Onyx Webb 5 Read online

  Onyx Webb: Book Five

  Diandra Archer

  ONYX WEBB, BOOK FIVE

  Copyright © Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz 2018

  All rights reserved.

  Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher or authors.

  DISCLAIMER:

  This book is a work of fiction. And while some real locations, historical events, company names and easily recognizable public figures have been used, the story is strictly the product of the authors’ imaginations. Beyond that, any names and/or resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-947814-04-2

  Lust for Living Press is an imprint of

  COURAGE CRAFTERS, INC.

  Visit Our Webb-Page

  www.OnyxWebb.com

  Contents

  Quote

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  From the Journal of Onyx Webb

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Quote

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  From the Journal of Onyx Webb

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Quote

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Quote

  Quote

  They say we don’t get the life we want, but rather, the life we deserve. Many days I find myself thinking I should have wanted less and believed that I deserved more.

  - Onyx Webb

  Chapter One

  Episode 13: The Slave Quarters

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  December 2, 1976

  Before the accident that took his legs, Stan Lee wasn’t much of a reader. Not that he didn’t like reading. Comic books were reading, of course, but they weren’t book books. But in the years afterward, reading became the primary activity of his life.

  The Mayville Public Library had a program for shut-ins that allowed Stan Lee to request up to fifteen books at a time, and the books would be delivered right to his door.

  TV still filled a portion of Stan Lee’s day, but reading was something he found he could get lost in.

  Best of all, Kara never bothered Stan Lee when he was being entertained by his best friends, including Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, Jack Kerouac, Philip K. Dick, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, J. D. Salinger, Ian Fleming, and his favorite of all, George Orwell—even with all the pigs.

  Stan Lee also kept himself busy doing puzzles of all sorts—crossword puzzles, math puzzles, anagrams, and giant one-thousand-piece puzzles that took up the entire dinner table, much to Oma’s chagrin.

  Another fascination for Stan Lee was photography. It was something he’d started doing after reading a biography on Swiss photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, who’d become famous for taking photos all over the world before sustaining a serious head injury after falling from a bicycle.

  Between puzzles, books, TV, and photography, Stan Lee was able to fill his waking hours with things he enjoyed. A life without legs wasn’t his idea of a good time, but Stan Lee had finally come to grips with the reality of his situation, and he’d learned to make the best of it.

  In 1973—two years after the accident—Stan Lee received an unexpected invitation from the Marquette University Medical Clinic to become part of a test group providing feedback on the latest breakthroughs in prosthetic leg technology, which included free prosthetics for life and a four-year, free-ride scholarship to the university.

  It seemed too good to be true.

  It wasn’t.

  The prosthetics provided Stan Lee a flexibility and freedom the wheelchair did not. The scholarship also included the opportunity to pursue a degree in photographic journalism.

  Then there was the lawsuit.

  Certain that a settlement was on the horizon, Stan Lee’s lawyer—Judd Coker—ponied up another advance to cover the cost of a van to get Stan Lee from the farm to college and back. The van was a rusted-out piece of crap, but it did the job.

  As it turned out, Judd was one hell of an attorney.

  First, Judd discovered that the problem Opa had experienced with the bolts that held the harvester windshield in place was happening to every American Harvester Model SR-52 in North America. As such, the corporation’s main argument that Opa was at fault for having removed the windshield went out the window, just as Stan Lee had.

  Next, Judd argued that the engineers at American Harvester were responsible for a second design flaw. When someone pressed the emergency stop button, the harvester stopped. So far so good. But if you pressed it again while the machine was still in gear, the machine started moving forward again.

  “How in the hell was my client supposed to know in that moment—with his fifteen-year-old grandson lying on the ground—that pushing the stop button would make the harvester start?” Judd had argued before the jury.

  Twenty-four hours later, American Harvester presented Stan Lee with a settlement offer of $2.3 million to end the trial.

  “Could we get more by letting the jury decide?” Opa asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Judd said. “Juries are funny that way. In my experience, better to take a $2.3 million bird in the hand than risk it on a few more bucks in the proverbial bush. And did I mention, that’s $2.3 million tax free?”

