The Rich and the Dead (37 page)

“Are you sure you feel all right?” Teddy asked. “You were in the past for quite some time. Your old life may seem strange to you at first.”

She looked up at her run-down apartment building on this shitty block in Little Havana. All she could think was how broken everything looked—the cracks in the building walls, the trash on the sidewalk, the yellowed undershirt of one of her neighbors hanging out on the stoop.

“Strange,” she said. “That's one word for it.”
Shithole is another,
she thought.

“Let's talk in a few days,” Teddy said. “It's not over yet, remember that.”

Lila nodded in agreement, but she'd had enough. She was done chasing after ghosts. And from what she could see, she suspected Teddy was done, too. This was their last shot, and she had blown it. Time to move on.

When she opened the door to her apartment, a wall of heat and humidity hit her. It was over a hundred degrees inside her spare little place. She regarded it with mostly embarrassment. How had she ever lived like this? It wasn't just that she'd been living in luxury for the past three months. It was something more. That time away from the present had allowed her to see how low she'd let herself fall and how little she'd come to expect from herself and from her life.

One thing was clear. She needed more than this.

She needed Dylan.

She knew it was best to leave him in the past. He had made it clear that she had done something he could never forgive. So much of their relationship had been built upon a foundation of lies. But Lila knew it wasn't
only
lies. There was also love there, a connection she'd never known before and doubted she'd experience again.

Lila moved quickly to her desk, opened up her laptop, and typed his name into the search field. Dylan Rhodes. Thousands of articles came up. She searched through them ravenously, eager for any news about him. Most of the information was about the Rhodes Foundation, founded by Dylan and Dr. Arun Verma, the doctor she'd met when she visited Dylan at the hospital. She looked up the foundation online. The mission statement on the website read: “The Rhodes Foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research and focusing on improving the lives of those living with paralysis.”

Through his foundation, Lila read on in awe, Dylan had raised tens of millions of dollars for research on spinal cord injuries. There was an article about how Miami General Hospital had recently opened a Rhodes wing dedicated to treating patients with injuries similar to Dylan's. Hoping to see a picture of him, Lila searched the article in vain.

The article said that “Dylan Rhodes did not attend the opening of the wing named in his honor.” The journalist went on to make note of his “strange, solitary life.” “Although,” Lila read, her eyes glued to the computer screen, “he was once a fixture on the Miami social scene, Rhodes withdrew from the public eye following the robbery that left him permanently unable to walk. Today, he lives in almost complete isolation on a three-hundred-acre mangrove preserve by the Biscayne Bay on the outskirts of Miami.”

Lila tried everything she could think of to get Dylan's address online. But her efforts were futile. She bit the bullet and phoned one of her old partners at the police station. She hated calling in favors, but this was important. Within two minutes, she held his address in her hands: 1 Black Point Peak, Homestead, Florida.

She couldn't believe it. He was only a thirty-minute drive away. What would happen when he saw her? It had been only five days since she'd seen him, but years had passed since he'd seen her. Maybe he'd met someone else. And even if not, there were so many obstacles in their way.

She looked outside. A summer storm was blowing in. Low, dark clouds hung ominously in the sky. The palm fronds tossed around in the increasing wind. Just then, the rain started to fall. Lila didn't let the downpour stop her. She dashed to her car and set off to find Dylan.

The storm picked up speed as she drove south, but she barely noticed. All she could think of was the fact that soon, she'd see his face once more.

The rain had stopped by the time Lila pulled up to the wooden gates that let onto Dylan's estate. She was almost sick with nervousness.

The gates were about ten feet tall and studded with iron rivets. Lila got out of the car and looked for any intercom or way of requesting entrance. There was nothing. As she continued searching, the gates opened slightly, and a portly and sun-creased man with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder waddled out to greet her.

“Can I help you, ma'am?” he asked. His face was kind, but Lila's nerves, already taut in anticipation of seeing Dylan, were put on edge by the gun.

“I'm here to see Dylan Rhodes.”

“He expectin' you?”

“No, but I'm an old friend of his.” The wind whipped noisily through the forest of palm trees that grew wild beyond the gate.

“He don't got a lot of friends calling these days.”

“Can you let him know that Camilla Dayton is here to see him?”

The man with the rifle eyed her skeptically. It seemed as if in all his years guarding this gate, not one unannounced visitor had ever made it by him.

“Wait right here,” he said, as he squeezed his giant belly back through the tiny opening. After a few seconds, Lila peeked through to see him in a little shed on the phone. The call didn't last longer than a minute.

The gates slowly opened all the way.

“Mr. Rhodes will see you now,” the man said, quite grandly. “The road to the main house is a bit bumpy thanks to all the rain we got, but keep straight for about ten minutes and you'll find your way.”

Lila thanked him and climbed back into her car. She felt light-headed with anticipation.

“A bit bumpy” was putting it mildly. It wasn't so much a road as an unpaved collection of giant potholes and muddy puddles. Lila eased her little car through the difficult terrain very slowly. About two minutes from the gate, she saw a Land Rover barreling directly toward her.

“Oh no,” she cursed. This car was going to run her right off the road, which had fairly deep gutters dug next to it. If her car was forced to veer off in order to avoid this maniac, she'd never manage to get back on. Yet the car kept coming. She was caught in an unwanted game of chicken.

With the Land Rover about twenty feet away, she came to a complete stop, and the SUV, with enviable ease, went off-road around the left side of her car.

Lila scowled at the reckless driver as he passed. But he just smiled at her, giving her a little two-fingered salute as his car drove by and quickly retreated in her rearview mirror.

There was something familiar about him, but her mind was too focused on seeing Dylan to dwell on anything else.

