Amber Affairs

by Patricia Rice

  Tullah finished her meal and set aside her tray. “We have no chairs. We’ll have to stand around the table. With this spirit, that might be a stronger position. Our crystals may have over-amplified the vibrations when she took over Cass, so let’s set them aside. Our Null can put them in our hands if it looks as if we’re in trouble.”

  Josh frowned and appeared ready to protest. Amber beat him to it.

  “Are you sure you’re willing to try this?” she asked Tullah in concern. “We don’t want you hurt.”

  “I have my personal crystals and my beads this time. I am prepared. If we do not control this spirit, she will eventually control us, so she must be sent on.” Tullah turned to Mariah. “Your nets are strong? If she escapes, she will be caught?”

  “I only know what my granny taught me. She never got into crazed murder victims.” Mariah rubbed her protruding abdomen and contemplated her tall husband. “Maybe Keegan should stand back with Josh, just in case. He doesn’t have experience with spirits, but he can reach the nets and swing them around with his stick.”

  “You’ll remember Harvey and I don’t normally participate,” Aaron warned. “After what happened to Cass, I think we need to be here, but our experience is limited.”

  “I am balance.” Usually silent, Val spoke up. “We will prevail. As preventive measure, I have set Daisy’s guardians around the room.”

  Her words held an almost hypnotic quality that enthralled. Amber had to shake free of the spell to recognize Val’s voice was compelling enough to quell fear—no wonder she seldom spoke. The Death Goddess must have been amazing in live theater. Apparently singing didn’t just send spirits on but concealed her Lucy ability. Which left Amber wondering how dangerous Val could be if she deliberately turned on the full force of her compulsion.

  Glancing around, Amber saw Daisy’s little stone statues blending in with the bunker’s walls. The small, rounded gray stones wired together merged with the shadows. Daisy had been one of the original commune artists. She’d protected the artwork in the bunker for decades with the magic of the statues and their crystal eyes. Whether they worked against the spirit world was anyone’s guess.

  “That’s perfect, Val, thank you.” Mariah touched one of the stone guardians with reverence. “I feel as if Daisy is with us again.”

  Mariah had been heartbroken at her mentor’s loss, so her approval sealed the deal.

  “Then we begin,” Tullah intoned. “Samantha, if you will dim the lights.”

  The bunker went dark except for the flickering candles. Amber leaned over and kissed Josh’s stubbled jaw, glad that he had accepted the eccentricities of her friends. He squeezed her hand in return and released her. “Your production, not mine,” he murmured.

  “Remember that,” she whispered back. “Don’t speak, don’t intrude.”

  As the others joined hands around the table, Amber removed the velvet cloth from the crystal ball. The gray mist inside glowed with an odd luminescence that shivered her spine. Taking Mariah’s hand on her right and Tullah’s on her left, she watched as the mist swirled with silver.

  They chanted to reach the meditative state the ritual required, while the mist grew brighter and angrier with reds and blacks twining through the silver.

  Amber concentrated on the questions she wanted to ask. She didn’t expect much. Séances moved in mysterious ways, just as her cards did. But an open mind could find clues.

  “We are here,” Tullah intoned. “Speak, spirit, tell us who you are.”

  The ball brightened enough to reveal their faces in the darkness. It pulsed with light that seemed intent on escape. Tullah’s palm began to sweat as she controlled the energy flowing through their joined hands.

  “She is not in her right mind, dear,” Mariah unexpectedly said.

  Mariah had always been a strong conduit for Tullah and Cass, but she had never openly spoken before. And this was definitely not Mariah speaking. The voice sounded old, almost amused, and cynical Mariah had never called anyone dear in her life, unless she’d meant it as an insult.

  “Who?” Amber asked, knowing her place as interpreter in these sessions. “Who is caught between worlds?”

  “The poor lady who thought art is found in things,” the voice emerging from Mariah’s lips said. “Art is love and nature, make sure Mariah remembers that. She knows it. She feels it. But she’s afraid. The trapped lady was fearless, but she had no empathy.”

