“Christ, you’re serious,” Declan said. He took a step toward Tommy, but he stopped when he saw his friend’s index finger tighten on the trigger. “You owe me, you know that, right?”
“Owe you? Owe you for what?” Tommy asked.
“What do you think?” Declan asked.
“I didn’t ask you to save me from Father Fanning,” Tommy said. “Besides, I would have handled it myself. Eventually.”
Declan decided to take another tactic.
“Do you remember when we would look at the photos in Boy’s Life and dream about all the stuff we’d have and do when we grew up. Well, we’re so close, Tom. So close to the life we always dreamt about.”
“Those were your dreams, Dec,” Tommy said. “They were never mine. Planes, cars, boats—I never gave a shit about any of that stuff. All I ever wanted was for you to like me, to be your friend.”
“Funny way to show it,” Declan said, taking another step forward. “Put the gun down, Tom, and let’s talk.”
“Don’t make this any harder than it already is, Dec.”
Declan took one last step forward, until the barrel of the Smith and Wesson was pressed against his forehead. “Go ahead, Tom. Do what you have to do. After all, we’re friends, right?”
Tommy’s finger tightened, and then he pulled the trigger.
Click.
Then again: Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Declan reached up and took the gun from Tommy’s hand and tossed it on the bed.
“How’d you know?” Tommy asked.
“Some people can take a life without blinking,” Declan said. “And then there’s you, Tommy. That, and when I looked down the barrel, I could see there was no bullet in the chamber.”
“Huh? And I thought I had ya,” Tommy said. “You know we can never show our faces in Chicago again. I don’t show up with snapshots of you in two pieces, Fat Sal will never stop hunting us.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Desoto, Missouri
July 20, 2010
Nathaniel Cryer looked directly into the lens, waiting patiently for the light on top of the camera to turn from red to green. When it did, he began walking toward the camera and delivering his lines from the teleprompter:
“What you see around me—paint peeling from dull gray walls, sagging floors with missing tiles, water dripping thorough poorly patched holes in the ceiling, broken doors clinging to rusted hinges as the final rays of the evening sun filter through broken windows and dusty glass.”
Nathaniel turned to a second camera without missing a beat. “These are the last remnants of the daily reality of thousands of children who came through these doors to spend years of their lives in what should have been the open arms and caring embrace of those charged with their care. Instead, these children, the most precious and defenseless among us, would receive years of torture and abuse. In some instances, the abuse may have turned into murder. I say ‘may’ because many of the victims simply disappeared—labeled as ‘just another runaway’—when in fact they’d been dealt with in the most harsh and final of ways.”
The camera closed in tight on Nathaniel’s face. “Hello, my name is Nathaniel Cryer, and welcome to the hell that was the Open Arms Orphanage…”
“…and I’m Olympia Fudge,” Olympia said as the director cut to camera two, which was focused on the lanky black woman with the giant afro, leaning against a dust-covered piano in the far corner of the room. “You ask me? Heck, this place ain’t any more creepy or dirtier than my ex-boyfriend’s apartment.”
Nathaniel walked into frame and stood next to Olympia at the piano. “For the next two hours of this extended, live broadcast of Believer And Not!, Olympia and I will explore this sad, sad place, and see if perhaps we can find something of beauty in a place filled with so much decay and pain.”
Olympia reached out and poked her finger at one of the piano keys, which squeaked out a flat note. “We got to get someone in here and tune this sucker.”
“Okay, we’re clear,” the director said as the broadcast cut to commercials. “Back in two minutes.”
“What was that?” Nathaniel asked. “We agreed to stick to the teleprompter.”
“Yeah, well, when the teleprompter starts having some decent lines for me to say, I’ll start sticking to it,” Olympia said as a production assistant rushed over and handed Olympia an already-lit cigarette.
The truth was, Olympia was a basket of nerves, part of which came from the surroundings. Despite her on-screen bluster, Olympia was seriously creeped-out.
The other part of Olympia’s tension came from having seen the ghost girl in the mirror at the Forsyth Park Hotel in Savannah, Georgia, months earlier. Which was followed immediately by the piano playing all by itself. Her role on the show was to play the skeptic—which she was—but she’d seen both things with her own eyes.
Olympia turned her back to the camera, pulled a silver flask filled with gin from her pocket, unscrewed the cap, and took a big swig. Just two hours, Olympia told herself.
“Back in thirty,” the director called out.
“I didn’t think it was possible for a black person to look so green,” Nathaniel said as Olympia blew one final plume of blue smoke toward the ceiling and tossed the cigarette to the floor. “Seriously, are you going to be okay?”
My God. Was Nathaniel Cryer actually showing concern for another human being?
“Because if you forget your lines,” Nathaniel continued, “I will fire your ass quicker than you can say fried chicken.”
Apparently not.
“And we’re back in five… four… three…,” the director said. Two seconds later, the green light came back on.
“Welcome back,” Nathaniel said into the camera. “Let’s take a walk and we’ll show you where some of the strangely inventive forms of cruelty at the Open Arms took place—the boys dormitory, the rectory—and the head priest’s private office.”
