The atmosphere in Richard Channing's lofty office at the Globe, some forty floors above the city, seemed perversely more appropriate to a diving bell thousands of feet under the sea. "Oppressive" was the word that came to Diana Hunter as she sat across from her boss. The man himself paced steadily along the broad expanse of picture windows, a silhouette that flashed back and forth across Diana's vision with such nervous speed that it seemed to blur.

"Damn them all," Richard spat out, coming to an abrupt stop. "The judge, the district attorney, the whole lot of them." He glanced almost guiltily at Diana. In the Cartel, outbursts of emotion were frowned upon.

"Then it's lucky you've put the Kari Edsen business into the works," she said in a smooth, unaccented tone, as if they were simply discussing the weather.

"But until Edsen gets back to us," Richard pointed out, "the Melissa project hangs by a thread."

"Oh, I wouldn't be that pessimistic."

"Meaning?"

"You've got her in your pocket, Edsen or no Edsen." Diana's cool voice continued in its unexcited way. "You do have a way with the fair sex, Richard."

He stared at her for a moment. "You're not developing symptoms of a female complaint ... like jealousy?"

"Not I." Diana flipped open her morocco-bound notebook and ticked off something written there. "As for the memorial to your father, I'm informed it's been put on the county board's agenda for the next meeting. What are we prepared to pay for the land, if we get a permit?"

"A thousand an acre would be too much."

"That's not what I asked," she persisted.

Richard's face went grim. "You know the answer as well as I," he replied angrily. "We pay whatever we have to pay. But not so much that it stirs up suspicions."

"That's what I like," she mused in an ironic tone. "Clear-cut, no-nonsense instructions. You're leaving the negotiations to me?"

"I don't want to appear in this just yet."

"Then I'll attend the board meeting." She checked off another item in her notebook. Then she looked up at him. "The other day you said that the strategy of splitting apart families was a long, drawn-out process." She paused and patted her upswept hair, smoothing a few stray hairs. "I presume the Melissa project, as you call it, is part of the same strategy."

Richard nodded curtly. "Before it's finished, I'll have the whole Agretti thing in the palm of my hand, as land or as contracts to buy the grapes. Either way, it checks Angela Channing. It may even checkmate her completely." He paused and a sigh escaped him. "Long and drawn-out. I know it better than you. And even though the one thing the Cartel teaches us is patience, I'm beginning to lose mine."

"But not just yet," Diana suggested with a smile.

"No, not just yet. Not just yet." Richard went on with a burst of new energy, "We want a little dynamite. The Globe shareholders' meeting is long overdue. I think I'll blow the lot of them sky-high."

Diana closed her notebook. She got to her feet and joined Richard at the picture window. "You read your broker's report," she said then in that same even, almost soothing tone. "Someone has been buying up outstanding shares of Globe stock, no matter how high the price has gone."

"It's not hard to identify the buyer."

"Oh? My understanding is that the shares were bought by Account Bravo Tango Two-Four, Swiss Credit Bank, Basel."

"Meaningless."

"The Swiss banking secrecy makes it impossible for us to know who owns Account Bravo-Tango TwoFour," she pointed out.

"Not necessary. It's Angela Channing. Or it's her attorney, Phil Erikson, in her name. These layers of gauze and camouflage work only when you haven't a clue to your opponent. But I know my enemy, whatever name she operates under."

Diana was standing next to him now. She reached out with the back of her fingers to smooth his cheek where it rose from his cheekbone, across the corner of.his eye to his temple. "Richard," she said in a low voice, "it may be time for a short break. You've been at this hot and heavy. It may be time to, relax for a few days."

He shook his head. "No. It's time for a shareholders' massacre."

"With Angela owning ten percent of the stock? And her children and Chase Gioberti holding the rest? It's a standoff, Richard. You haven't the votes to blow them sky-high. They may even have the votes to turn you out."

His smile was a wonderful and frightening thing to see. Diana watched it with conflicting emotions of pleasure and fear. Yes, it signified humor, that oddly curving smile like the complex twist of a scimitar blade. But it spelled something wild and dangerous as well.

"No," he said in a surprisingly mild voice. "I'll not only have a majority of the votes but, in the process of beating them, I'll set one against the other so neatly they'll knife each other to death before my very eyes."

"They'll do your work for you?"

"And quickly, too. By the time the meeting is ending the floor will be awash in blood."

Diana involuntarily took a step back from that horrifying smile. She recovered her poise at once. "I liked you better when you were busy saving Joseph Cumson's life."

"Oh, that'll happen, too."

The telephone rang and Diana answered. "Yes, Dr. Edsen. He's right here." She handed the telephone to Richard and whispered faintly, "I'm impressed."

A purposeful grin split Richard's handsome face. "Karl? Good to hear your voice. When can you be here?" A pause. Richard's eyes flashed victory. "Wednesday will be fine, Karl. We'll meet your plane."

When he hung up the phone he reached for Diana and lifted her high in the air, his powerful hands clasping her waist in a tight grip. "You see?" he crowed. "You see?"

"I see," she said breathlessly.

"And now ... the massacre."

The second council of war started off on such a peaceful note that at first Lance had no idea of what he was in for. Nor did his mother, Julia. She and Lance were in her laboratory classifying the results of two new vinifications. One would provide a table wine to be sold in half-gallon jugs. The other had turned out so markedly better that it required special bottling at a much higher price.

"I'd put it away for a few years," Lance suggested. "I've got space in the West Warehouse. The longer we keep that red under wraps, the more we can charge for it."

Julia shook her head slowly, thoughtfully. "That's not the nature of the merlot grape," she told her son. "When it's this good now it doesn't get much better over the years. And those were merlots from the Agretti vineyards, the best money can buy."

"Everybody around here sure puts a lot of faith in Agretti grapes."

Julia eyed her son for a long moment. "You and Melissa still at it?"

"Look, I've told you, just because I was silly enough to let Grandmother pick out a bride for me doesn't mean I have to be madly in love with the girl."

"But now, with Joseph . . ."

"Who may not live," Lance added coldly. "And it's just as well."

"Lance! You're not to say such things."

"No? It's time for some plain speaking about dear little Joseph."

Julia's face grew white. She shook her hands in front of her face as if to ward off, choke off, her son's next words. "I don't want to hear about this, Lance," she implored. "Your grandmother may have forced that marriage on you, but she's been incredibly generous to Joseph. She's made him her chief residual beneficiary."

"Huh?"

"Her holdings at Falcon Crest go to you, in trust for Joseph. It's a bequest worth millions."

"What about you and Aunt Emma?"

"We're already provided for by Grandpa Jasper. But you're my mother's chief heir-for Joseph. So I don't want to hear any of your cynical sarcasm about the poor little thing. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Angela Channing said in a deadly voice.

Julia and Lance looked up to see her in the doorway of the lab. She remained motionless for a long moment. Then, when she spoke again, it was with the same deadly calm as that of a cobra coolly circling its prey.

"But I want to hear more," she went on, her eyes flashing. "Particularly about you and Melissa, Lance."

"You already know whatever there is to know." His tone had grown stubborn.

"I know you've treated her abominably," Angie snapped. "I know she's had a very hard time with the baby and part of it is your fault. I know that we're going to be lucky to keep Joseph with us. And I know something else."

"Yeah?" he asked in a surly voice. "Like what?"

His grandmother advanced slowly into the room, her stride smooth and almost slinky, as if measuring her victim before striking. "You know, in the jungle, the animals have it all worked out. The strong eat the weak. With all the education I've paid for you to have, I trust that bit of wisdom hasn't escaped your attention?"

"So…?"

"So when an animal weakens, no matter how strong it once was, it becomes fair game for a stronger predator. Am I going too fast for you, Lance?"

"Keep talking."

"Your wife, Melissa, is such an animal. She was strong. Now she's in a particularly weak position. Her health ... well, it'll improve. But her mind is at risk. She worries over Joseph. She worries about you. She's vulnerable. She's fair game for a stronger animal, Lance. Are you still with me?"

"Get to the point."

"Somebody got there before me." Angela Channing was standing in front of her grandson now. Although Lance towered over her, for some reason he looked small and ineffective confronted by Angeia's cold, angry stance.

"Somebody?" he faltered. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means someone's making a play for your wife, Lance." The words cracked like a whip in the quiet atmosphere of the laboratory. "It means someone's using her feelings for Joseph to get her hooked into an adulterous affair."

She stared up at Lance's face, but whatever she was expecting to see there didn't materialize. Instead a slightly off-center, reckless grin appeared on the young man's face.

"Is that all you can do? Grin?" she snapped.

Lance shrugged. "Sauce for goose is sauce for the gander."

Angie whirled on her daughter. "You hear this, Julia? This son of yours is having affairs all over the place. So he doesn't at all mind that the mother of his child may be about to take the plunge. Is this the kind of animal we've raised? Is this the person who will inherit Falcon Crest?"

"Mother, I'm sure he meant noth-"

"That's exactly what I mean," Lance assured them. "You people kill me. To you Melissa is some pure, innocent child. Well, she's not. She's been around, this little mother. It's about time you realized who you're dealing with."

