Held A New Adult Romance(51)

I hate him on sight. He made a police mugshot look like a professional photoshoot - that good looking. Pale eyes, black lashes, curly dark hair. A kind of squished nose and a full mouth - a sensual, Jim Morrison sort of face. This is the man who made her lose her mind. 1989-2011. And she didn't even tell me he was dead.

The picture alongside catches my eye, and it's Amber with her hand stuck out, trying to cover the camera lens. I close the laptop. I still can't stand those pictures. If anything it's worse, now that I know her. Or think I know her. Whichever.

Then my phone rings and I can hardly believe what I'm seeing on the screen - John Gillespie.

"I need your help," he says. "Please. I'm at my wits end here."

I drive up to the Hills. Cory stares at me as he waves me past the gatehouse. I know everything is different as soon as I walk into the house - I can feel it in the air. "He's in here," says an assistant, leading me into a part of the house I've never seen before. It's only when I walk through the door and see the pool beyond that I realize where I am. This is Amber's bedroom.

It's so empty that my heart almost stands still, but then I see that the closet is open and the clothes are gone. Wherever she's gone she packed. I pass the bed where she used to sleep, the nightstand with its drawer agape and empty. John Gillespie is sitting by the swimming pool, sucking on a cigar.

"Thanks for coming," he says, standing up and offering me his hand. "I'd have understood if you didn't."

"It's fine," I say. "Where's Amber?"

He sighs. "Well, there's the rub. She's moved out. Stormed out, actually. And I have no idea what to do."

I want to say 'Have you tried talking to her?' but then I remember this is Amber we're talking about. She's not exactly forthcoming. "What makes you think I can do anything?" I ask.

"Because she trusts you," he says, and I know right away he's going to ask me to abuse that trust.

I shake my head.

"You don't even know what I'm asking yet," he says.

"I think I can guess. You want to use me to keep an eye on her?"

He gestures to the seat. "Sit down a minute, Jimmy. Hear me out." He stubs out his cigar in a malachite ashtray and looks steadily at me. "She's a mess," he says. "But you knew that, right?"

I can feel my face turn hot. "I swear, that wasn't why I..."

John Gillespie holds up a hand. "Yeah. Spare me the details. And I know you didn't. Believe me, if there's one thing you learn in this town it's how to spot the users. They hang off the back of the beautiful people like fucking vampires, feeding off their insecurities - and it's not like they're going hungry, if you know what I'm saying."

Could I have told her to put her clothes back on and knock it off? Maybe not, but deep down I know what I should have done. And it wasn't what I did.

"That...creature," he says. "First time I laid eyes on him I knew. I knew he was a user. I knew he was poison. And I thought 'If I tell her I hate him, she'll love him all the more.' That's Amber all over - she always wants what she can't have. So God help me, I didn't even try to steer her away from that creep, until the next thing I know her roommate's on the phone telling me she's eloped to Vegas with American Psycho."

I nod.

He tilts his head to one side. His eyes are the same color as the pool behind him - the kind of bright, ideal blue that swimming pool tiles borrow from the Caribbean. "You know all this, I suppose," he says. "Did she tell you how bad it got with him?"

"Some. She said he controlled her. Manipulated her."

"Then she's probably told you more than me," he says, and sighs. "She's quiet on that score. Sometimes I think there are things she'll never tell me." There's a break in his voice and his eyes shine. "Things a girl can never tell her old man."

It takes me a moment to realize what he's talking about, and when I do I feel sick. Oh Amber - why didn't you talk to me? Or to anyone?

"It's a good thing he's dead," says John Gillespie. "Cause if I knew he'd done...that. To my little girl? I'd have fucking killed him."

Her lightning stripteases and her hunger for me make a darker kind of sense now. Maybe that was the only way she could get around him. And why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she trust me?

"I don't know what else to do," he says. "She's not going to listen to me. I've ruined her life once already - at least, that's the way she sees it. You know she cried for him? After everything he'd done to her?"

I shake my head. "Where is she?"

"Sunset. She rented a place." He sighs again. "Couldn't do anything about that either. I tried to get her money out of her hands before, when he was leeching off her, but Natalie - my late wife - she lawyered that up good and proper." He looks me in the eye. "Did you know she was independently wealthy?"