Amber Affairs

by Patricia Rice

  She loved having friends she could rely on, but this wasn’t a problem the Lucys could easily solve. Maybe in a day or two, after Cass had time to recover, she might have a safe solution for speaking with the spirit in the ball—before it broke out and became a poltergeist terrorizing the whole town.

  “Have you called every investor on Willa’s list?” Josh asked Ernest. “We still have a blockbuster script and cast and too many people relying on us to let the ball drop now.”

  Ernest nodded and scrolled through his computer notepad. “I’ve left messages everywhere. I think they’re all waiting to see what Ivan will do. He only gave Willa his smallest production company, the one not worth his time. She was the powerhouse driving it.”

  Josh knew that. He growled and returned to pacing. He’d discarded the delivery uniform for his preferred one of jeans and t-shirt. “And I make a lousy powerhouse, I know. What about Tessa? Willa wouldn’t have made her VP if she didn’t expect Tess to hold up her end of the game.”

  Ernest wrinkled his bony nose. “Willa chose Tess because the spineless wimp did whatever Willa told her to do. I haven’t been able to reach her. She left about the same time we did yesterday. Any real corporate officer would be breathing down my neck right now.”

  Damn. Ernest was a perceptive drip. At least he was honest about Willa’s flaws.

  The phone rang and Ernest grabbed it, then handed it to Josh. “Brad, about those shots he took of the wedding venue.”

  Brad worked for Ivan as well as Willa. Josh grabbed the receiver. “Send them to me along with the invoice. Have you talked to Ivan? How’s he taking the news?”

  Brad’s laconic drawl never expressed emotion. “Not heard from him. Hope you’ll keep me in mind for your next production.” He hung up.

  Josh scowled. Brad had the personality of a gorilla but he was a damned good photographer. Not hearing from Ivan couldn’t be good.

  “Since Willa’s company is bound to go back to her father, Tessa is probably hiding out until Ivan tells her what to do. In which case, we’ll never get our funding. Shit.” Josh stared out the suite’s bay window overlooking a mountain that was just returning to life from what must have been a serious fire.

  He couldn’t even be allowed to grieve the woman he’d intended to marry, not if he was to keep her dream alive.

  Whatever inhabited Cass today asked if I wanted her dead and called me Fatty.

  That sounded just like Willa. Amber had said the ghost asked if Amber wanted her dead. In his over-imaginative mind, that sounded as if Amber’s crystal ball spirit didn’t know who’d killed her. Was that possible? Of course not.

  The phone rang and Ernest grabbed it. From the way he gushed, Josh assumed Amber was on the other end. Before he could cross the room, his new assistant was sporting an expression of ecstasy and had hung up.

  “She’s leaving her house and will be here in ten minutes. I told her the coast was currently clear and that I’d meet her at the security gate and bring her back.” Ernest was already preening in the mirror over the fireplace.

  Josh checked his watch. The pool wouldn’t close for over an hour. He’d have to share her with Ernest until then. “I can meet her.”

  “Don’t be silly. The risk of a reporter seeing the two of you together isn’t worth it. I’ll wear a ball cap and no one will look twice at me.” He sashayed into his office bedroom, presumably to spruce up.

  Since Ernest was wearing checked shorts and a shirt with flamingos on it, Josh was pretty certain it was impossible not to notice him. But reporters had no reason to be interested in Ernest—yet.

  After his new assistant left, Josh stared into his own mirror and wished he’d taken time to shave. He looked like the monster from the black lagoon. He wet a comb and ran product in his hair to push rebellious strands off his face, but it was too late to do much else.

  He could hear them coming down the corridor. Ernest spoke in a hushed, excited tone, and Amber sounded amused. Had anyone been staying in the suite across from them, they probably wouldn’t notice, but if voices carried that well—maybe he should rent the other suite too. He’d stick the bill to the production company Ivan would be inheriting.