Again, Julia's hands went up as if to protect herself. "Don't start that again, Lance. You can't solve your problems by blackening Melissa's reputation."

"No? Then how about a paternity test?"

The two women looked shocked. They stared in utter silence at Lance, whose face was a mask of' sneering superiority.

"What…", Julia was the first to regain her composure, "are you saying?" she asked her son. Her hands still seemed to shield her from his reply, but her eyes were wide with pain.

"He's saying Joseph isn't his," Angela Channing remarked in a dry tone. "If he's right…" She paused. Then she shook her head. "He can't be right."

"I'd know a bit more about it than you, Grandmother."

"Would you?" Angie's tone was almost too sweet. "Then, of course, you'd know the ramifications of' what you're saying. You'd know that if you really wanted to ruin this family and Falcon Crest and any chance you ever had of inheriting it, you'd just go right ahead and have your paternity test."

"Boy, when you lay down a threat, YOU don't spare the horses."

For some reason this brought a wry grin to Angela's lips. She stared with a kind of grudging admiration at her grandson. "Lance, you're a total scoundrel, aren't you? You're the epitome of selfish, male ego." She laughed. "Of course Falcon Crest has to go to you. Who else would have the sheer gall to run it properly?"

Lance's answering smile seemed real enough. "Then you'll lay off me about Melissa."

"In your boundless love affair with yourself," his grandmother told him, "you aren't even curious about the animal who's tracking Melissa."

"Couldn't care less."

"That's where we part company." Angela Channing drew herself up to her full height and, once again through some trick of sheer personality, she seemed to dwarf Lance. "I'm only going to say this once," she commanded. "Listen hard. The man who's got Melissa on the hook is Richard Channing. He is my enemy. He is your enemy. He must not be allowed to win her away from us. That means no paternity tests. No more dalliances with that Lori Stevens girl. That means, my dear grandson, that you stay home, stay available, stay sweet and stay by Melissa's side. Got it?"

"I heard it," he said grudgingly, after a long pause.

"And you'll do it," Angie snapped. "Oh, yes, you'll play the part. Because the alternative, Lance, is too horrible for even you to dare."

He already knew the call would be for him.

It would be well after lunchtime in France or Switzerland at that hour. Just about the time when Jacqueline Perrault Gioberti, having finished the heaviest part of her business day, would turn her thoughts either to her family or her plans for the evening. Did it never occur to her that the hour she chose to place her calls was entirely inconvenient for California? But, equally, did it never occur to Chase that his mother, by choosing this hour, made sure she spoke to him alone.

"Good morning, Mother," he began.

"Good afternoon, Chase. I didn't wake you?"

Chase kept a deliberate noncommittal tone as he said, "No, I'd have to be up anyway."

"Yes? But why?"

"To answer the phone," he said, knowing the humor was lost on her.

"Ah, well, in that case Jacqueline seemed to pause to collect her thoughts. "Your telegram was magnificent news. I am so happy Cole is free. But now we must make plans for him. He needs a strict regimen, this young man, or else he gets himself in trouble all over again."

"I already have plans for him."

Chase wondered how much of this new project he should divulge to his mother. She had a disconcerting habit of jumping into his life with unsettling results. Still, nobody had a better business head than she did - except maybe Angela Channing.

"I'm thinking of replanting some fallow acreage," he went on then, telling her briefly of his plans, but neglecting to mention that in some sinister way, the money for the project was missing. He needn't have bothered to conceal that important point from Jacqueline. Her mind went directly to it."

"And the financing?" she asked. "You will need cash."

With Jacqueline it was nearly always impossible to hide things. She had her own spy network, Chase knew, and it was nowhere stronger than here in California. "There's a problem," he said then.

"But surely there is a start-up funding?"

"Angela refuses to come in on it."

"That woman . . ." She stopped herself. "But if it is a matter of a bit of money, Chase, you have only to ask me. My grandson's future is dear to my heart."

"That's not the problem." Chase's tone sounded irritated and he knew it. "There's a shortage. Someone's gotten into my side of the accounts. Jim Pearson is looking into it. I haven't had the time to follow up because of this business with Cole. But now I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"Shortage?" Jacqueline's voice rose. "In a computerized system? Have you considered asking Lance Cumson?"

Chase sat down on a kitchen stool and shook his head slowly. There was no way you could ever get ahead of his mother in business matters. From halfway around the world, her mind could get right to the core of the problem. "I don't want to ask Lance," he told her. "I want to confront Lance and call in the cops unless he pays me back immediately."

"D'accord," she agreed. "Give him that chance, for the good of the Falcon Crest name, to keep the matter Private. But, of course, he is merely that woman's cat's-paw. It is she who must be confronted."

Something clicked in Chase's head. He stared for a long moment at the coffeemaker, as if deriving vital information from it. "That's it," he said at last. "Lance wouldn't dare do this on his own. Angela's looted the cash. But for what purpose?"

"Does she need one?" his mother demanded. "Sheer greed."

"No. This was a high risk she took. It had to be for something very important to her."

"Find the reason," Jacqueline suggested, "and you will find the evidence you need to confront her. What?" she asked, evidently addressing someone on her end of the transatlantic line. She switched rapidly into German, telling that someone off in no uncertain terms. "Alors," she continued more calmly to her son. "May I make a small investigation of my own in this matter?"

"From eight thousand miles away?"

"I know Angela," Jacqueline assured her son. "She has as many uses for Swiss banking, secrecy as the rest of us. Any investigation should begin here, in Zurich."

"From what I hear of Swiss banks, you won't get far. I mean, even the FBI and the SEC can't seem to break down their secrecy."

"We…" His mother paused an instant, hardly more than a second. "I have my ways," she went on smoothly. "I have my contacts."

"Madame Mysterious," Chase kidded her.

"There is no reason for the whole world to know my personal life," she retorted. "How I had a son like you, so open, so honest, so trusting, I shall never know. Chase, leave this matter with your mysterious mother. Mystery has its uses."

"Am I that much of a disappointment to you?" Chase went on in the same joshing vein. "Would you have preferred a more devious son?"

There was a long pause at the other end. "Is that the right word?"Jacqueline said at last. "Devious? It has an ugly sound to it. Clever? Ambitious? Totally dedicated?"

"The word you're searching for," Chase told her, "is ruthless."

Another lengthy silence at Jacqueline's end of the conversation. Then: "Perhaps. Tell me, how is Vickle? Maggie?"

"Both fine. Vickie's taken up running."

"Running? Running where?"

"Anywhere. It's exercise."

"But she is not overweight."

"All her friends are running," Chase explained. "It's a fad, like anything else. First comes the clothing. Everyone dresses in track suits and running shoes. After a while, naturally, they have no choice but to start running."

Again the humor was lost on Jacqueline, "And Maggie? Her film script?"

"Good news there. At first the director couldn't get any backing. Maggie was relieved, really, because she wanted to devote her energy to Cole. Believe me, and without going into details, if it hadn't been for Maggie, Cole might not be free today. But now there's very good news. The director has found development money."

"Wonderful."

"So he's paying Maggie to do, some revisions for him. She goes down to L.A. for a week of hard work."

"Yes?" His mother's voice sounded vaguely doubtful. "Ah, well, that is also wonderful," she added quickly.

"So, you see, except for a few monetary problems, we're all in good shape, Mother."

"Yes?" Again that slight hesitation. "Chase, I will get back to you soon about the money. If it passed through Zurich, rest assured I can pick up its trail."

"Right." Chase glanced at his watch. "It's been good talking to you, Mother. And, as always, educational."

"What was that word?"

"What word?"

"The one you said. This mythical son of mine. Not devious."

"Ruthless."

"Bien sur. Ruthless," she repeated. "This I must remember."

"I'm afraid it's too late for me to develop in that direction," Chase admitted.

Jacqueline produced one of her perfectly sculpted peals of tinkly French laughter, moving expertly up the scale like a trained musician. "For you, my dear, it's entirely too late," she agreed. "Somehow, at an early age, you turned toward painful honesty the way a flower turns toward the sun."

"Poetry this early in the morning?"

"Where," she wondered out loud, "did I go wrong?"

Chapter Forty-Three

"One of' us shoulda spotted the kid was a leftie," Rawls mused. "But the first autopsy report didn't mention the right-handed thing."

"I thought the D.A. could've fought a little harder on that," the sheriff said. "I mean, where is it written a leftie can't deliberately pick up a weapon with his right hand, just to confuse us?"

Rawl's wrinkled his nose. "Nah, makes no sense."

"I know." Robbins sighed. "I know."

Slowly, with the care of a trained dental hygienist, the deputy began removing traces of lunch from between his teeth.

"In a way," the sheriff confessed, "I'm kind of glad Cole Gioberti didn't go to.trial."

"Because of the family."

"That much money buys a lot of high-powered legal talent. Some of these hot-shot defense attorrieys have a way of getting you on the stand and making a monkey out of you."

