the rest of my staff."

The cop nodded.

"Good. Now, what can you tell me about Bea? Miss Blakely, rather."

"I've already given them her personnel file, Jessica," Cassy said.

"And I called Bea's family myself."

"Oh, God, those poor people," Jessica said, tears welling up.

"Geez, their daughter..."

The detective politely waited for Jessica to pull herself together.

"Bea was not an easy person to know," Jessica finally said.

"She was very young, green, but a good secretary. Very good on the phone, with messages, typing, organizing me."

"What about friends?"

Jessica shook her head.

"She never talked about her personal life."

"Boyfriends?"

"She never said anything," Jessica said.

"But it's not as if I encouraged her to talk about her personal life. Frankly, until someone's here for six months, I try not to invest too much time emotionally in getting to know them. It's age, I guess. So many of the younger people come and go so fast, you get kind of jaded."

"What about time off? Did she ever say how she spent it?"

"She was into astrology, I know," Jessica said.

"She did my chart once."

"Did you trust her?"

Jessica shrugged.

"No reason not to. But then again, I had no particular reason to have to. As I said, she hadn't been here very long."

"Miss Wright, did it ever occur to you that Miss Blakely might have been supplying information to the tabloids about you?"

Jessica was dumbfounded.

"No. It didn't."

"There have been some stories recently," Cassy said.

"So we hear," the cop said.

"You think Bea was feeding information to the tabloids

"Selling information," the detective corrected her.

"And we don't think. Miss Wright, we know without a doubt that she was."

Jessica walked out of Cassy's office shellshocked. Will was waiting outside, and jumped up when the door opened.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah," she said vaguely. Automatically she looked for Slim and Wendy and felt better when she saw them.

"Nobody's going to get near you. Miss Wright," Slim promised.

"Jessica," Will said, "please don't be angry about DBS breaking the news about Bea."

She looked at him, not fully registering what he had said, which he mistook for anger.

"Alexandra had to call it into the newsroom," Will continued.

"She didn't give any name or details, but she had to call it in, Jessica.

NEC already had it off the police scanner. "

"I'm not mad," she said weakly. She looked at Will.

"I just don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"We'll go home, Jess."

"But I don't want to go to my house," Jessica said, starting to cry.

"I'm scared to go there."

"Will's taking her to my place as we speak," Alexandra told Cassy a little while later.

"Wendy's with them and Slim's nearby."

"Good," Cassy said.

"I frankly don't know where else to put her at the moment."

"Where's Dirk?" Alexandra asked.

"What's his take on this?"

"He's trying to bring the FBI in, which of course has already ticked off the NYPD." Cassy slid down heavily to her chair behind her desk and rubbed her eyes.