Even Zeke made a face when he saw the tumble-down stone cottage with only one room, no a/c, and a sofa bed for sleeping. “Better than a tent,” the kid said in distaste.
So, maybe Josh should return to LA and face the music.
Amber wouldn’t go with him.
“One more and we’ll go for lunch,” he told the kid, knowing the way to a growing boy’s heart. “If I’m staying in a spooky town, maybe I should stay in a spooky house near a cemetery.”
“Yeah! Then you’ll be near Amber’s, and I can bike up and watch your TV.” Zeke was off and pedaling before Josh could respond.
The heavily pregnant woman called Mariah met him in the pine-lined drive across from the vortex park where Josh had expected to be married—where Willa may have died, if Amber’s spooky crystal ball said anything at all.
But admiring the tall pines lining the drive, blocking any view of the house, he loved the privacy already.
“Cass says you have good intentions,” the dark-braided woman said as they walked up the drive. “But if you hurt Amber, I can cut you off at the knees without lifting more than a keyboard.”
“Nice to know.” He studied the white stucco garage. Terra cotta tile lined the stairs up to a small balcony. Bright red geraniums adorned the step and a marmalade cat slept on the balcony wall. He’d seen dozens of houses like it in LA and felt instantly at home.
“And I’m glad Amber has good friends,” he added. “Things could get sticky for her shortly.”
“Yeah, having your snotty fiancée flinging cards at her isn’t the best way to start the day. You go up and look. I’m not supposed to climb stairs.” She took a seat on a wooden bench next to the garage door.
Undeterred, Josh let Zeke race up the stairs and followed at a more leisurely pace. As Amber had said, the view of the mountain was excellent. The key fit into a heavy timber front door. Inside was an open studio with tile floors, and windows with a panoramic western view that would be spectacular at sunset. The kitchen was granite and steel, and the luxurious king-size bed was cut off from the spacious living space with a colorful Mexican blanket.
“It has a TV,” Zeke shouted. “Take it, take it! Aunt Amber lives just down that lane. I won’t even have to bike in the road.”
That was how a twelve-year old’s life should be, simple. Josh had never had that opportunity. He’d been working since he was eight, courtesy of his cobalt eyes and Hungarian cheekbones. He’d enjoyed the attention once. Not anymore.
“It even has a real refrigerator,” he told the boy in amusement. “When you eat your aunt out of hers, you can come up here.”
Zeke flashed him a heartbreaking smile that greatly resembled Amber’s. “Yeah. You got an Xbox? I’m super good.”
“This is just a vacation,” he warned the kid. “I don’t pack toys on my vacation.” At Zeke’s disappointment, Josh had to add, “But at home, I have a theater room with consoles, super-huge speakers, and the biggest Xbox collection you’ve ever seen.”
He didn’t think he’d ever persuade Amber to see that room or any other room in his house. Willa had called it his toy box. She was pretty much right.
He presumably owned Willa’s mansion now. He didn’t want it. He’d worked for every penny he’d ever spent, and a life of leisure just wasn’t his style.
“Come on, let’s go back and tell them we’ll take this.” Josh dragged Zeke away from the TV, locked the door, and jogged down the stairs two at a time.
Instead of black-haired Mariah, a tall slender woman with silver hair waited for them. Josh supposed if he meant to live here, he needed to meet all the inhabitants, including the spooky ones.
“I am Cassandra Tolliver.” The woman spoke in the same tone a professor would use to a student. “Amber will need your aid. In exchange, you may stay here. But I will not go near the crystal ball and the spirit trapped within. You made a narrow escape when you lost that one.”
She turned on her heel, prepared to walk away.
Narrow escape, from Willa? Yeah, probably.
Josh shouted after her, “Did you see a black Porsche up here the day Willa died?”
She turned and narrowed her eyes. “I cannot see the road with my eyes. I see with my mind. The spirits were unusually agitated that day. I shut them out. I regret that, but I’m an old woman, and I tire easily. You will have to reach your wicked woman in some other manner.”