  Josh opened the door. Amber had changed into the floaty caftan she’d worn last night, stacked up her hair, and removed all her glittery jewelry. He hoped that meant she would swim with him later. He needed the exercise to clear his head, but the voluptuous mermaid in black underwear had jump-started his libido. Amber hadn’t been small when they’d swum together as teens, but the studio had put her through such vigorous exercise and diet programs that she’d never had much in the way of curves either. That had changed for the better. He snapped more pictures when she entered, capturing the glow of her translucent skin.

  “Mariah is ready and waiting to hack whatever we need,” she announced, dropping her big bag on the floor. “She sent me the police files, for what little they’re worth at this point.” She removed her phone and held it up. “What email do you want them sent to?”

  “Hack? She hacked police files?” Josh asked in astonishment as Ernest took the phone and sent the file to their computers.

  “I warned you. We’re a little unorthodox up here.” She settled into the sofa and began reading the file aloud, as if it were a script they were practicing.

  “No autopsy yet,” Ernest reported from his device while Josh read on his phone email. “But they’re saying the body was carried to that canyon.”

  “No time of death yet,” Amber added, seeing the same report. “Peculiar.”

  This was larger-than-life Willa they were talking about. Josh couldn’t keep reading. He paced up and down and tried to imagine her last moments, but he didn’t even know where she’d died.

  “Bruises, abrasions, possibly from before and after death. She fell, died, and then was hauled elsewhere and thrown down that cliff?” Ernest asked.

  Unable to partake in ghoulish speculation, Josh poured drinks from the bar’s limited selection.

  Amber had grown silent. She looked troubled when he handed her a glass of Prosecco. “Since her spirit is so strong and so easily accessed at the vortex, is there any chance she died there? There are some pretty rough drop-offs if she wandered off the marked paths.”

  “Why take her elsewhere?” Josh finally asked. In his films, he liked details nailed down. In real life, they weren’t that easy to come by.

  “You said she had a crew up there taking photographs. Maybe the killer was worried her crew would come back and find her body? And he needed time to get away.” Amber set her glass down without drinking from it.

  “We’d mostly left by mid-afternoon,” Ernest said. “She sent us all away, said she needed to take a few more shots. I thought maybe she meant to practice walking down those steps in heels, and she didn’t want anyone watching.”

  “That sounds exactly like something she would do,” Josh agreed, rubbing the cool glass against his forehead. “She was a perfectionist. She wouldn’t have missed a chance to rehearse with no one watching.”

  “Or she could have been meeting someone and didn’t want any of you to know,” Amber added in a thoughtful tone.

  “How did she call me?” Josh asked, brushing aside Willa’s potential infidelity. “There’s no cell service. I left her before one. She called me here around three-thirty. Ernest, what time did she send you back to LA?”

  “Mid-afternoon, three-ish maybe?” He put down his notebook computer and picked up his phone. “She was alive and well when she met us at Brad’s van in the parking lot and told Sarah, Tessa, and me to go back to LA. My cell service returned when we were halfway down the mountain. Looks like I started making calls around 3:30.”

  “Did you resolve her father’s problem?” Josh asked, returning to pacing in hopes of keeping his thoughts focused.

  “We couldn’t reach him. I left messages at his office and home. Sarah called around to his usual hang-outs. We decided he didn’t want to talk to us and was forci
ng Willa to call him, so we gave up.”

  “If you and Sarah can prove you were in LA, that leaves you out as suspects. Willa was alive after you left when she called me.” Not that there was much chance of Ernest or Sarah harming Willa, Josh knew. They both idolized her, and she was their only source of income and housing. They lived in her mansion and would be out on the streets with her death.

  Brad, the photographer, had still been here the next morning. Ernest had said Tessa left at the same time as the wedding planner, but either of them could have turned around, except they had no good reason to harm Willa. Again, she was a source of income for all concerned.

  Ernest shrugged. “Sarah and I are witnesses for each other, and can’t they track our phone calls and see where we were?”

