Josh knew he was a damned good director, better than he was as an actor, and probably better than he was as a writer, since he’d never sold a script, and his books ended up in the comic section of the two stores carrying them. Directing a press conference was a snap.
“Pile alcohol bottles in the trash,” Josh ordered, surveying the set-up. “Dirty glasses on the counter. And sorry, now that you’ve picked up and organized all my papers, you need to strew them around again. We are keeping this short by playing up my grief. Anyone who knows Willa won’t buy my act, but they can sell it to the rags, so it’s all good.”
Ernest rolled his eyes, threw a file folder of papers on the floor, and kicked it. “Want me to smash a laptop and leave the remains in the middle of the floor?”
Josh smothered a laugh. “Would you? Pretty please?”
Ernest gave him the stink eye and kicked another file. “No. You’re enjoying this too much. Willa was a mean woman, but she deserves respect, not a circus.”
“Unfortunately, the press wants a circus. Once the coroner releases her, I’ll give her a ceremony brimming with pomp and circumstance. I’ll even wear a black suit.”
“Tessa is bugging me about the funeral,” Ernest acknowledged. “I think she’s mostly trying to find out where her job stands. I’m telling her it’s in the hands of the lawyers. I had to ask her and Brad up here for the respect part of this scene.”
Grimacing, Josh sniffed his old Calvin Klein t-shirt to see if it exuded the proper aroma of despair and alcohol. “After last night, I’m thinking Willa doesn’t give a damn about respect. If that was her, she’s mad and wants us to find out what happened, even if she has to inhabit dirty stones to do so.”
“The witches put on a good show?” Ernest asked in interest, emptying a partial bottle of wine on a paper towel and smearing it around a little to add to the rankness.
“Lucys,” Josh corrected. “Witches have the wrong connotation. And I’m not sure I could have duplicated those special effects even with an engineering team. Amber almost lost it, and you know what that takes. We should have brought her Ouija board.”
He wished Amber was waiting for him in the other suite, but she’d always despised media farce. He hated that his presence had exposed her to the rabid coyotes, but with Crystal and Dell spewing their crap all over the press, there was no backing away now.
He hoped Amber didn’t have access to the morning news. She shouldn’t have to see her mother spinning tales of love triangles, kidnapping, and murder. Sensationalism sold papers, not truth or accuracy. So he’d play their lousy game.
“You put good security people on Amber’s doors?” he asked Ernest, probably for the thirtieth time. “I don’t want these hounds going straight down there and driving off her clients.”
“Not easy at the last minute. I found a receptionist who used to carry a gun outside Steve Jobs’ office in her heyday. And a burly security guard who can bench press two reporters in one hand. She should be safe.”
The front desk rang, letting them know that Tessa, Willa’s VP, and Brad, her favorite photographer, had arrived. Ernest sent around to the back entrance to avoid the reporters gathering in the lobby.
Red curls newly dyed and styled, Tessa rushed in to hug Josh. “Oh you poor thing! I’m so glad you called us in to help. The press is awful!”
Josh stepped back in distaste. Tessa’s perfume was worse than his alcohol abuse of the suite. Once one of Willa’s best friends, the two had often shared closets, so Josh sometimes had difficulty differentiating their wardrobes. “Thanks for coming.”
He turned to Brad, a burly man who always looked as if he’d just climbed out of bed. But the photographer was damned good at what he did. Josh held out his hand to greet him. “I’m glad you could make it. If you have some stills from that last day, you can make a bundle today.”
“Not the same as the wedding,” Brad said gruffly, gazing around at the trashed suite. “Sorry for your loss. Heard you’ll be getting the company. I did a lot of business with Willa. Hope you’ll keep me on.”
Josh didn’t want to be reminded of that looming responsibility, but Tessa leaped on the opening. “You don’t have to worry about a thing, Josh. Sarah and I are handling all the business calls. I’m authorized to pay the bills. You’re in good hands.”
