He reached for a shirt. “The café then? Or risk your mother and the lodge? I can order room service.”
She didn’t really want to establish a tradition with Josh in it, but she saw no way around it if she couldn’t enter her cottage yet. “The lodge, I guess,” she said reluctantly. “I really don’t want to go out in public now that reporters know I’m here.”
“More drama and a bigger draw for the play if you don’t show yourself until then,” he suggested. “I’ll keep Oscar the Bodyguard and Nellie the Female Terrorist in your shop so you can work with clients in back. The trick will be knowing how to prevent reporters from making appointments.”
“I’ll only take regulars and ask for wedding guest lists. I hate losing the walk-ins, but I hate everything that’s happening these days, so I’ll deal. How long will it take to pull together a script?”
He kissed her until she was breathless, then led her to the door. “Coffee. Give me coffee before interrogations.”
Cass’s driveway abutted the highway, so Amber didn’t have to see her cottage wrapped in yellow police tape. They drove through the quiet Sunday morning into town.
A few Hillvale regulars were parked at the café, but the tourists and wedding guests usually didn’t leave the lodge until the shops opened. If there were reporters still around, they were probably sleeping in too.
Josh held her hand as he drove the short line of blacktop up to the Kennedy lodge. He was definitely a romantic. Cherishing the affectionate gesture, she blinked back a tear threatening to crawl down her cheek. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes, no make-up, and her hair in a tangled snarl for which she had no brush, and he didn’t seem to care that she was a mess.
In time, he might, she reminded herself. Hollywood directors had to attend awards shows and parties with arm candy. They were both just reacting to the newness of being together again after all these years. They’d get past it once the real world claimed them.
That thought didn’t exactly make her stronger, but pragmatism quieted her nerves.
As they drove around to the rear of the lodge with the windows open, loud voices penetrated the dawn quiet. Josh started to turn the car to avoid being seen.
Amber halted him. “Wait. I recognize the melodious buzz saw of my mother’s mouth. Where did she find another woman to fight with?”
They both listened but the privacy hedges around the suites prevented clarity.
“We can go in the front way,” Josh suggested. “Maybe the lobby will be empty.”
Oscar the Bodyguard ambled out from behind the greenery. “I get extra pay for bitch fights,” he said with a grin when Josh rolled down his window. “And those are two of the meanest bitches I ever ran across. You might want to turn around and go back to town.”
“Zeke is in there,” Amber reminded them. “He’ll come to his grandmother’s defense if it comes to that.” She turned to the bodyguard. “Do you know who my mother is arguing with? Can you hear what they’re saying?”
He jerked his head toward the greenery. “I’m thinking the other is the lady who runs this joint. She caught your mom peeking in windows.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Amber climbed out.
“You don’t have to do this,” Josh said, jumping out and following. “Let them slug it out on their own.”
“I’m tired of sneaking around.” And furious—she just wasn’t taking this evil any longer. Carrying her glowing walking stick, she stomped around the hedge where she could hear the voices more clearly. “I shouldn’t have to hide from my own mother. And Carmel Kennedy is just plain wicked. The two of them together may blow up the town.”
“You have me arrested, bitch, and I’ll tell the world this two-bit dump is infested with rats and bedbugs. I know people.” Crystal’s high-pitched screech could penetrate walls.
“You know bloodsuckers,” Carmel Kennedy said in well-modulated scorn. “Your ridiculous Hollywood leeches are no match for my connections. I could call the governor, but it will be simpler to call my lawyer. Out, I want you out now before I call the police chief, whom I pay, you may note.”
That was a lie, Amber knew, but not any of her concern. Removing her mother from Zeke was her goal. Emerging from behind the hedge, Amber glared at the two older women facing off. “Oscar, if you’d take a photo of this, you could sell it for a fortune.”
Her mother had aged badly. Despite all the lifts, her face wore lines from too much sun and too little sleep. Like Amber, Crystal was only five-three and built sturdily. No amount of starvation could carve elegance into her square frame. She’d apparently dyed and styled her graying red hair into a blond bob—or maybe it was a wig. With Crystal, it was hard to tell.
