Onyx Webb 8

by Diandra Archer

  However, when a spider was placed under the influence of a drug—marijuana, cocaine, caffeine, LSD, mescaline, morphine, Benzedrine—the webs were not so perfect. They resembled something that might have been spun by drunk, eight-legged versions of Picasso or Salvador Dali.

  Even so, no matter how random and distorted the webs appeared, there were predictable patterns embedded in them.

  Additionally, Newt also discovered that spiders typically spun their webs between midnight and four in the morning—the same times the Leg Collector had snatched the majority of his victims.

  Though Newt had spent hundreds of hours writing the program before his abrupt departure from the bureau three years earlier—prompting the infamous moniker, Spider Boy—the program had never fully been tested.

  Fortunately, Maggie had a copy on her laptop, which was now in Newt’s possession.

  It took eleven hours for Newt to load the data into the laptop, and thirty-nine seconds for the program to predict where and when the Leg Collector would abduct his next victim.

  Newt was not surprised to see the location.

  But he was entirely caught off guard when he saw the dates the computer predicted the abduction would take place.

  Newt had planned to write a lengthy report to back up the validity of the process he’d used and the predictive probability of the program’s accuracy.

  There was no time for a report.

  According to the program, the abduction would take place in the area around the Savannah College of Art and Design sometime in the next seventy-two hours.

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  DECEMBER 14, 2010

  Two days passed without Olympia seeing any sign of Nathaniel. Stormy Boyd’s recommendations had apparently worked.

  Time to celebrate.

  Olympia pulled on her coat and locked the front door— careful not to break the line of salt, just in case—and caught a cab to Dean & Deluca on Madison at East 85th Eighty-Fifth Street. She grabbed a basket and made a beeline to the sushi counter in the rear of the store and found two of her favorite rolls: a volcano roll with fried soft-shell crab, avocado, and cucumber and a dynamite roll with yellowtail and shrimp tempura. Then she made her way over to the beer aisle in search of a large bottle of Sapporo.

  Olympia walked one block east to Fifth Avenue and then south a few blocks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She found a spot on the stairs that wasn’t covered in snow to sit down and eat her lunch—keeping the Sapporo in the bag to avoid getting in trouble for drinking alcohol in public—as if beer was alcohol.

  Wild Turkey was alcohol.

  Crown Royal was alcohol.

  Beer was a soft drink.

  Olympia took her time eating the sushi and then downed the last few drops of the Sapporo. Even though it was cold out, the sky was clear, and she felt warm and happy. She had finally solved the situation with Nathaniel.

  An hour later, Olympia caught a taxi back to her apartment, only to have the cab driver stop four blocks short of where she lived because of a police barricade.

  “Gotta let you out here, lady,” the cab driver said.

  “Why? What’s going on?” Olympia asked.

  “I got no idea, but the road is blocked,” the driver said. “Ain’t no way to get you closer.”

  Olympia paid the driver, got out of the cab, and approached a cop. “What’s happening? I’ve got to get home. I live down there.”

  “Yeah? What’s your address?” the cop asked.

  “I’m in the Madison Arms building.”

  The cop shook his head. “That building is the reason we got all the roads blocked.”

  “What? What happened?”

  The cop shrugged. “I don’t know. People said the place suddenly started moving and shaking, like an earthquake hit it or something. Luckily, everyone who was home got out before it collapsed.”

  “Collapsed?” Olympia repeated in shock. “You mean—?”

  “Your building is gone, lady,” the cop said. “There ain’t nothing on that spot now but rubble.”

  CRIMSON COVE, OREGON

  DECEMBER 31, 2009

  When Noah mentioned shutting down the restaurant from December 24 to January 2 to his employees, he thought he was going to have a mutiny on his hands. Then he told them he intended to pay them while they were off, plus a $500 holiday bonus for everyone who’d worked at the restaurant for three months or more.

  Suddenly everyone loved the idea.

