Onyx Webb 9 Read online

  ONYX WEBB

  Book 9

  Diandra Archer

  Contents

  GET ENTANGLED

  Wait. Where Were We?

  BOOK SEVEN

  BOOK EIGHT

  Episode 25

  Dedicated to:

  Episode 26

  Episode 27

  Episode 28

  THE END IS NEAR.

  GET ENTANGLED

  About Diandra Archer…

  Lust for Living Press is an imprint of

  COURAGE CRAFTERS, INC.

  Copyright 2018 by Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-947814-18-9

  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.

  GET ENTANGLED

  Visit Our Webb-Page

  www.OnyxWebb.com

  Wait. Where Were We?

  BOOK SEVEN

  Episode Nineteen: The Hot Pie

  After Quinn hires Graeme to help him lose 180 pounds, Koda contacts Quinn with an urgent message to come to Charleston to see Juniper. Mika’s attempt to sell her house goes bad when she assaults a news reporter with a hot pie. Stan Lee leaves for the Onyx Webb Film Festival. Newt gets help solving several anagrams from an attractive agent named Maggie. Noah, Kizzy, and Kizzy’s mother Sinead attend Alistar’s funeral—which Onyx also attends. The Onyx Webb Film Festival is attended by an eclectic collection of characters, including Noah, Stan Lee, Newt, Pipi, and Onyx herself!

  Episode Twenty: The Art Raid

  Koda, Quinn, and Robyn continue their vigil waiting for Juniper, who finally emerges from Loll. Stan Lee discovers a secret door to Declan Mulvaney’s hidden room filled with stolen art and notifies the FBI, leading to Declan’s house arrest. Olympia continues to deal with Nathaniel’s ghost and pursuit of Stormy Boyd. Bruce helps Mika out of trouble with the Foundation and the hot pie incident. Noah revisits the stories left behind by his grandfather, Alistar, and connects with Onyx Webb. Onyx gets two new friends to keep her company: a black cat and, more importantly, Noah Ashley.

  Episode Twenty-One: King of the Gypsies

  Noah offers to help Onyx sell some land to Bruce Mulvaney, but he discovers boxes of vintage Levi jeans in the caretaker’s house and calls the deal off. Newt and Maggie track down the gypsies who’d been committing crimes around the country and were linked to the deaths of several children. Pipi lets Loiza go. Newt learns meeting Maggie was a setup from the start. Olympia has a run-in with more ghosts and quits her show, while Nathaniel pushes harder for her help. After a night of partying with her limo driver, Mika wakes up to discover him bludgeoned to death in her bed—and Tiny downstairs in the kitchen gnawing on a prosthetic leg. Koda believes Robyn is behind the eBay auction of his things and kicks her out of the mansion.

  BOOK EIGHT

  Episode Twenty-Two: Tara Schröder Arrives

  Juniper tells Koda and Quinn who killed her. Stormy outs himself as a ghost. Koda meets with the Southern Gentleman and hires him to MC the Solstice Eclipse Ball. Tara Schroder arrives in Crimson Cove, befriends Onyx, and opens a gallery in Portland. Declan has a run-in with Father Fanning’s dark spirit. Claudia appears and fights with Onyx to the death—as Noah watches. Thanksgiving at the Mulvaney mansion attracts an eclectic assortment of guests, both alive and dead. Juniper discovers what it takes to stay in the living plane. Newt begins receiving cards from the Leg Collector.

  Episode Twenty-Three: Nathaniel Wears

  Out His Welcome

  Noah and Sheriff Clay Daniels connect, and Noah later opens a restaurant in Crimson Cove. Olympia asks Stormy Boyd for advice on how to get rid of Nathaniel’s ghost, but things go badly and Nathaniel destroys her house. Maggie and Newt reconnect. Maggie goes out on a limb and gives Newt the FBI’s most recent Leg Collector files. The man with the red Firebird comes to the grand opening of Noah’s new restaurant. Unbeknownst to Noah, his waitress—Ellen—starts taking an interest in him. Stan Lee’s addiction to ketamine gets wildly out of control, causing him to astral project to a cornfield. Bruce agrees to let Chloe introduce her wine at the Solstice Eclipse Ball.

  Episode Twenty-Four: That “K” Is One Bad Mother

  Maggie tells Pipi about Newt’s prediction and his demands that she provide surveillance. Clay and the DEA bust Myron’s pot farm. Noah then discovers from Kizzy that Myron is his father. Robyn is invited to tend bar at the Solstice Eclipse Ball. Olympia decides to start a podcast and lands Gerylyn Stoller as her first guest and an invitation to the Solstice Eclipse Ball. Noah buys a ring and intends to ask Onyx to marry him but then discovers Onyx’s secret—that she killed his mother. Stan Lee abducts a girl right under the nose of Newt’s FBI sting and gets away with it, despite his ketamine addiction being totally out of control. Stan Lee decides he must go cold turkey.

  “It is said that the sun loved the moon so much it allowed itself to die at night, so the moon could live. But what if the sun changed its mind and stopped loving the moon?

  What then?”