“That’s right,” Olympia said. “And when Nathaniel says head priest, he means the head priest.”
Nathaniel shot Olympia a look. The last thing the network needed was a seven-figure fine from the FCC.
Thirty minutes into the two-hour broadcast, Nathaniel Cryer transitioned to what he hoped would be the highlight of the broadcast—an attempt to contact the spirits of the children that were said to have died at the hands of their guardians.
“What you see behind me here on this table are various pieces of equipment used by professional and amateur ghost hunters alike—a digital camera with a 13.9 megapixel resolution; an Olympus digital recorder with an external, omnidirectional microphone to record any electronic voice phenomena that may take place; an Electromagnetic Field Meter—EMF for short—to detect the presence of spirits that may disrupt our immediate energy field; a thermal scanner to detect cold spots should the presence of a ghost drain any warm, ambient air from our surroundings; and several motion detectors to identify heat signatures from visiting spirits. Since Olympia is the skeptic among us, I’ll ask her to do the honors of verifying that the equipment is in working order and has not been tampered with in any way.”
Olympia took a quick look at the equipment. “Looks alright to me. Then again, what do I know about electrical shit? I can’t even get my vibrator to work.”
Nathaniel glared at Olympia. Had she forgotten this was a live broadcast? He could only pray the person in charge of the seven-second delay button was paying attention.
“Next, Olympia will take several base readings of the temperature and electromagnetic levels in the room for comparison, allowing us to detect legitimate spikes and anomalies that may occur in these readings as our investigation continues.”
Nathaniel held his breath but was relieved Olympia did the task as rehearsed without any additional unwanted comments.
“On the table we have also placed an unopened package of Duracell Brand batteries, which we test at the end of the show to see if there has been any detectable energy drain,” Nathani
el said.
“Furthermore, we’ve placed paper and a pencil on the table, should the spirits of the dead wish to communicate with us the old-fashioned way,” Olympia said, following the script. “As well as a Ouija board with a plastic planchet light enough to easily be moved by a ghost.”
Nathanial leaned toward the camera as if sharing a great secret. “Remember, Ouija boards have been known to open doors to other dimensions, which, in some cases, are better off left closed.”
“Yeth,” Olympia said, with a noticeable slur. “Don’t try this at home, boys and girls, or you may find yourself being stalked by a ghostly spirit—or even worse, my ex-boyfriend.”
Oh, my God, she’s drunk, Nathaniel thought. “We’re going to cut away for a moment, folks, while we test some of this equipment and deal with some unexpected technological challenges,” Nathaniel said, going off the teleprompter now himself.
“We’re clear,” the director said. “What’s the problem, Nathaniel?”
“The problem is Olympia,” Nathaniel yelled. “She’s drunk!”
“Drunk?” Olympia said in shock. “I am not drunk. I am a professional and—”
Nathaniel stormed toward Olympia and pulled the silver flask from her pocket. “See! Just like Roosevelt Island two years ago.”
“Okay, so I had a few to calm myself down,” Olympia said. “What’s the big deal? You pop Xanax like you’re eating SweeTARTS, and do I say anything? Besides, what are you going to do? Fire me in the middle of the broadcast? I’d like to see you try to explain that!”
“We’re back in ten,” the director said.
“Stick to the teleprompter, Olympia,” Nathanial said. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Olympia repeated in a mocking tone.
“And we’re back in five… four… three…”
“Welcome back,” Nathaniel said. “Thanks for bearing with us as we broadcast live from the long-abandoned Open Arms Orphanage in DeSoto, Missouri. Now that we’ve got all our ducks in a row, we’re ready to summon the spirits of the children who are said to have died here at the hands of their caretakers.
“That’s right, Nathaniel,” Olympia said slowly, being careful to not slur her words. “And to do that, we’re going to use what is commonly called an evocation—a statement to command otherworldly entities to present themselves, if they dare to do so.”
“As we said earlier, this is not something that should be done by the untrained,” Nathaniel said, pleased with Olympia’s performance.
The final hour of the broadcast did not go the way Nathaniel thought it would.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Crimson Cove, Oregon
December 26-30, 1937
Onyx was in immense discomfort and pumped with pain medications, her entire right arm bandaged from her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. An IV tube ran from her other arm to a bag filled with saline solution hanging from a metal rod near the bed. The right side of her face was covered in bandages as well.
Even so, Onyx was alert enough to hear every word the two men were saying in the hallway outside her hospital room door.
The first of the two was Sheriff Clayton Daniels. Onyx recognized his voice from when he’d come out to the lighthouse shortly after they’d moved in. He claimed he had made the trip to introduce himself and welcome Ulrich and her to the Cove, as he put it. Onyx knew better.
Clayton Daniels—the man everyone referred to as Hell—had come to question Ulrich about the previous caretaker’s murder. Now it would be Onyx’s turn to be questioned, just as soon as she had regained consciousness, which she had. But Onyx had no intention of letting anyone know that.
The second man was the district attorney, and it was clear why he was there—considering the things the woman had told them—even if everything she claimed was a pack of outrageous lies. Well, almost everything.
