The Rich and the Dead (27 page)

CHAPTER 28

A
LL MEN ARE
bastards,” Effie said to Lila as she walked around the pool topless, a cigarette in one hand and a tumbler full of vodka on the rocks in the other. “I want you to know that I know that. I'm not saying, ‘Wait for your Prince Charming,' because I'm not an idiot. Like, screw Prince Charming, right? But Alexei? Really?”

Lila was outside, waiting for Alexei to pick her up in his yacht—or as he put it, “one of my yachts.” It was their second date. Lila wanted to say to Effie:
This is the man who will put an end to your life in less than a month. I'm not dating him, I'm investigating him.
But instead she just played the dumb girl, a role that, to her horror, she was getting quite good at.

“Sometimes bad guys make for the best time,” Lila said. Effie gave her a dismissive wave.

“You know what I don't understand,” Lila continued, “is what Alexei has against Chase. I mean, the last time I saw him, he was ranting about Chase. It's like he has a personal vendetta against him or something.”

Effie's eyes grew wide at this. “What exactly did he say?” she asked.

“Nothing much. But he really hates him. Do you know if the feeling is mutual? Does Chase ever say anything about Alexei?”

Effie laughed nervously, turning her back to Lila. “I have no idea who Chase Haverford likes or doesn't like,” she said dismissively.

Over the last few months of living with Effie, Lila had been observing how she interacted with the eleven other members of the Janus Society, and what she saw puzzled her. Sure, she had seen them all at the same parties and country clubs, but it seemed to Lila as if they almost actively avoided one another. Keeping the society's membership a secret to the public made sense, to a certain extent. By not disclosing the names of its members, the society could avoid a continual bombardment of requests from people hoping to receive their massive annual donation. But why, Lila wondered, were the members themselves so cold to one another? Why did they all act like the society didn't exist? Why was everything shrouded in so much secrecy?

Suddenly a deafening roar pulled Lila away from her thoughts. She turned to see a giant cigarette boat pulling up at Effie's dock, an oversize Russian flag waving behind it.

“Oh, Christ, here's Prince Charmless.” Effie sighed, putting her hands over her bare breasts. “I'm going inside. Just the thought of that creep seeing my tits makes me want to puke.”

Alexei, who was impatiently watching Effie and his date talking, laid on the boat's horn in two long, loud honks. Effie, placing her left forearm across her entire chest, gave him the finger with her right hand. Alexei, smiling, returned the gesture.

“How lovely that the two of you are getting along,” Lila said sarcastically. “But remember, you should play nice. He'll be your neighbor soon.” She began walking toward the dock, bile rising in her throat as she took in the grotesque spectacle that was Alexei posing in his ostentatious boat.

“Please don't remind me,” Effie called after her.

Alexei was wearing an unbuttoned white silk shirt, which revealed his tanned, waxed, and tautly bloated torso. He looked somewhat like a hot dog.

Steadying her nerves for yet another round with the Russian, Lila stepped onto the dock.

“Hi, Alexei,” she said, her fake smile already exhausting the muscles of her face. “Thanks for coming to get me.” Without an offer of help from her date, she stepped down into the boat. The moment her foot left the dock, the boat roared off, causing Lila to stumble forward.

“Buckle up,” Alexei shouted above the twin engines' earsplitting noise. “I don't want to have to fish you out of the water when you blow overboard.”

The extreme speed of the boat caused its bow to push up almost out of the water, forcing Lila to practically crawl on her hands and knees to join Alexei at the front.

“Can you slow down?” Lila cried as she tried to get up into the seat next to his.

“Boo hoo,” Alexei said in a mocking tone. “Is Little Miss Tough Shit finally scared? Well, check this out,” he said as he made the boat go even faster. “I didn't pay half a million for this thing so I could go slow.”

He steered the boat around the southern tip of Miami Beach and then up the coast, parallel to its bustling beach. Though the waters off the coast of Miami were never short of showboating assholes, Lila had never seen someone drive a boat so recklessly. She cringed as he capsized two kayakers, almost collided with a couple in a small sailboat, and flipped off anyone unlucky enough to get in his way.

What troubled Lila the most was that the closer Alexei got to possible bodily harm, the more he seemed to enjoy himself. Whenever he glanced over at Lila, who was holding on to the boat for dear life, he would laugh uproariously and then drive faster.
He's a textbook sociopath,
Lila thought. For the first time since she'd been sent back in time, she was truly afraid.

