“Well, the thing is, we’ve got all the evidence we need locked down. Pat can shriek and pull her hair if she likes, make motions until all the cows migrate to California, there’s nothing she can do but wait for a plea bargain offer that’s probably not going to come. And we don’t have to worry about Milo skipping the jurisdiction. With obvious premeditation, Judge Howe turned down bail in a minute. Milo’s in jail for the long haul.”

“John, listen to me. I’m working all day tomorrow. Besides the police department, we’ve got the big rottweiler here on the case. Jack’s a pretty big gun, don’t you think? There’s simply no reason for you to disrupt your life to come down.”

“If you have to know,” he said, “your sister was pissed when Jack left town after she’d put some of her moves on him, so now she’s decided to light up my life again. I’m scared.”

“So you think Jack showed up down here just to escape my sister? And you want to do the same?” Mary Lisa forgot for a moment that she’d been afraid to poke her head out her own door that day, and laughed. “So Kelly’s got both of you machos on the run?”

“Sometimes telling the truth really hurts.”

She had no sooner punched off than it rang again. “Grand Central.”

A short pause, a strained laugh, then, “Lots of people calling you at all hours, huh? Mary Lisa, Jack swore to me you were all right. But I’ve been lying here and I can’t sleep. I’m coming down tomorrow.”

“Dad, there’s no reason, I promise. This is exactly why I didn’t want to worry you with all this when I was up there. After work tomorrow, I’ve got an interview with Soap Opera Digest and then a birthday party for a friend to go to. You already sent Jack Wolf down here to run loose in Malibu. Believe me, no one in their right mind would try anything with the original bad-ass close by.”

“But he’s not your father.”

“Dad, please. Stay in Goddard Bay. Truth is, I’d worry myself into a coma if you were here nosing around.”

“But-”

She heard her mother’s voice clearly in the background. “You can’t go to Malibu, George. Monica needs us at her campaign fund-raiser Saturday night. Come back to bed.”

Her father’s voice, a bit muffled because he’d obviously put his hand over the receiver, said, “Mary Lisa is in danger, Kathleen. A fund-raiser is nothing.”

Her mother’s voice became indistinct. She realized her dad had pressed his palm down harder over the phone.

She waited briefly, and her dad said, “Mary Lisa, I’ll call you tomorrow morning, see what’s going on. Yes, yes, I’ll check in with Jack too. When do you leave for the studio?”

When Mary Lisa punched off her cell, she lay back and stared up at the ceiling. She listened to the sound of the waves, a bit closer, a bit frothier since a light rain was falling and the wind had picked up. She got up, checked on Lou Lou, who was sprawled in the middle of the guest room bed on her back, arms and legs snow-angeled, deeply asleep. Her thick streaked hair frothed around her head and over her face, and she looked adorable in Mary Lisa’s cat pajamas. If Elizabeth had been here, she knew the two of them would have been sprawled side by side, but Elizabeth was still back in Connecticut dealing with family problems of her own. Another asshole man, she had said-or was she being redundant? She’d have to run that by Jack, to see the look on his face. At least she’d be back in the next day or two. She’d called, but neither Mary Lisa nor Lou Lou had told her anything more about the trouble. Elizabeth had enough on her plate without adding this course.

Mary Lisa went out onto her covered back deck, leaned her elbows on the railing, and watched the rain sheet lightly down in front of her. Carlo said from the depths of his sleeping bag, “You okay, Mary Lisa?”

“Yep, I’m fine, Carlo. Sorry I woke you up. You’re not cold, are you?”

“Nah, this thing was made for the Antarctic. Good thing for you it’s cool tonight because I sleep in the nude.”

Mary Lisa laughed, thanked him, and headed back to bed. She said one final prayer-she thanked God she wasn’t at this very moment lying in her bed in her mother’s house in Goddard Bay.

With cries of American soap imperialism in the 1980s, the French and Germans launched their own direct imitations. Neither country’s soap attempt flew very high or very long.

Lou Lou came out to the front porch the next morning, still in Mary Lisa’s cat pajamas, carrying mugs of coffee on a tray. “Here’s some coffee, sweetie. It’ll clear the cobwebs.”

Mary Lisa was sitting on a deck chair in her front yard wearing rumpled shorts and her favorite pea green T-shirt. She smiled up at Lou Lou as she took the coffee. “You’re a princess.”

She looked over to see Carlo talking on his cell phone, the toes of his bare feet digging into the rain-soaked grass, wearing a black and silver Oakland Raiders T-shirt and loose black pajama bottoms. Mary Lisa wondered briefly if he’d lied to her about sleeping nude or if he carried this stuff around in case of emergencies, such as now.

Carlo trotted over when he saw the mugs of coffee and took a cup from Lou Lou. “Those kitty cats on your pajamas are a real turn-on, Lou Lou.”

“Good to know. Hmm. I think if Daniel said that, I might jump his bones. It’s too bad you don’t wear a badge, Carlo.”

Carlo, who had more money than God, looked thoughtful. “That,” he said, “could be arranged.”

Mary Lisa spurted coffee, coughed, then laughed. “What a lovely way to start Friday morning. It’s going to be a long day, Lou Lou. When did everyone go home?”

“Not long after you went to bed. Hey, there’s some good news.”

Mary Lisa’s eyebrow went up.

“I wish I could do that, but both eyebrows go straight up when I try.”

“It’s a gift, unfortunate that it’s from my mother. What happened that’s so good?”

“Jack has volunteered to take you to work, and stick. You’ve got to be at the studio in forty-five minutes. As for me, I’m out of here as soon as I change out of my hot jammies.”

“The living room looked fine, no big mess.”

“Nope,” Carlo said, watching Lou Lou’s pajama bottoms disappear into the house. “I set up a cleaning detail. One of Nicole’s friends even fluffed up a sofa pillow.”

Mary Lisa settled again in her chair to finish her coffee. She stretched out her legs and breathed in the glorious Malibu morning air.

“I wouldn’t want to tangle with that guy.” Carlo sipped his coffee and pointed with it. “He looks like he belongs in the Outback in Australia, like he camps out on top of Ayers Rock.”

Mary Lisa followed his pointing mug to Jack Wolf, who was walking toward them in a black T-shirt, tight ratty jeans, and low black boots. “Really? To me, he’s just a guy, kind of ordinary, really.”

“Other than looking like he could pull up that palm tree and scratch his back with it. Hey, you’re acting rather blasé about him, aren’t you, honey?”

“Okay, you’re right, I was. Fact is, he scares me. Thanks for coming, Carlo. You’re a prince.” Mary Lisa walked back into her house without greeting Jack. She heard him and Carlo talking. She stopped a moment to look around her living room. It was pristine. She remembered she’d heard conversations from the kitchen floating into her bedroom after she’d gone to bed, heard the refrigerator door open and close multiple times. Oh dear, she’d have to find time to go grocery shopping, since the local locusts had surely cleaned her out.

She went to her bedroom, shut the door, and reemerged eleven minutes later, dressed in a skirt and tube top. She was slinging her purse over her shoulder when a man’s voice said from not more than two feet away, “That was fast. Ready to go?”

She nearly leaped out of her shoes. She clapped her palms over her heart. “Oh goodness, whatever are you doing in here?”