Onyx had murdered Ulrich. That much was true, even if Onyx had a good reason for doing so. But the claim that the woman and Ulrich were having an affair was utterly preposterous. Ulrich spent every minute of every day taking care of the lighthouse. When would he have had the time? Her two-year-old son belonged to Ulrich?
Impossible.
Onyx and Ulrich had arrived in Crimson Cove only sixteen months earlier, so a two-year old was out of the question. And before that they’d spent the entire winter at the Open Arms Orphanage in DeSoto, Missouri. The idea that Ulrich had been carrying on with one of the nuns?
Utterly ridiculous.
No, for Ulrich to have fathered a two-year-old child with this Claudia woman would have to have been…
That’s when Onyx knew.
Las Vegas.
Onyx and Ulrich had spent the majority of their time apart while in Las Vegas—he off working on the construction of the Hoover Dam, and she waiting tables and performing in the lounge at The Apache.
It had to have been while they were in Vegas.
What other reason would this Claudia woman have had to come out to the lighthouse? On Christmas Day, no less.
It had to be to see Ulrich.
Then there was the question as to why Ulrich wanted her dead. Onyx felt she knew Ulrich pretty well, and it was difficult to imagine him deciding to do something so outrageous entirely on his own.
The last piece to the puzzle came when Onyx remembered the phone conversation she’d overheard several days before Christmas.
“We’re very close,” Ulrich had said to the person on the other end. “Just a few more days.”
Onyx had been so sick, so delirious, that the words had little meaning to her then.
Not only had her husband of ten years tried to poison her to death, but he’d also fathered a child with another woman.
Laying there in the room, Onyx wasn’t sure which hurt most—the burns or the truth.
Onyx drifted in and out of consciousness for the next two days. By the third day she knew what she needed to do.
She needed to escape.
Besides the excruciating pain and growing delirium, Onyx knew her biggest challenges would be getting past the nurses.
Three nurses had been assigned to take care of Onyx around the clock, each working an eight-hour shift. And during their shifts, each nurse had three tasks to complete.
Task #1: Give Onyx her medications.
Task #2: Change the dressings on Onyx’s burns.
Task #3: Place a meal tray next to her bed three times a day and remove it an hour later.
Besides that, the nurses pretty much ignored her. Which was what Onyx was counting on.
Onyx was being given a plethora of pills for a variety of purposes. Pills to make her sleep, pills to relieve her pain, antibiotics, various vitamins, and whatever else. While she knew some were important to take, she needed to be as alert as possible and had no idea which pills were for what. So she decided not to take any of them, shoving them deep into the mound of untouched mashed potatoes or bowl of oatmeal.
At 7:00 p.m. on the third day, the night nurse brought Onyx her dinner as usual and returned for the tray an hour later, as usual.
Five minutes later, Onyx made her move.
No one expected a severely burned and highly medicated woman to attempt an escape. No one was even watching her at all.
An hour later, Onyx found herself walking barefoot through the woods in a complete state of utter delirium, following the sound of the ocean waves to keep herself heading west and using the light from the full moon to guide the way.
How far could it be from the hospital to the lighthouse? Onyx wondered. She had no idea. Her mind was incapable of producing answers.
Onyx could see her breath in the night air as she stumbled forward and realized that—in her desperation to get back to the lighthouse—she’d failed to consider a variety of important things, including how cold it was outside.
Onyx had also forgotten to put on her shoes.
Six hours later, Onyx emerged from the woods and stopped d
ead in her tracks when she saw Clayton Daniels Jr.—Sheriff Daniels’s son, the deputy sheriff—standing guard at the lighthouse door.
No, no, no.
Onyx staggered back into the woods, exhausted and deflated. She lowered herself to the ground and leaned against a tall pine. What do I do now, Daddy?
From where she was sitting, Onyx could see out over the cove, the full moon hanging in the sky like a giant white Christmas ornament. She was so tired, racked with pain, and delirious from the lack of energy.
Katherine, if you are truly an angel sent by God to do his work here on Earth, I could use your help.
Then Onyx heard them.
Wolves howling somewhere off in the distance.
She remembered the bedtime story she used to beg her father to tell when she was a child. How did it begin? Onyx couldn’t remember. Even if she could remember how the story started, she had no idea how it ended—Onyx had always fallen asleep long before her father could finish telling it.
But now, as the first gray beast arrived—its black eyes trained on her; its warm breath visible in white streams in the cold, dark air—Onyx was pretty sure she knew.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Orlando, Florida
April 10, 1964
Declan’s next move in his game of chess was to hire a private investigator to identify the person doing Disney’s leg work on the ground when it came to registering their land purchases.
The private detective was a man named John Boyd, and Boyd was very good at his job, taking him less than a week to come back to Declan with the information.
“His name is Kenton Parker,” Boyd said.
“Anything that can be exploited?” Declan asked.
“Mr. Parker has a serious weakness for pretty women,” Boyd said. “In particular, a weakness for big-breasted blondes.”
Onyx Webb: Book Three Page 11