“So, you are available?” Koda said.
“Yes, I am,” Stan Lee drawled. “But we do have one tiny little glitch we need to iron out. It seems my fee has risen just a tad since Ms. Flagler engaged me originally.”
“Oh, so this isn’t really breakfast,” Koda said. “It’s a shakedown.”
“As they say, one man’s shakedown is another man’s pay increase,” Stan Lee said. “But, yes, something like that.”
“I’ve got $5,000 in the budget,” Koda said.
“Do you know where the name of this restaurant comes from?” Stan Lee asked. “It’s the name of the owner’s dog, Poogan, may he rest in peace. There’s a headstone for the pooch outside. Did you know that? Little statue of the dog, too.”
The waiter appeared. “Good morning, Mr. Mulvaney. Nice to have you back with us. What can I get for you and your guest this morning?”
“I’d like the pancakes with two side orders of bacon,” Stan Lee said. “And make sure the bacon’s crispy, would you?”
The waiter nodded and waited for Koda to order.
“Just coffee,” Koda said, waiting until the server left to continue the conversation. “Listen. This is a charity event, you know that, right?”
“Yes, I am quite aware of that.”
“Then you understand I have a budget to stay within,” Koda said. “I’ve got $5,000 for a master of ceremonies. Take it or leave it.”
“$10,000,” Stan Lee said.
“No,” Koda said.
“I’ll tell you what,” Stan Lee said. “Pay me $10,000, and I’ll donate half to the foundation.”
“Which puts you back at $5,000,” Koda said.
“Yes,” Stan Lee said. “I win, you win, the foundation wins. Isn’t that what you boys on Wall Street do when you negotiate your big deals? Make sure that everybody wins?”
“I didn’t like some of the creepy things you said at last year’s event,” Koda said.
“Then why are we talking?”
Koda shook his head. “Fine, Whatever. So, is it a deal at $10,000. I need to ? We need to get the invitations out.”
“Then Yes, it’s a deal,” Stan Lee said, pulling himself to his feet. “I’ll see you the evening of December 20.”
“You’re leaving?” Koda asked. “What about your pancakes?”
“The pancakes are for you,” Stan Lee said. “The only thing I hate worse than pancakes is crispy bacon.”
Though Koda had no intention of staying for breakfast, the pancakes and bacon hit the spot.
After he’d finished eating and was waiting for the check, Koda noticed the folded copy of USA Today on the other side of the table. Seconds later, Koda found himself starring into the eyes of a person he hadn’t seen or heard from in many years—Special Agent Newt Drystad of the FBI.
The article was titled:
What Ever Happened to Spider Boy?
Good question, Koda thought.
The answer, it turned out, was a nervous breakdown—the result of “an internal issue” a spokesperson for the FBI said. There was no additional information available, and none would be forthcoming.
However, an independent journalist had tracked Spider Boy to the Commonwealth Hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia, where the young ex-agent had been living since leaving the bureau in 2007.
Lynchburg, Virginia, Koda thought.
Lynchburg was not all that far from Charleston.
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
NOVEMBER 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving,” Stormy said as he entered Declan’s bedroom and closed the door behind him. “I have a gift for you.”
Declan was sitting up in bed, propped up by several pillows between himself and the large oak headboard, reading the morning paper. He folded the paper and laid it aside. “You got me a gift?”
“No,” Stormy said. “It’s from Mika.”
Declan raised his eyebrows. “Is that what I think it is?”
Stormy handed Declan a FedEx overnight shipping box. “She insured it for $100,000, so it’s probably not chocolates.”
“It could be a snake,” Declan said with a half-smile and pulled the flap open and carefully slid the first edition copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses from the box and set it on the nightstand.
“I assumed you’d be a bit happier,” Stormy said.
“Me too,” Declan said. “The first time I held this book in my hands I was literally overwhelmed with emotion. Now, all I feel is a bit of relief. Everything seemed important when I was younger, and now…”
Stormy nodded but said nothing.
“So, who all will be here tonight?” Declan asked.
“Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Stormy said.
Stormy reviewed the list of the people who’d be at dinner at the mansion that evening, which came to nine—himself and Declan included, though Stormy had no intention of sitting at the table. It was hard enough for Stormy to hide the fact that he wasn’t eating at regular meal times, let alone Thanksgiving dinner.
After Stormy rattled off all the names, there was one that Declan he didn’t recognize. “Simon Prentice—who is he exactly?” Declan asked.
“He’s Gerylyn Stoller’s publisher out of Philadelphia,” Stormy said. “He’s traveling with Dr. Stoller during her book tour. She asked if it would be okay to invite him.”
“That’s fine,” Declan said. “You didn’t mention Robyn,”
“Robyn is no longer here. Something happened between her and Koda, and she was asked to leave,” Stormy said without elaborating. Declan grimaced. Stormy sensed it was not because of the news about Robyn but something physical. “I think we should cancel the dinner.”
“No,” Declan said.
“I thought we had an agreement regarding being open and honest with each other,” Stormy said.
Declan released a long breath. “Is it that obvious?”
