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something? You wouldn’t have to take her home or anything. Her mother could pick her up.”
    Judy nodded. “I’ll ask her, but I don’t think she’ll go for it. Andy already offered to fill in for you if you couldn’t make it, and Mary Beth turned him down.”
    “She did?” Michael frowned slightly. “She’s not really afraid to stay alone, is she?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Michael gave a sheepish grin. “You think I’ve been taken?”
    Judy nodded. “Yup.”
    “How about that! She actually set me up?”
    “I think so.”
    “Oh, hell!” Michael laughed. “Well . . . I’ll think of something. Thanks, Jude. You’re a real pal.”
    Judy frowned slightly as Michael walked over to the round table and took his usual place next to Mary Beth. He hadn’t seemed that upset when he’d found out that Mary Beth’s frightened little girl act was a scam. He’d seemed almost pleased that she’d cared enough to try to trap him. Perhaps those six nights with Mary Beth had worked. Michael might be beginning to care for her. And that meant Mary Beth had a good chance to win that stupid contest!
    *  *  *
    Judy pulled up the circular driveway in the most exclu sive part of Sherman Oaks, and got out of her car. The moon was almost full, and the large, two-story house looked beautiful in the dim light. The house always reminded her of the one they showed on The Brady Bunch, except her adoptive parents, the Lamperts, weren’t anything like the Bradys. And Judy wasn’t part of a bunch. She was their only child, and the only reason Buddy and Pamela Lampert had adopted her was to fulfill the terms of Buddy’s father’s will.
    She had been almost ten years old when she’d arrived at the Lamperts’ home, and Judy had heard plenty of rumors from Marta, their housekeeper. Grandfather Lampert had rewritten his will. If Buddy was married at the time of his death, and if he had a family, Buddy would inherit the cor poration. It was Grandfather Lampert’s way of insuring that his son would settle down and become a family man. Of course, Buddy hadn’t settled down. He’d married Pamela Thornbull, his private secretary. She’d always wanted to be in the social register, and it was a marriage of convenience for both the bride and the groom. Of course their marriage wasn’t quite enough to fulfill the terms of Grandfather Lampert’s will, so Buddy and Pamela had rushed to the nearest orphanage and filed the papers to adopt Judy.
    The adoption couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Six weeks after Judy had moved into the huge house in Sherman Oaks, Grandfather Lampert had died. Buddy and Pamela’s careful planning had paid off in spades. Pamela had wanted to be a society wife, and now she was. Buddy had wanted control of Lampert International, and he was now the president of the company and the chief stock holder. The only one who’d lost was Judy. She’d wanted a loving mother and father, and Pamela and Buddy were much too busy with their own lives to pay attention to her. Judy had been cared for by a series of nannies and maids. She’d had all the advantages that money could buy, but she would have traded it all for a normal family life.
    There was a light downstairs in Buddy’s office. He was up late, probably pouring over some corporate report. Pamela’s bedroom was dark. She’d taken her sleeping pill and she was already asleep. Marta had told Judy that Buddy was flying off to Tokyo in the morning for some corporate meeting. Pamela wasn’t going along. She was jetting to Paris for a summer fashion showing, and then she was spending a week as a guest of some countess at a villa in the south of France.
    As she let herself in, Judy tiptoed past the office door. Buddy didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working. She’d done that once, when she’d wanted to tell him that she’d won a school essay contest. Buddy had stared at her with a puzzled exp ression on his face as she’d told him, and