The Rich and the Dead (26 page)

“Why would you spend so much money on something you hate?” Lila asked.

Alexei leaned back from Lila, staring at her straight in the face with a look of disgust. “You look ugly when you're being a nosy bitch,” he spit at her.

He grabbed the bottle of Grey Goose sitting on the table and poured shots for himself and Illya. They clinked the glasses together, poured the liquor down their throats, and then smashed the glasses loudly down upon the table in almost perfect unison. A synchronized drinking team.

“I tease you,” Alexei said, putting his meat paw of a hand high up on Lila's inner thigh. “I tell you why I bought shit painting.” He poured himself and Illya another shot. “One of my spies told me Chase Haverford, that bastard, wanted painting. He wants it. I want him not to have things he wants. I buy it to say fuck you to him.”

Illya refilled their shot glasses and said something to Alexei in Russian that caused both men to nearly double over in fits of laughter. One of the glasses tipped, spilling vodka onto Lila. Alexei dipped two fingers into the pool of vodka that had formed on the lap of the leather dress Lila was wrapped in, then put those fingers in between her lips.

“Now look what I've done. I've made you wet,” he said, removing the fingers from her mouth and then wiping them off on her bare shoulder. “My friend here just said funny joke. He said I should take painting and hang it in one of the plants where I slaughter pigs.” He burst out laughing again, and he slapped a pleased and drunk-looking Illya on the back. “I'll do that. And I'll send Chase a picture of dead pigs on hooks going by the painting he so badly wanted.”

“What do you have against Chase?” Lila asked. “He seems like an okay guy to me.”

“An okay guy?” Alexei snarled. “Only a dumb bitch like you would think that. Which is why you need to keep your mouth shut. Let the men talk.”

Lila, again, complied with the wishes of this sociopath. She sat there quietly, watching the two men get drunker and drunker, but her head was spinning. It was all finally coming together. Alexei had the skill to kill the members of the Janus Society. And he detested Chase. But why? What had caused this red-hot hatred between Chase and Alexei? And why would he kill the rest of the Janus Society?

She got up from the table and headed down to the beach. Alexei and Illya, consumed by a drunken oblivion, didn't even notice. Finding a quiet corner away from boisterous crowd, Lila checked the one message on her voice mail. It was from Dylan.

“Camilla?” he said in a bruised-sounding tone. Lila pressed the phone close to her ear, her heart racing from hearing his voice. “It's Dylan. I don't know why you've been avoiding me, but whatever it is, I know we can figure it out. But you've got to call me. It's too hard to go through so many days without hearing from you. Call me.” Then the message was over. She listened to it again. Then again.

More than anything else, she wanted to call him back, to run into his arms, and to never, ever see Alexei again. So far, the best part of being Camilla Dayton had been meeting Dylan Rhodes.

She realized, at that very moment, that she wanted Dylan's love more than she wanted to find the killer. After all, once this was over, she'd be going back to the bleak, broken life she had left in 2018. Yet somehow, now, returning to that life would be even harder because she finally had a taste of real love.

But it was all so much more complicated than that. The Dylan she knew now would soon be gone. He would be gunned down, paralyzed, and forever changed. Knowing what she knew about his terrible fate made it impossible for her to face him. She felt as if she was drowning in lies, cursed by knowing the tragic futures awaiting the people she loved.

She let herself listen to Dylan's voice once more and then, closing her eyes, deleted the message. Nothing good could come from continuing contact with him. She knew she had to walk away. It would be easier for them both if he thought she'd simply lost interest.

But nothing could be farther from the truth.

CHAPTER 27

I'
M ONE HUNDRED
fucking percent not in the mood for one of these godforsaken charity events,” Effie said to Lila as they walked down the hall toward the ballroom where the annual Platinum Ball Gala was, from the sounds of the loud music pulsating through the air, in full swing.

Lila looked questioningly at Effie, who, to her mind, was created for parties like these.

“You're a party girl who doesn't want to go to a party? That's like a bird who doesn't want to fly, Ef,” Lila teased as she playfully grabbed Effie's hand, swinging it to the beat of the music.

The hallway was lined with candles, and pink lights crisscrossed in a tight pattern along the ceiling, giving attendees the feeling of entering some magical realm. The Platinum Ball was a black-tie event and one of the highlights of the Miami social calendar. Effie had spent weeks deliberating with Lila about what to wear and how to arrange her hair, so it was a bit shocking to hear this perfectly coiffed woman in a gorgeous Dior gown saying that she would rather be doing something else.

“Here,” Lila said, grabbing a glass of champagne off a tray held by an exceptionally well-formed waiter with a boy-band haircut. “Drink this. It'll make everything better.” Effie gave Lila a fake grin and gulped the champagne down in one impressive chug.

“I'm going to need a few more of those.” Effie put the glass back on the tray, then picked up a full flute. “I'm going to circulate. Catch up with you later,” she said as she disappeared into a sea of gowns and tuxedos. As Lila walked the perimeter of the ballroom, she saw all of Miami society spread out before her. Among them, somewhere, were each of the twelve members of the Janus Society. Events like this were perfect opportunities for Lila to see all of the future murder victims interact in their most natural habitat—surrounded by other members of the financial and social elite.

