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"Air-raid sirens off."

"That went very well," Denny said.

"I don't know why I have to be introduced," Alicia sighed, sitting down next to Jessica.

"They could care less about me."

Jessica looked at her.

"Because you're the heart of the show, doll-face. And I'm the soul. Get it?"

"So what does that make me?" Denny wanted to know.

"Management, baby, always and forever management," Jessica answered, and they laughed.

"Hey, while I've got both of you here," Denny said, "I want you to see the tape on Roger Jard."

"I don't care what you guys say," Jessica said, getting up, "I don't want to have that sleazebag on."

Today's guest, said sleazebag in question, was a popular actor making his first appearance since being caught on video slugging a woman in the face.

"He's not really such a sleaze, though," Alicia said.

"I keep telling you, he's been in a rehab kicking booze and drugs ever since he hit that woman."

"All the more reason not to have him on," Jessica said.

"What the hell does he know about staying sober yet?"

"Well, that's just the point," Alicia said quickly.

"You do. So who better to guide him through his first public interview? And make sure audiences get it?"

Jessica smiled suddenly, and threw her arms around Alicia, giving her a hug.

"I love you, you know that?" she asked her as they followed Denny across the studio toward the control room.

"You are so smart.

That never occurred to me. Finally I can straighten out one of these guys on the air, instead of sitting there wanting to throw a shoe through the screen at their b. s. on another talk show. "

"I've got it cued up," Denny began as he pushed the control-room door open. But then he stopped suddenly, making the women nearly pile into him.

"What the hell?"

"What?" Jessica said, peering past him.

It was the weirdest thing. In the control room, in back of the director's chair at the console, there was a small oblong gift-wrapped package--hanging in midair.

"Is it on a string?" Alicia said as the three slowly approached it.

"I don't think so," Denny said, drawing closer.

It looked as though it might be a jeweler's box, containing a bracelet or watch. There was a tiny gift card dangling from the ribbon, turning in the air current they had created by opening the door from the studio.

Denny turned around.

"Jessica, Alicia, both of you, stay back there."

"Why?"

"Just stand back, Jess, out the door. Just for a minute

Jessica and Alicia moved just outside the control room, but Jessica kept the door open to watch.

"It must be on a thread, how can it just hang in the air like that?"

Denny reached toward the present, hesitated and then took hold of it.

Effortlessly he brought it back to him.

"No string, no thread. Just a gentle pull. It must be " "Trying putting it back," Jessica said.

He did. And when he released the box, it dipped an inch or two in the air, bobbed a bit, steadied and hung there, in the air, slowly turning.

"Welcome to " Star Trek Voyager,"" Jessica muttered, coming back into the control room.

Or' Bewitched Alicia said.

Denny pulled the package back to hold it in his hand and then put it back again. It did the same thing, bouncing down and up and settling, finally, still, in midair. He looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor. He squatted and held his hand under the package almost immediately it dropped to the floor.

"It's some sort of magnetic field."

"What does the tag say?" Jessica asked.

Denny read it, and then abruptly stood up, leaving the package on the floor.

"I'm calling Dirk."

Jessica bent over to reach for it.

"No!" Denny shouted, lunging back to prevent her from touching the package.

"Just leave it there until we know what's in it."

While Denny called Dirk, Jessica turned her head so she could read what was on the enclosure card.

For my precious Jessica, with all my love, Leopold

And where the hell were you? " Dirk yelled at Slim, Jessica's bodyguard.

"He was waiting in my dressing room where we told him to wait because we didn't want bodyguards scaring away our sponsors!" Jessica snapped.

Actually, she had no idea what had happened to Slim, but she had gotten kind of attached to the guy and didn't want him to lose his job.

"I wasn't talking to you, Jessica," Dirk said.

"I am speaking to you," she said, "so lay off him. If you've got a problem, your problem's with me--and the job I have to do so DBS can pay your stupid paycheck. Got it?"

"I'm trying to protect your life so I can get that stupid paycheck," he snarled back.

