Onyx Webb 6

by Diandra Archer

  “No, Robyn,” Gerylyn said. “In there I’ll be able to see. Now, Koda, I want you to look at the mirror and simply relax. Do your best to clear your mind. Think of the sky or a lake or whatever brings you peace.”

  Koda had no way of knowing exactly how many minutes had passed, but for a moment it seemed the mirror shimmered—as if the glass had turned into water on top of a lake. Then clouds appeared—the cloudiness becoming more and more vivid every second, as if a storm were rolling inland from an angry sea—and Koda felt his heart beginning to palpitate. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea?

  Koda felt the hairs on his neck rise, as if a slight electrical current was running through him, and he told himself to calm down. But he couldn’t.

  There was something bothering him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was there, nagging at him in the back of his mind.

  Koda heard what sounded like glass cracking and felt what he thought was cold air coming at him—as if the mirror had turned into an open window.

  The fear rose in him even further. What was he afraid of? The unknown? He wasn’t afraid of dying—he’d done that already—and Gerylyn Stoller assured him what they were doing was safe. And then, just as he felt himself being pulled forward into the blackness of the mirror, he realized what it was.

  It was the possibility he might see his mother.

  From the Journal of Onyx Webb

  Over a ten-day period in August 1935, the man from Hollywood and I saw each other every chance we could get. But then he had to return.

  “When will you be back?” I asked.

  “I hope to return within a month,” he said.

  I’m ashamed that it took me so long, but for the first time I asked: “Are you married?”

  He shook his head. “No, Onyx. And how I wish you weren’t either.”

  After he’d gone, life was bleak. I had no idea how wonderful things could be with him there – and how empty my world felt now that he wasn’t.

  On September 18, he called The Apache.

  “I’m in New York,” he said. “I can’t get away until October 2, but I’ll be there then.”

  “Very well, then,” I said. “I will see you October 2.”

  Not long after that, I fell ill.

  Now I know it was Ulrich’s doing.

  Then, on the first day of October, Ulrich rushed into our apartment in the middle of the night and said we were leaving.

  “Leaving? Where? We can’t leave!”

  Ulrich didn’t care, and I was too sick to fight him.

  Ulrich drove for two days straight until we broke down and a farmer took us to The Open Arms Orphanage in Missouri, where Katherine had taken residency as a nun, and we were unexpectedly reunited.

  That is where I lost the baby.

  Ulrich assumed it was his, of course. But it wasn’t. I’d not been with Ulrich in months.

  Seven years later, at the end of the murder trial, I saw the man one last time.

  He was standing at the very back of the courtroom in a handsome double-breasted suit and wearing a grey fedora.

  Our eyes met. I nodded and smiled.

  He smiled back.

  Moments later, Hell Daniels ushered me from the courtroom and drove me to the lighthouse.

  I never saw him again.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  MAY 16, 1998

  Declan Mulvaney’s phone rang a few minutes after 6:22 a.m. Who in the hell would be calling so early, especially on a Saturday? He was tempted to not answer but did anyway.

  “Hello,” Declan said but heard nothing except static on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

  The static continued, but Declan could hear the sound of a man’s voice, barely audible in the background. “Tell your son that running for office is a bad idea.”

  “What? Who is this?” Declan demanded.

  “You hear me, Dec,” the man said. “Turned out bad for Jack and for Bobby. Tell him not to.”

  The line went dead.

  Declan’s hand was visibly shaking as he slowly set the telephone down. There were only two people in the world who called him by the nickname “Dec.” One was his childhood friend, Tommy Bilazzo—who’d vanished off the face of the earth thirty years earlier.

  The other was Frank Sinatra.

  Declan had the house all to himself. Bruce had taken Koda to Salt Lake City for the Laker’s playoff game against the Utah Jazz. Declan was not a basketball fan, so he opted for the peace and quiet of staying home.

  Then the phone rang for a second time.

  It was Kajika with news that he and Bebe were leaving. They had decided to move to South Dakota to open a vocational school teaching kids the basics of motorcycle repair.

  “It’s not much,” Kajika said, “but with the skills to be mechanics, some of these kids can get off the reservation. Like I did.”

  After they’d hung up, Declan found himself feeling depressed. They’d become close over the last couple years, rebuilding the Porcupine and on their cross-country ride. They’d started a thousand miles apart, yet found a way to help each other mend their broken hearts.

  The third call of the day came a few minutes before four in the afternoon. “Are you in your study?” a female voice asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “You might want to sit down,” the woman said.

  The voice sounded familiar, Declan thought. It sounded like Pipi Esperanza, but it couldn’t be. She was dead.

  “Yes, Declan. It’s really me,” Pipi said. “There didn’t seem like any perfect way to break the news,” Pipi said. “I considered flying down and showing up at your door, but I was afraid you’d have a heart attack.”

  “I don’t understand,” Declan said. Then again, twelve hours earlier he’d spoken to Frank Sinatra.

  Pipi Esperanza spent the next twenty minutes telling Declan everything she could—about how she’d made the last-second decision to change flights and stop in Oklahoma City to visit a friend, and then made the reckless—yet lucky—decision to let Newt Drystad stay in the car, rather than coming into the building with her.

  “I remember checking in and showing my ID at the visitor’s desk, and then waiting for the elevator,” Pipi said. “The next thing I remember I was waking up at a homeless shelter—dirty, exhausted—and with no idea who I was or how I got there.”

  “Amnesia?” Declan said.

  “That’s what they think,” Pipi said. “The blast apparently threw me out into the street or somewhere. There’s no way to know really. The lobby cameras and recording system were all destroyed, so there’s no video. The assumption is I wandered away before the paramedics arrived, and, well—I spent the next two-and-a-half years moving from shelter to shelter until one day I suddenly remembered who I was. That was in Dallas in January.”

  “January?”

  “You know how the FBI is, Declan,” Pipi said. “There were a lot of i’s to dot and t’s to cross before they felt comfortable going public with the news. Checking my fingerprints to verify I really am Pipi Esperanza, weeks of debriefing, sessions with bureau psychologists, the whole nine yards. They wanted to put me in Walter Reed for a month, and that’s where I drew the line.”

  “So this isn’t public yet,” Declan said.

  “No,” Pipi said. “There’s going to be a press conference next week to make the announcement. The government needs all the good news stories they can get their hands on, so I’ll be the flavor of the week.”

  “My God,” Declan said. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that, but I’m happy beyond words.”

  “Well, that’s the other reason I called,” Pipi said. “I’m going to re-activate Nisa’s case.”

  Declan made a club sandwich with extra bacon on wheat toast and sat by himself at the table in the kitchen of the old plantation part of the mansion.

  What a day it had been.

  Frankie calling, telling him to warn Bruce about
not running for public office—whatever that was about. Then Kajika calling out of the blue to say he and Bebe were leaving for South Dakota. Followed by finding out that Pipi Esperanza hadn’t died in the Oklahoma City bombing after all.

  Thank God he had a good heart.

  Declan took a shower, and then brushed his teeth and climbed into bed. It was only 9:30 p.m., but he was exhausted.

  He turned out the light, pulled up the covers, and released a deep breath. It was his favorite moment of the day.

  It didn’t use to be. Especially when he was growing up in the orphanage, going to bed hungry most of the time. The temperature in the dorm either sweltering or freezing. Wondering what the next day was going to bring—which of the other kids would want to pick a fight and dealing with the nuns—Sister Mary Margaret, in particular, who most certainly had murdered Randall Iglewski. Stick Boy.

  And Father Fanning.

  Declan did his best to shake the memory from his mind—seeing the priest standing behind Tommy that day at the theater in St. Louis. There were times Declan questioned whether he really had to kill the priest. Then he remembered the lust in the man’s eyes. No, he’d done the right thing. He knew he had. If he could go back and do things over, he’d pick up the two-by-four and crush the man’s skull all over again.

  Then the phone rang for the fourth time.

  Declan wasn’t sure how he knew who it was, but he did. He picked up the phone and placed it to his ear.

  “Tom?”

  “Yeah, Dec,” his friend said. “It’s me, Tom.”

  Declan literally found it impossible to speak.

  “Listen, I know you probably got a lot of questions, but I’m calling to ask for a favor,” Tommy said.

  “A favor? Jesus, Tom,” Declan said when he finally found his voice. “I haven’t heard from you in—hell, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by in the last thirty years where I haven’t wondered what happened to you. Were you alive? Were you dead? How could you—?”

  “I’m sorry for how things played out, Dec. I really am,” Tommy said. “If I could go back and do it over, I would. But right now, I need to ask if you can float me some cash.”

  “Some cash?” Declan repeated. “Of course. Where are you? I’ll hop on the jet first thing in the morning and—”

  “No,” Tommy said. “This is not a good time. There’s a Mailboxes Etc. in Key West on Roosevelt. Whatever you can spare. Just send it in my name, okay? I appreciate it.”

  “Tom, why don’t you let me—”

  The line went dead in Declan’s hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  DECEMBER 31, 2001

  Two months after Kizzy discovered the missing money and Alistar’s relationship with Onyx Webb, she found an envelope on the kitchen table with her name on it. Inside was an invitation for dinner at the Hotel Lucia in downtown Portland. Neither Kizzy nor Alistar had spoken so much as three words to one another since she discovered his betrayal.

  “Are you asking me out on a date?” Kizzy asked when Alistar walked into the room.

  “I’m not sure,” Alistar said. “I know we need to talk, and doing it over dinner sounded like a good idea. If you’d like to call it a date—”

  “When?” Kizzy asked.

  “Tonight,” Alistar said.

  “Tonight?” Kizzy said. “On New Year’s Eve?”

  “Yes. And just so you know, I’ve booked us a room at the hotel.”

  “That’s pretty assumptive,” Kizzy said. “I’m still damn angry with you.”

  “That’s understandable,” Alistar said. “For what it’s worth, I’m going to the lighthouse later to tell Onyx I can no longer serve as her lawyer. That, and I won’t be going out there again.”

  “And the money?” Kizzy asked.

  “Onyx and I have an agreement in writing,” Alistar said. “The money will work itself out.”

  Kizzy sighed and rolled her eyes.

  “The reservation is for 8:00 p.m. It would be good if you came,” Alistar said, and then left the room.

  Chapter Forty

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  OCTOBER 17, 2010 – 11:05 P.M.

  Koda didn’t understand how it was possible, but it was.

  They were in.

  Everything appeared grey and was covered in a light mist, and Koda felt shivers of cold running though him—as if he’d just stepped into a walk-in refrigerator, the kind you’d find in the kitchen of a restaurant.

  “Welcome to Loll,” Koda heard a woman say. “They weren’t kidding—you are handsome.”

  Koda turned and saw Gerylyn Stoller, who looked twenty-years younger than she had five minutes earlier—her skin aglow with a youthful vibrancy, every wrinkle and age-spot gone as if they’d been air-brushed away somehow—and her hair was no longer grey. “You look pretty good yourself.”

  “For an old broad,” Gerylyn said. “Feel your forehead.”

  Koda put his fingers to his forehead. “My scar, it’s gone.”

  “I told you—imperfections do not exist here.”

  Koda detected movement to his immediate right and watched as a man shuffled by. His clothing was perfect, yet he looked to be from a long-ago period, perhaps a hundred years earlier. “Can he see us?” Koda asked.

  “No,” Gerylyn said. “He has no awareness of where he is or even who he is. “If you were to touch him, however, the energy transfer would awaken his awareness—just as it apparently has with Juniper.”

  “Dane knew who I was,” Koda said.

  “That’s because Dane was sent to greet you,” Gerylyn said.

  “Sent? By who?”

  Gerylyn shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “What do we do to find Juniper?” Koda asked.

  “We just wait,” Gerylyn said. “If the connection between the two of you is as strong as I believe it is, she’ll find us.”

  Koda glanced around the room. It was amazing—everything was identical, right down to the mirror and the chairs he and Gerylyn had been sitting in. The bed, the nightstand, everything in exactly the same place, and the candles were burning, though the light seemed dull and distant.

  Just then, Koda saw the wine glass lift off the table. Koda watched as the glass raised about three feet in the air, tipped back, and some of the dark liquid drained away.

  “Looks like Robyn’s having a party without us,” Gerylyn said. “She’s probably a nervous wreck.”

  “So we can see things, but not her?” Koda asked.

  Gerylyn nodded. “As I explained before, we and Robyn are occupying the same space at the same time. Everything is the same—except our awareness.”

  Koda watched as the man in the 1800s-style clothing wandered by once again, still oblivious to their presence and that of the suspended wine glass.

  “It’s insane,” Koda muttered.

  “Stay alert,” Gerylyn said. “We don’t have much time left.”

  “But we just got—”

  That’s when Koda saw the woman. She was near the bedroom door off to his left.

  It wasn’t Juniper, though.

  Even in the grayness, Koda could tell she had darker hair. And darker eyes. And high cheekbones. And a smile he could never forget.

  It was his mother.

  Robyn drained the last of the wine, and then set the glass down on the table. She glanced at her watch for the tenth time. They’d been gone for almost an hour.

  Gerylyn said that if they hadn’t awakened on their own in ninety minutes, Robyn was supposed to arouse them with a tap on the shoulder.

  Just thirty more minutes to go.

  Robyn walked over and looked down at Koda and Gerylyn—the two of them sitting in their chairs in front of the standing-floor mirror—breathing slowly and steadily, still and motionless. There, but not there.

  Suddenly, Robyn heard a thud from behind her, and she spun around just in time to see the bedroom door swing open. She fully expected to see someone stand
ing there, but the doorway was empty.

  Koda felt his heart rate climbing and took a step in the direction of the door.

  “Koda, what are you doing?” Gerylyn asked, but he ignored her and kept moving toward the door.

  Koda’s legs felt heavy beneath him, as if they were made of lead—like in a dream where you want desperately to get somewhere but can’t.

  Koda forced his legs to work, and just as he was about to reach her, his mother turned and walked through the door as if it weren’t even there—just as Dane’s dog Duffy had done at the house in Lily Dale.

  Could he walk through the door, too? Koda wondered.

  The answer became clear soon enough, as Koda stepped forward and slammed full-force into the door. Yet—even as hard as his face had hit the wood—he felt no pain.

  “Koda, come back,” Gerylyn called out from behind him in the distance. Again, he ignored her and started down the stairway in the direction he thought he’d seen his mother go.

  But she was nowhere to be seen.

  Koda felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Gerylyn. “We’ve got to go back, Koda.”

  “But—”

  “No. We’ve got to go now.”

  Robyn walked out of the bedroom, into the hallway, and looked around. There was no one there. She went back into the bedroom, and closed the door behind her.

  She glanced at her watch. Shit. She was three minutes late.

  Robyn rushed over and quickly tapped Koda and Gerylyn on the shoulder. Nothing. She tapped them both again, harder this time. Still nothing.

  Robyn put the palms of her hands on Koda and Gerylyn’s shoulders, and shook them back and forth. A second later, Gerylyn awoke. “Koda? Is he back?”

  “No,” Robyn said in a full-fledged panic. “I tried tapping and pushing and shaking, but he—”