  Judd hadn’t steered them wrong yet, so Opa agreed to the settlement. After $120,000 in pre-trial legal expenses had been deducted—and Coker & Coker took its fee of 35 percent—a check for $1,417,000 was deposited into a trust fund that would be available to Stan Lee on his twenty-first birthday.

  Which happened to be today.

  Stan Lee told Opa and Oma he was heading into the city to look at cameras—which was true—leaving out the part about the new van he’d ordered, and his 11 a.m. appointment at the First Federal Bank on South Howell. He had his birth certificate. He’d verified a co-signer would not be necessary. There was nothing standing between him and the money.

  His money, which he’d paid for with his legs.

  “I’m sorry to hear you’re closing the account,” the banker said.

  “Actually, I’ve changed my mind,” Stan Lee said.

  The banker beamed. “That’s wonderful to hear.”


  “If I take $1.3 million, what will that leave in the account?”

  The banker’s smile faded. “That would leave a balance of $117,322.87, with interest due on the fifteenth.”

  “Fine, let’s do that,” Stan Lee said. It wasn’t much, but Stan Lee felt he should leave Oma and Opa something.

  “Don’t forget about the van,” Kara said from the chair next to Stan Lee.

  “I didn’t forget,” Stan Lee said.

  “I’m sorry, what?” the banker asked.

  “Nothing,” Stan Lee said, realizing he’d actually answered Kara out loud. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Five minutes,” the banker said. “Sit tight and I’ll go cut your check.”

  “Where are we going?” Kara asked.

  Stan Lee turned and glared. “We? We aren’t going anywhere.”

  “I was thinking we should go west,” Kara said. “California maybe. Then work our way up the Pacific Ocean, along the Oregon coast, all the way to Canada.”

  Stan Lee saw the banker coming and decided not to respond. He would deal with Kara later.

  “Here you go, Son,” the banker said, handing Stan Lee the check. “This doesn’t put you in the league with Declan Mulvaney, but it’s a nice start.”

  Stan Lee froze.

  “Holy shit,” Kara whispered. “Did he just say what I think he said?”

  “I’m sorry, who?” Stan Lee asked.

  “Declan Mulvaney, the multi-millionaire,” the banker said. “I just read an article about him in—”

  “Can I see it?” Stan Lee said, his heart still pounding.

  “Sure, it’s probably around here somewhere.”

  “Let me see it,” Kara said from the passenger seat of the van.

  “Hang on,” Stan Lee said, opening the November issue of Forbes and flipping to the article, the title of which read:

  “Big Success in The Deep South”

  The article talked about Declan’s upbringing in an orphanage in southern Missouri. And how he’d become one of the richest men in America after buying up huge plots of land in Orlando, Florida, just before Walt Disney opened his second theme park. And about the mansion he’d recently purchased.

  Son of a bitch.

  Stan Lee turned to the final page to see a picture of Declan, standing outside his mansion in Charleston, South Carolina. Next to him stood Declan’s thirteen-year old son.

  Bruce.

  His only son.

  “That’s your brother?” Kara asked. Stan Lee nodded absently, lost in a fog of seething anger, hatred and jealousy. “Half-brother,” Stan Lee managed finally.

  “Looks like your brother made out okay,” Kara said, her words dripping with sarcasm.

  Stan Lee reached out and started the engine.

  “We’ve still got to pick up the van,” Kara said.

  “I know,” Stan Lee said.

  “And then we’re going, right?”

  Stan Lee nodded.

  “To South Carolina, I mean,” Kara said.

  Yes, Stan Lee thought. His plans had definitely changed.

  The Pacific Ocean could wait.

  Chapter Two

  Orlando, Florida

  September 2, 2010 – 9:58 P.M.

  After a long, exhausting day trying to figure out the nature of the strange happenings at Robyn’s house, Koda had Tank drive Gerylyn Stoller to the Orlando Executive Airport for her flight back to Richmond, Virginia.

  “Are you sure Robyn can’t go home?” Koda asked as the blind researcher boarded the plane.

  “I’ve dealt with dark entities before, Koda,” Stoller said. “Ignoring the situation has never been the best path.”

  Koda watched the plane taxi and take off, and then climbed back in the limo.

  Tank lowered the glass partition. “Hey, I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation with the ghost woman,” Tank said, “but I noticed several paparazzi following us on the way here. They’re probably sitting outside the front gate waiting for us.”

