"I want to say hi to the crew first." "I'll be up in the office when you're finished." Smiling smugly, Deanna headed to the elevator. She'd won her fifty-dollar bet with Richard. He'd been positive she'd last two full months. On the ride up to the sixteenth floor, she glanced at her watch and calculated time. "Cassie," she began, the minute she stepped into the outer office. "See if you can reschedule my lunch meeting for one-thirty."

"No problem. Great show, by the way. Word is the phones were going crazy."

"We aim to please." With her schedule in mind, she dropped down behind her desk to study the mail Cassie had stacked for her. "Fran stopped by downstairs. She'll be up in a few minutes — with the baby."

"She brought the baby? Oh, I can't wait to see her." She stopped, disturbed by the expression on Deanna's face. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" Baffled, Deanna shook her head. "I don't know. Cassie, do you know how this got here?" She held up a plain white envelope that carried only her name.

"It was already on your desk when I brought the other mail in. Why?"

"It's just weird. I've been getting these notes on and off since last spring." She turned the paper around so Cassie could read it.

""Deanna, you're so beautiful. Your eyes look into my soul. I'll love you forever."" Cassie pursed her lips. "I guess it's flattering. And pretty tame compared to some of the letters you get. Are you worried about it?"

"Not worried. Maybe a little uneasy. It doesn't seem quite healthy for someone to keep this up for so long." "Are you sure they've all been from the same person?"

"Same type of envelope, same type of message in the same type of red print." Distress curled loosely in her stomach. "Maybe it's someone who works in the building."

Someone she saw every day. Spoke with. Worked with. "Anyone been asking you out, or coming on to you?"

"What? No." With an effort, Deanna shook off the eerie mood, then shrugged. "It's stupid. Harmless," she said, as if to convince herself, then deliberately tore the page in two and tossed it in the trash. "Let's see what business we can clear up before noon, Cassie."

"Okay. Did you happen to catch Angela's special last night?"

"Of course." Deanna grinned. "You didn't think I'd miss my toughest competition's first prime-time program, did you? She did a nice job."

"Not all the reviewers thought so." Cassie tapped the clippings on Deanna's desk. "The one from the Times was a killer."

Automatically Deanna reached into the stack and read the first clipped review.

""Pompous and shallow."" She winced. ""By turns simpering and sniping.""

"The ratings weren't what they expected, either," Cassie told her. "They weren't embarrassing, but they were hardly stellar. The Post called her self-aggrandizing."

"That's just her style."

"It was a little much, doing that tour of her penthouse for the camera and cooing about New York. And there were more shots of her than her guests." Cassie shrugged, grinned. "I counted."

"I imagine this will be tough for her to take." Deanna set the reviews aside again. "But she'll bounce back." She shot Cassie a warning look. "I've had my problems with her, but I don't wish hatchet reviews on anyone."

"I wouldn't either. I just don't want you to be hurt by her."

"Bullets bounce off me," Deanna said dryly. "Now let's forget about Angela. I'm sure I'm the last thing on her mind this morning."


Angela's initial tantrum over the reviews had resulted in a snowstorm of shredded newspaper. It littered the floor of her office. She ground newsprint into the pink pile as she paced.

"Those bastards aren't getting away with taking a slice at me."

Dan Gardner, the new executive producer of Angela's, wisely waited until the worst of the storm had passed. He was thirty, built like a middleweight with a compact, muscular body. His conservatively styled brown hair suited his boyish face, accented by dark blue eyes and subtly clefted chin.

He had a shrewd mind and a simple goal: to ride to the top on whatever vehicle could get him there the fastest.

"Angela, everyone knows reviews are crap." He poured her a soothing cup of tea. It was a pity, he thought, that their strategy of allowing no previews of the first show had failed. "Those jerks always take cheap shots at whoever's on top. And that's just where you are." He handed her the delicate china cup. "On top."

"Damn right I am." Tea slopped over into the saucer as she whirled away. Fury was better than tears, she knew. No one, absolutely no one would have the satisfaction of seeing how hurt she was. She'd been so proud, showing off her new home, sharing her life with her audience.

They had called it "simpering."

