Onyx Webb 9

by Diandra Archer

  Newt glanced at his watch. It was nearly 11:30, and they were still over a hundred miles from Charleston, with no way to get there.

  They were screwed.

  11:34 P.M. EST

  THE MULVANEY MANSION BALLROOM

  STORMY TOOK OFF his bowler hat and set it on the table in the hallway and then pulled out the masquerade mask he’d been carrying in his pocket all evening and put it on.

  Wearing the mask made Stormy feel uncomfortable—like a thief who didn’t want to be seen for what he really was.

  Maybe that’s why he didn’t like the mask. Because deep down Stormy knew that’s what he really was.

  A thief.

  Not a righteous thief—someone who stole a loaf of bread to feed his family…

  Not an opportunist who stumbled upon something accidently left behind by someone else and took it for his own…

  Not a cat burglar or bank robber even.

  No, Stormy was the worst kind of thief.

  A murderer.

  Someone who took the life of another for no other reason than to prolong his own so-called life in the living plane.

  Stormy tried to chase the thought from his mind. There was no point in dwelling on it. Besides, he knew the truth. He was going to continue taking lives, justifying his actions by telling himself he was following the code, taking only those who were sick, dying, suicidal, and truly evil.

  And, every now and then, the person who didn’t appreciate the amazing gift they’d been given.

  Koda was sitting at a table in the back of the room, grabbing a bite of the dinner he was unable to eat earlier when he was avoiding getting drawn into some inane conversation with someone he didn’t know. They always wanted to talk about about the last thing he wanted to talk about.

  Himself.

  Then a man walked up. So much for finishing dinner.

  “He’s here,” the man said.

  It took a moment for Koda to realize who the man was. “Stormy? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  “That’s what masks are for.”

  “It’s just that I’ve never seen you without the bowler hat.”

  “I thought it better to avoid attracting unnecessary attention to myself,” Stormy said. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that your musical act has arrived.”

  “The Alec Yost Band is here?”

  “Yes, well partially. Alec is here, but he’s alone.”

  “Where’s the rest of the band?

  “He didn’t say,” Stormy said. “I’m not sure he’s capable. Mr. Yost is—let me put this as delicately as I can—stinking drunk.”

  Koda released a breath and shook his head. “Do you think he’s going to be able to perform?”

  “I’m not entirely sure he’s able to stand.”

  11:37 P.M. EST

  OUTSIDE DEATH ROW, JACKSON, GEORGIA

  DOMINGO GUTIERREZ WAS pissed. The warden had agreed to be interviewed for the eleven o’clock news. Then, at the last minute, he canceled—leaving Domingo standing there with a limp microphone in his hand like an impotent octogenarian.

  “Well, where in the hell is he?” Domingo screamed into his cell phone.

  Domingo listened.

  “What do you mean, the warden can’t go on TV because he can’t reach the governor?”

  Domingo listened again, and his eyes widened.

  “Say that again.”

  Domingo hung up and turned to his cameraman. “Come on. We’ve got to get to the van.”

  “We’re done for the night?” the cameraman asked, confused.

  “No, we’re not done,” Domingo said with a broad smile that made the burn scars on his cheek wrinkle like the skin on a Chinese Shar-Pei. “We’re going to Charleston.”

  “Charleston? What’s in Charleston?”

  “The governor,” Domingo said.

  “Are you telling me the governor left the state on the night of an execution?”

  That’s right, Domingo thought. Not only had the governor left the state on the night of an execution when he should have been sitting at his desk, he left to go to a party.

  A party.

  While Wyatt Scrogger was spending his final hours on death row, the governor was hob-knobbing with the rich—eating caviar and drinking champagne.

  To hell with these idiot protestors.

  The story was in Charleston.

  11:39 P.M. EST

  ON STAGE IN THE BALLROOM

  THE SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN stepped behind the podium and clinked a spoon against an empty drinking glass to get people’s attention—something he’d learned the first time he delivered an after-dinner speech.

  Breakfast gatherings were the easiest. Luncheons never posed a problem either. But after dinner was hardest for only one reason.

  The booze.

  At least the people gathered in the ballroom in front of him were rich alcoholics who knew how to hold their liquor and followed the rules of public decorum—not like the hecklers he had to endure when speaking to sales groups and conventioneers.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a few minutes away from the highlight of the evening—a special midnight performance by the Alec Yost Band. But before that, I’m told we have a bit of business to attend to. So, if you will, please put your hands together for the host of this evening’s Restoring Savannah Foundation event—Mr. Bruce Mulvaney.”

  Bruce climbed the steps to the stage and waited for the applause to subside. He’d intended to speak right before Alec Yost took the stage, but when he saw that people were leaving early due to the weather, he had no choice. It was impossible to get donations from people who had left for the evening.

  Bruce also intended to have Koda by his side as he worked the crowd, but Koda was nowhere to be seen.

  “Thank you all for coming out on such a brutally cold evening. As you probably have guessed, this is the moment where I remind everyone about the joy of giving,” Bruce said, which elicited a bit of laughter and a polite round of applause.