“For others, probably not,” Stormy said. “To me, yes.”
“So, then you must understand that this may be my last Thanksgiving,” Declan said. “Is it too much to ask to be surrounded by friends and family?”
“No, of course not.”
“Good,” Declan said. “Then that’s settled. Anything else?”
“Yes. Koda and his friend Quinn have been doing a bit of entertaining of their own. Do you remember the girl Koda saw in the mirror in Savannah? Well, she’s staying in the second-floor guest bedroom. That makes three ghosts in the house at the same time.”
“Four,” Declan said.
“Four?”
“Remember the priest I told you about? The one I bludgeoned to death with the two-by-four?”
“Back in the 1930s?”
“One and the same. He visited me last night,” Declan said.
“This is not a good development,” Stormy said. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“He seemed concerned about my health and offered to take my confession,” Declan said. “But it wasn’t me he’d come about. He said he was here for the girl.”
“Juniper?”
“Yes, Juniper.”
“Did he say what he wanted with her?” Stormy asked.
“Yes,” Declan said. “Something to do with her light.”
CRIMSON COVE, OREGON
MARCH 14, 2008
Noah was angry at himself for having waited so late to begin the ride back to Portland. He did not like navigating the narrow roads that hugged the cliffs.
And then he reached the roadblock.
Noah slowed the Harley and came to a stop behind a line of cars that were being turned around by the police.
A uniformed officer walked up the line of cars, talking to each of the drivers. Noah recognized the man as the sheriff from Crimson Cove, who he’d seen at Spilatro’s Place with the DEA agent several months earlier. Could they be doing a drug sweep of some kind? The sheriff left the car in front of him and walked over.
“What’s happening?” Noah asked.
“Rockslide,�
�� Clay said. “Heavy rains lately, creates lots of erosion. You’ll have to turn back.”
It looked like he was going to be spending the night in the caretaker’s house after all.
Noah slowed the bike in the darkness, looking for the narrow lane hidden among the trees that led to the lighthouse. He waited for a car to pass, then turned up the dirt road, the Harley’s headlight cutting a path through the trees.
Noah approached the lighthouse, keeping the engine as quiet as possible so as not to wake Onyx if she’d already turned in for the night—though he had the sense Onyx didn’t sleep all that much anyway.
There was no way Noah could have prepared himself for what he saw next. A hundred feet away on the lawn were two women having what looked like a fight to the death.
The first woman was old and haggard, her head topped with a mop of unruly gray hair. Probably in her sixties. She looked slightly familiar, but Noah did not know why.
The other woman, however—
Noah recognized the other woman immediately.
She was young, in her thirties perhaps, with long dark hair. And she was stunningly beautiful.
Noah had seen the woman many times, though never in person. He’d only seen her picture in newspaper clippings. And in old black-and-white film clips from her trial back in 1942.
Noah wasn’t sure how what he was seeing was possible, but he was entirely sure who the woman was.
It was Onyx.
Noah pulled the Harley forward another twenty feet, jumped off the bike, and lowered the kickstand. Noah pulled off his helmet and tossed it to the ground and took several steps toward the two women. “Hey!”
“Stay out of this!” Onyx shouted.
Noah did as he was told and stood helplessly watching as the gray-haired woman and Onyx circled each other like a couple of prize fighters engaged in a grudge match—the trees around the clearing acting creating a makeshift arena, the women’s shadows from the Harley’s headlight stretching out on the damp grass.
“Good looking young man,” Claudia said. “Looks a bit like Ulrich, don’t you think?”
“He’s nothing like Ulrich,” Onyx sneered, keeping her eyes glued on Claudia while taking a step to her rightleft.
“I guess you’re right,” Claudia said, taking a step to her left left to counter Onyx’s movement. “Ulrich was so muscular. A real man. Remember how big Ulrich’s hands were? I sure do.”
Onyx stepped forward with the swiftness of a cat lunging at its prey and slapped the older woman flush across the face—but, to Noah’s surprise, the woman didn’t yelp or cry out in pain. In fact, she didn’t so much as flinch—instantly reminding Noah of his grandfather’s funeral when his grandmother slapped Onyx.
“Doesn’t matter,” Claudia said. “I’m going to have him all to myself in a few minutes. Right after I dispatch you to a better place.”
“If it’s a better place, why didn’t you just stay there?” Onyx asked.
“For the same reasons all ghosts come back,” Claudia said. “Unfinished business.”
Noah watched in horror as the older woman lunged forward and smashed her fist into Onyx’s face, the punch landing so hard that Onyx was thrown backward off her feet to the ground. Onyx climbed to her feet and wiped a clump of wet grass from her hair.
“I hope that’s not all you’ve got, Claudia,” Onyx said.
Noah instinctively took a step forward and then stopped. Did she say Claudia? Claudia Spilatro from the film festival? It couldn’t be—certainly she’d be dead by now, Noah thought.
Not just Claudia, Noah realized. They should both be dead by now. And that was the moment Noah knew.
They were dead.