"And the ratings would have proved it," she snapped back, "if it hadn't been for this damn war. The goddamn viewers just can't get enough of the fucking thing. Day and night, night and day, we're bombarded. Why don't we just blow the damn country off the map and be done with it?"

Tears were close, perilously close. She battled them back and sipped the tea like medicine.

She wanted a drink.

"It's not hurting us. Your lead-in to the six o'clock news has come up in five markets. And the viewers loved your remote at Andrews Air Force Base last week."

"Well, I'm sick of it." She hurled the teacup at the wall, sending shards flying and drops splattering over the silk wallpaper. "And I'm sick of that little bitch in Chicago trying to undermine my ratings."

"She's a flash in the pan." He hadn't even jolted at the explosion. He'd been expecting it. Now that it was done, he knew she could begin to calm. And when she'd calmed, she'd be needy.

He'd been seeing to Angela's needs for several months.

"In a year she'll be old news, and you'll still be number one."

She sat behind her desk, leaning back, eyes shut. She was slipping. Nothing seemed to be going the way she'd planned when she'd formed her production company. She was in charge, yes, but there was so much to do. So many demands, so many, many ways to fail.

But she couldn't fail, could never face that. She calmed herself by taking long, slow breaths, just as she did during bouts of stage fright. It was much more productive, she reminded herself, to focus on someone else's failure.

"You're right. Once Deanna bottoms out, she'll be lucky to get a gig on public access." And she had something that might hurry that fine day along.

As the smile curved Angela's lips, Dan walked behind the chair to massage the tension from her shoulders. "You just relax. Let me do all the worrying."

She liked the feel of his hands on her— gentle, competent, sure. They made her feel protected, safe. She so desperately needed that now.

"They love me, don't they, Dan?"

"Of course they do." His hands trailed up to her neck, then brushed down over her breasts. They were soft and heavy and never failed to arouse him. His voice thickened as he felt her nipples harden between the light pinch of his thumb and forefinger. "Everybody loves Angela."

"And they'll keep watching." She sighed, relaxing as his hands molded her.

"Every day. Coast to coast."

"Every day," she murmured, and her smile widened. "Go lock the door, Dan. Tell Lorraine to hold my calls."

"I'd love to."

Chapter Fourteen

During the frigid nights in the desert, it was hard to remember the blazing heat of day. Just as after the first bombs exploded it was difficult to remember the deadly tedium of the long weeks of Desert Shield.

Finn had been through other wars, though he'd never been so hamstrung by military regulations. There were ways, however, for the enterprising reporter to stretch them. He would never have denied that certain sensitive intelligence data couldn't be broadcast without endangering troops. But he wasn't a fool, nor was he blindly ambitious. He saw his job, and his duty, as finding out what was happening, not just what the official reports claimed was happening.

Twice he and Curt climbed into his rented truck with a portable satellite dish bracketed in the bed, and headed out. Over the poorly marked roads and the shifting sand, they managed to link up with U.s. troops. Finn listened to complaints and to hopes, and returned to base to report both.

He watched Scuds fly and Patriots intercept them. He slept in snatches and lived with the possibility of a chemical assault.

When the ground war began, he was ready, eager, to follow it into Kuwait City.

It would be called the Mother of Battles, the hundred hours of fierce fighting to liberate Kuwait. While allied troops took up positions along the Euphrates River, along the highways linking Kuwait to other cities, Iraqis fled. Hustling, as one trooper told Finn, "to get out of Dodge."

There were massive traffic jams, trapped tanks, abandoned possessions. From a dusty truck heading toward the city, Finn observed the wreckage. Mile after mile of shattered vehicles lined the road. Cars, stripped for parts, tilted on crates. Personal possessions littered the roadway, mattresses, blankets, frying pans and ammo clips. Incredibly, a chandelier, its crystals gleaming in the sun, lay on the sand like scattered jewels. And worse, much worse, was the occasional corpse.

"Let's get some tape of this." Finn stepped out of the truck, his boots crunching down on one of the cassette tapes that were blowing across the highway.

"Looks like the garage sale from hell," Curt commented. "Crazy bastards must have been looting on their way out."