  The person who loved the idea most was Noah himself, who felt more burned out than he ever had when he was working for someone else. Owning the restaurant was great, but the day-to-day workload was enormous. Thank God the place was making money. Working that hard and losing money would be unthinkable.

  “Looking back on it now, it was a good thing I slipped and told Tara about Onyx being a ghost,” Clay said as he and Noah sat at the kitchen table in the caretaker’s house drinking beer.

  “Yeah, but it could also have been a disaster,” Noah said.

  “I told you Tara was open-minded,” Clay said. “She watches all those ghost shows on TV and reads her horoscope first thing every morning. She told me that if I was a Taurus she wouldn’t have gone out with me.”

  “Did Tara sign the lease for the new gallery yet?” Noah asked.

  “Yep, it’s a done deal,” Clay said. “The grand opening is set for February 23, with the first two weeks devoted exclusively to paintings by Onyx. Tara thinks she can talk Onyx into attending opening night.”

  Noah downed the last of his beer and tossed the bottle in the trash with the others. “I’ll bet you twenty bucks Tara can’t get her to go.”

  “You’re on,” Clay said. “Speaking of done, is the food ready? I’m starved.”

  Noah stood, went to the oven, and looked inside. He’d thrown together some pepperoni and Asiago pinwheels, artichoke and feta cheese tarts, Brussel sprout pizza, and a bowl of spicy Queso Fundido with blue corn tortilla chips.

  “Five minutes,” Noah said. “You want another beer?”

  “Yeah, what the hell,” Clay said. “I’m off for the night and Tara’s doing the driving.”

  Noah and Clay entered the lighthouse, their hands filled with plates of appetizers for three.

  Unfortunately, Onyx could enjoy none of it, which broke Noah’s heart, knowing that she’d be forced to sit there politely and pretend it didn’t bother her. He knew it did. But the living had to eat. There was no getting around it.

  “Let me get one of those,” Tara said. She hurried across the foyer to take a plate from Clay and then looked around for a place to set it down.

  “The piano is fine,” Onyx said. “There’s no way to damage the wood any worse than it is already.”

  Tara set the plate on the piano and then took a bite of one of the artichoke and feta cheese tarts. “Oh, my God, these are so good,” she said. “You should serve these in the restaurant.”

  Noah shook his head. “Nah, they take too long to make, and it’s hard to get them to the table at the right temperature. Everything we serve has to hold up well under the heat lamp. Not all of our servers are as quick as they need to be.”

  “Are you talking about Ellen?” Tara asked.

  Noah shrugged. “No, not specifically. None of the people we’ve got are capable of handling the volume we’re doing. They all have this slow, coffee-shop mentality.”

  “Is she still leaving you notes and gifts?” Clay asked.

  Noah winced, wishing Clay hadn’t said anything in front of Onyx.

  “Ellen is leaving you notes?” Onyx asked. “You’ve never mentioned this before.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Noah said. “She’s just appreciative of the job and the money she’s making.”

  “Just appreciative?” Tara said. “Come on, Noah. Ellen’s got the hots for you.”

  “The hots?” Onyx said.

  “Tara means Ellen likes him,” Clay said. “You know, as in likes him likes him.”

 
“I can’t fire her,” Noah said. “I know I should, but the job is important to her. Besides, where am I supposed to find a replacement? There’s not much of a talent pool in the cove.”

  “Don’t knock the cove,” Clay said.

  “Okay, Onyx, it’s your turn,” Tara said, pulling the Trivial Pursuit game card from the box. “What famous dance of the 1920s shared its name with a city in the southern United States?”

  “The Charleston, of course,” Onyx said. “It was all the rage during the Roaring Twenties, the young flappers dancing until dawn in the speakeasies around Chicago.”

  “I can see you dancing,” Clay said.