  Then Bruce launched into his prepared remarks:

  “They say the decision to give money to a charity, with no expectation of a return on that investment other than the feeling of joy one gets by doing so, is 80 percent emotional and 20 percent rational. So, let me say this: A hundred years from now, after we’re all dead and gone, people will visit the cities of Charleston and Savannah with no idea who any of us are—or that we were even here. But as they drive down the tree-lined streets of our fair cities, they’ll gaze up and think, ‘Look at that building. How magnificent!’ And the building they’ll be looking at will be one of the structures you helped restore through your kindness and generosity a hundred years earlier—meaning tonight. So I ask you all to keep that in mind as you decide what number to write on your check—and how many zeroes to put behind it.”

  Koda entered the ballroom and watched as two scantily clad young women wearing masquerade masks worked their way through the room with empty ice buckets in which patrons dropped their donation checks. Following the women were two tuxedoed men handing out the special donor gifts Bruce had made by the jeweler.

  Koda looked at his watch.

  What?

  He and his father had agreed to solicit donations at midnight, when everyone had gathered to see Alec Yost perform. It was obvious that Bruce had moved the schedule up.

  Crap.

  Koda had come to the ballroom hoping to do the exact opposite—to move things back and fill in some time until Alec Yost had a chance to sober up.

  Koda climbed the steps to the stage and tapped Bruce on the shoulder as he watched the exchange of checks and gifts. “Dad?”

  Bruce turned. “I was looking for you. Where have you been?”

  “Alec Yost is here,” Koda said.

  “Good.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe not.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s drunk out of his mind,” Koda said. “I’ve got Stormy pumping coffee into him back in the kitchen.”


  Bruce shook his head and released a breath.

  “Pardon me for eavesdropping,” the Southern Gentleman drawled from behind Bruce, “but I think perhaps I can help.”

  “How?” Koda asked.

  “Stalling a crowd when things go awry happens to be one of my specialties,” the Southern Gentleman said. “That is why you paid me, right? To use my skills as a master of ceremonies?”

  Koda and Bruce exchanged a glance.

  “We need to stall at least thirty minutes,” Koda said. “Do what you’ve got to do.”

  Five minutes later, Koda regretted the decision.

  11:44 P.M. EST

  ON STAGE IN THE BALLROOM

  KODA AND BRUCE stepped off the stage and watched as the Southern Gentleman stepped behind the podium and, once again, got the room’s attention by clinking a piece of silverware against an empty glass.

  “A little while ago I was sitting with two lovely southern belles in the back of the room. One of the women said, ‘For our fifth anniversary, my husband bought me a five-carat diamond ring.’ The second woman said politely, ‘Well, isn’t that wonderful.’ Then the first woman said, ‘For our tenth anniversary, he took me on a ten-week cruise around the world.’ Again, the second woman smiled politely and said, ‘Well, isn’t that wonderful.’ Then the first woman said, ‘And when we reached our twentieth anniversary, my husband bought me a twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion.’ Once again, the other woman uttered the same four-word phrase: ‘Well, isn’t that wonderful.’

  “‘So, what did your husband do for you?’ the first woman asked. ‘Oh,’ the second woman said, ‘My husband sent me off to finishing school.’

  “‘Finishing school?’ the first woman said. ‘Why would he do that?’

  “That’s when the second woman said, ‘It was so I could learn to say, “Well, isn’t that wonderful” instead of “screw you, bitch!”’”

  Stan Lee stood back and watched as the room erupted in laughter, as he knew it would. Once the laughter quieted down, Stan Lee dug into his humor tool kit and launched into a series of memorized jokes about the weather.

  “Now, let me address the situation with the inclement weather we’re experiencing. I’ve heard a few of you sharing your concerns over how you’re going to get home in the sleet and the cold. And, I admit, it is indeed cold. It’s so cold; in fact, I noticed that a few of the lawyers in the room had their hands in their own pockets. The good news is it’s so cold the wind will freeze your face in mere seconds—which will allow some of you to cancel your next two Botox treatments. Heck, I even saw a few trees out back chopping themselves up for firewood.”

  The reaction was perfect. Everyone in the room laughed hard, even though the jokes were aimed at them. But then the Southern Gentleman said something that didn’t make Koda laugh at all.

  “Now, it is with great pleasure that I introduce our next speaker of the evening, Mr. Koda Mulvaney. Perhaps on this night of the eclipse and ghosts and goblins, young Mr. Mulvaney will regale us with a detailed account of his recent brush with death this past summer.”

  Stan Lee turned and smiled at Koda.

  Koda did not smile back.

  Being asked to speak was the last thing Koda expected—or wanted—especially after having bombed his talk at last year’s Restoring Savannah Foundation event. Did he do this on purpose? Koda wondered as he approached the podium.

  “Can’t be any worse than last year—now can it, sport?” Stan Lee said quietly and then stepped away.

  That confirmed it. The Southern Gentleman was doing this intentionally. Why would he be intentionally going out of his way to humiliate him? Koda had no time to think about it.

  “Well, what a surprise,” Koda said into the microphone. “They say that if giving a speech makes you nervous you’re supposed to imagine the people in the audience naked. Well, I don’t mean any disrespect, but some of you scare the hell out me—even with your clothes on.”