Sid Rawls produced a sigh reminiscent of Robbins'. "I know," he said in the same tone, "I know."

Neither man spoke for a long time. Outside the sheriff's office, a heavy truck trundled slowly past. Both men looked out the window to see one of the Falcon Crest diesels, crammed with crates, move by.

Robbins made a face. "So where do I go from here?"

"Search me."

"If it wasn't Cole, I've wasted a helluva lotta time collecting evidence it was. Now I have to start from scratch."

"It'd sure help if we had a second suspect handy."

"Second? We have a dozen. I mean it," the sheriff went on excitedly. "If you look at motivation, there are lots of people who might want Carlo Agretti dead. The trick . . ." He sighed again. "The trick is to figure out which of them wanted it enough to kill."

"The trick," Rawls said in a ponderous voice, "is how they got in the house to do it."

"You crazy? Anybody coulda got in."

"Not anybody. Cole got in through the front door. We've established that. But Agretti was already dead. Freshly dead. Still bleeding, in fact."

"I get you," Robbins responded. "How come Cole didn't run head on into the killer. There had to be a way in and out that had nothing to do with the front door."

"Lots of ways," the deputy mused. "Back door. Side door."

"No way. We dusted them all for prints. They were locked solid from the inside and the only prints on them were either Agretti's or his houseman, Fong's."

"Remember what Cole kept insisting? I mean, the kid is a hothead, but he may have had something."

"That he was set up?" the sheriff asked. "Every suspect claims he was set up."

"Suppose the killer wore gloves. Say he left the front door open to lead Cole into the trap. Cole claims Agretti phoned him to come over. Say the killer forced him to make that call."

"Okay. Say all that. Now say the name of the killer."

Rawls laughed without mirth. "One thing."

His boss eyed him sourly. "Yeah?"

"We never did sweat Fong properly."

"Why sweat him? His story made sense."

"I know. I know."

They lapsed into brooding silence again. "What the hell," Sheriff Robbins said at last. "Why not sweat him? He's the nearest thing we have to a witness."

"Waste of time."

"Got any better ideas?"

A long black Fleetwood limousine surged past the window. Both men turned in time to see two men ride by the chauffeured vehicle. One they recognized as Richard Channing. The other, an older man with bright blonde crew-cut hair, was a stranger to them. They watched the heavy automobile until it was out of sight.

"Heading toward the hospital," Sid Rawls volunteered. "What's Channing going there for?"

"No idea." The sheriff frowned and his gaze unfocused. "You know what my old man used to tell me? He used to say, 'Kid, for the rich, life is sweet. And the poor even get a taste of it.' Driving around in Air-conditioned limos. That's the life."

"I know." Rawls sighed. "I know."

Chapter Forty-Four

So far, on her first day, Maggie Gioberti had had the time to investigate only the suite in which Darryl had installed her. Its huge living-room picture window faced onto a broad expanse of flowers and greenery. Inside, lounges, chairs, tables, a private bar and an immense TV set invited one to relax and enjoy life. A second television served the huge bedroom with its king-sized bed and separate dressing room. All this, Maggie thought, and the only thing that really matters is the electric typewriter with a ream of blank typing paper beside it and six sharpened pencils.

Farewell swimming pool. Farewell lush lounges with their long iced drinks under colorful umbrellas. She sat at the desk, riffled once more through a script of "Tangled Vines" and came again to the first scene that needed rewriting.

Darryl's penciled instructions were precise. "Tone down language here. Develop more action. What about moving scene into a car? Could they be going on a picnic? This changes Scene I7 too. Make it an exterior under some trees. What about weather? We could use a storm here to heighten tension."

Maggie stared at the script and found herself wondering what Cole was doing. Chase had told her of his plans for the fallow vineyards, but there appeared to be some holdup on funds that he hadn't seen fit to explain.

She glanced at her watch. Darryl would be coming by for lunch at any moment. All she'd done this morning was to have croissants and coffee in the breakfast lounge and leaf through her script, reading his revision suggestions. An entire morning had passed without a line of new script being written.

What a difference this was from her normal work habits. She longed for her little cubbyhole behind the kitchen, her beat-up portable typewriter and the hours stolen from household routine. There she was in charge. There she set her own schedule, and if a day passed without writing, so be it.

Here she was being paid, like a girl operating a sewing machine in a dress factory, to produce. Everything was wrong. Even the typewriter scared her. She had switched it on and idly touched the keyboard, only to have it go berserk and print out an angry line of 'X's, like someone cursing.

There was a knock at her door. "Come in."

Darryl appeared, carrying a kind of garment bag. "I brought my swim suit. How about a dip before lunch?"

"I didn't bring mine."

"I figured." He grinned boyishly at her. "Brought you the latest in the hotel shop. Here."

He handed over what turned out to be the briefest bikini Maggic had ever seen. Vickle had wanted to buy one like that some months back and gotten a flat "no" from Maggie. And my figure, Maggie thought, is quite a bit lusher than Vickie's.

"This?" she asked, holding up the two dots and a dash that constituted the entire swim ensemble. "No way."

"Have you seen what's parading around the pool out there?" he countered. "Have you caught a glimpse of the solid sag being displayed? You'd be a knockout in that, Maggle. I'd have to fight off the talent scouts looking to sign you up."

"As what? The 'before' picture in a reducing-pill ad?"

His smile faded. "Maggie," he said then. "Maggie." He sat down on the sofa. "It's time for a lecture."

"Spare me."

"A pep talk, then. For a woman as attractive and talented as you, who has made such a success of her life, you suffer from chronic lack of self-confidence."

"And I have reason to."

"Nonsense." He patted the sofa next to him. "Listen to Uncle Darryl. In this town of fake facades and phony fronts you stand out like a diamond in a pile of broken glass. There are people in Hollywood with a tenth of your looks and a twentieth of your talent who are brilliant successes because they believed in themselves."

"That's not my style."

Carefully, she sat down some distance from him on the sofa. "I'm from a different world, Darryl. Two different worlds - first newspaper work and then plain, honest farming. Appearances mean nothing in those worlds. Results are what count."

"Here appearances produce results. Your own opinion of yourself, your own image of how good you are, comes first. If your image is strong enough, everyone has to believe it. That's true anywhere, Maggie, not just in Tinsel Town."

Maggie sat holding the scraps of bikini in her hands. She tried to keep her glance from the director, but his eagerness and the obvious fact that he believed in her made it hard not to look at him.

"You deliver a pretty fair pep talk," she said at ast. "But let's skip the pool and go for the lunch."

He was silent quite a while. "I'm not getting through to you, is that it?"

"That's exactly not it."

He swung around on the couch to establish direct eye contact. "Hear me out. You've got a good life, but nothing is forever. I don't mean some horrible disaster is lurking in the wings. I mean nothing stays the same. Your kids grow up, move away. Your husband changes slightly in character as he gets older. So do you."

"I'm prepared for that. It won't be a surprise to me"

"But it will," Darryl pointed out. "Subtle changes. You get out of breath climbing the stairs. You start putting on weight. Your looks change. Your memory. Your attitudes. It's called aging."

"Listen to the expert."

"I'm about your age, Maggie. I know what I'm talking about. Life is a one-way trip. Once you've passed a place, you don't return. It's not a merry-goround. It's a rollercoaster."

"With a long downhill slide, is that what you're saying?"

"You read me loud and clear."

"And never again," Maggie suggested somewhat mischievously, "will I be offered the chance to display my charms in a bikini."

He stifled a smile. "Never again," he assured her with mock solemnity.

"In that case." She got to her feet and left the room.

In her dressing room she stripped quickly and pulled on the tiny bikini. To her the effect was shocking, indecent. Her breasts seemed huge, her thighs . . . her waist ... her hips ... too much! Hurriedly she reached for a sheer chiffon dressing gown and quickly shrugged into it, fastening it at the waist.

Better, she thought. At poolside, it gets whipped off and into the water I plunge. No striptease. Let the water cover me. She felt light-headed. Vickie had described the way she felt when she had run five miles. "It's a high, Mom. The oxygen in your blood ... it's like bubbles in champagne."

She strode back into the living room, her head singing with bubbles.

Chapter Forty-Five

"Relax," Richard said, sitting on the sofa and patting the place beside him. "It's been a long, hard day."

Melissa took her vodka-and-tonic from him and sat at the far end of the sofa. She sipped briefly. "What do you think?" she asked then.

"About Karl Edsen? Why take my word for it? Your Dr. Ruzza said it all." Richard eyed her for a moment. "You remember what he said?"

Melissa shook her head. "I'm afraid I was out of it, Richard. Just the sight of that poor little wasted body put me in a state of shock. And the way the two of them handled the baby. As though it were a ... I don't know . . . a bag of vegetables."

"They do know what they're doing," Richard assured her. "Ruzza told me privately that he'd been at his wit's end with Joseph. Well, you and I knew that, didn't we? But then he said, 'Thank God for a specialist like Edsen. I'm only guessing. This man knows.' You were standing right there."