  “Sadly, Ulrich and I rarely went to such places. We didn’t have money for frivolous things like dancing and having fun. Then the stock market crashed. No one felt much like dancing after that.”

  “I don’t think you missed a single question, Onyx,” Tara said. “The Empire State Building, Marlene Dietrich, you knew every one of them.”

  “Well, I do have the advantage of having been there,” Onyx said. “Ulrich worked on the Empire State Building, and I met Marlene Dietrich.”

  “You met Marlene Dietrich?” Tara asked.

  “Yes,” Onyx said. “She was performing in Las Vegas at The Apache where I was waiting tables. Marlene was the most magnetic, audacious, and liberated woman I had ever seen. Strutting the stage in her top hat and silk stockings as if she owned the place. That was the night I decided to pursue a career as a singer—not that it went very far. It was also the night I stopped using the name Schröder as a symbol of my liberation. Sadly, I wasn’t smart enough to leave him for real.”

  “God, Onyx, I’m so sorry,” Tara said.

  “You, dear? Whatever in the world would you need to be sorry for?”

  “Just that someone from my family could put you through such horrible things,” Tara said.

  “Thank you, but Ulrich’s sins are not yours to bear,” Onyx said. “Besides, it was all so long ago now.”

  “Well, Onyx may have gone through hell,” Noah said. “But the good news is she’s on my team, and we won the game.”

  “Yeah, and remind me next time to bring the pop culture version,” Clay said. Clay glanced at his watch. “New Year’s is in fifteen minutes. Where’s the TV?”

  “There’s no TV at the lighthouse,” Noah said. “I’ve tried, but Onyx doesn’t want one.”

  “I have an idea,” Tara said. “How about we all jump in my convertible and take a midnight drive along the coast?”

  “Cool,” Noah said. “Where should we go?”

  “Onyx, why don’t you pick?” Clay said.

  “Well, I’ve always wanted to go to the Sea Lion Caves,” Onyx said. “But I can’t imagine they’d be open this time of evening.”

  “No problem,” Clay said. “I’m friends with the owners.”

  Tara and Clay sat in the front seats of Tara’s 1957 lavender Chrysler Crown Imperial convertible—a vehicle left to her by her father—and Noah and Onyx sat in the back. The roof was down and the wind was whipping through everyone’s hair as Tara made a right turn on Route 101, heading south.

  “Are you sure you’re not going to be too cold back there with the roof down?” Tara called back over her shoulder.

  “No need to worry about me,” Onyx said.

  “I’ll be fine,” Noah said. “It’s a hell of a lot colder on the Harley at night than this.”

  Clay turned on the radio and searched for a station as Tara steered the Crown Imperial down the narrow highway, the headlights cutting a path through the darkness. The sky was clear, with an ocean of stars overhead, which was not the norm for the usually cloudy coast. “Is there anything more beautiful than this?” Tara said loudly.

  Noah turned and looked at Onyx in the seat next to him, knowing the answer to Tara’s question was yes—there was something more beautiful.

  Noah felt the stir of butterflies in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t the first time either. He’d been experiencing the feeling more and more lately.

  Every time he was with Onyx.

  Onyx turned toward Noah, her face lit by the light of the stars, and that’s when he knew. There was no denying it any longer.

  Don’t ask permission, Noah thought. Just do it.

  Noah leaned toward Onyx and—

  “Red Firebird!” Clay shouted. “Noah, is that it?”

  Noah turned his head and saw the car just as it sped past, heading in the opposite direction. Son of a bitch, it was the car.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Noah said.

  “Turn around, Tara!” Clay shouted.

  “Here? I can’t turn,” Tara said. “It’s too narrow. We’ll go over—”

  “Up there,” Noah said, pointing. “The parking lot at the Sea Lion Caves. Turn around there.”

  Tara swung the Crown Imperial into the parking lot and pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, making a tight circle, the wheels squealing against the pavement. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

  “Just head back north and catch that Firebird,” Clay said. “I’ll explain later.”

