The Rich and the Dead (9 page)

And Effie Webster, the most predictable and homebound member of the group, was lounging poolside at the Delano Hotel.

The moment Lila walked toward the Delano pool, she spotted Effie, sprawled out on a chaise longue, getting sprayed with Evian mist by a cabana boy. She was surrounded by a gaggle of bronzed and athletic men wearing the tiny Speedos that only those sculpted like Greek gods can get away with. Lila selected a spot by the pool so close to Effie that she could smell her suntan oil.

With her Hermès beach towel, Fendi swimsuit, and oversize Gucci glasses, Lila hoped that she came across as a South Beach ingenue, but inside, she was cringing. She hadn't ever been so naked in public, and kept nervously readjusting the tiny triangles of overpriced fabric covering her chest.

Glancing around, Lila noticed that everyone at the pool was sizing her up. She closed her eyes instinctively, letting the hot, bright sun kick up a light show of orange and red-colored splashes beneath her fluttering eyelids. Suddenly, there was shade. She opened her eyes to find a cabana boy standing over her, the large Evian mister in his hand.

“Care for a spritz, miss?” the boy said in a thick Cuban accent.

“Yes, thank you.” Lila felt the delicate mist cool her skin as she kept her eye on her target.

Seeing Effie Webster in the flesh—alive, beautiful, and unaware of the horrors awaiting her—felt strange, like seeing a ghost, or a fictional character. Lila had spent so much time reviewing everything she could about Effie's death that she felt almost sick to her stomach at the thought of actually meeting her. Effie had very long, almost white-blond hair, which she was wearing in a casual topknot. Her dark blue eyes were deeply set into her oval face, and her delicate nose and chin were perfectly shaped by an expert surgeon's scalpel. Her famous figure, which was artfully displayed in a silver string bikini, was a combination of good genes and utter devotion to exercise and diet. No one could look quite that good without it being the number one priority and guiding principle of her life.

Lila watched as Effie flirted outrageously with the four gelled and waxed young men surrounding her. While one put tanning lotion on her back, she made eyes at another. The third guy was off getting her a drink from the bar, while the fourth sulked in the corner over her lack of interest.

There was almost a childlike quality to Effie, Lila quickly realized. She was slouched with boredom one minute, then squealing with excitement the next. A fit of giggling would be quickly followed by several minutes of sustained pouting. She switched from mood to mood with all the permanence of the sun's rays on the surface of the pool—and all the expertise of a master artist.

Lila could see that, behind it all, Effie was expertly calculating. She kept a close watch on who was watching her, constantly pushing and pulling to make sure everyone gave her their rapt attention. As the richest and best-known of all the models, cool kids, and young aristocrats who hung out at the Delano, Effie was at the center of this particular social circle.

Lila had to hand it to her, the girl clearly knew what she was doing.

Getting on Effie's radar would require strategy. Teddy had suggested a straightforward introduction, but Lila knew a girl like Effie wouldn't take kindly to her walking over and saying hello. That would be the social equivalent of a cold call. She'd be setting herself up to be shot down. So, Lila came up with her own plan.

After Effie's murder, Lila had interviewed dozens of people connected in some way to the young socialite, and many had said the same thing—Effie was desperate to get back in the spotlight. She'd never recovered from the quick cancellation of her reality TV show,
Hedge Fun,
which followed her as she learned the ropes of her famous father's hedge-fund business. Ben Oliver, one of the biggest producers in all of reality TV, had produced the show. He'd been relieved when it was taken off the air.

“I mean, how compelling is it watching a dumb blonde cram for her Series 7 exam?” Oliver had asked Lila when she interviewed him. He mentioned that Effie and her agent had been stalking him since the show's cancellation, in hopes that he'd get her back on the small screen. Oliver hadn't answered their calls in months.

Lila stood up and approached Effie, who was lying on her back with her eyes closed and an empty glass in her hand.

“Effie Webster?” Lila said, in a voice full of fake surprise, as she reached the socialite's beach chair. She had to sidestep Effie's tiny swarm of male admirers, all of whom were trying to look totally relaxed while discreetly keeping their oiled-up muscles flexed.

Effie's blue eyes blinked sleepily open. “You're in my sun,” she said, a dismissive curl to her upper lip. Lila felt a wave of annoyance rise up in her, but she managed a weak smile.

“My name's Camilla,” Lila offered.

Effie said nothing, just stared at Lila with a blank, bored look on her face, as if she couldn't believe Lila had the audacity to breathe the same air.

“Did you not hear me?” Effie repeated. “I said, ‘you're in my sun,' which is a nice way of saying,
move
.”

Lila took a step back, her smile disappearing. “Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you hi from Ben. He said I'd find you here.”

At the mention of that name, Effie sat up slowly. “You don't mean Ben Oliver?” she asked, with false casualness.

“Yeah,” Lila said, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“How do you know Ben? Are you in TV, too?”

“Oh, no, no.” Lila laughed, as if nothing could be farther beneath her than a career in television. “But Ben and I go way back to Georgetown,” she went on, using the biographical info she'd gleaned from researching Oliver last night. “When I told him I was coming to Miami, he said I had to connect with you.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Camilla.” Lila paused. “Camilla Dayton.” The sound of her new alias felt awkward as it came from her mouth.

