Amber Affairs

by Patricia Rice

  If her shop, and no one else’s, had been broken into, then the intruder had definitely been targeting her.

  A blast of the Hallelujah chorus blew Josh out of bed.

  Fumbling for his alarm or his phone or whatever the hell was making that racket, he hit the floor, his feet sinking into plush carpet he didn’t have at home.

  Ernest cackled.

  Remembering where he was, Josh flung a pillow at his ridiculously dressed assistant waving an iPod and hastily turned to check on Amber. She was gone.

  Of course she was.

  Rubbing his eyes, Josh told Ernest in explicit terms what he could do with the iPod. He checked the time—almost ten. Amber would have had to open her shop. And he’d slept right through her leaving. That was on him.

  He hadn’t slept like that in eons. Amber’s presence was so. . . familiar. . . that he’d relaxed and let all the stress go.

  Catching sight of the propped up note, he refused to read it in front of his nosy assistant.

  “You don’t have enough to keep you occupied?” he grumbled, pulling on last night’s trousers and tucking the note in his pocket.

  “Way too much,” Ernest said in glee. “Waaaaaayyyy too much, rich boy.”

  Josh grunted and slammed the bathroom door. Coffee, he decided. He needed a pot of straight caffeine before he was ready to face this day. After he strangled Ernest, he had to kill Dell. He had to save his project. He had to find Willa’s killer. And somewhere in there, he had to convince Amber he wasn’t the enemy.

  That he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do after he’d conquered that last task kept him moving forward. He dragged on the shirt she’d left hanging on a hook. It smelled of her, a faint floral, almost natural fragrance that he couldn’t identify but loved. None of that blaring musky scent for Amber. Beauty like hers—the kind that shone from within as well as without—didn’t need artificial scent to be noticed.

  He wanted clever, amiable, argumentative Amber back in his life again. That was the one certainty he could count on. She let him be himself and relax because she made no demands. Decision made, he stomped back out to find Ernest gone.

  He’d been anticipating a leisurely breakfast with Amber, learning more about how she lived now, what she wanted, how she meant to go on. A pot of raw coffee burning his gut wasn’t the same. He was almost afraid to read the note in his pocket.

  Ernest was on the phone when Josh entered the office suite. His assistant pointed at his open laptop while he made reassuring noises into the receiver.

  Josh poured water into the coffeemaker and added the packaged pod before facing whatever had Ernest all excited. Excitement was a good thing, right? Maybe Ivan had got smart and decided to finance the project in his daughter’s name. Yeah, and maybe hell had icebergs.

  Waiting for the coffee, he woke the laptop. Ernest had it open to an online Hollywood blog. Staring at the headline, Josh rubbed his eyes again. What the friggin’ hell?

  He poured coffee before it was done and continued staring at the screen until Ernest hung up. “Is this what they call fake news? Are they so desperate that they have to make up crap now?”

  “Don’t think so,” Ernest said gleefully. “It’s all over the place. Surely some of them checked sources. The queen left you her palace, rich boy. You can finance your own project.”

  Josh felt nothing but a cold lump of lead in his midsection. “They’re going to crucify me. Why in hell would she do that? We were having prenups drawn up, not wills!”

  “She told me the lawyers said she was worth too much not to keep hers up to date. I told her to leave it all to me, but she never listened,” Ernest said, shrugging. “I thought maybe she meant to leave it to charity. Who else would she leave it to? Daddy dearest?”

  “Daddy dearest will be after me with a hatchet. According to Willa, she’d built her holdings to almost a quarter of his worth.” Not feeling the joy, Josh headed for the shower with his coffee cup. Maybe hot water would clear his head.

  “Which is why Tessa just called. As new owner of the company, you’re officially her boss, and she wants to make sure she’s still in charge.”

  Josh’s head began to thump. “You’re in charge. Tessa is a lump of cheese.”

  “I’m an assistant, not a vice president. Read Amber’s note, sleepyhead,” Ernest called as Josh stomped into the bathroom where he could read the note in private.