Melissa nodded tiredly. "I know. I just can't take the waiting. This new course of treatment Edsen's prescribed. It may take weeks before-"

"More like days. I've asked him to stay on through tomorrow. He feels we'll know what the hormone does by then."

Melissa smiled sincerely. "I do thank you, Richard, from the bottom of my heart. I know none of this would be possible without you."

"I don't want thanks. I want Joseph to get better." He lifted his glass. "Here's to the little guy. He looks pretty game to me."

He watched her sip her drink. A few minutes later, when the glass was only half full, he discreetly topped it up again with vodka. Melissa began to relax somewhat. She glanced around the suite.

"I had no idea they treated you so well here. It's quite like a private apartment."

"Not like mine in New York." Richard freshened her drink again. "Wait till you see it. I've got all my paintings there. It's my one weakness, buying art. I miss my collection when I'm away from it."

"But surely you plan to be out here for a while."

"Maybe permanently. In which case I'll have it all crated and shipped to California," Richard explained very plausibly. "Of course, whether I stay or not depends on a lot of things."

"The Globe seems to be doing well."

Richard gestured impatiently. "A newspaper's all right. But it isn't what I want from California. Either I put down roots here, or I leave."

"Roots? I had the idea you were in love with travel", Melissa said. She watched him move to freshen her drink, put out her hand to stop him, then decided not to. "What's stopping you from taking root?"

Another impatient gesture. "It's not something you do mechanically, like digging a hole for a post. It's a matter of the feel of a place and the people who go with it. Take Bellavista, for instance."

"My father's place?" Melissa sounded surprised. "It's pretty old-fashioned."

"Oh, it would need refurbishing. I'd have to spend quite a bit sprucing it up. But I wouldn't change the line of it."

"I had no idea you liked Bellavista that much."

He nodded. "The place ... and the people who go with it."

"The workers?"

"The woman who owns Bellavista."

Melissa sat without speaking. She started to sip her drink out of sheer nervousness, thought better of it, then decided to take a sip anyway. "You mean that, married woman, Melissa Cumson."

"I mean that exciting woman, Melissa Agretti."

Melissa laughed almost helplessly. "I love the way you ignore my marriage."

"Doesn't Lance?"

Her face darkened for a moment. "Let's leave him out of it."

"Let's." Richard got to his feet and went to the large expanse of window. "There's that great big outside world I was telling you about, Melissa."

She joined him at the window. Dusk was falling over San Francisco. Multicolored lights sprang up here and there. "It does look wonderful."

"And it's yours."

"Through you?"

"This kind of life is no fun alone. It may look glamorous, but if you have no one to share it with ." He let the thought echo unspoken.

Melissa shook her head as if to clear it. "Things are happening too fast for me, Richard. Edsen's just arrived. Joseph isn't out of danger. And you're coming on as if I were a free woman."

"Aren't you? Isn't freedom a matter of will?" he asked.

"Will?"

"We are what we want to be," he told her forcefully.

"Look at me. You know my history. I don't have to tell you what it was like growing up a virtual orphan. But I had the will to overcome that. I had the will to change my life, to make it what I wanted. So do you."

Outside, the city of night was coming to life. Headlights flared. Buildings lighted up. Melissa felt almost breathless with longing for ... for something she couldn't put a name to.

"You make it sound so easy."

"It gets harder the longer you put it off. Melissa, he went on, putting his arm around her waist, "nothing is forever. Do you know what I mean?"

"Things change."

"Constantly. You're very young and the young fail to realize what I'm saying. But nothing stays the same. Everything changes. The woman you are today will be quite a different person in twenty years. You have a chance to decide what she's going to be. How she's going to live her life."

He tilted her head up. Their lips were inches apart. As it had once before, his gaze seemed to thrust with almost physical force, compelling her eyes to meet his head on. Something electrical charged the air around them. When they kissed, her lips felt almost scalded. In the darkened bedroom, as he undressed her, Richard could hear a key inserted in the outer lock of his suite. He paused and listened. Diana's key made almost no sound. Nor did the chain when it barred her opening the door. After a moment, he could hear the door shut and the faint sound of the key being withdrawn.

He smiled a secret grin, one of half joy, half disaster, as he buried his face between Melissa's breasts.

Chapter Forty-Six

The sheriffs car paused at the locked gate. Robbins honked his horn loudly for a long time before he and Deputy Rawls saw sign of life inside the old Agretti compound. Someone shined a powerful flashlight in their direction.

"Wha' chu want?" a man called. "Go 'way!"

"Fong? It's the sheriff," Rawls shouted. "Open up."

There was a pause as the darkness seemed to gather almost palpably around them. Then the ghost figure trudged toward them, a shotgun cradled in its arms. Fong appeared, blinking in the headlights of the car. "Wha' chu want, Sheriff?"

"Put down that shotgun and open this gate."

"Wha' for?"

"It's real simple, Fong," the deputy explained. "Either you do what the sheriff says or you get arrested for obstructing justice. That's thirty days in the slam with no time off for good behavior."

"Shees! Only doin' my duty," the Chinese complained. "You don' have t' take my head off. Here."

He leaned the weapon against the fence and searched through a huge ring of keys until he found one that unlocked the heavy gate. "What's up this late?" he asked, swinging the gate open.

"Just routine," Sheriff Robbins assured him. "Only I like it a whole lot better when nobody's pointing a twelve-gauge shotgun down my throat."

"Sorry about that. Now the old man's gone, we get kids looking to break in."

"That I doubt," Rawls told him. "You're too good a watchman."

The husky Chinaman appeared almost as wide as he was tall. His chest puffed out a bit and he grinned in the headlights. "You damned straight Fong's a good watchman. What can I do for you gen'mum?."

"Like I said, just routine. We have to go over the house again."

"At night?"

"Day, night, what's it to you?" the sheriff said, a who-cares tone creeping into his voice. "Open up the front door and stick with us."

The three men plodded up the path and entered by the broad veranda. In a moment the old house was ablaze with light. Robbins and Rawls paced here and there, doing things with a tape measure. The deputy made copious notes, responding affably to Fong's questions while the sheriff rudely ignored them. Although the watchman had no way of knowing this, the two officers were already setting up the ground rules ' for their interrogation. Each had a role to play. They were called, in police slang, Mr. Hard and Mr.Soft.

"You prepared to testify in court under oath," the sheriff growled, "that these three doors are the only way into Bellavista?"

"In court?" Fong quavered.

"On the stand, with your hand on the Bible, you take the oath and then you talk. You tell everything. We catch you in one lie, you're a gone goose."

"Hey, boss," Rawls suggested quietly, "Fong's okay. No need to come down hard on him."

"Remains to be seen. You notice he ain't answered me?"

"Yes!" Fong burst out. "I testify. Only three ways in or out."

"Says you," the sheriff sniffed.

They were in Carlo Agretti's den, the room in which the murder had taken place. In the absence now of a suspect charged and ready to stand trial, Robbins had ordered the room to remain untouched. The desk was covered with a cloth. He whipped it off. All three men stared down at the blackish layer of caked blood that had dried there.

"Sit!" Sheriff Robbins ordered.

"Not in that chair," Fong demurred.

"In that chair!"

"The blood . . ."

"Makes you a little sick to your stomach, huh, Fong? Sit!"

Gingerly, he lowered his stocky frame into the chair where Carlo Agretti's body had been found.

"You want to start?" the sheriff asked Rawls.

"Sure. Fong, the thing is, we're starting this whole case from scratch again. It's routine, like the sheriff says, but we got to set up a whole new roster of suspects."

"And guess who leads the list?" the sheriff demanded.

"Now, we're not saying you killed the old guy," the deputy said softly as Fong started at him in horror. "We're just saying we have to include you in the list. It'sjust routine police procedure. Now, tell us again how it happened. From when you heard Cole Gioberti call out. And you came running?"

"I c-came running," Fong stammered. "Yes, fast. And there is Cole, covered in blood. Him, the telephone, Mr. Agretti, everything." His eyes got wider.

"Is that how you found him?" Robbins suggested. "Or is that how Cole found you?"

"Sheriff, I swear I-"

"The old guy's will's being probated, Fong. Did you know he left you five thousand bucks?" the sheriff snapped. "I've seen a guy killed for a helluva lot less than that."

"Please, Sheriff. I didn't know he was…"

"Take it easy," Rawls told him soothingly. "Relax. Tell us the truth and you got no problems, Fong. We're on your side. We want to see you get a fair shake on this."

"And we also want the murderer," Robbins added ominously. "So be careful what you tell us, Fong. One false move and you'll never see daylight again. Once more. Tell me the ways into this house."

"Three. Front. Side door. Kitchen door."

"Baloney. Isn't there a way in through the greenhouse?"

"No."

"Through the garage?"

"No."

"Stop lying. What about the basement? You trying to tell me their isn't a separate cellar door?" Sheriff Robbins bore down. "You see? Already you're caught in a lie."

"No basement d-door," Fong stuttered. "I s-swear it."

"He's telling.the truth, Sheriff," the deputy admitted. "This is a straight-arrow guy, boss. Fong don't lie."