Noah had seen fights that weren’t nearly half as brutal, where both fighters were bruised and bloody—noses broken, lips split, eyes swollen shut, faces disfigured—yet as far as he could tell, neither Onyx or Claudia had spilled so much as a single drop of blood. Not only that, neither woman seemed to even be breathing heavy. Actually, it didn’t appear as if either woman was breathing at all.
Other than torn clothing, neither Onyx nor Claudia had so much as a scratch on them. But they were getting exhausted, as if the fight had worn them down like a couple of toys whose batteries were running out of energy.
And their color.
Both women appeared a chalky gray color, to the point they seemed transparent. You could almost see through them.
Claudia lunged forward and delivered a sharp blow to Onyx’s midsection, but unlike the previous blows, Onyx didn’t stagger back. Instead, Claudia’s fist seemed to disappear several inches into Onyx’s stomach, as if going through her.
Onyx pushed Claudia away, but with great effort. It appeared to Noah that the two women were no longer in a fight so much as engaged in a war of attrition.
“You know how this ends, right?” Claudia said.
“The only way it can,” Onyx said.
“Kiss of death?” Claudia asked, taking a step forward.
“Is there any other kind?” Onyx asked.
“Let’s get to it—before we’re both gone.”
“I’m waiting on you,” Onyx said.
Noah had no idea what was happening. As when Claudia and Onyx moved toward one another, reaching their transparent gray arms out and wrapping them around each other, each of them pulling the other into a tight embrace.
Then both women pressed their mouths together.
Noah watched in morbid fascination as the women placed their hands on the back of the other’s head, as if to ensure neither of them could pull away.
And then what little color was left between them started shifting back and forth—like two TV sets, one with a color picture and the other black and white—with the color moving from person to person, oscillating back and forth.
For a second, Claudia’s color would improve, while Onyx went appeared more and more gray. Then, seconds later, the color appeared to shifted from Claudia back to Onyx again, with Onyx looking more alive.
Noah felt like he should rush in and try to break them up, but he was unable to move. Then he saw something.
Even in the limited glow from the Harley’s headlight, Noah could see something in each of the women’s eyes.
Onyx’s eyes were burning bright blue with determination—while Claudia’s had gone pale gray. Seconds later, what little color Claudia possessed made its way into Onyx, until—finally—there was virtually nothing left of her.
A second after that, Claudia simply vanished.
Noah stood there, his mouth hanging open, unable to speak. Onyx turned to Noah. She adjusted what was left of her tattered dress and put a few strands of messed up hair back in place.
“Come inside the lighthouse,” Onyx said. “I’ll put on a pot of tea. Then I’ll explain everything.”
Noah followed Onyx inside the lighthouse. Onyx lit several candles and then turned and faced him.
Noah still couldn’t get over her. Her beauty. And her voice? He’d always pictured it belonging to an old, wrinkled, frail woman. Now that he saw what she really looked like, it occurred to him she never really sounded all that old and frail.
“Noah? Did you hear anything I just said?” Onyx asked, interrupting Noah’s thought.
“I can’t believe it. It’s been right in front of me the whole time. But I just couldn’t…”
“Yes, all the rumors, the film festival, it’s all true. I am a ghost, Noah. I died in 1941 after I killed Ulrich. They were taking the lighthouse from me. I had to get back here. I… didn’t make it. It’s not a story you will find in Alistar’s notes.”
“So, he didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Who does? Am I the only one?”
“No. My daddy figured it out. A couple others know—people I trust.”
“Would you ever have told me?”
“I don’t know.”
“What an idiot. This is so crazy. And Jesus Christ, what’s the deal with that woman? Why were yo
u fighting? Was she a ghost too?”
“Noah, I know you have a lot of questions…”
“Uh, yeah. The understatement of the century, but yeah, Onyx, I do. It’s so weird, though…” Noah paused, looking at Onyx.
“What?” she said.
“Because you always seemed so alive.”
They stood there staring at each other. A million thoughts were running through Noah’s head. But only one thought was running through Onyx’s: will he stay with me?
“I want to know how it works,” Noah said. “I want to understand. Tell me everything.”
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
NOVEMBER 25, 2010
Declan had no appetite when he finally joined the others for Thanksgiving dinner, thinking a drink might make him hungry. It didn’t. It only made his stomach hurt worse than it already did.
Declan had pulled a bottle of 1926 Macallan from the cellar earlier in the day, a rare scotch he’d bought at auction from the wife of a Japanese business man who’d never gotten around to drinking it. What a waste, Declan had thought at the time. Now here he stood, holding the dead man’s whiskey in his hand, and himself only pretending to be drinking it.
So, this is what it feels like to be a ghost.
Beatrice Shaw didn’t want to be in the kitchen overseeing the catering of the Mulvaney family Thanksgiving dinner. But she’d wanted to cater the Restoring Savannah Foundation fundraiser for years, and she’d be damned if she was going to let Paula Dean swoop in and win the business. What did The Lady and Sons have that she didn’t?
Besides sons, that is.
Beatrice also decided to bring six helpers along with her for the afternoon. That meant, including her, there were seven people cooking and serving eight guests. She simply wasn’t taking any chances.
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