  The bastard never missed a thing.

  Josh flipped on the light and pulled out the paper. He needed sense and kindness and Amber’s earthy practicality to ground him.

  Aries defies authority and loves romance. Libra is a mediator who indulges in excess. Thank you, Aries, for being there when this Libra needed you.

  So much for earthy practicality. And he hadn’t been there when she really needed him, which ate at his gut.

  Loves romance? There wasn’t a romantic bone in his body or he’d never have proposed to Willa. Okay, so he’d made it a romantic proposal with candlelight and champagne and the moon shining over the ocean, but he figured the woman he married deserved a little stardust.

  And now Willa was gone and had left him her fortune. The police would lock him up shortly.

  Shaving, Josh called up every Shakespearean curse he’d ever learned and made up a few of his own. The Riviera was starting to sound good.

  Amber had said there might be rental cottages available. Maybe he could hide in the woods.

  Ernest had an entire pad of phone messages for him by the time he emerged from the shower wearing the disguise he’d decided on for the day. Josh skimmed through the notes, but none were from the cops or Amber. He flung them back to the table.

  “I need to find a cottage in the woods,” Josh told him. “You can stay here, man the phones, tell reporters I’ve left for Europe. I’m not letting this go until I know what happened to Willa.”

  “That hideosity you’re wearing won’t hide you. You need to hold a press conference and tell the reporters yourself, or they’ll scour the woods looking for you. I’ll write something pithy, and you can just read it.” Ernest jotted notes on his pad.

  “Whatever. I’m borrowing a bike and going into town.” He rummaged through his bag, found a ball cap, and called up to the front desk for a bike and helmet.

  He was either rich or a dead man. He needed to see that Amber was safe before he succumbed to either. He wasn’t losing any more women on his watch.

  In the café, Amber glanced up from poking at her eggs when Josh’s shadow fell over her plate. He slid in beside Zeke, who’d consumed more food than she even contemplated in a week. Wearing a biker’s tight togs and looking like the movie star he’d been, Josh helped himself to her toast.

  Fee was already hurrying over with a coffeepot and order pad.

  “Can’t keep hired help or the kitchen too boring for you?” Amber teased the cook, suddenly feeling a little better now that Josh had arrived.

  “Can’t keep enough help. We even have the business reporter from the LA Times up here today,” Fee muttered. “I thought maybe I could sweeten him up, but he smells of old books.”

  Dang. Amber glanced at Josh with alarm. In the turmoil following the break-ins, she’d simply accepted Josh as a welcome presence. But if anyone saw them together. . .

  Josh held up his hand. “Don’t. I’m just a biker having breakfast with a pretty lady and her nephew. Don’t make me go away. I’m starving. Give me the works,” he told Fee.

  “Zeke’s finished eating. Fee, make Josh’s order to-go. We can take it over to the shop,” Amber suggested worriedly. “Someone broke in last night, and I’ve had to call a locksmith. He should be here shortly.”

  Already acquainted with that news, Fee signaled she’d heard and hurried back to her kitchen.

  “Broke in?” Josh’s eyebrows soared. “Did they take anything?”

  “Not that I can tell. They seemed to be looking at papers. But I don’t keep written records of my clients. My books are online, and th
ey didn’t touch the computers that I can tell. They even left my checkbook. Walker is filing a report, and I’m freezing my credit records. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Would they find any connection that would make them see you as Ginger?” he asked quietly, glancing at the row of strangers at the counter.

  “Reporters wouldn’t break in, would they?” she whispered back. “I doubt the name Ginger is on anything. She was just a character. Back then, I used the name Ginger James for publicity purposes. My mother signed my contracts in her company name. A little courthouse research might put her name together with mine without resorting to theft!”

  “I don’t like it,” he grumbled as the food bags were delivered. “C’mon, Zeke, take this to the cash register and then let’s scout the land.” He handed Zeke a large bill to cover their order.

  “That’s too much,” she protested. “This isn’t LA.”