Back and forth they whipsawed him. The desperate light in his eyes shifted from despair to hope as Mr. Hard and Mr. Soft took their turns. But, for some reason, Robbins kept returning to the cellar idea.

"Okay, we know there's no basement door. We know you get to the cellar from the kitchen. But it's fishy as hell, Fong. It makes no sense. The basement is where the old guy kept his wine. You're telling me somebody had to carry that stuff case by case down those rickety stairs from the kitchen to the cellar? And carry up the empties. It stinks, Fong."

"Look," Rawls picked up in a reasonable tone. "It may seem fishy, but it's easy enough to check out. Whadya say we give Fong a break, huh, boss? Let's go down to the cellar and see for ourselves."

"Why not?" The sheriff jerked his thumb at the watchman. "Lead the way, Fong, and no tricks."

They waited. The man seemed to have collapsed; the bones and spine seemed to have melted from his husky body. His eyes rolled sideways in his head.

"I said no tricks." Robbins turned to his deputy. "This monkey faking a fit or something?"

"Fong," Rawls pleaded. "This is your chance. Take us through the cellar and you're home free. Cooperate, baby. That's the name of the game. You help us. We help you."

The Chinaman moaned; it was a choking sound that seemed to rise from his very bootheels. He struggled to sit erect in the chair. After a moment, grasping the arms of the chair, still coated with blackened, dried blood, he hoisted his chunky frame erect and stood, wobbling.

"You guys," he said, out of breath.

"Onward," Robbins ordered.

"Okay," Fong almost gasped, breathing hard.

"Let me get my flashlight. There's no lights in the basement."

Weaving slightly, he staggered out of the room. "Be right back," he called.

When he seemed out of earshot, Rawls murmured in the sheriffs ear, "Think we sweated him too hard?"

"Never laid a finger on him. Words, Sid, only words."

"Still, he looks shaky as hell."

"Good. Then we're doing our job right."

They stood there for a moment, mentally reviewing the minimal information they'd gained from Fong. After a while, Rawls glanced at his watch. "How long does it take to find a flashlight?"

Sheriff Robbins' eyes flared bright with suspicion. "Damn it! Let's go!"

A quarter of an hour later they had to admit defeat. Fong was nowhere on the premises. An open gate that led to a tract of wooded land at the rear of the house seemed to indicate the escape route he'd taken.

The sheriff and his deputy returned to the house, still ablaze with lights. "We let that sucker back-door us," Robbins muttered.

"How were we to know?" Rawls picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Nix." The sheriff slammed his hand down on the phone, cutting it off, "Before we call in any of the boys, you and me have a job to do."

"In the basement?"

"In the basement."

Sid Rawis' rather large mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Well, at least we got one thing to show for our trouble."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We got us a brand-new suspect."

Chapter Forty-Seven

"Don't be alarmed." The nurse looked from Julia to her son, Lance. "It's merely a precaution after the interchange procedure."

"What?" Julia gasped.

"We've managed to change the baby's blood completely." The nurse suddenly stopped, as if she'd 'd too much. "You'd better let Dr, Ruzza explain it."

"Ruzza? But you mentioned a Dr.... someone else."

"Come on," Lance growled. "She's not going to tell us anything."

"There's a phone at the nurses' station near the elevators. You can call Dr. Ruzza from there."

"Forget it," Lance rasped. He led his mother away. "They treat everybody the same in these places. Rotten."

"But, Lance, the baby…"

"Melissa was here all afternoon. We'll get the story from her."

Julia's glance shifted sideways as they got in the elevator. "But she hasn't come home. I mean…" She stopped. "Perhaps she's still here."

"I said forget it."

Lance led the way out the lobby to their parked car. "Don't you want to know what's happened to your son?"

"Stop calling him my son."

He slammed on the engine and wheeled off in a harsh squeal of rubber on pavement. Night had fallen. The car's headlights bored twin beams through the darkness as Lance steered recklessly around corners. Julia rocked from side to side, her eyes straight ahead. Finally, she laid a hand on her son's arm. "Slow down, Lance. I mean it."

He grunted, but let up on the accelerator slightly. "You don't understand," Julia said then in a low voice. "You've never ... I've never had the time to ..." She stopped and took a long breath. "I'm not very sophisticated, Lance. I've never seen much of the world. After college I went right into the Falcon Crest labs. It's all I know. To me, the appearance of a thing is the truth of it. I see a grape that's infected with fungus, I know what I'm looking at. I see crystals of tartaric acid in a bottle of wine, I know what I'm seeing. I look at Melissa and I see a girl shaken by grief. A girl who loves her husband and her baby. Who's lost a father she loved. Now you tell me it's all a sham? That she isn't what she seems? That your marriage is a ... a lie?"

"For God's sake, Mother!"

"Tell me," Julia pleaded. "Please tell me."

"You can't be so wrapped up in your work that you don't know what's going on under your nose," Lance pointed out. "It just isn't possible to be that naive."

"I'm sorry. It is."

"This is ridiculous," he fumed. "It's as if you want me to tell you where babies come from."

"I'm sorry," she repeated with some dignity. "it's this one baby I'm asking about. Where did it come from?"

"Not from me," her son said curtly. "I have an idea who the father is, but no proof."

"Who is he?"

"That's not the point. The point is I'm nol the father. And I'm not going to be tied down by Grandmother's threats just because she wants the Agretti vineyards welded for life to Falcon Crest."

"But we all want that," Julia burst out.

"Oh, do we?"

"We all want what's best."

"For Falcon Crest!" Lance exclaimed angrily. "But what about me?"

"You?" his mother cried out. "What about me?"

"You're home and safe," Lance told her brusquely. "But my inheritance hangs on the life of that little bastard they've hidden away in the hospital."

"Lance!"

"What else should I call him?"

He slowed down the car until it was crawling along the night roads. "Look at it from my angle, will you? Grandmother controls half of Falcon Crest. I only work for her, the same as you. If this were a normal family, instead of living in the shadow of one greedy woman, I'd have no problem. I'd inherit in my own right, no strings. But I'm not good enough for Grandmother. She only uses me to latch onto the Agretti vines. She makes Melissa's baby the linchpin in her whole crazy plot. Without the baby, I'm just another hired hand. Bul it isn't my baby!"

"Why not say it is? Why stir up trouble for yourself?"

"Because I'm me. Either I'm worth enough to inherit in my own right, or Falcon Crest can get along without me. I'm not wasting my youth in a place where my entire future depends on whether some kid lives or dies."

She patted his arm comfortingly. "I understand, Lance. It's demeaning the way my mother treats people. She can't help it. Her vision of this place takes precedence over everything. She feels she's at war, constantly, if not with Chase then with Richard Channing. If not with them then with the other vineyards. That's the way she is."

"At war? Then she's firing on her own troops."

"Yes. You're right about that."Julia grew silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had grown somber and grave. "She has no idea how much we do for her. And at any moment she can turn on us. What did you say? Firing on her own troops. That's my mother. And don't think she makes empty threats."

"She shot off quite a few at me."

Julia's eyes seemed to go blank as she stared out at the night scene passing by her. "She can be so unthinking. At one stroke, she can undo what I . . ." She stopped. Lance was busy turning a sharp corner. He failed to see the stricken look on his mother's face.

"Blind, obsessed woman," Julia murmured.

"Too bad about her," Lance retorted. "I have my own life to live."

"Do you?" Julia's voice had gone strangely high, like a little girl's. "Do any of us?"

"Don't give me that, Mother."

There was a sharp intake of breath and suddenly Julia's voice had returned to its full power. "Give you?" she demanded. "I've given you everything, Lance. You'll never know how much."

Chapter Forty-Eight

She glanced over the original scene in her film script, frowned at Darryl's notes scribbled in the margin and typed a few new lines. The electric typewriter was the kind that first showed you the line you'd typed on a tiny video screen. If you didn't like it, you made changes before letting the typewriter put it on paper. Maggie sighed with exasperation. She jumped up and went to the picture window of her hotel suite.

The faint illumination of garden torches and lights reflected on her nearly nakid body. Still wearing the bikini, but without the protective filmy dressing gown, she examined herself in the plate-glass reflection.

She found herself wondering why she'd been so afraid to appear in a bikini. She looked quite good, enough to rivet most men's glances around the pool and to monopolize Darryl's attention until she finally had to get rid of him after lunch in order to resume work.

He was due back soon to take her to "an important dinner." But first, Scene 59. The telephone rang.

"Honey," Chase began, "how's the screenwriting going?"

Holding the phone in one hand, Maggic found herself frantically trying to pull on the dressing gown, as if Chase could actually see her. "Slow work," she heard herself say. "How's everyone? How are you?"

"Coping. Have you got a decent place to work?"

"Not bad. But they've given me this genius typewriter that's much smarter than I am." Maggie gestured meaninglessly, as if giving up the idea of explaining herself to her husband. "What made me think I wanted to be a screenwriter?" she asked abruptly.

"Tough work?"

