“Ha!” Lou Lou said under her breath next to Mary Lisa’s ear. “You’re the one who got us here.”

“No, I just goosed things up. Come on, Lou Lou, what he means is that Bernie Barlow has been the soap’s head writer, guru, and creative genius for well nigh seventeen years. Only the network people have the power to force him to change his mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, and since they don’t even agree on what constitutes casual Friday, Bernie always does what he pleases.”

Mary Lisa nodded. Since the network lived and died by the weekly Nielsen ratings that still cranked syrup-slow out of the fax each Thursday, and BTBW had been at the top of the heap since shortly after Mary Lisa arrived, Bernie was golden. Not to mention that very recent Emmy for best soap. It didn’t look good for Sunday’s staying out of Damian’s bed.

“Look at the bright side,” Clyde continued, happy as a clam, turning back to her. “If they have Susan attempt suicide or something, it might even have viewers cheering for Susan and Lydia. And you’d be the most hated daytime star on TV for a while, until Sunday magicks the viewers again.”

Jeff strolled over in his tux. “Not going to happen, Clyde. The viewers hate whomever Sunday hates, and that includes her half sister and mother.”

“Whatever. Okay, kiddo, I’ll pass this on to Bernie, give him a headache. Now, it’s time for Sunday to make her assignation with Damian.”

Lou Lou said, “Susan shouldn’t only attempt suicide, she should succeed, that’s what I say.” She said it low enough for only Mary Lisa’s ears so one could carry it back to Margie.

Three minutes later, Mary Lisa’s hair was scrutinized, her dangling curls coaxed a bit lower, now nearly touching her shoulders, one of them twisting around a jet earring. She checked the monitor, and…Sunday resumes the same expression.

She smiles at Damian. The camera catches her full face, eyes slumberous as her hands lightly stroke up his arms. From the corner of her eye she sees her half sister, Susan, walking into the ballroom with their mother, Lydia, and she gives a small calculated smile. She stops stroking his arms even as she presses closer, her breasts against him, leans up, and whispers, “All you have to do is unfasten the collar around my neck and this gown drops.”

Damian looks like he wants to leap on her. His eyes dilate a bit, he’s breathing hard.

She laughs. “But not here. Here’s your lovely wife, the old warship steaming along behind her. Why don’t you call me after you’ve seduced your little woman and made her happy?”

Damian sees his wife from the corner of his eye, but he can’t help himself. After a brief moment of uncertainty, he says, “Yes.”

The camera moves to Susan’s face. She’s been crying but now she’s wearing a brave look. “Damian,” she says softly and lightly touches her fingertips to his forearm. “Take me home.”

Damian looks down at her, his expression unreadable, holds it, holds it, until-

“Clear!”

In the dressing room, Mary Lisa heard Margie say angrily, “I heard about what you said, Lou Lou!”

“How is that possible? I barely heard myself.”

“You said I should commit suicide, that I should succeed. Dammit, Susan isn’t about to do that. Never.”

“Hey, it’s just another idea for Sweeps Week,” Lou Lou said easily around a mouthful of eye shadow pencils. “They could pretend you’re in a coma, bring you back in a couple of months. Hey, it’s no worse than poor Mary Lisa having to sleep with Susan’s husband.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Mary Lisa said. “Don’t worry about it.” She remembered what Detective Vasquez had said about a stranger listening in. Someone who didn’t know would have no clue who was talking about whom. Mary Lisa smiled at Margie, who seemed mollified, and walked away, whistling, to have a bubble-gum-chewing Mavis help her out of the black gown.

It was Wednesday. It was Mary Lisa’s last scene. She had four whole days off. Her hip didn’t hurt.

Goddard Bay , Oregon

Chief of Police Jack Wolf looked down at the metal table where Jason Maynard’s body lay, cold and gray, a green sheet pulled to his waist. His head no longer looked human from all the blows the killer had rained down on him.

The medical examiner, Dr. Washington Hughes, a big hulk of a man who’d played pro football defensive tackle for the Vikings in the ’80s, stood next to him. “What you saw at the scene is what you get, Chief. Someone struck him hard enough on the back of the head with the golf club to kill him instantly. As you can see, the murderer didn’t stop with the kill blow. So far, I’ve counted another half-dozen blows to the face. I’ve very seldom in my career seen a head and face this destroyed. The bloody golf club they found lying beside his body checks out as the murder weapon.”

Jack stared down at the man he’d known only well enough to speak with about the coastal weather when they chanced to meet on the street. Jack bought his insurance from Jason’s father-in-law.

He said, “It bespeaks a fine rage.”

“Sure does. Out-of-control rage at work here, Chief.”

It was impossible to tell now, but once Jason Maynard had been a handsome, fair-complexioned man with blondish hair and hazel eyes and a ready smile. “Okay, somehow, the murderer came up behind him, delivered the first blow to the back of his head. I’m thinking he bounced off the passenger side of the green Camry and fell onto his back on the garage floor. From the blood splatters, he didn’t hit the Mercedes, but collapsed between the two cars. Then the murderer struck his face, half a dozen times you said? I’m inclined to believe the murderer knew he was already dead, but it didn’t matter because he was in the red zone. And he struck only his face, to obliterate him? To make him disappear, no longer exist?”

“Did you ever see anything this bad in Chicago?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “I did, but I’ll tell you, Doc, it’s a shock to see it here in a quiet town like Goddard Bay. We may have someone walking around here who’s deeply disturbed. Looking at all the blood splatters in that garage and on the two cars, I’d have to say he was even beyond the red zone, he was crazed, no brakes, no functioning brain at work. He was over the edge. But now I bet he’s flying high because he thinks he’s gotten away with it.”

“A man did this, you think?”

Jack shrugged. “There isn’t any particular heft to a golf club. Could just as easily be a woman.” He looked down at Jason Maynard again. “Such a damned waste. It really pisses me off.”

“Glad you’re the one who has to nail him-or her-and not me.”

Jack looked him up and down, snorted. “Whoever it is, you could twist off his neck with one hand.”

Dr. Hughes grinned, flexed his hands. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t enjoy it, and I wouldn’t be any good at finding him.”

“Can you give me an idea of when this happened?”

“I’d say he was killed between six and eight hours before the time Mrs. Maynard found him this morning, sometime in the early morning, maybe around one a.m.”

“Anything from the tox screen on him yet? Alcohol levels? Drugs?”

“I’ll get that all to you by tomorrow, noon.” Dr. Hughes looked down at the wreck of a man he’d known only slightly, a good-looking young man of thirty-four, who, until early this morning, had a long life in front of him. “He was healthy as a horse until this. He was fit, took care of himself.”

“No defensive wounds?”

“None. As I said, the first blow to the back of his head took him down, killed him instantly. It had to be a friend, family member, someone he trusted, right? Someone he would have let follow him into the garage?”

Jack nodded. “We’ll find out who he’d been out with. We still don’t know who that golf clubs belongs to. If it was Jason’s, the club might have been right there when the murderer went over the edge and grabbed it. But there was no golf bag. Maybe the murderer grabbed the golf club out of his own bag and used it.”