  Josh refilled his glass and leaned against the bar, watching Amber slowly punch text into her phone. She must have the hotel’s wi-fi already in her system. Since it was the only place in town to meet people, that made sense.

  “I sent a group email. Aaron says Willa made a call from his antique store,” she finally said. “She was looking for props and asked to use his landline. He didn’t pay much attention to the conversation, but it was about three-thirty, when he likes to take a coffee break, and there was no one with her.”

  “I left Willa at the vortex around one. Ernest saw her around three. And at three-thirty, then, she was still in Hillvale. She must have had her bags packed before we even left to explore the town. I didn’t notice they were gone.” Josh rubbed his head and looked for a clock. The damned pool wasn’t closed yet. He needed that workout to release the tension and keep his head functioning.

  Amber was scribbling what appeared to be a timeline on one of the lodge’s notepads. “Where was Willa between the time you left her at one, and she talked to Ernest at three? Josh, where did you go after you left my place?”

  “I bought a smoothie at the café, cruised the boardwalk looking for entertainment for our guests, wandered in the antique and thrift stores because they looked funky, and returned to the lodge around three. I didn’t see Willa in any of those places. I don’t have any record of my return, unless the hotel phone system does. I made a few business calls when I got back here.” Josh tried to run that day through his overloaded brain. “She drove into town with me after brunch, so her car should have still been at the lodge, but I can’t say I noticed. I expected her to return with her crew. I didn’t know she’d sent everyone away.”

  “Ernest, you said you weren’t with her between one and three?” Amber diligently noted her timeline.

  “No. Willa and Josh had eaten but the staff hadn’t. So we left Willa and Josh at the venue after Brad had his photos. We walked down for lunch and to talk to the restaurant about the reception. Did the police find her car?” Ernest stared at his computer and looked bereft.

  “Write all this down,” Josh told him, feeling sorry for the man. Both their futures were uncertain, but Ernest didn’t have a house to sell to prevent starvation.

  While Josh scrolled through the police report in search of anything about the car, Amber continued to tick off her timeline. “So Willa could have walked up to the lodge between the time Josh left her and before he returned, got her car and bags, drove to the parking lot, and told everyone to go home. Half an hour later, she called Josh from the antique store. Time gaps there.” She began texting again.

  “No mention of her car in the police report,” Josh reported. “Willa might have returned to the amphitheater for more photos in a different light. She wouldn’t need her car for that. It’s an easy hike.”

  “Our police chief installed a security camera on the new parking lot lamppost after it got wrecked a few months back. I’m betting he’s checked the video. I’ll send him our timeline to see if he’ll be nice and tell us anything. It’s a public camera and I’m a shop owner. I should be entitled to see what was on it.”

  Josh dropped his laptop in her lap. “It will be easier to type with this than with a phone. I’m amazed you can even text on that thing. It has to be a thousand years old.”

  She shot him a scathing look that woke every cell in his body. He loved tangling with Amber. Like the character she’d played, she’d always had the confidence and spunk to shoot him down with a look.

  “Why would I need to upgrade a phone in a town with no cell tower?” she asked. But she took the laptop and began typing.

  He was a director. He liked organizing and choreographing and getting results. But working without a script meant using both the creative and organizational sides of his brain at once, and he thought it might explode. He punched in a contact on his list and listened to the phone ring on the other end. Willa’s father still wasn’t answering.

  Ivan was healthy as a horse and had a houseful of servants, so it was out of pure maliciousness that he called the cops and asked them to do a welfare check on the old man. Maybe the housekeeper had killed him, who knew?

  The minute he set down his receiver, the other landline rang. Ernest grabbed it. He grimaced as the caller spoke. “Tell them Mr. Gabriel is grieving. There will be no press conferences tonight.” He rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “No comment. Nope, no comment on anything. Do you seriously expect me to ask Mr. Gabriel about business matters at a time like this?” He slammed down the receiver.

  Josh didn’t even bother looking up from the wine he was pouring. He couldn’t think about business while imagining Willa lying on a flat slab in a coroner’s office. His stomach rebelled.