Practically growling under his breath, Ernest waved the phone. “The press is getting restless. Have you read the damned script I gave you so I can let them in?”
“Read it. Memorized it. Regurgitated and threw it up.” Leaving his guests to peruse the kitchen, Josh sprawled over a couch he’d deliberately set in front of a sun-filled window, ruining photo ops. On the floor, he’d set a half-empty glass of amber fluid near his hand. “If I throw a few punches, will I look grief-stricken?”
“No,” Ernest said curtly. “Ready, set, action.” He pushed the phone’s buttons, allowing lodge security to let the rest of their visitors in.
Ernest’s notes gave Josh a PR spin intended to deter the questions Amber’s damned mother was stirring. As cameras filled the suite, Josh focused on the spin and not wanting to drive his fist through a few cigarette-yellowed teeth.
“Of course Willa knew Amber is Ginger,” Josh said with an appropriate gesture of disgust to the first question asked. “We only just discovered Amber was living here, so Willa didn’t have time to know her well. The stories Dell is spreading are just to hype his new Jack-and-Ginger production, which I intend to halt. But that’s in the hands of our attorneys. You know I can’t talk about it. Let’s move on.”
They badgered him more about Amber, but Josh picked up the colored-water glass and sipped, refusing to speak unless they asked questions he was prepared to answer truthfully.
“I’ve talked to Willa’s lawyer, yes. I haven’t talked to her father, no. I have no idea what will become of her estate if Ivan chooses to object to her will.” He didn’t look at Tessa, who was avidly following any reference to Willa’s company. Her job was on the line, he got that. She could look a little more mournful.
He waved off another badgering question. “Lawyers are better equipped to answer legal questions than I am. I’m forming my own company to continue my film as planned. Ivan’s objections and my grief shouldn’t affect the lives of the people counting on this production.” Absolute, total truth, except without Willa’s cash, he’d have to find money elsewhere. The jackals didn’t need to know that.
Brad discreetly worked the back of the room, flashing photos stored on his phone to anyone expressing interest. Crass, but effectively distracting those who didn’t bring their own photographers.
Josh tossed back the rest of the water as if it really were whiskey when they began questioning him about Willa’s other projects. He turned to Tessa, but she was nervously tapping her long nails on her phone while reading a text and doing nothing to help him out.
“Look, Willa was a grown woman with a full life of her own before we met,” Josh insisted in growing exasperation. “I did not interfere in her company. She did not interfere with my films. She employed armies of people I never met. We had only just begun working together on my new epic fantasy. She intended to push it to the next level. We built a relationship outside our business partnership. Everything was coming up roses until this. So, sniff the gutter, if you want, but Willa’s memory deserves admiration for what she accomplished, not sexist scandal-mongering.”
Resisting his director’s role of saying Cut, print, thank you, Josh flung his empty glass against the wall, got up as it noisily smashed into pieces, and staggered out, slamming his bedroom door for effect.
Video required action, and he’d given them all he had, short of throwing punches.
Not caring what happened to his startled guests, he crossed to the other side of the bedroom hoping for escape. Opening the door into the hall, he peered out to see if anyone lurked.
Harvey met him, holding a glowing walking stick. “This way. We have you covered.” He hurried toward the
rear exit.
What the frigging hell? More than ready to escape, Josh followed, conjuring scenarios of being kidnapped by warlocks and evil fairies or Hillvale’s own Gandalf.
Harvey slipped into the forest surrounding the lodge, following a well-traveled path under the shade of towering evergreens. Torn equally between fear and fascination of his companion’s glowing crystal, eager for any escape, Josh followed. Harvey had a few inches over him and was obviously accustomed to these woods. He glided over tree roots without tripping. Josh had to watch where he stomped his city shoes while he debated the need to break that stick in half. What would happen if he crushed the crystal?
“It would be nice to know what we’re doing,” he complained as they reached the edge of the tree line, on a ridge above the town.