This time, she walked briskly away, ignoring Josh’s attempt to question more.
What did Willa have to do to be wicked in an old lady’s mind?
“Spooky,” Zeke whispered, bringing him back to earth.
“Cool, huh? Let’s get lunch.” Troubled but not willing to let the kid know, Josh wheeled toward town, taking the lane that went past the row of cottages where the locals lived.
A white Cadillac was parked outside Amber’s place.
In front of Josh, Zeke squealed to a halt and turned his bike around. “Not this way.”
The black-braided computer genius stood on her porch, watching. She gestured for them to join her. “I have a new computer game I need tested. Zeke will be good with me. I ran the plates on the Caddie. It belongs to Crystal Abercrombie. Warn Amber.”
Seventeen
Amber sighed in admiration as Josh entered. He had too many muscles to be a skinny biker, but the disguise worked. Who would look for a busy Hollywood executive in biking attire? Of course, rather than the lean biker look, his thighs strained at the tight spandex shorts. She almost fanned herself.
The worried strain pulling skin taut over his sharp cheekbones slapped her back to reality.
“I left Zeke with your neighbor,” were his first words. “Your mother is sitting in a car outside your house. There’s a man with her. I couldn’t see who through the tinted windows. Can you ride a bike? You could take it up to the suite at the lodge and hide there.”
Her phone rang before she could find her tongue. Recognizing Mariah’s number, she picked it up. “Josh is here,” she said after Mariah explained what was happening. “If you don’t mind having Zeke, thank you.”
Josh was pacing the front room, anxiously checking the parking lot out the window. “Mariah said she writes computer games?”
“Among other things,” Amber replied. “And I’ll take the jalopy of a golf cart before I’ll ride a bike. But I’m not in the mood for hiding. Crystal knows where to find me. I’m calling Alicia.”
She sounded braver than she felt, but sometime last night, she’d shed enough of her childhood fear to realize she wasn’t a helpless sixteen anymore.
By the time she got off the phone with her lawyer, she wanted to find a rock and crawl under it. Josh waited expectantly, and her stomach clenched at having to explain the latest news.
“After I told my lawyer why Zeke ran, Alicia started calling the mothers of other kids Dell has been auditioning.” She got up and began straightening her inventory. She tried to put herself in her mother’s head but couldn’t. Coupled with the break-ins. . . Her mind just didn’t work that way.
Josh looked like a statue posed by the window, waiting for disaster to strike. “After we distracted the reporter last night with those rumors of pornography, gossip ought to be in a fine state,” he acknowledged, showing none of the fear roiling Amber’s gut.
“Social media is buzzing. Dell is probably fuming and hiring the nastiest. . .” She stopped and glanced back at the desk a thief had rummaged through. “They have to know it’s me behind the rumors. The only explanation of why anyone would break into my place is that they’re looking for something to hold against me and shut me up.”
“They?” Josh grimaced. “You mean Crystal would work with Dell against you?”
“They’re here together, I’m betting. Crystal is the one who knows where I am. I doubt Dell ever cared enough to look. But he wants a new Jack, and she wants Zeke for the part. She needs a famous movie star to support her. She has a few third-rate clients, but no one with any future would choos
e her as an agent. I was stuck with her because she’s my mother. Presumably, Dell wants to keep the Jack and Ginger franchise going, and he sees Zeke as key.”
“So they’ve hired. . . a spy?” Josh suggested, quoting her description of the card. “Maybe your spirit isn’t Willa but related to your mother and Dell?”
“I’m not seeing any connection between my mother and a ghost.” Amber picked up a deck and shuffled it. “Willa is the only one who has died here recently, and we’re not even certain of that.”
“Walker told me the autopsy shows she was moved after death, so it’s possible.” Josh ran his hand through his hair, and his cobalt eyes filled with anguish. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
Yanked out of her own troubles, Amber rubbed his bare arm and wished she could do more. “I’m sorry, Josh. Willa’s death is far more horrible than my annoying mother. Do they know how she died yet?”