  “We need to get the license plate number,” Clay said once they’d spotted the Firebird’s red taillights up ahead.

  Onyx leaned forward and peered through the windshield.

  “There’s one number and one letter visible,” Onyx said. “The number nine and the letter H. The rest of the plate is covered in mud.”

  “He’s slowing down,” Tara said as the Firebird slowed to a crawl and turned right, disappearing through the trees.

  “Pull over,” Clay said.

  “Why are we following him, Clay?” Tara asked.

  “He’s suspected of running a drug operation,” Clay said. “I’ve been after him for over a year. Christ, I can’t believe I’m this close and—”

  “We can’t follow him. He’ll see us,” Noah said.

  “Let me out,” Onyx said. “He’ll never see me on foot.”

  “No way,” Noah said. “We’re not leaving you—”

  “This won’t be the first time I’ve spent a night alone in the woods,” Onyx said. “Go. Trust me,. I’ll be fine.”

  “The universe does not care if you are beautiful. What matters is that you surround yourself with that which is beautiful to you.”

  The 31 Immutable Matters

  of Life & Death

  Episode 24

  That “K” Is One Bad Mother

  QUANTICO, VIRGINIA

  DECEMBER 14, 2010

  You did what?” Pipi asked, glaring at Maggie, who was seated on the opposite side of the desk. “You gave Newt the Leg Collector files?”

  “Only for the last three years,” Maggie said. “And I let him borrow my laptop.”

  “Your laptop?” Pipi repeated. “God, Maggie. Newt doesn’t have clearance for those files. And your laptop? Do you realize how many FBI procedures you’ve violated?”

  “Yeah, Newt predicted you’d say that,” Maggie said calmly. “But before you go too far, don’t you want to ask me why?”

  Pipi remained silent.

  “Newt finished the program,” Maggie said.

  “The program?” Pipi repeated. “You mean the UPDA program?”

  Maggie nodded. “Yes, and it worked. Newt says he knows where the Leg Collector is going to abduct his next victim—well, within two square miles.”

  Pipi leaned back in her chair and shook her head.

  “And he knows when,” Maggie said.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Pipi said. “When?”

  “Sometime over the next three nights,” Maggie said.

  “No.”

  “No, what?” Maggie asked.

  “I assume Newt wants the FBI to deploy agents to stakeout these two square miles?”

  “Yes. Just the bars.”

  “Well, the answer is no.”

  “Newt said you’d say that, too,” Maggie said. “So, here’s where he said I’d have to threaten you.”

&n
bsp; “Threaten me?” Pipi said. “Threaten me with what?”

  Maggie reached in her purse and pulled out an envelope, which she laid on the desk.

  Pipi leaned forward, grabbed the envelope, and opened it. Inside was a single sheet of folded paper. Pipi unfolded the paper and read what was written on it.

  41995

  Pipi refolded the paper and laid it on the desk. “Did you look at this?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “Do you know what it means?”

  “No,” Maggie said. “But Newt said you would.”

  Pipi’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward. “Tell Newt he can have six agents for two nights. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Newt says it will take at least ten agents to cover all the possible locations,” Maggie said. “And he needs them for three nights, not two—plus they’ll need to rent cars. He says the Leg Collector will be on the lookout for anything that smacks of the federal government.”

  “Tell Newt he really pissed me off,” Pipi said.

  “That’s funny,” Maggie said.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Newt predicted you’d say that, too.”

  Maggie pulled out her cell phone on the way to her car to give Newt the good news. Whatever the number 41995 meant, one thing was for sure. It had scared Pipi Esperanza to death.

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  DECEMBER 15, 2010

  Koda sat in a large leather chair in his grandfather’s study on the other side of the desk from Declan. “Quinn’s been trying to meet with the governor, but he can’t get him to return his calls,” Koda said. “He’s out of options and thinking about going public with the story about Juniper and—”