Onyx Webb 9

by Diandra Archer

“Yep, I’m that Noah.”

  4:33 A.M. EST

  ON THE MANSION LAWN

  SO, LET ME guess,” Newt said. “You want to know about the guy in the back of the LeBaron?”

  “Not really,” Pipi said. “You and I have bigger things to talk about.”

  “Yes, we do,” Newt said. “I take it you listened to the messages Maggie left?”

  “I’m here aren’t I?”

  “I was right about the Leg Collector being here tonight. He is the Southern Gentleman,” Newt said. “Do you realize how close we were?”

  Pipi nodded. “Any idea why he stabbed Declan Mulvaney?”

  “I have a few theories formulating. It’s complicated.”

  “When aren’t things complicated with you?” Pipi asked.

  Newt nodded. “So does this mean I’ve got my job back?”

  “That’s up to you,” Pipi said.

  “I’ll want three years of back pay,” Newt said.

  “Yeah, in your dreams,” Pipi said.

  “We’ve got a lot of repairing to do,” Newt said. “Trust is earned, not given.”

  “Speaking of trust, I don’t appreciate you telling Maggie that I’m a—”

  “—a ghost?”

  Pipi nodded.

  “She has to know some time,” Newt said. “I figured it out. She will eventually too.”

  “How long have you known?” Pipi asked.

  “Long enough.”

  “How?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Newt said. “After surviving a virtually un-survivable bomb blast, you supposedly spent the next three years homeless, living on the street and in shelters—though no one remembered seeing you. Then you reemerged looking the same as you did the last day I saw you. No, check that—not the same—better. Perfect, flawless, with skin like Jennifer Lopez after a spa treatment. And you’ve got no crow’s feet around the corner of your eyes. You ever see someone who’s been living on the street? Three months is enough to age the average person five years. You came back looking younger and better than ever. Then there’s the fact that you’re never hot or cold, never eat, and never drink the coffee you pour—though I must admit, adding cream and sugar is a nice touch. You want me to go on?”

  “Who else knows?” Pipi asked. “At the bureau, I mean—besides Maggie.”

  “First off, even though I told Maggie, she doesn’t believe it,” Newt said. “And beyond that, my best guess is no one. People are too focused on keeping their jobs to focus on you. That, and they’re afraid of you—so even if they thought it, they’d never say anything.”

  “But you figured it out,” Pipi said.

  “We spent a lot of time together, remember? I knew you long before you became deputy director, so you don’t scare me. You disappoint me sometimes, but you don’t scare me.”

  “I’m sorry, Newt,” Pipi said. “What I did using Maggie to monitor you was wrong, but I only—”

  “—did it because you cared about me?”

  Pipi nodded.

  “Maggie really did love you, you know,” Pipi said.

  “She’s engaged.”

  “Chad?” Pipi said. “Chad couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag.”

  Newt remained silent.

  “I need your help getting through this mess,” Pipi said. “We’ve got six dead on the lawn, and God only knows how many we’ve got inside. Dead rich white people are big news.”

  “Especially when the last name is Mulvaney,” Newt said.

  Pipi shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “What about the Leg Collector?” Newt said. “Every minute we spend here is another minute he’s putting distance between himself and us.”

  “First things first,” Pipi said. “If the truth about what happened here tonight goes public, we’re all screwed, and the chances of catching the Leg Collector goes down to zero.”

  4:41 A.M. EST

  DEATH ROW, JACKSON, GEORGIA

  WYATT SCROGGER’S LAWYER was late.

  Wyatt looked at the clock on the wall, amused at the simultaneous necessity and cruelty of the device.

  After thirty-one years of trials and appeals, the days of counting the days until his execution were gone now—replaced by counting the hours and the minutes.

  One hour and nineteen minutes to be precise.

  4,740 seconds.

  Wyatt heard the key enter the lock and felt a moment of hopefulness, which was replaced seconds later when the door swung open, and he saw the look on his lawyer’s face.

  “Nothing?” Wyatt said.

  The lawyer shook his head. “Don’t worry,” the lawyer said. “There’s still a chance we’ll locate him.”