He shrugged and returned to watching the street. “Cranial damage on the right temple might have incapacitated but not killed her. She was wearing a silk scarf, so they didn’t find obvious bruising, but there were signs of strangulation. The police are operating under the theory that she fell or was pushed and knocked unconscious. While in that state, someone strangled her with her scarf. I don’t understand the forensics but apparently they can tell that the body lay where she was murdered for a little while before it was dumped into the canyon. If those hikers hadn’t found her, she would have been a skeleton buried in overgrowth, not found for years.”
Amber had heard worse. The skeletal remains of bodies ripped apart by animals had been found in the hills and canyons, where bluffs were steep, overgrowth thick, and population sparse. They frequently didn’t find all the parts.
“That looks bad, doesn’t it? Like you could have strangled her at the vortex, gone back to the lodge, then hired someone to haul her away?” She watched the street with him, mentally preparing herself for an ugly confrontation.
“The time of death is unclear enough to make that a plausible theory, yeah. I’m sure there’s evidence of me in the amphitheater, but I doubt they can find evidence of Willa in the back of my Prius. I think they’d have to find the person who hauled her away to get a conviction. If they don’t, I’ll have to live with that cloud over my head for the rest of my life. Maybe I can find a country with no internet,” he said gloomily.
“With Willa’s wealth, you could probably buy a small country and ban the internet,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’d have to hire Ernest to run it. I’m not a money person. Forget me. If you really want a faceoff with your mother, you don’t want it with your murdering boyfriend around. If that’s Dell with her, I’m likely to punch him.”
“Negativity, Mr. Gabriel, will get you nowhere,” she admonished, weighing the pros and cons of insisting that he stay.
Josh cocked his head in that dangerous manner she recognized from their youth. He had never done well as an actor because he didn’t take direction lightly. He had his own ideas. She was both terrified and thrilled when he pondered their dilemma.
“We don’t know what they intend to throw at you besides the usual insults. You shouldn’t be alone when they arrive. Close the shop and head over to the café,” he decided with true Jack bravado—the kind that got Ginger into trouble.
They could expose her as Ginger.
She should be terrified out of her mind—but weirdly, she wasn’t. She was no longer a helpless child hiding from bullies. If Josh didn’t mind having reporters down their backs—she could expose Dell and Crystal as child abusers—
Still, she despised the publicity that would elicit. She vacillated.
“I’ll round up your friends.” With the confidence she didn’t possess, Josh reached over the counter to haul her up. “We’ll stage the Bitch Fight at the Hillvale Café for everyone’s entertainment.”
He was telling her she had friends now. That swayed the decision. Amber considered it for all of two more seconds. Then in relief, she wrapped her fingers around his hard palm and got up. “You make a good director, Murdering Boyfriend. You probably ought to be on hand to watch—but don’t punch anyone.”
He grinned. Josh had the world’s most endearingly crooked grin. She almost stumbled over her own feet as he led her out the door.
Josh didn’t have to do more than stop by the jewelry store to tell the auburn-haired jeweler about the showdown. After that, the Lucys seemed to grasp the situation by osmosis. The shopkeepers began closing their doors. Men carrying crystal-knobbed walking sticks came in off the mountain and out of the woods.
Still in his biking togs, Josh ambled up the street and admired the collective security. The white Cadillac maneuvered into one of the last spaces in the parking lot. Staying in the shadows of the boardwalk, he slipped into the café. As much as he wanted to pummel Dell into dirt, this was Amber’s show, as the audience proved. If Dell was here, he’d settle with him later, on his own grounds.
The place was packed. Most of the occupants were watching the parking lot. Several lifted walking sticks in acknowledgment of his entry, but they left him to find a place in a dark back corner of the counter near the juice bar. He could see out the window and keep an eye on Amber at the same time. She had taken a stool center front at the counter, with her back to the door. If she were six inches taller, she’d be a Viking goddess.