In comparison, Carmel Kennedy was all tall, model-slim elegance. Even at this hour, she was garbed in designer exercise clothes and wearing her trademark gold jewelry. Her lion’s mane of hair was pulled into a high ponytail. Surgery and Botox had pulled her jaw taut and stretched the skin over her cheekbones almost skeletally smooth.
At Amber’s arrival, they both swung on her, only needing brooms to look like two aging witches.
“I am taking Zeke home with me,” Crystal announced, ignoring the threat of a photo. She lived for publicity. “I have a lawyer who will have you arrested.”
“What the hell is going on out here?” A male voice intruded. “Crystal, I thought we were picking up the boy and leaving.”
Amber’s soul shriveled at the familiar rumble. Josh instantly swung to face the intruder, fists raised.
Dell wandered past the hedge and into view. He took one look at the company and backed away. “Crystal, move it. I have meetings this afternoon.” Without acknowledging anyone else, he strode off.
Amber shook in her shoes, more with rage than fear, she hoped. She wanted to run after the balding pervert and pound his face into the cement. . . But protecting Zeke came first. She tugged Josh’s arm to prevent him from following Dell.
“First things first,” he muttered.
Relieved that he understood, Amber shot a freezing glare at her mother. “You brought Dell here? To fetch Zeke? I ought to have you both arrested.”
“You can’t take care of Zeke. You can’t even take care of yourself. Look at you!” Crystal continued without pause. “You’ve always been a fat, lazy slug.”
“The lullaby of my childhood,” Amber murmured.
Before she could say more, Josh stepped in. “That level of ignorance doesn’t deserve recognition.” He turned to address the now-silenced Carmel. “Good morning, Mrs. Kennedy. If Mrs. Abercrombie and her companion are a problem, I’ll have my security remove her.”
It was rather lovely that Josh now had the power to deflect Crystal’s abuse and was willing to wield it. But recovering from the unexpected encounter, Amber didn’t need his help these days.
She might be a wuss for letting Dell escape unscathed, but she could stand up to her mother.
“You will do no such thing, you murderer!” Crystal shouted. “Stay away from my daughter.”
“Josh is a gazillionaire now, Mom. Want to change your mind?” Amber taunted.
With a chuckle of appreciation, he dropped his arm over her shoulders—in defiance of all the rules ever laid out for them, including their own.
“The court says Zeke is mine,” Crystal cried, reverting to her original intent.
“Not if I testify in front of a judge,” Amber told her. “I couldn’t do it all those years ago to defend myself, but I’m not a little kid anymore, and I will defend Zeke.”
“No judge will listen to your lies,” Crystal cried.
Before her mother could continue her bullying tirade, Amber boldly did what she’d always wanted to do—she pulled off her favorite sparkly scarf and shoved it between Crystal’s teeth. “Hush. Zeke doesn’t need to hear his grandmother making a spectacle of herself.”
Crystal grabbed for the fabric. At a nod from Josh, Oscar caught her wrists and yanked them behind her back.
“May I do the honors?” Josh whispered in her ear.
She loved that he allowed her a choice, even though she knew he was as eager to throw Crystal over a cliff as she was. Amber nodded.
“Oscar, if you will escort Amber’s mother to the lobby, Mrs. Kennedy may call her manager to check her and Dell out. I’m sure there’s a maid willing to pack their suitcases,” he ordered politely, without need to raise his voice and terrify Zeke inside.
With her wrists caught in his big hands, Oscar frog-marched a foaming Crystal toward the front of the lodge, away from Zeke’s room.
Carmel openly gaped, then swung her attention to Amber. “You and your kind are no more welcome here than that bitch you call a mother.”