  To Koda’s surprise, the room broke into laughter and he felt himself relax.

  “We all know how the tabloids put things in their headlines designed to get people’s attention in the checkout aisle so they can increase sales,” Koda continued. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who spends their time reading the tabloids deserves to be lied to.”

  Once again, the room filled with laughter, and Koda felt himself relaxing even further.

  “Now, I admit, there have been a few wild headlines written about me over the years,” Koda said. “You might have seen some of them. Koda Mulvaney gets engaged. Never happened. Koda Mulvaney’s leg bitten off by alligator and hops to the hospital on its own to be reattached. Koda Mulvaney attends sex orgy with one hundred of the world’s most beautiful models. Yes, I admit it. I was there—but there’s no way it was over fifty.”

  The room exploded in laughter.

  Koda owned them now, and he knew it.

  “Speaking of the tabloids, some of you probably read that I died this past summer,” Koda continued. “Well, as it turns out, that one was true.”

  The room went immediately silent.

  “People have a lot of questions about death, which is understandable. And, until now, I’ve avoided answering any. But maybe this is a good time to tell you what I know about death—and what I don’t.

  “First, I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to hear that there is life after death—if you want to call it that,” Koda continued. “It is a place I have been. What is this place like? It’s not like this world. It’s very gray. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to go on vacation. It’s not a place I’d recommend.”

  Other than a bit of nervous laughter, the people in the room remained silent, hanging on Koda’s every word.

  “There is one positive thing about dying,” Koda said. “It’s the appreciation you get for life—and an understanding for what’s important and what is not. Until I died, I didn’t understand. I never really had an appreciation for basic things—things like love, honesty, and kindness. I used to think life had to be lived at full speed. I no longer feel that way. Now I feel just the opposite. That life needs to slow down.

  “People always say you’ve got to take time to stop and smell the roses. Well, I have a question for you? There are a dozen roses in the centerpieces on every table in this room. Let me see a show of hands of those who took the time to smell the roses this evening?”

  No hands went up.

  “That’s okay,” Koda said. “Neither did I, and I know better. But you see that’s the problem. We get caught up doing other things. Our lives are busy. I get it. My life has been busy too, especially lately planning this event.”

  A few snickers were heard.

  “But let’s be honest,” Koda continued. “Most of us in this room have more money than we can spend, yet we spend the majority of our time in the pursuit of more money. Now, don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with money. God knows, we Mulvaneys like making it, and we like spending it. But don’t you think it’s just a tad ironic that when we reach the end of our lives, we’d gladly give every dollar we own for more time—time we traded away for the money in the first place?”

  The room went totally silent.

  “I’d like you all to do me a favor. If you would, please reach out and take a rose from the centerpiece—and don’t worry, the thorns have been removed.”

  Everyone in the room did as Koda instructed.

  “Now, lift the rose and take a moment to smell it.”

  Koda waited as the people in the room lifted their roses and smelled them.

  “You don’t need to have your limousine get hit by a tanker truck and flip upside down in a lake and drown to appreciate life,” Koda said. “You can do it the easy way. You can simply decide to stop and appreciate life. And you can make that decision right now, tonight, right here in this room. Because one of these days it is going to be your last day. And if you think life is precious now, just wait until you’re dead.”

  11
:51 P.M. EST

  FRONT ENTRY OF THE MULVANEY MANSION

  OLYMPIA STEPPED THROUGH the front door of the mansion and froze.

  Literally.

  If she had any common sense, she’d have brought the recording equipment in with her when she arrived earlier in the evening. It had been cold then, but now it was freezing out. The kind of cold that penetrated your skin and dried your sinuses to the point of causing a nosebleed. The kind of dry cold that made Olympia feel that if she stayed outside for any length of time, her eyes would freeze in the sockets and suck the last drops of moisture from her body.

  Olympia had the sudden vision of Jack Nicholson in the final scene of The Shining, lying there frozen to death in the snow in the maze outside the lodge. And Jack had clothes on. She was wearing nothing but a halter top and skin-tight polyester stretch pants.

  Olympia spun around and hurried back inside. Going to the car was bat-shit crazy. She’d be better off giving someone ten bucks to run out and retrieve the recording equipment for her.

  “There you are,” Graeme said when he found Olympia standing in the front entryway of the mansion. “I hope you’re not trying to ditch me for some other bloke.”

  “No, I’ve got an interview arranged with Gerylyn Stoller for my new podcast.”

  “Podcast?”

  “Yeah, it’s like a radio show, only it’s digital.”

  “When will you be done?” Graeme asked. “I was hoping we could finally take that tour of the house, if you catch my drift.”

  “I should be done in an hour or so,” Olympia said.

  “Meet here at one o’clock then?”

  “Should I bring my gun?” Olympia asked.

  Graeme held up his arms and flexed his biceps. “You bring yours, love, and I’ll bring mine.”

  Nathaniel stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at Olympia and Graeme flirting with each other in the entryway. Nathaniel thought it was embarrassing the way she was fawning over him like a horny schoolgirl.