  They’d learned long ago that names tended to be irrelevant in the spirit world. Not knowing Willa well enough to identify her from the medium’s vague response, Amber tried another direction. “Does she know who was with her before she passed?”

  The mist glowed a dark angry red.

  “She’s using ugly words,” Mariah’s spirit complained. “One is for a wicked female, the other may refer to a man. Until she accepts what has happened, she is not worth your time. Tell dear Mariah I am with her always and the child is a blessing.”

  Which sounded exceedingly strange emerging from Mariah’s mouth.

  “Can we help her pass?” Sam asked from the other side of the table.

  But Mariah was silent.

  Val began to sing in low, urgent notes that rose as the mist inside the ball drew in on itself until it almost formed a shape. The high operatic notes soared.

  The crystal ball exploded and the candles blew out, casting the bunker into total darkness.

  Nineteen

  Exploding crystal couldn’t be good. Trying not to panic, Josh found Amber in the bunker’s darkness.

  Not wanting to startle her, he pushed her magic stick into her hand, then drew her back to the wall. From the sound of Mariah’s protests, Keegan did the same with his wife—before he began distributing the other sticks around the table.

  Apparently too stunned for speech, the circle of Lucys watched the weird mist drifting upward—seeking escape?

  “Ghost-catcher,” Aaron abruptly shouted as the mist floated toward the stairs. “Block the exit.”

  The rest of the women stepped away from the mist-shrouded table, while touching their sticks to maintain their circle.

  Josh hoped if the mist was Willa, she’d come after him. Not having any magic powers or stick, he climbed on a bench, snagged one of the nets from the ceiling, then placed himself solidly in the stairwell, waving the circle of silly string adorned with feathers and crystals. He didn’t like leaving Amber unprotected, but the mist didn’t seem to be interested in her. Yet.

  The crystal heads of the walking sticks began to glow the way the ball had earlier, except the colors were more muted and oddly serene in blues and greens and gold. The opera singer continued her funeral dirge. Josh didn’t think the ghost cared.

  Because now that the mist was loose, he was quite convinced he was seeing his first ever ghost. He wrote and directed fantasy. That boiling red and black mist was a little too real, made for a horror film and not a kid flick.

  “Willa, if that’s you, you need to cool it,” he yelled at the ceiling. “These people are trying to help.”

  The mist coiled tighter. He had the weird sense that it was searching for the person who had spoken. Maybe he’d better shut the hell up.

  Val’s dirge became a chant that the others picked up. He darted a look in Amber’s direction. In the dark, she was a mere shadow against the wall, but her wand was raised like the others. The dragon figurehead gleamed a soft orange-gold sunset, like her hair—like her beautiful nature. In a minute, he’d start imagining this ugly mist as Willa’s soul and that Amber had a sunny one. Hillvale had a way of warping brains.

  “Blink once for yes, twice for no,” he shouted, succumbing to the ludicrous. “Is that you, Willa?”

  The chant hummed with interest, and maybe a thin thread of humor, if that was possible. More likely it was his overheated imagination. His reaction to stress often bordered on irrational.

  The mist hesitated, then actually seemed to dim, then flare up again. Josh held his breath. . . as did
everyone in the room. He damned well had the attention of all the Lucys.

  The luminescence remained steady and unblinking. Could the ghost actually have answered? One blink, for yes?

  Thinking maybe the smoke was hallucinatory, Josh tried again. “Was Ivan with you last?”

  The weird luminescence extinguished entirely, plunging them into darkness. One blink?

  In its place, the crystal eyes of the small stone statues began to glow around the perimeter. The glimmer faltered, then went dark, before returning to gleam steadily.

  Gasps whispered around the room.

  Having no idea if glowing statues meant anything or even if that counted as two blinks and she was saying Ivan wasn’t there, Josh asked, “Do you remember seeing Dell that day?”

  The crystal eyes actually blinked once. How the hell. . . ? Staggered, Josh muttered under his breath. The Lucy chant grew louder, more encouraging.

  Did that one blink mean Dell had been in Hillvale? What else could he ask that could be answered yes or no?

  “Daisy’s here,” Mariah whispered beneath the chant. “I feel her.”