When she'd been a lowly detective trying to find the killer, Lila had always felt as if this high-society world kept a giant fence around itself, prohibiting outsiders from seeing and understanding its inner workings. Now she knew it was even worse than that. Even now that she was an insider, one of them, she was continually encountering more walls, more secrets, more mysteries, the closer she got to the center of it all.

Then she saw Dylan.

Panic flooded through her. She had been worrying all day that he would be at the ball, and here he was, standing with Vivienne Hunter, whose arms were wrapped tightly around his right biceps. From the looks on both of their faces, they were having a rather serious conversation. Dylan's head was turned toward Vivienne, so Lila knew she had not yet been spotted. She needed to escape. Her heart racing, she stumbled blindly onto the veranda.

A strong tropical breeze greeted her, as did the mesmerizing sound of the waves rhythmically crashing on the deserted beach below. Out of the corner of her eye, Lila saw two figures huddled in the darkness, way out of sight. She heard them whispering, but the moment she spotted them, they must have also seen her, because they fell silent. She walked toward them and was shocked to discover Teddy Hawkins and Meredith Sloan.

“Camilla!” Meredith said, blinking at her with nervous eyes, her voice as tense as a wire. “How wonderful to see you.”

“Yes,” Teddy echoed, with a strained smile. “Wonderful!” His eyes were darting around, as if looking for the closest exit.

Meredith's hair, which was always silken perfection, like the hair of a silent movie star, was loose in a halo of errant strands. Even in the dark light, Lila could see her bright lipstick was half smudged off, and a bit of mascara was crawling down under her eyes.

“I came out here to admire the view,” Meredith nervously explained. “And ran into Teddy.”

“Indeed. I needed a bit of fresh air myself,” he said quickly.

“Of course, darling, you've heard that someone else closed on your house, right? Sorry I wasn't the one to tell you.”

“That's fine,” Lila said. Teddy and Meredith were acting so strangely. She wondered what she had walked into. And then, as she saw the way Teddy's eyes flicked over to Meredith, she realized the truth.

Teddy and Meredith were having an affair.

“We'll find you another place in no time. Though I always suspected that you weren't all that interested in buying that house. After all, it did have its problems.”

“Don't we all,” said Teddy.

“But it's rather windy out here, isn't it? I feel as if I'll be blown overboard. So, I think I'll be heading back inside,” Meredith said, and, with that, she scuttled away, leaving Lila alone with Teddy.

Lila stood there in silence, digesting it all. She still couldn't believe that this man was the same one who would send her into the past to catch the Star Island killer. But at least now Lila knew why. It was for Meredith.

Willow, the yoga teacher, had told Lila that Meredith was having an affair with a high-profile guy. Why hadn't Lila realized it earlier? Teddy would become obsessed with the Star Island murders because the woman he loved would die in them.

Encountering this Teddy, the Teddy that had yet to be devastated by the Star Island murders, still in love with Meredith and hopeful for the future, made her suddenly and unbearably sad.

Teddy grabbed her hand. “Enough of us standing on the sidelines,” he exclaimed, energy filling his voice. “Why don't you and I take a spin on the dance floor?”

Lila took him in, the bright eyes, the contagious smile. How could she refuse this man anything?

“Sure,” she said, as he pulled her inside.

Laughing, Teddy spun Lila, then put one hand on her waist and the other hand in hers. She looked around to see if Dylan was close by, but fortunately, he was nowhere in sight. She gazed up at Teddy. In the ballroom glow she could see that there were traces of lipstick around his mouth. Teddy's eyes were searching the room; then, when they caught something, an enormous smile spread across his face. His eyes were locked on Meredith, who was smiling back.

“Ummm, Teddy,” Lila said gently as they danced. “You've got something all over your mouth.”

“Really?” he said, producing a monogrammed handkerchief from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He wiped his mouth and, upon seeing the lipstick traces on the cloth, blushed a deeper shade of pink than the lipstick itself. “I was. I was”—he stumbled—“eating strawberries earlier. It seems I made a real mess of things.” Lila felt the hand that held hers grow warmer and sweatier.

“Not at all,” she said. “You're just fine.” They smiled at each other. “All cleaned up now.”

As the rest of the night unfolded around her in all its grandeur, Lila couldn't stop thinking about Teddy and Meredith, and Teddy's relentless pursuit of the man who had killed his love. For the entire time that Lila had been living as Camilla Dayton in this strange, upside-down world, she'd thought of Teddy's warnings not to change what had already occurred. Now she knew that he really, truly meant it. After all, Teddy hadn't sent her back into the past to stop the murders, to save the woman he loved. He'd sent her here to find out who had carried out this terrible crime, so that, finally, he could bring the killer to justice.

That was a kind of love that she admired. A brave love. She felt ashamed that she was too scared to share how she felt with Dylan. She doubted Teddy would be so frightened of a broken heart.

The song ended, and Teddy drifted away from Lila and back toward Meredith. Lila's cell phone chimed. As if he could read her mind, Dylan had sent her a text.
Why are you avoiding me?
She glanced up from her phone to see him looking right at her. She held his gaze, wanting to run to him, wanting to explain everything. Instead, she just texted him back:
It's for the best.

She pressed Send, then hurried out of the ballroom. “It's for the best,” she said aloud to the empty street.