  Don’t worry.

  It was funny how often his lawyer used the phrase don’t worry, Wyatt thought as the lawyer waited for the guard to leave and lock the door.

  “We can’t find the governor,” the lawyer said. “No one can. The last anyone heard, he was off to a party in Charleston—but something must have happened. The governor isn’t answering his cell phone, and the place where the party was being held is in lockdown of some kind.”

  Wyatt lowered himself down on a metal cot. “So it’s over.”

  “Not necessarily,” the lawyer said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How much do you trust me, Wyatt?” the lawyer asked quietly.

  “With my life,” Wyatt said. “Do I have any other choice?”

  The lawyer nodded and reached into his pocket. “If I’m not back by five thirty, take these,” the lawyer said, placing the two small glass vials in Wyatt’s hand.

  “What are they?”

  “Just do it,” the lawyer said.

  4:47 A.M. EST

  ALL-NIGHT DINER, CHARLESTON

  “COFFEE?” THE WAITRESS asked.

  “Yes, please,” Stan Lee said in a slightly raised voice that made him sound a bit like Julia Child. “And a menu.”

  Stan Lee waited for the waitress to leave and then pulled out his cell phone to see how long he had until sunrise.

  Sunrise wasn’t until 7:18 a.m. Good, Stan Lee thought. Plenty of time to eat breakfast.

  To Stan Lee’s surprise, the drug dealer gave him $500 for the catering truck, which he assumed would be chopped up and sold for parts. He didn’t care what they did with it. All Stan Lee cared about was getting the catering truck off the street where it wouldn’t be seen. As a bonus, the drug dealer gave him enough vials of liquid ketamine to last him a good month or two.

  Stan Lee looked out the window onto Broad Street and suddenly realized how much he was going to miss Charleston—and how much he was going to miss being the Southern Gentleman. The Southern Gentleman was at the core of his identity.

  Stan Lee ordered breakfast and, when it arrived, he dug into his canvass bag—the one with the picture of the Ferris wheel on the side—and grabbed a vial of the ketamine. When he was sure no one was looking, he opened it and poured the clear liquid on his hash browns and began singing:

  Ketamine and ketchup, ketchup and ketamine,

  Tastiest darn combo that you’ve ever seen.

  They make you happy, they make you high…

  Then pretty soon, you’re off to sleep—bye-bye.

  Not bad for off the top of his head.

  Stan Lee knew the ketamine was a bad idea, but after he found the vial in his sock drawer, he simply couldn’t resist. And after what he’d been through, he deserved a little treat.

  “You think that’s smart?” Kara asked from the other side of the table.

  Stan Lee did his best to ignore her, but he knew it was useless. If he didn’t answer, she’d just keep yapping at him until he gave in.

  “What do you want?” Stan Lee asked quietly.

  “I want to know where we’re going,” Kara said.

  “Chicago,” Stan Lee said.

  “Chicago,” Kara repeated. “Big city, easy to get lost in. They’ve got a Ferris wheel there—down at Navy Pier.”

  “
Yes, I know,” Stan Lee said, dropping his voice when the waitress walked by.

  “Good disguise, by the way,” Kara said. “A frumpy female in her mid-fifties. Totally forgettable.”

  Stan Lee knew Kara was starting to be a problem. She was getting a mind of her own. Taking over at will, making him feel out of control.

  “She got a name?”

  “Emlen Hunter-Gaston,” Stan Lee said.

  Stan Lee watched as Kara counted the letters and did the anagram in her head. “Nice. Clever.”

  Kara leaned forward and reached for a piece of bacon, and Stan Lee slapped her hand away. “Get your own.”

  “Is everything okay?” the waitress asked as she walked up from Stan Lee’s left.

  Stan Lee turned and smiled. “Yes, everything’s fine. Just shooing a fly off my plate.”

  5:09 A.M. EST

  INSIDE THE PANIC ROOM

  WE’VE GOT ONE more hour to kill until the auto-lock releases, and we can get out of here,” Bruce said.

  “Assuming it’s safe,” the governor said.