  “Tinseltown Today asking if your project is still a go,” Ernest announced, unnecessarily. “Which probably means they can’t reach Ivan either.”

  He’d wonder if someone had killed Ivan too, except he knew the tactic well. Ivan was hiding from the press, although for what reason could only be surmised.

  “Incoming video,” Amber announced without inflection, setting the laptop on the long dining table. “Hours of watching cars come and go. Who wants to do the honors?”

  Ten

  Muscles aching after three laps in the pool last night, Amber dusted her inventory in hopes of working out the kinks.

  Josh had kept the pool lights dim again. He’d been so preoccupied that she hadn’t even felt out of place in her unorthodox swimwear. There hadn’t been any long talks or uncomfortable touching. He’d attacked the water as if it had been Willa’s killer. He didn’t really need her to keep him going.

  She needed to be good with that. He was just using her as a sounding board, as he’d once done. She was using him in hopes of connections that would ease her foot back into the industry for Zeke’s sake.

  She’d hoped he’d call and let her know what Ernest had found on the security video last night, but she couldn’t remember if he had her home phone. So she’d opened up the shop early to wait for his call. She supposed she could sit down and do this week’s bookkeeping, but she was too restless.

  Fee from the café arrived bearing scrumptious-smelling goodies. The little cook didn’t look as if food ever passed her lips, but she smiled a lot more now that she’d hooked up with the town mayor. Her eyes danced as she set the box on Amber’s counter. “These are healthier than they smell. Feed some to that movie star. He needs a little spice in his life. And there are at least two reporters sitting at the counter right now. We’re all playing ignorant—Don’t know Willa. Never saw her. So sorry and we’ve booked another wedding in that slot already.”

  “Have we really?” Amber opened the box and studied what appeared to be health food bars.

  “We have. Not exactly a celebrity wedding, but Teddy called names on the waiting list and one jumped right on it. June wedding venues are pretty much booked everywhere, and we’re informal enough that they don’t have to do a lot of planning. How’s your movie star doing?”

  “He’s a director, not an actor anymore. He’s coping, but that’s all I can say. Thanks for these and the warning. I can play dumb without blinking.” Amber broke off a piece of the bar and savo
red it. “It’s not sweet!”

  “Just smells good, told you.” Fee waved and departed, jogging across the street to her busy café.

  Realizing she was avoiding the back room and the crystal ball, Amber steeled herself, picked up the box, and marched it back to her tea table. Finding a paper napkin, she broke off a small bite, set it on the shelf with the ball, and removed the velvet cover. “Spice,” she told the whirling gray. “Try it, you’ll like it.”

  And then she lay out a tarot spread for the whirling mist, even knowing it was nuts. No one deserved a violent death or to be trapped in crystal. If that was Willa in there, Amber offered her some respect, even though there was one chance in hell that a spirit could communicate with cards.

  The phone rang and she answered it from her desk.

  “Aunt Amber?” Zeke’s voice sounded scared and weak. “Can you come get me?”

  Pulse accelerating, she went on instant alert. “Where are you? What happened?”

  “I’m at the bus station in Monterey. That’s all I could afford.”

  He’d been riding a bus all night? Holy crap. “Are you hurt? Are you okay? Where’s Granny?” Trembling in over-reaction, Amber made a mental list of locals with cars.

  “I don’t know where she is. She took me to some guy’s house. They were talking money and big deals and it sounded wrong, so I just walked out. I had my ATM card,” he said proudly. “So I hiked down to the bank and emptied my account.”

  “Okay, that was very smart of you to have an account.” Equally smart to persuade Crystal to sign for it. “It will take a few hours for me to reach you. Is there someplace nearby where you’ll feel safe? A library maybe?”

  “There’s stores all over. I saw a Costco as we drove up. I can pretend I’m with someone and walk in with them. I’ve done it before. And maybe I have enough to buy a hot dog. Then I can be sitting at the tables when you get here.”