"Confusing." She knew he had no idea just how confusing the life was here in this little lap of luxury Darryl had provided for her. "But I'll cope, same as you."

"Good. Do you think you'll be home for the weekend?"

"Definitely."

"We have that diriner with the Pearsons on Saturday night."

"I haven't forgotten. What's the news from Jim?"

"We know how to get at the money. It's just a matter of time."

There was a long pause at both ends. Then Maggie asked, "What's the news of Melissa's baby?"

"They've brought in a Swedish miracle man. Everyone sounds very optimistic."

"They? You mean Angela?"

"Uh-uh. Richard Charming."

Another long pause ensued. "I don't understand Maggie said at last. The affairs of Tuscany Valley seemed strangely remote to her. She even had to think for a moment to remember who Richard Channing was.

"Neither do I," her husband admitted. "And I've picked up a rumor that he's calling his first shareholders' meeting next week."

"Surely he wouldn't be that foolish."

"My experience with the man tells me he's not only a risk-taker, but a master conspirator as well. I'm prepared for fireworks."

Neither of them spoke again for a long moment.

Maggie had the sickening sensation of rapidly increasing distance, as if Chase were not only four hundred miles to the north, but getting farther with each second. "Chase?"

"Yes?"

"Uh ... you'll be careful, won't you?"

"Need you ask? Anyway, you'll be back by then and I can get your thoughts on the subject. You're not such a bad conspirator yourself."

Maggie almost flinched. A feeling of guilt seemed to flood through her. But how could Chase know? And what was there to know, anyway? Just an afternoon by the pool. "Right," she said at last. "Give my love to Cole and Vickie."

"Will do. Good night, darling."

Maggie glanced at her watch: 9 p.m. But Chase would be asleep in an hour or less. While she ... "Good night, darling," she echoed. "Thanks for calling."

As she hung up, there was a knock at her door. She ran to open it. Darryl stood there in what amounted to formal dinner attire, a white tuxedo and black bow tie, a pale gray shirt with ruffles and gold studs. His eyes lighted up as he saw her still in her bikini.

"Still dressed to kill he said, stepping inside and in the most natural way in the world, taking her in his arms.

He kissed her lips, lightly but firmly. It still seemed, to Maggie, a most natural thing to do.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Melissa gave a soft moan of pleasure as she came awake in Richard Channing's bed. She reached for his body, but found herself alone. Sitting up, she stared through the darkened bedroom toward a light burning in the living room. She could hear him talking, but no one answered. She got to her feet and tiptoed to the doorway, remaining out of sight.

"That's really very provincial of you," Richard was saying into the telephone. "Quite out of line, too." He listened for a moment. "Just confine yourself to your assigned duties and we'll both get along. Do you understand?"

Melissa's smile in the half-darkness was a peculiar mixture of pleasure and malice. She stepped into her panties and quickly pulled her dress down over her head. A moment later, putting on her shoes, she went to the mirror and with her fingers pulled her great dark curls into some semblance of order. Then, heels cracking loudly, she walked into the living room.

Richard looked up from the telephone. "That's fine," he was saying. "Make sure it does. Right. I have to hang up now. Good night." He replaced the phone.

"Poor Diana," Melissa said with that same sly smile.

Richard laughed softly. "You look superb. Ready for dinner?"

Melissa shook her head. "We married folk have our obligations. Can you get me a cab back to the Valley?"

"I can drive you there much more quickly."

"And much more disastrously. Call a cab."

Dinner at Falcon Crest had been more than usually strained. Only Angela and Julia had eaten the appetizer. Lance had made a pretense of pushing it around on his plate, but Julia knew the weight of his rage was too great for him to continue playacting through the entire meal.

"That Number Seven Vat," she told him as Chao-Li cleared for the main course, "the foreman said it might be building up too much pressure. Can you run over and check it?"

Lance was on his feet before she finished speaking. "Won't take a minute. Don't wait for me." He was gone before his grandmother could say her first word.

"Well!" she managed to gasp. "The safety valve may be gummed shut," Julia said, spinning out her fiction about Number Seven Vat.

"I've never seen Lance behave quite that rudely," Angic continued as if her daughter hadn't spoken. "But I suppose he's got justification. Where is that tramp of his?"

"Mother, Melissa is no tramp."

"Nine o'clock and she's not home yet? And what's all this about some Swedish doctor?"

"I phoned Dr. Ruzza. The new man is an expert of neonatal illnesses. Dr. Kart Edsen. He's supervised a complete blood transfusion for Joseph. They're trying a new hormone therapy program."

"And who called in Dr. Edsen?"

"Melissa. So you see, she does take her responsibilities seriously."

"Do you take me for a fool, Julia?" Angie's sharp eyes swunng like a pair of sabers to slash at her daughter's face. "We are talking about Melissa Agretti, a grape farmer's daughter. She snaps her fingers and across the world in Sweden some renowned expert answers her bidding like a bellhop?"

Julia spread out her long, powerful hands on the tablecloth. "I wouldn't know about that, Mother. Dr. Ruzza seemed to feel that perhaps Richard Channing had been helpful in this matter."

"More like it." Angela Channing nodded twice, grimly. Then: "Have you spoken to Lance about this paternity-test idea of his?"

"I have. He's promised to drop it."

"Don't lie to me, Julia. To begin with," her mother told her in cold, unemotional tones, "you're very bad at it. And, secondly, what you say makes no sense. The boy is in a self-destructive phase. He gets that way now and then. He tries to bring his whole world down around his shoulders, like Samson."

"Like who?"

"Never mind. Let me tell you about your son, Julia. He responds to only one thing-pressure. You can't reason with him. You can only coerce him. If he whines about not being given more responsibility around here, that's the reason."

"And what," Julia darted back breathlessly, "is the reason you don't delegate more responsibility to me?"

Her mother's eyes widened alarmingly. "Do you really want to know?"

"I asked, didn't I?" "You have no imagination, Julia. No scope. You're a drudge. Perhaps a talented one, at least in the laboratory. But to give you more responsibility than that would be disastrous."

"Thanks."

"You asked."

"Then let me tell you about yourself, Mother."

"I don't recall asking for advice."

"But you're getting it," Julia retorted, trying to hold down the fury she felt building inside her. "You have delusions of grandeur, Mother. You blunder along, fighting your private wars, making one mistake after another. The rest of us have to tidy up after your mess. Without us, you'd be a pathetic old woman and Falcon Crest would have fallen apart at the seams."

For a long moment, Angie's face was expressionless. Then she smiled sourly. "Congratulations, Julia. You still don't make any sense. But I'm glad to see that you have at least a spark of gumption. Tidy up after my mess? I wonder what on earth you could mean by that?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Have you been up to something I don't know about?" Angie persisted. "Because eventually, you know, I'll find you out."

They both heard the sound of a car outside. Angela went to the window. "A cab. It's Melissa, at last."

"I'm going to give that young wom-" She stopped herself. "Look at her. For a mother whose baby is struggling for life, she certainly carries herself with a jaunty air. I wonder."

Melissa's dark eyes flashed almost wildly as she entered the dining room. "Dinner over?"

"Didn't Mr. Channing give you dinner?" Angela asked in a fake tone of concern. "No gentleman, he."

"I was with Dr. Edsen," Melissa lied fluently. "He really has given me new hope for Joseph."

Angela Channing surveyed her granddaughter-in-law from head to toe. Her lips crisped into a wry line of amusement. "I'll have Chao-Li set a place for you," she said then.

"Not hungry. I'm making an early night of it." Melissa left the room. They could hear her heels as she mounted the curved stairway to the second floor.

"Lance will be so pleased," Angie murmured as she sat down in her chair and rang the bell for the main course to be served. "Melissa's such a good mother."

"Don't talk nonsense." Julia watched the mood change closely, alert to every facet of her mother's strange personality.

"And this Dr. Edsen really is quite a miracle worker," Angela Channing went on unperturbed. "It's fascinating. Somehow, in conference with him, Melissa has neglected to put her stockings on."

Chapter Fifty

"Right," Chase began. "I call to order this meeting of the County Board of Tuscany Valley on the fourteenth of September at two-thirty p.m. The agenda is as follows -- minutes of the last meeting, treasurer's report, discussion of applications and new business. Any additions to the agenda?" He waited. "There being none, let's hear from the secretary."

Dee read the last meeting's minutes. The treasurer reported the current balance. Routine applications for water rights and variances were heard, discussed and voted on in order.

"This last application is a bit out of the ordinary," Dee Merriam announced. She then proceeded to read out loud Richard Channing's request for a variance on five acres of parkland as a memorial to Douglas Charnning. When she finished no one spoke. Chase stirred in his chair. "Any comments?"

"Why now?" Phil Mosconi, a vintner, asked. "Douglas has been dead -- what is it? -- twenty years? More. Why a memorial now?"

"That's easy, Phil," said Mrs. Foran, who owned the agricultural equipment store. "Richard Channing's back and he's got the money. So he's making up for lost time." She glanced around the table, a small, plump woman in her late fifties. "I mean, it's not as if Douglas didn't deserve a memorial."