Being confronted with a monster from the past, then called fat and a witch before the day even started snapped Amber’s last remaining tether. For years, she’d padded a prison to hide herself from ugly reality. No longer. Feeling like a phoenix rising from her scorched nest, Amber covered Josh’s mouth with her finger. If she didn’t have to hide anymore, she didn’t have to pull punches either.
“The hard work of my kind filled this lodge last night with wedding guests. I will apologize for my mother. I will not apologize for my existence. And since Josh is paying your exorbitant rates for two suites, I think you should think twice before telling us to leave. Remember, I’m psychic. I know what you fear.”
While Carmel’s mouth flapped like a fish, Amber marched past and toward the rear door she knew led to Josh’s rooms. Josh rushed to pull out his keycard and let her in.
Miraculously, she wasn’t shaking as he opened the door for her. She didn’t even bother glancing over her shoulder to see if Carmel was aiming an ax at her back.
“I think my jaw is hanging to my feet,” Josh said, rapping a warning before opening the interior door. “I’ve seen your mother reduce you to tears. I think Carmel Kennedy might reduce me to tears. What in hell do you hold over her?”
“Fear. Carmel lives in a constant state of paranoia,” Amber said, before she held out her arms to a pale-looking Zeke. “Never fear, mi amigo,” she murmured as she hugged her nephew. “Aunt Amber is here.”
And Aunt Amber wouldn’t let a filthy monster anywhere near Zeke—or anyone else, if she could help it. No more hiding. No more shame. She had a mission again.
“Ginger used to say that, except not the Aunt Amber part.” Grinning, Ernest stepped from behind the draperies and set down his phone. “I think I got all that on video. I was hoping for a knock-down, drag-out fight though.”
“Did you catch anything interesting besides my mother’s peeping-tom exercise?” No more curling up and sucking her thumb. Zeke needed to know he had someone strong in his life.
She had to make herself strong, exercise more than her flabby muscles.
“That should be enough. I can probably add that scene to my script,” Josh mused, pouring coffee from a full carafe. “I don’t think even my flights of fantasy would conjure anything that absurd. I want to add a dragon to the new project and call her Amber.”
“Only if you let me do the voice-over.” Amber poked through a kitchen cabinet, located the tea bags, and nuked water.
Looking relieved, Zeke bounced up and down. “Does this mean Granny will go away? Can we go back to your place now?”
If she could face down two old dragons, she should be able to face the possibility of a haunted cottage, shouldn’t she?
The dragon eyes on her walking stick gleamed agreement.
Twenty-five
By Wednesday, Josh had a script. With a degree of trepidation, he handed out pages of Act One to Amber and Val. Valerie Ingersson had been a formidable diva in her younger years, preferring stage to film, so he’d never seen her performances. But from the roles she’d played and her reviews, it was obvious she was no minor talent. And Amber had edited half the Jack and Ginger TV scripts once she had confidence enough to confront the writers.
Josh was the one who lacked knowledge. He was a two-bit actor, and his script-writing ability had never been proven. But these characters were so clear in his head that he feared he’d totally blown fiction and gone straight into documentary—always a dead bore on stage unless accompanied by a good soundtrack and dancing.
While Amber and Val skimmed the pages, he handed more copies to the limited audience in the locked barn the town called an art gallery. Lance, the long-haired, graying artist who ran the gallery, had quietly taken a center seat. Zeke beamed at being treated as an adult and given his own copy.
Ernest had practically memorized the lines, so he just read along on the pages in his digital notebook.
The other Lucys were apparently still recovering from spending the past few days cleansing Amber’s cottage and setting up protective barriers to keep out the inquisitive. Josh had approved of her new locked gate, but the thorny rose hedge that had almost spontaneously grown overnight was pretty strange. Stranger still was the fence of stone statues with crystal eyes. If Amber felt safe behind a magical barrier, he was fine with that. He was just glad she let him through.
“The ghost has issues,” Val announced succinctly, closing the script. “I can work with that.”
“She’s not a cardboard cut-out,” Lance agreed from his seat.
Amber lifted her expressive eyebrows at this exchange from the usually taciturn pair. Josh just took a breath of relief and watched her expectantly.