He tried to catch a glimpse of the car’s occupants, but only Crystal Abercrombie emerged. A broad-featured blond, she stormed toward the tarot shop and glared at the tarot shop’s CLOSED sign. She rattled the knob, pounded on the window, then kicked the door for good measure. When that produced no results, she swung around—and marched straight for the café. Good call.
She had not aged well. Once a heavy smoker and addicted to tanning beds, her skin had turned to wrinkled leather. Apparently she’d run out of money for Botox, and crow’s feet lined her eyes. She wore fake black lashes that clashed badly with her bleached hair, currently cut short in an apparent effort to achieve a Nordic elf look, maybe. She was built like a thick stump. Amber’s soft curves were much more interesting.
The noise level in the café dropped several decibels as Crystal marched in. Amber’s bright hair and colorful clothes were an easy target. She winked at him to show she was okay. Josh gratefully accepted the cup of coffee someone shoved at him.
“Where’s Zeke?” Crystal demanded loud enough for half the town to hear.
“Hello, Mother.” Amber swung around on her stool. “Has there ever been a time when you greeted me with a smile of welcome and a hug?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I had to keep you in line so you didn’t ruin your life. And you managed to do so anyway, despite all my efforts.” She gestured at the old-fashioned café with its aging mural of hippies and Formica counter. “Look at this dump! You could have had a mansion in Malibu and you settle for the set of Deliverance? I won’t allow Zeke to waste his life as a failure like you.”
Fiona, who was running this set from Deliverance, offered a crooked smile. “Would you like a menu? We have a nice rack of raccoon or squirrel soup today.”
Josh knew he’d enjoy this. He sipped his coffee and held his tongue. Crystal didn’t have time to acknowledge the offer of a menu. Before she could start another rant, Amber intervened.
“I hear half Malibu went up in flames and washed into the ocean last year, not exactly safe. I checked Google and our old home seems to still be standing. The Valley doesn’t have much to burn, does it? Is that concrete jungle your idea of success?”
“I won’t let you do to Zeke what you’ve done to yourself!” Crystal shouted.
Josh was almost halfway out of his seat, when a firm hand pushed him back down.
“Her mother, her fight,” Walker murmured. “Let’s try to keep you out of it for now. The Lucys have kept reporters out, but word spreads.”
Grimacing and grudgingly acknowledging the correction, Josh sipped his coffee and bit his to
ngue.
“What, you don’t want Zeke to be happy like me?” Amber asked. “Or you think he’ll get fat?”
Josh winced. “I’ll have to fight both of them,” he complained to Walker.
The cop chuckled. “Good luck with that. Seems to me your woman has a stubborn streak wider than she is.”
“And a spine of pure steel tempered by fire,” Josh reluctantly agreed. “Can’t they just wave wands and make the witch disappear? After a lifetime of that trash talk, Amber shouldn’t have to suffer more.”
“We have her back,” Fee whispered, refilling his cup. “All Amber has to do is signal. I have a glass of juice ready that will take the woman a week to recover from. She reeks of swamp and sewer, and I’d like her gone.”
“Could you give it to her even if Amber doesn’t approve?” Josh asked cynically. “The harpy needs a serious attitude adjustment.”
Fee winked and returned to her kitchen.
Apparently not caring that she had an audience, Crystal continued, “Just give Zeke back, and I won’t take you to court over breaking the settlement.”
“You broke the settlement when you and Dell kept the residuals you owe me,” Amber declared without flinching. “You have my money. I have Zeke.”
“They probably split the difference,” Josh muttered, realizing that was precisely what must have happened.
He must have spoken louder than he’d thought. Crystal swung on her high heels and turned pale, then red with fury. “You! You’re the reason she’s hiding up here. I should just shoot you now. From what I’ve been reading, you deserve it. Your poor fiancée! Her father would probably reward me for removing you from the planet.”
“An equal opportunity abuser,” Walker muttered from behind him.
Amber Affairs Page 16