  “Why don’t we play a slumber party game?” Krissy asked.

  “What, like Pictionary?” Simon said.

  “Sorry, we don’t have a flipchart in here,” Koda said.

  “Thank God. I hate that game,” Bunny said. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a bottle of gin hiding away anywhere.”

  “Bunny wants to play spin the bottle,” Alec said.

  “No, I want to play drink the bottle,” Bunny said.

  “I say we each name our favorite horror movie,” Alec said.

  “Seems appropriate enough,” the governor said.

  “I’ll go first,” Noah said. “Stir of Echoes.”

  “Great movie,” Koda said. “Maybe Kevin Bacon’s best movie ever.”

  “You’re forgetting Footloose,” Simon said.

  “What about you, Simon?” Krissy said. “What’s yours?”

  “Blair Witch Project,” Simon said. “That movie scared the living shit out of me.”

  “Warren took me to that,” Bunny said. “The camera moving around the whole time made me sick. I never saw the end. I was in the bathroom throwing up.”

  “Okay, Bunny, you’re up,” Simon said.

  “Rosemary’s Baby,” Bunny said. “Scariest movie ever. Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ralph Bellamy. Now that was a movie.”

  “I never got that. It was nothing a quick trip to Planned Parenthood wouldn’t have solved,” Alec said.

  “Gross,” Krissy said.

  “I agree,” Quinn said. “Taking the life of a child is never appropriate.”

  “Even when the child is the devil?” Bunny asked. “If ever there was an excuse to have an abortion…”

  “Okay, Mr. Governor. What’s your favorite?” Alec asked.

  “Damien: The Omen,” the governor said.

  “It’s just called The Omen,” Simon said.

  “No, I’m talking about the second one. The Omen II,” the governor said.

  “The one with William Holden?” Simon asked.

  “Yes,” the governor said. “I had quite a crush on Lee Grant.”

  “Not me,” Simon said. “I had a crush on William Holden.”

  “So you’re gay?” Bunny asked.

  “Irreparably,” Simon said. “Either that, or I have terrible taste in women.”

  “Shame,” Bunny said.

  “Why is that a shame?” Simon asked.

  “Bunny needs a new husband, and you looked promising,” Bruce said, his eyes still closed.

  “We all handle grief in our own way, Bruce,” Bunny said.

  “So you’re picking a sequel, Governor?” Noah asked.

  “Yes, but there’s a reason. A bunch of the scenes in the sequel were filmed at a military academy in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where I was enrolled as a cadet. They used cadets as extras. Remember the scene where Damien is being challenged in the classroom by the teacher?”

  “Yeah, I remember that,” Noah said. “Best scene in the movie.”

  “I’m the fourth cadet from the left,” the governor said.

  “Bubba Ho-Tep,” Alec said.

  “What?”

  “Bubba Ho-Tep,” Alec repeated. “Elvis Presley faces off against an Egyptian mummy in a motorized wheelchair. Best horror film ever made.”

  “Okay, Stormy, it’s your turn,” Koda said.

  “It’s hard not to think back to the 1930s, perhaps the greatest period in horror films. The Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy—all in black and white. Back then, of course, you had to go to a movie theater to see them,” Stormy said.

  “I agree,” Simon said. “Black-and-white movies were the best. The scene in Psycho where Anthony Perkins stabs Janet Lee to death in the shower. Name me a scene in any movie scarier than that?”

  “Okay, Koda, it’s your turn,” Krissy said.

  “Easy,” Koda said. “Pet Sematary.”

  “I forgot about Pet Sematary,” Noah said.

  “I walked through a pet cemetery once up in Lily Dale, New York,” Koda said. “When my best friend, Dane, died.”

  “I read about that happening,” Krissy said. “Dane decided to have his ashes buried in the pet cemetery next to his dog’s grave. Or is that just more tabloid lies?”

  “No,” Koda said. “That one is true. You’d think it would be creepy, but it wasn’t. It was nice. Comforting. I’m thinking about doing the same thing—if I ever get a dog.”

  “You’ve never had a pet?” Noah asked.