About ten minutes north of South Pointe and a few hundred feet from shore, Alexei suddenly killed the engines.

“Why are we stopping here?” Lila asked, but Alexei cut her off with a hissing “Shh!”

Digging out a pair of binoculars from beneath his chair, he used them to diligently scan the shoreline, spending a long time with his gaze trained on the Grand Palm Hotel, Ocean Drive's largest and most profitable resort. And also, Lila knew, the crown jewel in Chase Haverford's hotel empire.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, wondering why all things with Alexei tended to circle around Chase.

Alexei let out an exasperated sigh but kept the binoculars pressed against his eyes. “I feel like I'm with a child,” he said. “Always with the ‘why, why, why.' ” He put down the binoculars and glared at her. Then he moved toward her, thrusting his hand down the back of her underwear.

Without thinking, Lila slammed her elbow under his collarbone. Her police training was always there in her muscles, waiting to come out. She stepped back, worried that her cover was blown, but when she looked at Alexei, he seemed surprisingly pleased.

“I love women who put up a fight,” he said.

“Why'd you shove your hand down my underwear?” Lila snapped.

“I was just checking to see if the little baby who asks so many questions had peed herself.” A lascivious smile stretched across his face. “If you keep pouting that pretty face at me, I'll give you a spanking you'll never forget.”

“Don't touch me,” she said while she looked around the boat for something she could use against Alexei if it came down to it, which she was starting to think it might.

Alexei frowned at her in disbelief.

“Don't touch you? Why? You'll punch me again? Just try it. That's my kind of foreplay.” He shook his head. “But don't play hard to get for too long. What else do you think you're here for? Conversation? You American girls are never worth your price.”

“I'm not for sale.”

“That's what you'd like to think, wouldn't you?” Alexei's face slackened, as if he pitied her and her innocence. He resumed his inspection of the Grand Palm. “You know who owns that hotel over there?” he said.

“I don't,” Lila lied.

“A little gold digger like you? You know exactly who owns this place,” he growled. “Don't waste my time pretending to play dumb. That cocksucker Chase Haverford owns it. This eyesore is that bastard's pride and joy.”

“Again with Chase,” Lila said.

“You're quite close with him, no?”

“Who do you want to fuck? Me or Chase?”

Alexei slowly lowered the binoculars and turned toward Lila.

“Both,” he answered.

“What've you got against him anyway?” she asked.

“Why waste time speaking of things known by us both?”

Understanding she'd get nowhere, Lila dropped the subject.

CHAPTER 29

T
HE STARS WERE
just beginning to show in the sky by the time Alexei dropped Lila off at Effie's dock. There was a hint of winter in the air. Lila wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to keep warm.

Her mood was heavy. The evening had been a failure, and a brutalizing one at that. All Lila had learned about Alexei was that he was a sadistic monster who embraced danger and hated Chase. So, nothing new. Throughout their time together, she had asked him in as many ways as she could think of to explain this obsession he had with Chase, but she had gotten absolutely nowhere. Alexei was not a man willing to share his secrets with anyone, least of all a woman, whom he clearly thought of as one step below a dog.

Once she knew she had hit a brick wall, Lila had wanted to get away from the Russian as quickly as possible. So she'd feigned seasickness, even going so far as to fake-vomit off the side of the boat as he looked on in horror. She was back home within ten minutes.

Feeling windblown and battered by his crazy driving, Lila went to give Alexei a kiss on the cheek before she got off the boat. He recoiled, turning his face away from her.

“You smell like vomit,” he said. “Just go.”

“I'll see you soon?” Lila asked. As much as she never wanted to see this man again, she knew that she needed to keep him close. “Next time, I'll make it worth your while,” she added, smiling coquettishly.

“You better,” he said, baring his teeth in a half smile, half growl. She could see in his eyes that he was buying her desire to see him again. His belief that she would come back for a second helping after he'd treated her so cruelly made Lila want to laugh out loud. But she refrained. Men like Alexei assumed all women wanted them, even if just for their money.

Exhausted, she dragged herself toward the guesthouse as she heard Alexei's boat roaring away. But then she stopped dead, all her senses on high alert. Someone was on the front porch.

Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest as she slowly walked to the house.

Then she heard Dylan's voice. “Camilla?”

She stopped in confusion. “Dylan? What are you doing here?”