  Episode 25

  Convergence

  Dedicated to:

  Victor Fresco, Creator of The Santa Clarita Diet

  Every now and then we see something that is so clever and so witty it makes us scream, “Why didn’t we think of that!” The execution of this series is flawless in every way.

  P.S. Episode 27 was especially difficult for us to write (as you’ll understand shortly), and The Santa Clarita Diet gave us the periodic break we needed, as well the opportunity to laugh.

  And to the following

  Onyx Webb “Super Fans”…

  Elaine Hadfield

  Angie Peterson

  Darla Fowler Tarpey

  April Rosenthal

  Edith Faye Kosloski Butler

  Julie Baswell

  Rebecca Ward

  Bessie Okray

  Stephanie Arnold

  Kerry Rodriguez

  Nansi Edsell Smith

  Chloe Reid

  Without your support, Onyx would cease to exist.

  THE FOLLOWING EVENTS TAKE PLACE BETWEEN 4:31 and 9:15 P.M. (EST),

  DECEMBER 20, 2010,

  ON THE EVE AND MORNING

  OF THE SOLSTICE ECLIPSE.

  4:31 P.M. EST

  MPI OFFICES, ORLANDO, FLORIDA

  BRUCE MULVANEY WASN’T sure he’d made the right decision by going to the office on the day of the Restoring Savannah Foundation event—certainly there would be things Koda would want help with—but he’d allowed several things to slip his mind.

  The first was his new tuxedo, which he had shipped to the office rather than to the house. The second reason was the last-minute gift idea he had for the attendees at that night’s charity event.

  The inspiration came several weeks earlier while having lunch with a prospective client at the Bohemian Hotel. Bruce had complimented the man’s cuff links, which were custom-made by combining eighteen-karat white gold with scrap metal from an AK-47 assault rifle the man found buried in the mud on a hunting trip to South Africa.

  In truth, the cuff links were the most God-awful things Bruce had ever seen, but they gave him the idea to commission a jeweler to make solstice eclipse cuff links—and in the case of the females, solstice eclipse earrin
gs—each with the acronym RSF for the Restoring Savannah Foundation in gold leaf script in the center.

  There would be eighty-three men and sixty-seven women at the Restoring Savannah Foundation event. To play it safe, Bruce got a quote for ninety sets of cuff links and seventy-five sets of earrings from a jeweler at The Mall of Millennia. The cuff links cost $134, and the earrings cost $107—per attendee and on a rush basis. They were scheduled to be delivered to the office in the afternoon.

  The total outlay was just over $20,000—an amount equal to that collected from only two attendees at the per-person donation of $10,000.

  Under normal conditions, every cent collected from attendees would have gone directly to the foundation, but with the money saved by holding the event at the mansion rather than at a hotel, the expense was a wash—plus the gifts would be remembered long after the evening had passed.

  ABM, Bruce thought. The three most important letters in the world of business: Always Be Marketing.

  After lunch, Bruce met with his new VP of sales, who was clearly excited about having been invited to attend the Restoring Savannah Foundation event. The excitement abated when Bruce dropped the bomb that he’d have to pay the full $10,000 for the ticket. And no, expensing the cost was out of the question.

  “Maybe attending the dinner is a bad idea,” the VP said. “You know, it might be uncomfortable having me there with Koda and all. I am the guy who took his job.”

  Bruce couldn’t believe it. The event was an opportunity to rub elbows with 150 of the most powerful people in Charleston and Savannah, and the little weasel was trying to get out of attending.

  Bruce was tempted to fire him on the spot, but he had too many hours invested getting him up to speed in the position and didn’t feel like hunting for a replacement.

  “Don’t worry about Koda,” Bruce said. “My son is thrilled to be out. In fact, he’d probably buy you a drink if it wasn’t an open bar. Now, let’s get going—the plane’s waiting.”

  4:46 P.M. EST

  THE MULVANEY MANSION, CHARLESTON

  KODA MULVANEY LOOKED at his watch and felt his stomach turn. He was up to his proverbial ass in event-planning alligators—and the alligators were snapping. At least the wine had finally arrived. Koda had yet to meet the woman from the winery who was responsible for introducing it to the attendees.

  When Koda hired Beatrice Shaw to handle the catering, he’d mistakenly assumed she would handle everything, which was not the case—as Beatrice pointed out one week earlier.

  “Let me make sure I understand,” Koda said. “Turkey, salad, coffee—?

  “That’s mine,” Beatrice said.

  “Dinner plates, bread plates, water glasses, wine glasses, coffee cups, silverware—”

  “Yours,” Beatrice said. “Plus, tablecloths, napkins, centerpieces, sugar holders, butter dishes, bread baskets, decorations, flowers, water pitchers, wastebaskets, garbage bags, bags for dirty linens, cleaning rags, and paper towels—also yours. Understand?”

  Koda rubbed his eyes and groaned.

  “If you can cook it, eat it, or drink it, it’s my responsibility,” Beatrice said. “Kitchen to stomach is me—including the things needed to cook and serve. You know, chaffing dishes, tongs, serving spoons, spatulas, cutting boards, plastic wrap, foil—that’s all mine.”