“Join me,” Effie said, gesturing to the chair next to her. “Stavros”—she scowled at the boy currently lounging in the chair—“can you get the fuck up?” The muscled boy in the Speedo lethargically rose to his feet and, without a glance backward, jumped into the crowded pool. Lila perched on the freshly vacant seat.

A man in an all-white waiter's uniform arrived with a tall drink on a silver tray. He carefully, deferentially, placed the sweating glass on the table between their two chairs. Without acknowledging him, Effie picked up the glass and sipped delicately from its thin straw.

“So, when did you get to Miami?” she asked.

“Yesterday,” Lila said, finding it somehow amusing that Effie had gone from bitch to sweetheart in one second flat at the mention of the right name.

“Where from?”

Lila knew that, no matter what her answer, Effie would discover some way to find it wanting. “New York.”

“Upper East Side, I suppose.” Effie sighed as if nothing on the planet could be more tiresome.

“Is there something wrong with the Upper East Side?” Lila hoped she was right about her approach to Effie, that it was best not to come on too strong or try too hard. In a weird way, she was doing the same thing she'd done with the guys on the force—letting them come to her, rather than trying to win them over.

“Most of the girls I know who come here from New York are just a bunch of stuck-up bitches. Though I'm sure you're different,” Effie said in a tone that made it clear she believed the opposite to be true. She lowered her comically large sunglasses over her eyes and reclined on the lounge chair.

“Yep,” Lila said. “That sounds just about right. My husband, or I guess my soon-to-be-ex-husband, was very fond of their company. You can't swing a Birkin on Madison Avenue without hitting some bitch he's slept with.”

Lila couldn't see Effie's expression behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, but she kept going.

“That's why I came here. My lawyer told me I shouldn't leave the country while I'm filing for divorce, but I couldn't stay in New York.” Lila paused, hoping Effie would join in.

“What did Ben say about me?” she asked, proving that she hadn't been listening to Lila at all.

Lila shrugged noncommittally. “Just to look out for you while I was here.”

Effie bit her overly glossed lip, clearly thinking. Lila started to stand up. She was playing it cool, but her heart was racing. She'd never been good at the whole hard-to-get game. She just hoped to hell she was right in her judgment of Effie.

“Anyway, nice meeting you. Maybe we'll run into each other around town,” Lila said, turning back to her chair.

She took a single step forward, then another one.

“Wait.” Effie's voice came from behind her.

Lila turned around, trying to suppress the sly smile on her face. “Yeah?”

“Come sit,” Effie said. “Let's have a drink.”

“Sure,” Lila said with feigned indifference, settling back into the lounge chair and lowering her Gucci sunglasses over her eyes.

CHAPTER 11

L
ILA
'
S FIRST WEEK
as Camilla Dayton was an incredibly busy one. Though only eight of the twelve Janus Society members were in the country at the moment, she needed to set up the infrastructure of her surveillance for all of them—placing tracking devices on their cars, hacking into their phone and credit card records, and compiling background information on people each victim had encountered. Between sifting through all this new data, studying Teddy's database, and building her cover by circulating among the wealthy and powerful of Miami, she had no time to sleep.

But she never tired, even for a moment. On the contrary, her nerves were positively buzzing from the thrill of doing what she was born to do: hunting down a killer.

As she tracked the victims, learning the patterns of their days, it quickly became clear that Teddy's original plan remained the strongest one. Lila's best shot at gaining entry into the world of the Janus Society was through Effie Webster. So she set about becoming Effie's smiling shadow.

She started slowly. The day after they met at the Delano, she sent Effie a bouquet of flowers from Miami's top florist, with a card that read only “XXOO—Camilla.” A few days later, she “accidentally” bumped into Effie at the Yves Saint Laurent boutique in Bal Harbour, where they each dropped a little under fifteen thousand dollars on flowing silk dresses that reminded Lila of something Stevie Nicks would wear. After their shopping spree, they split a bottle of Sancerre at the St. Regis hotel bar while Lila spilled her guts about the few ups and many downs of her fictitious divorce.

But Lila could sense that all Effie really wanted to hear about was her connection to Ben Oliver. So she thought she'd go ahead and bring it up herself.

“I tried to talk with Ben yesterday,” Lila said as she topped off Effie's wineglass.

“Oh, yeah?” Effie asked with a studied indifference, though Lila could see a new brightness in her eyes.

“I wanted to thank him for putting me in touch with you, but his secretary told me he's out of the country for the next three months. Apparently he's in Guyana shooting the latest season of
Survivor
.”

“Ugh, I wouldn't spend three months in Africa for all the money in the world!” Effie said with a shudder.

“I know,” Lila agreed, fighting the temptation to point out that Effie had the wrong continent. “Here's to Ben.” She raised her wineglass and touched it to Effie's with a clink.

“To Ben,” Effie murmured, then downed the rest of her glass in a single gulp.

“Anyway,” Lila went on, redirecting the conversation toward the only subjects she knew would hold Effie's attention—clothes and herself—“I'm so glad you talked me into that dress today.”

“Absolutely.” Effie's face was a bit flushed. Lila hoped the wine was taking effect. “I think I'll wear mine to the club tomorrow,” Effie added, reaching for the last of the wine in the bottle.