A few minutes later, she pulled up to Dylan's house. It was a grand stone mansion, with beautiful tall, arched windows and a terra-cotta roof. Her heart jumped. There he was, waiting for her on the front porch. Though he was sitting in a very advanced-looking mechanical wheelchair, he looked exactly the same as she remembered. Unlike Teddy, who had aged in the face of tragedy and loss, Dylan looked as robust and as youthful as ever. He was beaming from ear to ear. Her heart leaped when she saw that smile. Against all odds, he seemed happy she was there.

The moment she got out of the car, she heard him call her name. “Camilla!”

She ran toward him, then bent down and threw her arms around him. The chair made the embrace awkward.

“It's you,” he said softly, putting his hands on her face, as if to make sure she was real. “I can't believe it's you.”

Lila felt relieved, drunk with happiness.

Dylan was looking up at her, reflecting all that she felt right back. “I've wondered about you every day. And now you're here.” He laughed with joy. “Please, come inside.”

Lila followed Dylan into the home's intimate main room. It had stone walls and exposed beams on its vaulted ceilings. Although it was the middle of summer, the smell of fireplace smoke hung in the air.

Dylan couldn't stop smiling. “I never thought I'd see you again,” he said. “Where have you been? And why now? After so many years, what made you decide to see me today?”

“I came as soon as I could,” she said. “I came the moment I realized my life didn't make sense anymore without you.” She paused, then walked over to him and put her hand in his. “Plus, the last time I saw you in the hospital . . . it couldn't be the last time.”

“I said things that day that I've regretted every day since.”

“You shouldn't,” Lila replied.

“Yes, I should. It doesn't matter now why you left me. Or why you left Miami. You did leave town, didn't you?”

Lila nodded.

“Thank God. It was either that or I had consecutively hired four of the most incompetent private detectives in all of history. None of them could find a trace of you, here or anywhere.”

“I can explain—”

“I don't want you to,” Dylan said, interrupting her. “Here, sit down.” Lila settled into a leather chair. Dylan scooted so close that their knees were touching. “For the past three and a half years I've been here, mostly on my own, and I've had a lot of time to think. First, I was shot. Then all those people on Star Island. And you were gone. It felt like the world was just one empty and treacherous place. So I came up here to figure it out. But all I could think about was you. You won't believe me, but I made a deal with God, or whoever it is that runs the show, that if I ever found you again, there'd be no questions, no need for explanations, and no past. All we'd have was that very moment. And then the next moment. And then the rest of our lives together.”

Lila ran the tips of her fingers along his glorious face. Along his eyebrow, down his cheekbone, then to his full lips. “I like that plan,” she said.

“Plus,” he went on, “there's hope I won't be in this damn wheelchair forever.”

“Really?”

“I hope so. You remember meeting Dr. Verma at the hospital, when you visited me?”

“I don't want to think about that horrible night ever again,” Lila said.

Dylan reached for her hand and ran his thumb lightly over her knuckles. “Well, that man has been my guardian angel from the moment I got shot. We've known each other since we were children and went to the same boarding school. When I arrived at the hospital, he was there to meet the ambulance. Since then, he's dropped everything to devote himself to my case.”

Looking at Dylan now, drinking all of him in, Lila could believe that he might fully recover. His vitality had in no way faded. He was wearing a cotton T-shirt, which showed off his muscular chest and arms, and jeans. Even his legs looked powerful.

“Dr. Verma has been here every day, working with me,” Dylan continued. “I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy. For the first few months after the accident, I didn't even want to get out of bed, but he was there to keep me on track. If it wasn't for him and my brother, I don't know where I'd be.”

“Your brother?” Lila asked, distracted. The upward splatter of mud on Dylan's jeans had momentarily caught her attention.

“Sure. My brother's here almost every day. Actually, you just missed him. He left a couple minutes before you arrived.” Lila got up from her chair, walking over to the window. There was a beer perched on a shelf around the height of her shoulder. Beads of condensation clung to the glass bottle. The window looked out onto the mangrove forest, a dense riot of overgrown tropical green. There were two sets of muddy footprints that went up the stairs, and two hunting guns resting in the rifle rack.

Lila heard Dylan behind her. “There's a lot to look forward to.”

She leaned down to kiss him. She tasted beer on his breath. By the door she saw a muddy pair of shoes.

“In a few years, I may be able to walk again.” Something else in the room caught her eye. It was an ancient-looking tapestry hanging over the fireplace.

“What's that?” Lila asked, pointing to the tapestry. It was exquisite, made of wool and embroidered with metallic and silk threads.

“It's beautiful, isn't it? When my dad died, it was the only thing of his that I wanted. It's the Rhodes family coat of arms. It's been in my family for many, many generations.”

Lila stared at it. The coat of arms consisted of a blue shield, a knight's helmet, and three red birds. Something about it was bothering her, tugging at the edge of her consciousness. Then an electric charge shot through her body as she suddenly remembered: the three red birds that were tattooed on the shooter's forearm when Dylan was shot outside the liquor store. The same three birds that she saw before her. The same ones she had seen out of the corner of her eye on that man's—Dylan's brother's—arm when his Land Rover drove around her just minutes ago. She had been so focused on seeing Dylan that the connection didn't register.

Calling on all the cocktail party skills she'd picked up as Camilla Dayton, Lila settled her face into a smile, like a mask, trying to be as casual as possible even though a scream was ricocheting around in her head. She crossed the room toward the rifle rack, where she slowly picked up a hunting gun. The sharp smell of gunpowder filled her nose.

When she turned back toward Dylan, she trained the gun on him, trying to steady her trembling hands.

She finally knew who the Star Island killer was.

CHAPTER 42