  “Salt and pepper?” Koda asked.

  “Mine,” Beatrice said.

  “Salt and pepper shakers?”

  “Yours,” Beatrice said. “You make sure the salt and pepper shakers are there, and I’ll make sure they’re filled. And that goes for butter dishes and wine glasses too.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I never kid when it comes to catering,” Beatrice said with no trace of a smile.

  “This is nuts,” Koda said.

  “Yeah, well, welcome to my world.”

  After his conversation with Beatrice, the reality of the situation finally hit him. Koda went to his father and suggested they hire a professional event planner. “I did,” Bruce said. “You.”

  Koda glanced at the list of things that still needed to be done as a man in a delivery uniform approached. “I’ve got two hundred black tablecloths in the truck out back—a hundred 90-by-90-inch circular and another 60-by-120-inch rectangular. Where do you want them?”

  “I ordered a hundred total. Fifty of each,” Koda said.

  “Well, I got two hundred.”

  “I’m not paying for two hundred,” Koda said.

  “No problem,” the man said, walking away. “I’ll take it up with Beatrice.”

  “Beatrice isn’t in charge of tablecloths,” Koda called out. “I am.”

  5:05 P.M. EST

  OUTSIDE THE MULVANEY MANSION

  STORMY BOYD STOOD in the guard shack, concerned about the gate.

  The gate had jammed several times recently, and though the manufacturer had come out twice to make necessary repairs, it was acting up again.

  If the gate jammed in the open position, anyone could get in. Jamming in the closed position was just as bad since no one could get in. Or out.

  The low temperatures hadn’t helped things either. It had not gotten past fifty degrees in over a week. At present, it was thirty-eight degrees outside. Close to freezing, which wasn’t good—especially for mechanical gates.

  Stormy pulled out his cell phone to see if the gate company had returned his call.

  They hadn’t.

  At least the six temporary security guards he’d hired for the night had arrived on time.

  Stormy spent a considerable amount of time during the week trying to find a security company he felt comfortable with, deciding finally on Acme Protection Services. APS’s website said they offered reliable, hand-picked employees—many of whom were retired cops and ex-military personnel—trained to perform a variety of functions, including fixed post security and roving perimeter patrol.

  The APS website also went on to list the variety of items its dedicated teams were trained to look for, including weapons, alcoholic beverages, thermoses, and kegs—none of which seemed like things multi-millionaires and billionaires would smuggle into an event.

  The important thing now was for Stormy to spend some time making sure the six-person staff understood its real objective for the evening.

  Stormy approached the temporary security team as they waited for him in front of the Mulvaneys’ multi-car garage.

  The first guard was approximately five feet four inches and considerably overweight. The second guard was nervous and jittery. The company hired him a week earlier, and this was his first day on the job. The third was ex-military, having served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and kept referring to the evening’s event as “the mission.” The fourth man was in his mid-seventies and looked like he weighed about the same amount. The fifth man couldn’t stop yawning. The final man was a woman.

  Stormy had nothing against women—it just wasn’t what he’d asked for—and he felt a wave of frustration wash over him.

  Again, like the situation with the gate, it was too late to do anything about it now.

  Stormy chastised himself for his own sloppiness. Allowing this to happen with 120 years of law enforcement and private detective experience was inexcusable. But that’s what happened when you tried to do everything by yourself. At least they were all in uniform and had both guns and badges.

  5:47 P.M. EST (2:47 PST)

  CRIMSON COVE, OREGON

  ONYX WEBB CARRIED Noah’s turntable from the lighthouse to the caretaker’s house and placed it in a box in the corner of the guest bedroom with the rest of Noah’s things. Four months was long enough—Noah wasn’t coming back—and looking at it day in and day out served no purpose.

  Seventy years from now, would Noah’s things still be here, Onyx wondered—packed away in dusty boxes in the caretaker’s house like Ulrich’s things had been?

  The thought unnerved her, and it wasn’t just the prospect of Noah never returning. It was the
idea that another seventy years would pass and—unlike Noah, who’d found the courage and strength to move on—Onyx would still be there, hanging on like aging starlets clinging to their glory days.

  At least they had glory days to cling to, Onyx thought.

  Onyx went to the shed and located the shotgun. Finding a box of shells was another matter. Perhaps there were some in the lighthouse.

  When Noah had been staying there, Onyx felt no need to have the shotgun at the ready as she’d done for so many years after her father passed. Something about having a man around made her feel safe, which she assumed was the same for most women.

  The exception, of course, was Ulrich.

  The irony was not lost on Onyx. It was always the people who said they were there for you who turned out to be the ones you needed to guard yourself from.

  In Noah’s case, the fault was all Onyx’s. Other than taking the liberty of reading her journal, there would be no blaming Noah for what happened—for her sin—actually, two sins.

  The first sin was killing Noah’s mother, Rainbow, in the cabin that night. The second was not telling Noah the truth when she had the chance. But that’s how people always got in trouble, wasn’t it? The cover up was always greater than the crime.