“Yeah, well, the rest of us don’t get scripts. We make things up as we go along.”
“That’s pretty much the essence of script writing. Give me goals, motivation, conflict, and we’re halfway there.” Josh studied Hillvale from this new perspective.
The lodge was hidden by the woods they’d just climbed through, but he could see the line of cars snaking down from the resort road into town. That would be the reporters. He couldn’t hope they’d all go home. A few cars continued down the highway, leaving Hillvale behind. The rest pulled into the parking lot. One, finding no space available, snaked up the crumbling lane to the old commune farm and artists’ colony above the town.
“Goals, motivation, conflict, they’re all there.” Harvey gestured at the town with his stick. “It’s the human condition. Hillvale likes privacy, but it needs money to survive. Reporters keep the name of the town in the public eye, but not necessarily in a good way. Call us conflicted.”
He gestured in the distance, where an open trolley dispelled gaily-garbed wedding guests at the amphitheater on the far side of the valley. “The wedding business puts money in our pockets and creates a happy energy. Having brides killed before the wedding does not.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be over there, playing for the crowd?” Josh watched the milling guests filing down the stone walkway through the roses and bushes Willa had admired. In a few weeks, that would have been him traversing those stairs.
Oddly, he didn’t feel regret for the future that had crashed around him. His wedding had been more publicity stunt than a lifetime promise.
“Not everyone can afford me,” Harvey replied. “I play when I want and for people I like. Otherwise, I demand a high price for my talent. If I allow my name to be used, my privacy violated, I expect an enormous return, monetary or in other form.” Harvey pulled a baseball hat, horn-rimmed glasses, and a t-shirt out of his backpack and handed them over. “Here, play tourist.”
Realizing they were heading for the commune farm where the reporter had just alighted, Josh accepted the disguise without protest. “Willa wanted to use your name?”
“Yeah. Like you, she recognized me. Most people have never heard of Isaac Berkovich. They just see a long-haired guitar player and itinerant busker. Willa didn’t even blink when I named my price for advertising my name. It would have gone a long way toward establishing that winery my family wants up there in those hills—should we ever find water.” He waved his walking stick at an area above the burned-out ground. “But playing a wedding venue would destroy my value as a concert pianist. I told her I’d play if she wanted to hold the ceremony in the Hollywood Bowl. She declined.”
“But she said you were playing for us.” Josh had a nasty feeling he knew where this was going, but he let Harvey take the lead. The musician had a reputation for integrity as well as brilliance, if he remembered rightly. Berkovich had been playing for the concert circuit since he was a kid—a child prodigy had to learn to be tough to survive, as Josh well knew. There had been some uproar with the pianist’s management company a few years back, but Josh didn’t recall the details.
“There is a difference between wanting and achieving.” Harvey hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and proceeded in the direction of the commune. “Your fiancée had difficulty in distinguishing between the two. I know her kind. She would have agreed not to use my name, then told the press anyway. I was the reason she stayed at the amphitheater after you left. She’d told me to meet her there. We argued.”
“Does Walker know this or are you intending to shove me down a well after telling me you pushed Willa over a cliff?” Josh strode alongside the musician as they crossed the crumbling lane and started down a freshly paved road into the town’s new development.
Harvey chortled. “You’re as fearless as she was. You don’t think I can push you? I’m taller.”
“I have more muscles and work out regularly.” Josh shrugged. “And even though I’ve had boxing lessons and know the rules, I still fight dirty. But Amber appears to trust you, and she’s psychic. I trust her. I’m going to assume you’re not confessing to murder.”
“You believe Amber is psychic?” Harvey asked with interest, entering a building under construction. He waved at the bare studs and concrete floor. “New museum. Every town should display their history. Ours is a little difficult.”
“I can’t even define psychic to my satisfaction.” Josh gazed around, trying to envision how in hell they could display a history of weird. “I just know Amber knows things and she’s usually right. What happened when you argued with Willa?”