“It’s pretty strong,” she admitted.
“But?” He knew how her mind worked. This was just a draft, but the rest of the script would balance on the first act. He was counting on Amber to help him make it better.
“But you need to think like a woman. A man might look at the dead woman’s luggage and just say ‘She left her suitcase. Search it.’ A woman, especially if she’s to be a smart detective, would say something like, ‘That’s a Vuitton. No woman would treat a Vuitton so shabbily. Look at that lining!’ And then she’d search through it admiring the quality of the clothes, noting the owner was an impossible size zero, digging into the physical to understand the personal.”
“I’m not a size zero,” Val said dryly.
Josh jotted notes on his laptop. “Okay. We never found Willa’s suitcases, so I don’t have that perspective. Good call. Can I not mention size so any actress can play the role?”
“Sure, if it doesn’t affect anything later in the script. To cover all body types and ages, you don’t want your female detective carting anyone bigger than a small child. And one assumes the ghost won’t be lifting heavy objects. In other words, don’t write anything everyone can’t do,” she added wryly.
“Got it. I don’t see this as being very physical. We don’t have fancy sets, so I’ll be relying on Harvey’s music for background. Be thinking about what we can use for costume. Val, I love the veil for the ghost. If I need you for any other female parts, is there something else you can wear and still be comfortable?”
This was his milieu. He was good at pulling all the parts and people together to create one whole. The enormous painted triptych of Hillvale in the background was ideal for a piece like this.
If only he could distance himself from the subject matter. . . and Amber. . . he’d be a lot more sane.
But watching Amber on that stage, reading his script and pacing just as he remembered her doing when they were young and foolish, knowing she welcomed him to her bed—but kept her distance—was taking its toll. He had no notion of how to go on with this uncertainty—or even what he hoped to achieve.
He’d spent a lifetime working hard to put bread on the table and a roof over his head. The only way he knew to accomplish that was back in the city, doing what he did best, shaking hands, pulling strings, flashing the famous smile that had paved an easy path.
With more than one goal now, he was floundering, pretending he could solve Willa’s death and his own confusion with superstition and playwriting. For the first time in a long time he was walking out on a creaky limb with no net u
nder him.
Ernest passed his phone over Josh’s shoulder to show him a text message. “Tessa wants us back in town, says work is piling up. I think she just wants your body. Reply?”
Just what he needed, more guilt and another woman who wanted a piece of him. As Amber had said, he didn’t like being directed, which was why he was a director, not an actor or money man.
“Our work is here,” he said decisively. His gut said he had to find Willa’s killer before he could move forward. “If Tessa can’t handle Willa’s job without us, she can bring the work here or make Ivan handle it. He’ll be happy to take over.” That decision made, he focused on the play. “Did you find a photographer for opening night?”
“Brad says he can’t make it. I’m guessing Ivan has threatened him, and he’s siding with the deeper pockets.” Ernest sat back in his seat. “Or maybe Dell has enough pull to prevent Brad from taking our side. Dell is bad-mouthing you, Hillvale, and Amber.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Josh muttered, returning his focus to the stage. Dell had left the lodge with Crystal in ignominious retreat. The two of them working together was old news. So far, no evidence had arisen to prove they’d broken into Amber’s house. Any connection to Willa or Sarah was all in his mind.
At least the cops had found Sarah’s old Chevy in the parking lot, although they hadn’t found any evidence of why she’d been at Amber’s door other than the blackmail note. Josh feared the sheriff was taking the photos and note at face value, but the law couldn’t pin the knife on either of them and make an arrest stick.
Reading the lines for the male sidekick provided the distraction Josh needed. He called Lance up to read the other male parts. The lanky artist wasn’t half bad. He and Val added a few bits that nicely fleshed out the parts of the ghost and the ghost’s husband. Josh hadn’t wanted to make the connection so blatant that he’d written in himself as fiancé. He had pages of notes by the time they finished a second reading.
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