  “I had a goldfish when I was six, but I’m thinking of getting a dog when all this is over,” Koda said, turning to Quinn. “You’re up, Quinn.”

  Quinn shook his head and then relented with a heavy sigh. “Fine. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” Quinn said finally.

  “I remember that movie,” the governor said. “With Don Knotts, right?”

  Quinn nodded. “Dick Sargent was in it too—the guy from Bewitched. It came out in the mid-‘60s, but they played it on TV a lot after that. Basically, it was a comedy. Movies like Psycho are far too real for me. The idea of watching someone being murdered for entertainment never seemed right to me—after Juniper, I mean.”

  The room went silent.

  “Hey, don’t stop on my account,” Quinn said. “What happened to Juniper was a long, long time ago. I’m fine. Really.”

  “So who does that leave?” Alec asked.

  “Me and Mr. Mulvaney,” Krissy said.

  “Go ahead,” Bruce said.

  “Okay,” Krissy said. “The Ring. That’s the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’re right,” Alec said. “When that girl crawls out through the television screen…”

  “Okay, Mr. Mulvaney,” Krissy said. “You’re the last one. What’s yours?”

  “I’m not playing,” Bruce said.

  “That’s not fair,” Krissy said. “Everyone else—”

  “I lied to you earlier,” Bruce said. “I told you your mother was safe, and it’s not true. Your mother is dead.”

  “What?”

  “Your mother is dead,” Bruce said. “We watched it happen on the TV monitors before you got here with Koda.”

  “No,” Krissy said, her eyes filling with tears.

  “It’s true. I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Bruce said.

  “And you all knew?” Krissy said, tears streaming down her face. “You all knew, and no one said anything?”

  “There’s something else I haven’t told you,” Bruce said. “I’m your father.”

  5:17 A.M. EST

  OUTSIDE THE MULVANEY MANSION

  MAGGIE WATCHED AS Special Agent Gregory Bond’s Ford Taurus pulled to the edge of the road near the front gate of the mansion.

  “Did you get Ms. Fudge to the hospital?” Maggie asked as Bond got out of the car and walked toward her.

  “Yeah,” Bond said. “She whined and complained all the way there, ranting and raving about suing the bureau for discrimination.” />
  “You did shoot her,” Maggie said.

  Bond shrugged and said nothing.

  “Who’s that in the car?” Maggie asked, pointing at the dark-haired woman in the passenger seat of the Ford Taurus.

  “Robyn something-or-other,” Bond said, pulling out his notebook. “Hang on. I’ve got it here in my notes.”

  “I don’t care what her last name is,” Maggie said. “I just want to know why you brought her here.”

  “She was with Declan Mulvaney when he passed.”

  “Oh, shit. Declan Mulvaney is dead?” Maggie said.

  “Yep, I confirmed it with the hospital,” Bond said. “I figured someone would want to talk with her.”

  “Robyn, is it?” Maggie said as she climbed into the Ford Taurus and shut the door closed behind her. “I’m Special Agent Margaret McCord with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but feel free to call me Maggie. I understand you were with Mr. Mulvaney when he passed?”

  Robyn nodded.

  “Was this at the hospital?”

  Robyn shook her head. “No, it was in the ambulance on the way there.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  “Approximately,” Maggie said.

  “Three hours ago—two thirty, maybe quarter to three? Everything happened very fast.”

  “Did you happen to see the attack?” Maggie asked.

  Robyn shook her head. “No, I was upstairs. Do you know that Mika Flagler’s body is in the middle of the road about a mile from here?”

  “Ms. Flagler is not a priority right now,” Maggie said. “Now explain to me how you ended up in the ambulance?”

  “I want to see Koda,” Robyn said.

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” Maggie said. “We have yet to make contact with any of the people inside the house.”

  “Why?” Robyn asked in disbelief.

  “Standard operating procedure dictates that we have a full and complete understanding of what we’re up against before we send a team inside,” Maggie said. “That’s why I’m asking you so many questions, Robyn. Now tell me about the attack.”

  5:36 A.M. EST

  OUTSIDE THE MULVANEY MANSION