"No question of that."

"right."

"It's fine with me."

Chase waited until silence settled over the group. "He's asking to put in a sort of park, a statue or something like that, some benches and shrubbery. The present status of the land wouldn't be altered much."

He sensed that the board was hoping to take its lead from him, since they all knew no love was lost between Chase and his Aunt Angela, Douglas Channing's widow. Chase decided to take the bull by the horns.

"Dee sent a routine notification to Mrs. Channing," he announced. "I have her response." He held out a letter. "She writes, 'I have no objection to the proposed memorial.' Signed, Mrs. Douglas Channing."

"That's all?" someone asked.

"Short and sweet." Chase glanced around him again. "Do I hear a motion to allow a variance?"

"So move," Mrs. Foran said.

"Second," Peter Vermilyea added.

"Moved and seconded," Chase echoed. "All in favor?" He listened to a chorus of "ayes." He glanced up from Angela's brief note. "All those opposed?" Silence. "Variance is granted. There's a Miss Hunter waiting outside. She's empowered to negotiate price. What is the pleasure of'the board?"

"You handle it," Phil Mosconi suggested. "We don't need to get in on the haggling. But get a good price, Chase. He can afford it."

"Give me a ball-park figure."

"Last week," Bob Duff said in his wheezy voice, "I had to pay damned near five grand an acre for that orphan lot on my west line. Is that the going rate or was I had?"

"You're suggesting we ask twenty-five thousand?" Chase asked him.

"You handle it," Mosconi repeated. "If you get twenty-five grand, I won't cry. We need double that to fix up the playground and the ball park."

"Right," Chase said. "Dee, let's move the agenda."

Nobody in Tuscany Valley would think of using any doctor but Ruzza, or the new man, Benjamin, although a great many of the vineyard hands traveled into the next county to use a Dr. Aguilar, who spoke Spanish. So it was unusual that Lance had driven all the way to a clinic in San Francisco for his paternity test.

Lori Stevens had suggested this small, out-of-the way storefront in the area behind Ashbery Avenue. "They're reliable," she had told Lance, "and especially competent in private matters like abortions and herpes and such."

"Sex doctors?" Lance cracked.

"Aftermath-of-sex doctors," she corrected him.

"But they know their business?"

"Absolutely."

"And a written statement from them would carry weight?"

"Certainly."

The storefront looked vaguely dingy. It had once been a supermarket. Now its interior was cut up into cubicles, painted stark white and brilliantly illuminated by blinding fluorescent bulbs. Lance watched the nurse rub his arm with an alcohol swab and remove what seemed like a great deal of blood from his vein.

"Why so much?"

"Technical reasons," she said in a cool voice.

"Come on. It's my blood."

"You guys who want to get out of supporting a baby," she said, unloading a certain amount of her own displeasure, "have no business complaining that we need a lot of your blood."

"Hooh!"

"Basically, we have to test a lot of different factors," she went on. "Type, Rh, that sort of thing. Even then, you know, you still might not get a clear result."

"You mean I'm paying in blood for nothing?"

"I mean the baby's blood and yours might match or might not, or might show a partial match. This is the sort of thing you should have thought about before you and your girlfriend-"

"You're absolutely right," Lance told her with faked solemnity. "This is a real lesson to me. How soon will I know?"

"Next week."

"No good."

"In a hurry, are we?" She gave him a disapproving look as she emptied the hypodermic syringe into four test tubes and corked each with a puff of cotton. "You can have the results tomorrow for an extra twenty bucks."

"Sold."

"Sold?" Diana Hunter asked Chase.

He watched her without speaking. Something about her reminded him of his own wife, Maggie, her air of competence, her dark blond beauty. He found himself missing his wife, and this disturbing young woman who showed too much of her legs did nothing to ease his mind.

"It looks that way." Chase glanced over at Dee Merriam. "We can draw up the contracts by the end of the week, can't we, Dee?"

"Or certainly by next Monday."

"But they're standard contracts," Diana pointed out. "Surely-"

"This has waited a long time," Chase reminded her. "A little more delay can't hurt."

"I was going to suggest," Diana went on, crossing her legs, "that one of our lawyers could draw the contracts tonight and we could sign them tomorrow. In fact," she added, opening her handbag, "I'm empowered to give you the check right now."

"What's the rush?" Chase asked.

She gave him a wan smile. "You don't know my employer, Mr. Gioberti. When he wants something, he wants it yesterday."

"Isn't that charming?" Chase responded in a lazy drawl. "The rest of us usually wait our turn. It must be lovely getting such prompt service. But it has a drawback."

"Yes?"

"It puts people's backs up." Chase grinned at her. "It kind of gives people the idea that a little normal delay would do Mr. Channing a world of good."

"So you're going to delay the contracts?"

Chase glanced at Dee. "The secretary has a deskful of work waiting for her. That's always the case after a board meeting."

He paused, sensing that this attractive young woman was anxious to say something more, but at the same time struggling not to say it. He found himself fascinated by her apparent conflicting emotions -- the urge to use Channing's clout and the knowledge that Chase Gioberti was the wrong man to use it on.

"You said?" he prompted.

"I? I said nothing."

Chase rubbed his beard slowly, thoughtfully. "Tell Mr. Channing he's been such a gentleman in the past. With such a gentlemanly newspaper that prints such factual stories about people. Tell him in honor of all that I'm letting his lawyers do Dee Merriam's work. Got it?"

The dazzling smile on Diana Hunter's face almost knocked him off balance. It seemed to be her first real, unforced, human gesture of the whole interview. "He'll appreciate that message," Diana told him.

"Will he now?"

"Oh, my, yes." Her smile widened to a mischievous grin.

Chapter Fifty-One

APB," the machine ticked off. "APPREHEND AND RETURN TO TUSCANY VALLEY SHERIFF'S OFFICE THOMAS JOSHUA FONG, ALIAS TOM FONG, ASIATIC, FIVE-FIVE, 180 LBS, BROWN EYES, POWERFUL BUILD, LAST SEEN WEARING LUMBERJACK SHIRT, DUNGAREES. WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN CONNEC TION WITH MURDER CASE. MAY BE ARMED. ROBBINS, SHERIFF."

He switched off the machine and returned to his office, where Rawls and another deputy were putting the finishing touches to an architect's sketch of the ground and cellar floors of Bellavista.

"Starts here, behind the wine racks," Rawls was saying. "Damndest thing. You could look at it a dozen times and still not see the opening."

"But it was wide enough for a guy with Fong's build," the other deputy replied.

"Tight squeeze, if you ask me."

"Even tighter," Robbins put in, "when you remember it leads into a tunnel that hasn't been used in God knows how long. I mean, it's out of a horror movie, all full of roots and moss and toadstools."

"And tracks?" the other deputy wanted to know.

"I've got Killian working on that," the sheriff said. "He's a full-blooded Kwakiutl Indian from up Oregon way. If anybody can pick up a track, he can."

"And it ends here?" the other deputy asked, touching a place on the drawing with the eraser tip of his pencil.

"That's another weird thing," Rawls told him. "It's an old pump house. I mean old. It's still got a donkey engine in there from the turn of' the century. Works on naphtha. Pumps up water from a well. But Agretti's irrigation system is modern stuff" electric powered from a place a mile away. In other words, nobody's gone near that old pump house in a long time."

"Somebody did," Sheriff'Robbins said then.

"That night," Sid Rawls agreed. "And it looks suspiciously like that somebody was guided in by Fong." "Has to be," his boss assured him. "The way he panicked when I started bearing down hard on that cellar? Remember? He nearly threw a fit."

"And lit out for the tall timber," Rawls reminisced.

"Or maybe he only panicked because he'd forgot to tell you about the tunnel," the other deputy suggested.

"There's panic and then there's panic," Robbins retorted. "This guy had guilty written all over him. If it was only an oversight, he'd have coughed up the truth then and there. Instead he took to his heels."

All three men stared for a long time at the sketch. "Kiliian's good," Rawls said at length, "but that tunnel isn't going to show much. My hunch is, Indian or no Indian, Killian will come up blank."

"The tunnel might not tell us much . . ." his boss agreed.

"But?"

"But Fong will."

Chapter Fifty-Two

Richard laughed as they tussled in the bedclothes. When his alarm went off at nine o'clock in the evening, neither of them heard it over the intensity of their lovemaking. Only later, as she dressed, did Melissa seem to come back to earth again.

"I know you don't like to hear it," she told Richard as he sat in the living room watching her dress. "But I will always be grateful to you, Richard. When I went to the hospital this afternoon, they let me hold him. He's gained a whole pound. His color is so much better. He's active, squirming. I'll never forget what you did."

"You amaze me, my dear."

"With my motherly instincts? Or in bed?"

"Both," he said admiringly. He sipped a glass of mineral water. "You're the new breed, aren't you? You're a responsible mother and you're also a wild, extravagant lover. The way you can be both is what amazes me."

"It's possible only if you call me a cab this instant."

He nodded and made the call. "Getting any flak at home?"