  Or that’s what Josh thought she said. There wasn’t enough light to read Amber’s expression, so he had to interpret on his own. The air almost rippled in expectation.

  “Did you go back to the amphitheater after you talked to me on the phone?” he asked in desperation, hoping to at least fix where Willa might have died.

  The statues blinked once. Yes.

  The chanting escalated in excitement.

  “Did you meet someone there?” Amber asked softly while Josh scrambled to arrange his brain around the supernatural.

  One blink—yes.

  “Were they driving a black Porsche?” he asked.

  Nothing. Did that mean she didn’t know? And that he actually believed he was talking to Willa?

  He’d spent the better part of his life in front of an audience, with privacy in short supply. Stirred by the Lucy’s strong air of awe and expectation, fearing the moment would be lost, Josh grabbed this opportunity for closure. Hoping Amber would understand, he had to say, “I miss you, babe,” to the mist. “And I’m learning I never really understood you, did I?”

  The crystal eyes fluttered light as if laughing, then died out.

  Disappointment flooded him, but the chant continued with a note of approval, and the candles flickered back on. All the crystal wands continued to glow.

  Damn, what did that mean? Could he hope Willa had accepted his sorrow and moved on? Hadn’t that been the point of this ceremony? He glanced at Amber, who watched him with sympathy and understanding, thank all that was holy—

  Keegan emitted what sounded like a loud Scot obscenity and caught his slumping wife. Josh leaped out of the way as a few hundred pounds of distressed giant rushed for the stairs carrying Mariah.

  Someone switched the lights back on and the chant morphed into excited, anxious chatter as the women congratulated Josh for his performance and rushed to follow Keegan and Mariah.

  “Overexertion, she’ll be fine.” Amber rubbed Josh’s back as he bent over, head in hands, on her couch. “Tullah thinks the spirit of Daisy inhabited Mariah, that maybe the child is a natural medium and allowed Daisy access. Mariah is strong, but that had to be a shocking experience. And if Daisy was communicating with Willa. . . You’d have to know Daisy. She was crazy—in a good way, but very erratic.”

  “Willa is lying on a slab in a morgue,” he said, almost angrily. “Why are we kidding ourselves with this nonsense?”

  She used both hands and dug her thumbs into his spine until he yanked upright. “Because Willa died here and her spirit lingers. Bodies are meaningless shells that we eventually shed.”

  He glared at her. “Remember your body is a meaningless shell the next time you criticize it. I am not my pretty face. You are not your weight.”

  She wanted to laugh in relief at his quick recovery, but laughter didn’t come easily after their terrifying evening. She sat beside him. “I’m aware that our bodies are mere shells that house our true essence. But I grew up playing to an audience that reacts to physical appearances. Self-consciousness is part of me. Dig back to your skinny nerd days and try to remember how that felt.”

  He kissed her instead. She let him, trying the kiss on for size, measuring her level of fear against their last kiss, not sure she knew what she wanted.

  Josh evidently knew exactly what he wanted. He deepened the kiss until hormones overruled fear and she succumbed. Both their souls had been stripped bare enough times to know how to open themselves completely without even trying. When he cupped her breast, she shivered deep down inside and froze, but only momentarily. His kisses heated her, and the irrational panic melted. This was Josh, who had confronted an angry ghost he didn’t believe in to keep her safe.

  He ran his lips along her cheek, nibbled briefly on her ear, and simply held her breast in his palm. “I don’t want to use you,” he murmured in what sounded like regret. “And that’s what I’d be doing right now—making the world go away. You deserve better.”

  “Yeah, but what if I want to settle for being used?” she asked, her voice raw.

  He laughed softly and kneaded her flesh, drawing a tantalizing finger across her clothed, aroused nipple. “We might shock Zeke. This needs to be just us. We need all night and then some to learn who we are together. We’re not teenagers desperate for sex.”

  “I hate it when you’re right,” she grumbled, pulling away. Her breast ached, and she wanted to strip off her shirt and say to hell with waiting any longer. “And that’s your inner Romeo talking. I guess I need to seduce you with candlelight and. . .”