“She threatened me with exposure. She seemed comfortable with threats. Did she do that often?”
“Yeah, that was pretty much her modus operandi, learned from her father. They call it negotiating. I call it bullying. She hated it when I didn’t bargain, even in a thrift shop like Tullah’s. I stupidly figure if I can afford the price and want the object, then I should pay what was asked or walk away.”
“Not the path to riches,” Harvey said in amusement, opening the door to a partially finished room with plasterboard walls. “Bargaining has its purpose. Threats do not. I told her to take her job and shove it. I would not have played at your wedding. The question becomes, who else did she threaten recently who couldn’t afford to tell her to take a flying leap?”
Inside the half-finished room, Josh recognized a number of the men sitting on sawhorses and supply boxes. Two of them he’d only seen in passing—the Kennedys, owners of the resort.
Josh shook hands as Harvey introduced them. “Good to meet you. Is this where I’m run out of town on a rail?”
“No, this is where we hide when we don’t want the women to know we’re conspiring,” the blond athletic Kennedy said—Mayor Monty.
Josh eyed the unpainted walls and sawdust-covered board floor. “Nice, maybe one step above the bunker.” He turned back to Harvey. “And this is where you tell me that you left Willa alone and well after a heated argument in which she threatened to expose you to the world if you didn’t play for her wedding?”
“It’s where I tell you what I told Walker—Willa probably argued with every single member of her staff during the period after you left her. I didn’t see her until two, so I don’t know who arrived in the Porsche at one. But whoever it was must have left her wound up tight and angry. She seemed to have set up individual meetings. I could hear raised voices as I took the path out the back way. The amphitheater amplifies sound, as it’s supposed to do.”
“Shit, there goes our theory that Willa took the Porsche back to the lodge to pack her bags. She wouldn’t have time to fit it in.” Josh gazed out an unglazed window in the direction of the vortex. The flat farmland above the town had been graded and all the chaparral removed for the new development. The tops of trees could be discerned in the distance, where the hill dipped down to the vortex. “Still, if Willa wasn’t killed until after three-thirty, we’ve established that I’m the only one without an alibi after that.”
“And the Porsche driver,” Walker corrected. “The photographer was still around. He spent the night here. It’s possible either her vice-president or wedding planner could have turned around or parked
elsewhere and walked back to the vortex before continuing down to the city. The parking lot sequence doesn’t tell the whole tale. If she argued with Harvey, she could have fought with any of the locals she wanted to hire. Most of us know a lot of paths in and out of the area on foot.”
“Double shit.” Josh turned back to the room to study men he’d like to have as friends. “So now we have to account for everyone in town after three-thirty?”
“Everyone in town would testify they were with their friends and loved ones at the critical time, if they thought it necessary.” The darker, leaner Kennedy kicked at bags of cement. “Believe me, Hillvale inhabitants shut out strangers if threatened. Monty and I have been excluded often enough because our parents made us outsiders. The Lucys accuse us of living with evil, and I’m not saying there isn’t any truth to that. Bad things happen around here. The town has been keeping you in the dark because we see you as an unknown.”
“And Amber? Did she know all this?” Josh tried not to sound as hurt as he felt.
“No,” Keegan said firmly. “Amber has her own problems with her mother and the kid. Besides, we couldn’t trust her not to tell you everything. It was hard enough for the Lucys to accept Kurt and Monty, and they grew up here.”
“And what changed?” Josh gave up and took a seat on a stack of lumber.
“Last night.” The antique dealer unbent his long, lanky frame from the sawhorse he’d occupied. “You leaped to our aid without fear or question. If you’d been afraid that Willa would point a finger at you, or that’s how we might interpret the night’s events, you wouldn’t have offered us a means to talk with the entity.”
“Huh.” Josh considered this for all of half a second. “I work in Tinsel Town. I just went with the flow, or the special effects, whatever.”
Amber Affairs Page 19
