by Liv Spector
“What a lovely man,” Lila said to Effie, shaking off the feeling of his hand on her body.
“It’s awful, the Russians are taking over Miami. And I thought the Cubans were bad.”
Once the chaise longue was swept free of body hair and covered with fresh towels, Effie and Lila took off the dresses that were covering their bikinis and lay back in the hot sun. