Onyx Webb: Book Two

by Diandra Archer

  Koda’s phone rang again. This time it was E! Entertainment, and again he ignored it. Seconds later, Mika’s cell phone began barking like a dog.

  “Don’t answer it,” Koda said.

  “This is Mika,” she said into the phone, then turned to Koda and mouthed the words, Har-vey Lev-in at T-M-Z.

  Koda shook his head violently from side to side.

  “No, Harvey, I do not know how you can reach Koda. No, I do not have a comment,” Mika said into the phone, “except to say that I am personally offended the Flagler family name has been dragged into this unseemly spectacle. After all, I’m the victim here. Right, Harvey? Yes, yes, Harvey, of course. I’ll tell Koda you called. Yes, I promise. Kisses.”

  Mika clicked off the phone. “You know, honey, it might not be a bad idea to give TMZ an exclusive on this.”

  “I am not calling Harvey Levin,” Koda said. “I think it’s best if I avoid the media entirely.”

  “You’re going to have to talk to them eventually,” Dane said. “You know they’re going to hound you relentlessly until you do.”

  “Whose side are you on, Dane?” Koda snapped. “Christ, I should make you talk to them since this entire thing is your fault.”

  There it was, Dane thought. Koda had officially blamed him for Vooubasi, as he probably had a right to do. Dane had gotten Vooubasi’s name from his parents and simply assumed the guy was legitimate. To quote Vijay Sharma, “how stupid can you be?”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as you think,” Robyn said in an attempt to be helpful. “People forget things pretty fast. Some other celebrity will do something stupid in the next week, and TMZ will be chasing them instead of you.”

  Koda’s cell phone rang again.

  This time it was his father.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Savannah, Georgia

  May 18, 2010

  The bartender at the Forsyth Park Hotel loaded the last of six cases of alcohol onto a rolling cart, then remembered he also needed a case of black cocktail napkins and a jar of green olives. Restocking the bar was one of the many responsibilities of whomever closed the bar at night.

  Then he heard the music.

  It was ten minutes after two in the morning, and as far as he knew, he was the only one in the older section of the hotel. The cleaning crew didn’t come in until six.

  He stopped and listened.

  It sounded like someone playing the piano.

  The bartender opened the storeroom door and could hear the music loud and clear. It sounded classical, like some kind of Brahms or Beethoven piece.

  The bartender entered the lounge and looked over at the large Blasius & Sons piano in the corner—expecting to see someone playing—but there was no one there.

  The piano bench was empty.

  But the piano was playing. He could see the keys moving.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up and a chill ran down his arms. To the best of his knowledge, the antique Blasius & Sons was not a player piano, though he’d never really taken a close look at it.

  The bartender moved slowly toward the piano, rubbing the goose bumps off his arms, embarrassed to be so creeped out over something for which there was probably a rational explanation.

  Then the music abruptly stopped.

  The bartender took a step forward and lowered the keyboard cover down over the keys, promising to never tell a soul what he’d just witnessed.

  Besides, who would believe him?

  The bartender glanced at his watch. It was almost 2:20 a.m. If he wanted to be home in bed by 3:30 a.m., he needed to get moving. He turned, took three steps away from the piano, and heard a creaking sound from behind him.

  The bartender turned and saw the keyboard cover—which he’d just lowered himself—raised back to the open position before his very eyes.

  “What the—?” he said out loud.

  But that wasn’t what scared him most.

  What scared him most was that the piano began to play again.

  The manager at the Forsyth Park Hotel was not pleased when the night bartender at the hotel woke him in the middle of the night. He’d spent too many years working his way up the corporate ladder to find himself going back to work at three o’clock in the morning.

  But when the bartender showed him the video he’d taken on his iPhone of the Blasius & Sons grand playing by itself, he understood. However, seeing it on the phone was one thing—seeing it in person was another.

  He needed to see it for himself.

  “Okay, so show me,” the manager said.

  “It stopped,” the bartender said. “Maybe it will play again tomorrow.”

  When the hotel manager arrived at the Forsyth Park Hotel at one o’clock the following morning, he found that twenty employees had gathered in the upstairs lounge area to witness the event.

  At 2:00 a.m., nothing had happened and people began getting restless. By 3:00 a.m., half the people had left.

  Then the piano played.

  Two employees were so freaked out they ran from the room screaming. Another made the sign of the cross. The rest giggled nervously while holding their cell phones to video the ghostly miracle.

  That’s when the idea came.

  This was Savannah, after all, and ghosts were big business.

  “What is the name of that ghost show?” the hotel manager asked.

  “Which one?” the bartender asked. “Paranormal State? Ghost Hunters? Dead but Refusing to Die? There are about a dozen of them.”

  “I like the one with the gay guy and the black woman with the big hair,” a female server said. “Have you ever seen them go at each other?”

  Yes, that was the one…

  Cryer and Fudge.

  Chapter Twenty

  Desoto, Missouri

  November 2, 1935

  Other than going to the bathroom and fetching food from the rectory kitchen, Sister Katherine Keane did not leave Onyx’s side for seventeen days. The exact reason for Onyx’s illness was still uncertain.