"Got it?"

"Hey, hey, let's turn the volume down a bit, shall we?" Langley suggested. The package left in the control room of Studio B now lay disassembled on his desk. Cassy was standing by the window, silent, arms crossed over her chest.

"And Jessica," he began.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jessica muttered, throwing herself down in a chair and crossing her legs.

"He's just doing his job." She sighed heavily and turned around.

"Dirk, I apologize for speaking to you that way. I just want you to stop picking on Slim. I haven't been out of his sight in twenty-four hours. He's doing a fabulous job--and there was no reason for him to be in the control room because even I didn't know I was going in there."

"And that was my fault," Denny offered.

"It never occurred to me anyone had been in there. I mean-how?"

That's what they were all wondering. How the heck had the stalker not only gotten into West End again, but down below ground level into the control room?

"Look, Jessica," Dirk said, stepping closer to her, "I am frankly scared about what can happen to you." He paused for effect.

"And Slim knows that he could have cost you your life by not being there."

Jessica rolled her eyes; she couldn't help it.

"Right, my stalker's a vice president at Procter & Gamble."

"He very well could be."

"Get a life. Dirk," Jessica said, grimacing.

"I've been dealing with stalkers for a lot longer than you've been here."

"Oh yeah? Well, I was dealing with stalkers who killed their victims long before you blew into town, babe. So if you're content to just let this guy waltz in and out of West End, until you displease him and he kills you, then fine, I'm all for it. Just as long as I get my paycheck."

Jessica looked at Langley.

"I think Dirk's the stalker."

"That's it, Langley!" the security expert yelled, throwing his hands in the air.

"How can I possibly work with her!"

As the argument escalated, Langley looked down at the enclosure card that lay on his desk in a plastic bag.

For my precious Jessica, With all my love, Leopold

In another plastic bag was an oblong ornate silver case, in another, a box from Tiffany's. In a fourth bag was the wrapping paper, in the fifth, the ribbon. Langley picked up the bag with the silver case to examine it.

Jessica turned from yelling at Dirk to comment to Langley, in a perfectly normal tone of voice, "It holds a highlighter pen. I've seen them at Tiffany's, but I've never seen anything like that one. I don't think it's from there."

"It looks old," Langley commented.

"It's from someone who certainly knows me well," Jessica said. She went through hundreds of markers a year, highlighting her notes, in books, magazines and scripts, newspapers, faxes and Email.

"And doesn't the fact he knows your habits worry you?" Dirk wanted to know.

"Because it does me."

"Anybody who reads People knows about Jessica and her highlighters," Cassy said quietly, speaking for the first time.

"They ran that picture of her with all of them on her desk."

"And what about her real name, Cassy?" Dirk said.

"Look at the initials engraved on that thing."

Langley looked at the ornate monogram, unusual because it was four letters, even odder since there was no / to be found in it. sehw.

"Sarah Elizabeth Hollingstown Wright," Dirk said.

"How would whoever it is know that? It's not even in the almanac."

"He may have gotten a copy of her book," Cassy said.

"Damn it," Dirk said, rubbing his eyes.

"So he could have been in that audience last night." He looked at Jessica.

"You gave each one of them a galley, didn't you?"

"Look, I'd love to stay and chat some more," Jessica said, slapping the arms of her chair and standing up, "but I've got work to do. In case you've forgotten, Alexandra's out there entertaining half the Dow Jones Industrial Average by herself. Come on. Slim. If he fires you, I'll hire you as my administrative assistant."

Slim looked to Dirk as Jessica started pulling him toward the door.

Dirk waved him off.

"Go on."

When the door closed behind them, Cassy said, "You don't really think one of our sponsors could be the stalker, do you?"

"Honest to God, one of them could be."

Cassy and Langley looked at each other and, without speaking further, fell in line to follow Dirk into the cy" porate dining room. ;

S~ii," hea said to Jessica later that evening, following the taping with Roger Jard.

"I saw part of the interview and you handled him very well."