"Not from Lance."

"Well, you've got an arrangement there, haven't you?"

"But of course."

"Then it won't worry you to learn that he's gotten himself a paternity test? One of my reporters has an informant in a clinic over on Ashbery."

"Lance is an idiot," Melissa said coolly. "The only thing he can do with a paternity test is cut himself out of his inheritance."

"I would have thought so, too. That doesn't bother you?"

"Lance can do whatever he wants with his life. The Agretti vineyards are mine. Bellavista is mine. And I'm yours."

Richard sipped his drink slowly, watching her over the rim of his glass. She had a lithe, attractive body that was almost more exciting clothed than nude ' But he was beginning to tire of these evening sessions. And it was only a matter of time before Diana would be in full revolt, no matter how strong Cartel discipline might be. Besides, he had his shareholders' meeting to mastermind. It would take all his attention.

"Darling," he said then. "You know how miserable I am when we can't be together. But I'm going to be closeted all evening tomorrow with my broker."

"You can't see him during the day?"

"Not on this matter. It's top secret."

"Then the evening after."

"Perfect," Richard agreed . His telephone rang. "Your cab," he said. He escorted her to the door and they kissed for a long moment, clinging together fiercely. "I hate not seeing you tomorrow," he breathed in her ear. "But it makes the night after that much more exciting."

He waited until he heard her footsteps pause at the elevator door down the hotel corridor. When it had opened and closed, he peeked out into the hall and saw that she was truly gone. After a moment he went to the phone and called the front desk. "My guest has gotten her cab?"

"Just took off, Mr. Charming."

Smiling, Richard pushed down the telephone button, got a new dial tone and rang Diana's suite. "Ready," he said when she answered the call.

A moment later, dressed in a bright flame-orange at-home sheath, Diana let herself into Richard's suite. In her wake came a tall, spare man with a nervous, hound-dog look. "Joe!" Richard exclaimed. "I hope Diana's been entertaining you properly."

The thin man worked his busy eyebrows up and down with an exaggerated leer. "Not in the manner to which I'd like to become accustomed." He sank into one of the glove-leather sofas and shook his head as Richard offered a drink. "Diana's been too liberal with me already. If we’re going to make sense, I'll pass up any more booze."

Adjusting her slit skirt so that she could sit down, Diana took her place beside Richard. She picked up his glass of mineral water. "Riotous evening, eh, Richard?"

He frowned at her. "Joe, this new stock issue. If all you're going to tell me is how difficult it'll be, I don't need you as my broker."

Diana sipped the water. "On the other hand, you don't need a broker who's a yes-man."

"Thank you." Richard's voice sounded sarcastic. "As far as I can tell from the by-laws of the Globe corporation, there is nothing that specifically stops the management from issuing new shares."

"Nothing at all. The hitch comes from the SEC," his broker told him. "You can announce the new issue but, as an insider, you are barred from purchasing shares before the rest of the stock-buying public gets a chance."

Richard's frown deepened. "But that's-"

"I know. That's the whole idea. Except that you're an insider. So your hands are tied."

"Damn!"

"It's a delicate situation," the broker went on. "We both know a dozen ways you can buy those shares through a dummy front or street name. But that works only when nobody's watching you closely. The moment you announce the new issue your stepmother and the whole Gioberti clan will be examining everything with a microscope."

"She's not my stepmother," Richard said sharply.

"Sorry." The broker turned his hands palms up. "In other words, if Angela Charming finds out that the ZYX Corporation or some other front group has bought out the new issue before she had a chance at it, she's going to yell and scream until the SEC pulls out its great big can opener and gets to the bottom of it."

Richard nodded slowly. "What about a Euro issue? Denominated in dollars but sold only in London and Zurich and Milan?"

"That gives you a bit of lead time. Say twenty-four hours."

"More than that," Richard contradicted him. "It gives me immunity from the SEC."

"Not entirely."

"Enough. And in twenty-four hours, half a dozen of my dummies can snap up the entire issue. It'd take the SEC years to unravel. But what I have to do is going to take days, not years. You follow me?"

"Not at all. But it isn't important," his broker said.

"As a Euro issue, the new stock would give you enough time to play whatever game you have in mind." He held up his hand like a traffic cop. "No, don't tell me what game it is. I have to have deniability."

He gathered his skinny legs under him and got to his feet. "On that basis, Richard, I can get started tomorrow morning. We could have this in the bag within days."

"Then go for it, Joe."

Richard stood up and ushered him to the door of the suite. "You see how simple life is when you have a whole world of stock markets out there to play with?"

"Richard," his broker said, "I hope you're right."

After he left, Diana went to the private bar and made tinkling noises with ice cubes. "How about something stronger than soda water?"

"Just some scotch on the rocks. A splash."

"The intoxicating Melissa is still coursing through your veins?"

"Cut it out. You're being bush-league."

"To kid the boss?" Diana asked innocently.

"To call Melissa intoxicating." His smile turned evil. "All she can talk about is the miracle of her kid getting better. Can you imagine pillow talk like that?"

Diana sat down beside him, handed Richard his drink and began to stroke his forehead. "Poor Richard. Poor sex object."

"Take off the sex object's shoes, will you?"

"Just the shoes?"

"Is this some sort of test of my recuperative powers?"

"Now there's an idea."

Chapter Fifty-Three

The odds against it working had been poor. There was the general atmosphere of her lush hotel, with its many implicit invitations to relax and enjoy life. There was the difficulty of the writing itself, which tested her willpower a hundred times a day. And, finally, there was Darryl.

Maggie had grown oddly fond of him. Was that the right word? dhe wondered as she stared down at her typewriter.

Fond? Not strong enough. Amused with. Dependent upon. Attracted to. Yes, there had always been an attraction and during a week of truce it had only grown stronger.

She tried to clear her head. Relationships had been easy for Maggie because they were of a "standard" kind. She loved her husband, her son and her daughter in a straightforward, normal way. Whatever that meant, she thought now. What is "normal" love? What is the nature of the emotional bonds within a family? And when did the special link with her husband drop back into the general melting pot of the family itself.

Wasn't that the problem? she asked herself. Hadn't her love for Chase - which had come first - now become only part of family affection? And wasn't that what made Darryl's attraction so dangerous?

As she straightened up the typed pages of copy paper and put them in a folder, Maggie tried to remember back to the days when she had been a girl, seeing various men, enjoying brief, innocent love affairs until she had met Chase.

Perhaps the root of the trouble was that she'd been a "good" girl? She'd married quite young and quite without any experience in the sometimes tricky and always confusing realms of love. Was that why Darryl had such an effect on her?

It wasn't fair, Maggie reflected now. Her generation had arrived at maturity just as the greatly publicized American sexual revolution had begun. Whatever it actually meant between men and women, this revolution had arrived five minutes too late for girls brought up by rather strict parents like Maggie's. Women the age of Melissa had reaped all the benefits of the new emotional freedom. And the drawbacks too, Maggie reminded herself. Soon it would be Vickie's turn.

The thought of her own daughter's initiation into sexual love gave Maggie much more of a jolt than she realized. She could handle her own life and the increasingly intricate dance she and Darryl were going through. But would she be able to handle Vickie's initiation?

It suddenly struck Maggie that she had no idea of Vickie's private life. She had made the usual assumptions, based on observation of her daughter. Athletic. Outdoorsy. One or two open friendships with boys she'd gone to school with. But had Vickie ... ?

It was impossible. Maggie rose from her desk and picked up the telephone. She dialed the hotel desk. "Can you have someone pick up a manuscript for photocopying, please?"

As she did, she caught sight of herself in one of the huge wall mirrors with which the living room of her suite was decorated. The bikini she wore today was a slightly more modest one she'd bought for herself at one of the Wilshire Boulevard stores Darryl had taken her to. It still concealed very little, but it gave the illusion, at poolside or in her suite's private garden, that she was not entirely on display.

She grinned at her own confusion. In some peculiar way the bikini had become a symbol for her of this whole insane week. It spelled Hollywood, glamour, the strongly sexual atmosphere of the hotel, the exhibitionist nature of the film business and, more subtly, her own feelings about her body and Darryl.

She sighed. Darryl was the core of her problem, always had been. He represented a challenge to Maggie's own image of herself. She supposed, staring at her body in the mirror, that writers rarely considered the impression they made on others except through their writing. The words stood for the person. But in her bikini Maggie was made flesh. Too much so.

What would happen now, she knew, was that the truce would come to an end ... tonight. And tomorrow she would be on the morning flight to Tuscany Valley Airport. Tonight would be Darryl's big moment.

He'd already laid on promises of an amazing dinner at a new and highly popular beach restaurant, followed by dancing at a new and highly popular disco down in the old part of Los Angeles, followed by ...

Followed by a good-night kiss and a firmly closed door, Maggie told herself. She might not know the depth of her feelings for Darryl, but she knew how she would feel the morning after she betrayed Chase with another man. That feeling she would avoid at any cost.

She nodded firmly at her reflection in the mirror. Her intentions were crystal clear and absolutely firm.

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