  On the third day, Katherine was in the bathroom when Onyx let loose with a bloodcurdling scream. When she got to the bed, she found Onyx sitting in a pool of blood.

  So much blood.

  Onyx had been pregnant, and now the baby was gone.

  Onyx was going to tell Ulrich but thought better of it. His working and staying out of trouble was too enjoyable to set him off with any bad news. Would he think it was bad news? She didn’t know for sure but decided it was best to avoid the topic.

  The next day Katherine noticed how much better Onyx looked. She’d regained enough strength to sit up on her own and hold down most of the food she was given. On the fourth day after the miscarriage, Sister Katherine had a surprise for Onyx.

  Katherine coaxed Onyx out of bed, sat her at an easel in front of the window, and put a paintbrush in her hand.

  “Oh, no, I don’t think I can,” Onyx said when she spotted the canvas and paints.

  “You can and you most certainly will,” Sister Katherine said. “If you are anywhere as gifted an artist as your husband claims, I must see your work.”

  “Ulrich said that?” Onyx asked. He’d been so against her painting after they’d left New York. The compliment caught her completely off guard.

  Sister Katherine’s plan worked because if Onyx had shown progress over the previous few days, her recovery once she began painting was nothing short of miraculous.

  On her tenth day at the orphanage, Onyx wrote a letter to her father, Catfish, letting him know where they were and that she was okay. Her previous letters had all gone unanswered, but she felt the need to try again.

  “Let me mail it for you,” Katherine said, reaching across the bed for the envelope.

  “Nonsense,” Ulrich said, snatching the letter from Onyx’s hand. “I am going that way. I will make sure it gets posted today.”

  “Thank you, Ulrich,” Onyx said. “I don’t know what I would do without you—you and Katherine.”<
br />
  “Just get well,” Ulrich said. “Get well for the both of us.”

  Immediately upon leaving the infirmary, Ulrich walked outside and dropped Onyx’s letter on the ground and pushed it into the mud with the heel of his boot.

  During their time together, Onyx and Katherine talked about everything under the sun as if they were old friends. Eventually, of course, the conversation turned to their first meeting in Obedience Everhardt’s basement three decades earlier.

  “What do you remember?” Onyx asked one day.

  “I remember dying,” Sister Katherine said. “And I remember going to heaven and speaking to God.”

  “I don’t know about the God part,” Onyx said, “but I did see you—your spirit—rise up out of your body. You floated right in front of me. Do you remember?”

  Sister Katherine shook her head. “No, but I remember being bathed in God’s light, and God sharing his plan for me.”

  “God shared his plan?” Onyx asked.

  “His plan for me,” Katherine said. “He said I was a foot soldier in his army on Earth, protecting children—children like us.”

  “I saw the policeman’s spirit, too,” Onyx said.

  “Detective Boyd,” Sister Katherine said. “I pray for his soul every day, Onyx, for offering himself up to God in my place.”

  “What are you saying?” Onyx asked.

  “I’m saying Detective Boyd sacrificed himself for me in the same way Christ sacrificed himself for us all,” Katherine said, taking Onyx’s hand in hers and holding it tight. “Don’t you see?”

  Onyx was not sure she did.

  Then again, Katherine was the one who’d died that day, not her. Who was she to say?

  “Come with me,” Katherine said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  The two women spent the next ten minutes walking around the orphanage building before Katherine asked Onyx to come with her outside.

  “It’s chilly,” Onyx said. “Maybe I should get my sweater.”

  “We’ll only be a minute,” Katherine said.

  Sister Katherine led Onyx to the middle of the open field behind the orphanage where a large rock was embedded in the ground. By the time they got there, Onyx’s breath was labored.

  “Here, sit,” Sister Katherine said, motioning to the rock.

  Onyx sat down and glanced around. “I assume there’s something you want to tell me,” Onyx said.

  “Yes, there is,” Katherine said. “It’s about Obedience Everhardt, something that should give you some comfort.”

  Onyx waited silently for Katherine to continue.

  “Obedience can’t hurt any more girls like she hurt us, Onyx,” Katherine said. “The woman is dead.”

  “When?”

  “A long time, almost ten years now,” Katherine said.

  “Were there more girls?”

  Katherine nodded. “Yes, a few.”

  “How did she die?” Onyx asked.

  “She hung herself from a tree—that tree right there,” Katherine said, pointing to the low-hanging branch of the large oak at the edge of the clearing. “Several times a week I come out here—early in the morning before anyone is awake—and sit right where you’re sitting on that rock. I watch her come out the back door of the orphanage, cross the wet grass in her bare feet, and do it.”

  Onyx nodded. Katherine had told her about her visions, and even if she didn’t fully understand their nature, she believed them to be real. They were real to Katherine, at least.

  “Does her neck snap?” Onyx asked. “Does she die quickly?”

  Katherine shook her head slowly from side to side. “No, she doesn’t. The old bitch hangs there for a long, long time—kicking and struggling and choking—fighting with all her strength to live even though she’s trying to kill herself.”

  “Good,” Onyx said.