"Thanks," Jessica said, looking through the in-box on Bea's desk. She had come back up to the office to get the stuff she needed to review over the weekend.

"Alexandra wants you to call her in the newsroom," Bea continued, "I put that book you wanted on your chair, your dentist confirmed your appointment for next week, Sotheby's wants to know if you'll do the celebrity auction again, and you've got another body guard waiting for you in your office."

"Uh-oh, Slim," Jessica said over her shoulder to her bodyguard.

"Competition. But I guess that's showbiz, my friend." She looked at Bea.

"Thanks for all your help. Now go home, get out of here, have a life. There's no need for you to wait around." She started toward her office.

"And have a nice weekend, okay?" she added, turning around.

"Sleep, eat and be irresponsible for a change."

"Thanks." Her secretary laughed.

"You have a nice weekend, too."

"Come on. Slim." Jessica waved on her bodyguard.

"I've got some sodas in my fridge. Let's check out the new terminator."

As Jessica walked in, a tall, slim, young, very Waspy- looking woman stood up. In her hand were several supermarket tabloids.

"There must be some mistake," Jessica told her.

"I was told there was a bodyguard in here, not a recruiter for the Seven Sister schools with a closet addiction to The Inquiring Eye."

The young woman smiled good-naturedly.

"Wendy Mitchell, Ms. Wright, and I am your new bodyguard." She extended her hand, which Jessica briefly shook before continuing to her desk.

"I didn't know you were coming on board, Wendy," Slim said, somewhat startling Jessica because he hadn't uttered more than two consecutive words since she had met him. To Jessica's look of surprise, he added, "Wendy's a private investigator."

"And bodyguard," Wendy said.

"And if I may say so, Ms. Wright, you sure seem to be a hot topic in the tabloids She held up the papers.

"Did something happen recently? Did someone go through your apartment or steal a cache of letters from you?"

Jessica felt vaguely ill.

"No."

"Did you ever go out with a drug-addicted doctor? Because if you did," the new bodyguard said, "then I'm afraid you've got someone spying on you."

"No, someone's stalking me, get it right," Jessica said irritably, sitting down in her chair with a thump.

"So who hired you?"

"Mrs. Cochran?" she said with a question in her voice.

"She's president of the network, it's okay, I've heard of her," Jessica said.

"Sit down. You too. Slim." She riffled through some papers, pretending she was looking for something when actually she was freaking out over what Wendy Mitchell had told her about the tabloids

"All right, then," she said as if just refocusing on Wendy, "what's this about someone spying on me?"

"It's these," Wendy said, gesturing to the tabloids

"I've done enough work for enough celebrities to know when an insider's selling information. Of course, it could be that they've gotten their hands on an early copy of your autobiography."

"There is no doctor mentioned in my book," Jessica told her.

"There it is then, I'm afraid," Wendy said quietly, thumbing through another paper.

Jessica shifted her eyes to Slim.

"So is this person any good?"

He nodded.

Wendy glanced up from the paper with a furrowed brow and then got up to bring it over to show Jessica.

"This photograph... Do you know who took it?"

"How did they get that!" Jessica nearly squeaked. It was a snapshot of her crying on the set. Only she hadn't been crying.

"That's what I wanted to ask you."

"Oh, man. What is this?" She studied the picture for a moment longer.

"Anybody could have given them this. It was on the bulletin board in the company cafeteria for a while, but this is just one little part of the whole picture that was taken. It was my cameraman's birthday and we threw a party on the set. We had trick candles on the cake, so when he tried to blow them out, they blew up and we got all this junk in our eyes, so it looked like we were all crying and wailing. And some body's cut out this little part of that picture."

Wendy was nodding.

"So your spy's right here at West End."

"What do you mean, spy?"

"Whoever it is made a thousand at least on that picture, I should think," Wendy told her.

"Look, Ms. Wright, it's nothing to worry about. It's just that if I can clear up this little problem too while I'm here" -- "You certainly don't sound like anyone Cassy would willingly know," Jessica said suspiciously.