  Koda closed his eyes and let out a long breath. It had been a long day, and he wasn’t in the mood for paparazzi.

  “There’s a back way out of here, a frontage road that runs parallel to the runway and dumps out through the service entrance the trucks come in and out of,” Tank said. “I’ve used it a few times with your old man.”

  “Do it,” Koda said.

  Tank had only used the service road—which ran parallel to the runway near the edge of Lake Underhill—a few times and always during the day. So, it took him a few minutes to get his bearings in the dark, but he finally found it.

  “Yeah, this is it,” Tank said. “We just follow this along the lake until we reach the main road.”

  Tank raised the partition, and Koda went back to his text messages. Neither of them saw the aviation fuel truck until it was too late.

  Coming at the limo at a perfect ninety-degree angle, the tanker slammed into the middle of the passenger side of the stretch limousine, sending it sliding sideways.

  Tank instinctively hit the brakes and clasped the steering wheel with his gloved hands, but all the professional training in the world could not have prepared him for the sudden lateral force on the limo.

  The tires resisted the change in direction at first, but then the limo slid off the pavement—the wheels on the driver’s side digging into the soft earth, sending the vehicle into a roll down a forty-degree slope toward the lake.

  After that, gravity took over, as it always does.

  The vehicle rolled over again. And again. And then a third and final time until it came to rest upside down.

  In the water.

  The driver of the tanker—which was filled with a naphtha-kerosene-blended fuel—hit the airbrakes as hard as he could. The tires gripped the pavement until, finally, the tanker came to a screeching halt.

  But the damage had already been done.

  When the tanker broadsided the limo, it crushed the area of the truck’s engine where the battery was housed. One spark was all it took for the tanker to explode, turning the vehicle into a blazing inferno.

  The total elapsed time—from the moment of impact to the limo going into the water and the aviation tanker bursting into flames—was less than fifteen seconds.

  For most people, careening off the road and rolling into a shallow lake would be a problem. Fortunately, Tank was not most people.

  As wide as he was tall, Tank was a massive man with enormous strength. He was also trained in all areas of domestic protection, threat assessment, physical intervention, client extraction, emergency field medical response, paparazzi evasion and weapons training. He’d also received training for what to do if he or a client were ever trapped in a vehicle underwater—training which would have been extremely handy.

  Had he been conscious.

  Koda, on the other hand—who was hanging upside down in his seat in the rear of the limousine—was fully aware of what was happening. If the two of them were going to drown, Tank would die without knowing what was happening.

  Koda wouldn’t.

  Koda knew the first thing he needed to do was get out of the seat belt, a habit ingrained in him by his father and grandfather, and something he’d developed from having driven fast cars.

  The belt would not release.

  Koda also knew it was critical to remain calm and clear-headed because panic equaled death. Yet he could feel the panic setting in. It was hard not to, as water began rushing in through the engine and undercarriage of the vehicle. Hyperventilating would waste oxygen—oxygen he’d need if and when it came time to hold his breath while he figured a way to escape.

  Focus on what you need to do, Koda thought.

  Focus.

  Koda remembered something he’d seen on a TV show, about getting out of a car if submerged underwater—something to do with equalizing the pressure between the outside of the car and the inside—otherwise getting the door open would be impossible. Was he supposed to wait until the car fill
ed completely with water? Or was he supposed to do it before that happened? Something about breaking the glass and swimming out.

  He couldn’t remember.

  It didn’t matter. Koda was trapped by the seat belt and opening the windows—which would allow the water to rush in more quickly—was not the solution.

  Koda knew screaming was a waste of time and energy, but he had to try. “Tank! Tank!” But with the glass partition up, there was no way Tank could hear him, even if the man were conscious.

  Think.

  Koda watched as the water level continued to rise toward him—until finally it touched the top of his head. Panic took over. Koda began thrashing in his seat, pushing on the red seat belt release button as hard as he could, but to no avail.

  Koda felt the water creep over his forehead, to the bridge of his nose, and eventually into his eyes. It was time to take as deep a breath as his lungs could hold. After that, he’d have ninety seconds to come up with something, less if he continued to panic.