  Onyx was ashamed for having said it, but it was the only word that came to mind.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Orlando, Florida

  May 12, 2010

  It had been three weeks since the How Stupid Can You Be? special—featuring Vijay Sharma, a.k.a. psychic medium Vooubasi—had aired, and Koda had expected, somewhat naively, for things to quiet down a bit.

  They hadn’t.

  In fact, once the tabloids joined in the fun—coupled with the fact that everyone now knew where Koda lived and worked—things had become a veritable feeding frenzy. And Mika’s involvement only made things worse.

  Koda and Mika were at a window table at Blue, an upscale restaurant in Orlando’s entertainment district about a mile from Koda’s office in the SunTrust building. “It could be worse,” Mika said as she pulled the final cigarette from a pack and lit it.

  “They can fine you for smoking in here. You know that, right?” Koda said.

  “I think I can cover it,” Mika said, blowing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. When she’d discovered the maximum fine for smoking in a restaurant in South Carolina was twenty-five dollars, Mika started ignoring the law and simply added twenty-five dollars to the tip, thinking of it like a cover charge.

  Mika had no idea what the fine was in the state of Florida, but how much could it possibly be?

  “It could be worse?” Koda said. “I’m being followed by the paparazzi everywhere I go and hounded relentlessly by the press. I have to have Tank pick me up in the 55 West loading dock and drive me one block to the office because walking across the street has become impossible. I can’t even go out on the balcony of the penthouse without a helicopter showing up out of nowhere. How could it be any worse?”

  “They could be ignoring you,” Mika said. “You know, like that guy who won the first season of Survivor. What’s his name again?”

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about, Mika,” Koda said.

  “My point exactly,” Mika said. “If you don’t stay relevant, you don’t really exist.”

  As far as Koda was concerned, not existing sounded pretty good.

  “So, have you talked to Dane?” Mika asked, changing the conversation.

  Koda lifted his Belvedere and tonic and took a sip, ignoring her.

  “You shouldn’t blame Dane,” Mika said.

  “Are you saying that what happened wasn’t Dane’s fault?” Koda snapped.

  “He was just trying to be helpful,” Mika said, glancing around the restaurant for a waiter. “Jesus, who do you have to blow around here to get a damn menu?”

  “Yeah, Dane’s been real helpful,” Koda snorted.

  “Well, recommending Vooubasi put you on more magazine covers than I ever managed,” Mika said, pushing a number on her cell phone and placing it to her ear.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Koda said. “First, I don’t remember hiring you as my publicity agent, and second, would you please stop calling Harvey Levin every time—”

  Mika held up a finger, silencing Koda.

  “Yes, please put Chef Gregory on the phone,” Mika told someone on the other end. “Yes, of course he’s busy. Who isn’t? Tell him it’s Mika Flagler.”

  “What were you saying about Harvey?” she asked Koda, turning her attention back to him.

  “I said I’d appreciate it if you stopped tipping him off about where I’m at, and—”

  Mika held up her finger again. “Yes, Gregory, it’s Mika. Where am I? I’m here in your restaurant—with Koda Mulvaney—having a harder time flagging down a waiter than a black man trying to catch a cab on the Lower East Side.”

  Mika disconnected and turned her attention back to Koda. “So, what were you saying about Harvey?”

  “You are a piece of work, Mika.”

  “In business school, I learned that every team needs at least one person with a set of balls,” Mika said.

  “Is that how you see us?” Koda asked. “As a business?”

  “Of course,” Mika said. “Don’t you?”

  Seconds later a heavy-set man in a white chef’s jacket with “Chef Gregory” embroidered o
n the front approached the table. In one of the chef’s hands were two menus; the other hand wiping beads of sweat from his face.

  “Mika, how good to see you! And Mr. Mulvaney, welcome to Blue. Is this your first time dining with—?”

  Mika raised her hand and held it out toward the chef like a cop stopping traffic, and the chef went silent. By her count, they’d waited almost five minutes for a menu—now it was Chef Gregory’s turn to wait.

  “Go ahead, Koda,” Mika said. “Finish what you were saying about Harvey and TMZ.”

  “I was saying that I’d appreciate it if you’d stop tipping off TMZ about where we’re going to be,” Koda said.

  Chef Gregory turned his head, looked away uncomfortably.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Mika said with a sly smile. “I’m pretty sure Chef Gregory has already taken care of it for me.”

  That night’s dreams were the worst Koda could remember having in a long time. Remember being the key word. The psychologist had suggested that the majority of Koda’s dreams were the result of being abandoned by his mother at the age of six and were buried deep in his unconscious.

  The good news, according to the psychologist, was that Koda’s toxic memories could be dug up and disposed of, never to haunt the young boy again—at $150 per fifty-minute hour, of course.

  As usual, Koda woke in a cold sweat, having spent what felt like hours as his six-year-old self, wandering aimlessly from room to room of the family mansion outside Charleston. Inevitably he would hear a woman screaming.

  No, not just a woman.

  His mother.

  As always, Koda followed the sound of the screams from room to room, hearing them get louder and louder, but every time he thought he’d found the source of the screams, they would simply fade away. Then the screams would begin again.

  But this time the dream was different.