  “Haven’t you heard? I’m a rich man now,” he said sourly. “I’ll hire accountants to handle it all.”

  She’d not really believed what Sam had told her earlier. She glanced at Josh uneasily. He didn’t look happy with his new riches. The death of a loved one wasn’t the way anyone wanted to get rich.

  They slipped out without any of the strangers even looking in her direction. It was amazing how invisible a fat person could be.

  “It’s the hair,” Josh told her, catching a strand of her hair and rolling it on his finger as they crossed the street. “People don’t see faces, they see hair. Ginger’s was blond, stick straight, and short.”

  “Yeah, right.” But it was as if he’d read her mind. Maybe she only thought she was psychic because they had some funky two-way path between their brains.

  Zeke darted inside the shop to grab the action comics they’d picked up at the thrift store. He settled into a bean bag chair found in the same place. Josh examined her broken door.

  “I know you need to work,” he said, “but I don’t like this. I want to take you somewhere safe. You’ve made this place too welcoming to be polluted by ugliness.”

  Pleased that he’d noticed, Amber opened the beaded curtains to the back room and began clearing her paraphernalia off the table so he could sit there to eat his breakfast.

  That’s when she noticed the gray mist swirling over the shelf holding her card decks. Even as she watched, the colorful cards flew from the edge.

  Sixteen

  At her squeal of shock, the two protective men in her life dived for the flying cards. Recovering, Amber waved them down. “Don’t. She’s trying to speak. I offered her cards yesterday, and she’s had time to think about them.”

  “Bull,” Josh muttered.

  But there was no wind in this airless room, and the cards were forming a tornado. He shut up as they studied the phenomenon.

  “Show me who you are,” Amber intoned in the hypnotic voice she’d learned to use with her customers. “Lay the card on the cloth.”

  A Queen of Wands hesitated, then dropped on the felt. Amber swallowed hard. She’d never attempted to understand how her clients turned over blind cards that seemed to hit the mark. But in this instance, could the ghost see the cards? Did it understand tarot? Because if this was Willa, she’d hit the identifying card spot on, from what she knew of the woman.

  “That card represents decisiveness,” she explained to the non-believers. “She’s telling me she’s a strong leader who reaps great rewards.”

  “Willa?” Josh asked, instantly grasping the reference.

  Amber wasn’t prepared to agree to anything yet. “Can you show us who you were with last?” She didn’t say before you died. Sometimes spirits were confused and didn’t recognize their mortality.

  The page of swords dropped down. “A spy?” she asked in shock, reacting without thinking, then scrambling for other meanings.

  As if agreeing with that assessment, another card dropped, and Amber gasped. The King of Coins. If this was Willa. . .

  The devil card fell next to the king. And then all the cards plummeted to the floor, the energy gone out of them.

  “Did you do that, Aunt Amber?” Zeke asked in awe. “That was awesome!”

  Josh remained silent, watching her. She’d read his cards many times in the past, but he had little grasp of their meaning. She hoped he understood that the cards were related to the person choosing them—and that hadn’t been her.

  “I didn’t consciously do this.” She lined up the ones that had been dropped on the table. “But if the spirit in the ball drew them, and that spirit identifies as Willa. . .”

  Josh poked the page card. “You asked who she was with last, and this fell. You called it a spy.”

  “As you well know, every card has numerous meanings that have to be interpreted through the person choosing them, which is where my psychic abilities come in. On its own, this one can mean a messenger, a diplomat, a liaison between two entities. But the page of swords always takes information back to the person paying for it, which is why I called it the spy. I can’t read spirit minds, and the card doesn’t tell us more, so that’s just an educated guess.”

  She pushed the King of Coins forward. “This dropped down next, however. He’s occasionally called Midas. He represents wealth and power. If these gifts are used wisely, he can create great good. But Midas was greedy and thoughtless and accidentally turned his daughter to gold. All cards have two sides.”

  She didn’t have to explain more to Josh. He grew pale beneath his tan.

  He pushed the last card forward. “I recognize the devil card. It came up often enough in the past.”