  He covered her mouth with his hand. “If I never see another lit candle, I’ll be happy. Or any more glowing crystals. Let’s make it on a beach in sunshine.”

  She sighed and threw a glance at her still slightly glowing walking stick. “We have absolutely no idea what we did tonight.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that. Are your séances always this exciting? I may have to rethink one of the scenes in my film.” He leaned against the sofa back, let his head drop backward, and gazed at the ceiling.

  “Go home, get some sleep. And no, usually our séances are snore-inducing. Willa just had things she wanted to say, and you brilliantly gave her a means of saying them. Sort of.”

  He snorted. “Sort of, right. So are we deducing the Porsche contained Dell? Do we tell the cops a ghost said Dell was there? Where does that leave us?”

  “With an angry woman and a maybe-man? That sort of describes Dell, doesn’t it? Crazy Daisy as a spirit medium leaves a little to be desired. I have no idea how to interpret Daisy’s explanation of who Willa saw last. Ugly words for a wicked female and maybe a man is not clarifying. I suppose we need to perform one of Hillvale’s magic acts, slap around a little ectoplasm, feed the suspects some of Fee’s doctored food, and persuade someone to confess.” Amber rubbed her bare arms, trying to settle her nerves—and her desire. She hadn’t really wanted another man since Josh. Their chemistry. . . was potent.

  “Let’s put on a show, like we did as Jack and Ginger?” he asked with a hint of amusement through a yawn. He stretched his long legs halfway across her small room. “Can I write the script?”

  “Be my guest. I’m thinking Mariah won’t be up to slapping ectoplasm around. Keegan will probably tie her to a chair. Tarot isn’t very persuasive. Maybe we can persuade Willa to perform for our suspects if we wave our sticks around. That should scare the heck out of any killers.”

  “You’re a fine actress. With a few special effects. . .”

  Amber slapped him with a sofa pillow. “Go home, Josh. You’re giddy.”

  “I do my best work in the middle of the night.” He rose from the couch and held out a hand to tug her up. “But you need your beauty sleep. Will you go to the shop tomorrow? I’d love to stand guard duty just to watch your mother cringe.”

  “It’s Saturday. We have a wedding party coming in, and
I have appointments lined up most of the day. I’m hoping Zeke won’t mind staying in the house, playing games. Until my mother leaves, I’d rather keep him away from her.” Amber fretted over that too. Walker had replaced her door lock with a stronger one, but she didn’t trust Crystal, and Zeke was only a kid.

  “You need a restraining order, give Walker a reason to lock her up. Why don’t you send Zeke up to my cool new studio? Crystal won’t find him there. I can download a few games, and he can blow up things until I return from the lodge. Ernest has promised a press conference that should be a real rodeo tomorrow. I’ll need to blow up things after it’s over.” He brushed a kiss across her hair, just as if he really were her boyfriend.

  If this was how it felt to have a partner, she was ready. She wrapped her arms around Josh’s waist and kissed his movie-star jaw. “Your tendency to blow up things when stressed is not good for a press conference. Don’t say anything that you’ll regret later.”

  “I have Ernest to remind me why I shouldn’t kill Dell or throttle Crystal or jump down the throats of stupid reporters. It’s all good. But I’d hide that weird stick if I were you. I keep seeing Willa winking at me.” Josh kept his arm around her as he walked to the door, letting her feel as if he really needed to touch as much as she did. “It’s good to have you back, kid. I need this.” He kissed the corner of her mouth and slipped out the door.

  Amber cupped a hand over her lips and allowed a single tear to trickle down. Tonight had left her feeling vulnerable. She needed him too, more than he’d ever know.

  She knew she ought to prepare herself for the inevitable moment when he had to return to LA, but she’d never been smart about shielding herself from heartbreak—one of the many reasons she didn’t leave her nest and put herself out there anymore.

  But for Zeke—and Josh—she’d have to take risks again. The thought paralyzed her.

  Twenty

  Saturday morning, Josh left Zeke happily watching TV in the studio, rather than bring him in contact with the scandal-hungry slime gathering at the lodge. Ernest had opened up the living room of the suite, saving the cost of a meeting room for the conference. His project’s new production head was already counting pennies.