  “Yeah, that’s what scares me. He represents the darker side of ourselves, perversion, primal cravings. He can just mean exploring sexual hungers, gluttonous desires, but he used to come up in your readings in a way that suggested Dell. If this really is Willa. . .” Feeling sick, Amber crouched down to pick up her scattered decks. “Couple the devil with Midas. . . You might want to see how strong the connection is between Ivan and Dell.”

  Josh and Zeke crouched down to help her. The spirit had succeeded in silencing them.

  “I’ll clear a place at the table in front to eat,” Amber murmured. “And call Mariah and Cass about the crystal ball.”

  “Not sure I’m hungry,” Josh muttered back, handing her a deck.

  Yeah, she knew that feeling. Her breakfast was roiling in her stomach. She carried the decks to the front and set them on a bookshelf before clearing a place between the crystals where Josh could sit. He took food boxes out of the bag but didn’t look eager to open them. He picked up one of the decks and checked the top card.

  “Eat. If you really want to hide in Hillvale, have your assistant call the property management office about finding available property. It’s prime tourist season. This is Friday, and I don’t think there will be much open on weekends, but maybe there will be a cancellation, and we can sort this out. . .” She handed him her cordless landline receiver, then added tentatively, “Or maybe it’s better if you returned to LA?”

  She knew she should be all behind that idea. She wasn’t. She really wanted Josh to stay and. . . what? She’d like to keep him as a friend, but the gap between them was too wide. An associate who could help her find a job, maybe?

  “Hell, no,” he said decisively.

  Amber just about collapsed in her chair behind the counter, from relief as much as the aftershock of their ghostly encounter.

  Josh finally opened a breakfast box, found bacon, and grabbed the phone. “You think I’m going back to LA after that performance? No way.”

  Zeke was practically bouncing up and down, examining the back room from top to bottom, searching for secret air vents.

  After some phoning back and forth, Josh hung up and nodded at the back room. “The kid needs a bike. I’ll rent one for him, and he can go with me to inspect these places. He’s great camouflage and it will get him out of your hair a bit.”

  Amber didn’t even have to think twice. “Tullah will
have a bike. She knows I’m good for it. That’s a truly brilliant idea, thank you. What does Xavier have?”

  “Is Xavier the rental agent? Not much, apparently. But there was discussion of a studio over a garage near the cemetery that isn’t owned by the property management company that sounds more promising than the rest. Someone is making calls.”

  “Cass’s place,” Amber said, frowning. “She claims to have a B&B, but she doesn’t often let people stay there. It has a gorgeous view. . . but it’s right across from the vortex.”

  Giving evidence that he’d recovered from his encounter with the afterlife, Josh finished his egg burrito. “The studio might be available long term, whereas the others are only for a few days. Tullah’s is the thrift shop?”

  Josh stood and peered into the back room. “Interested in a bike, kid? I hear there’s one to be had.”

  Predictably, Zeke burst from the back room and raced for the front door.

  Filling her senses with the scent of subtle shaving soap and pure male, Josh bent to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be back. Don’t think you’ll be rid of me yet.”

  He departed, a man confident that he had the world in his hands.

  Amber rubbed her cheek and wanted to curse him for that ease, but she knew he’d been a socially awkward nerd once. He’d just learned to handle life better than she had.

  She glanced over her shoulder to be certain no mist was emerging from the back room, then reached for the phone to call Cass.

  With Zeke in tow on his new-used bike, Josh cheerfully sailed past a reporter he recognized. He should wear helmets and bike clothes all the time. He could get into being a nobody. Willa had been the one who’d insisted they needed recognition to build the reputation of her company.

  The company he now owned, apparently. What the hell would he do with that?

  He wrote and directed fantasy. He’d never had much fondness for business. Willa flinging cards from the spirit world fascinated him. Confronting her father and Dell did not. He couldn’t even find a motive for Ivan to wish his daughter harm. Believing in flying cards made even less sense. So he biked down to look at a shack to see if he could hide for a few days.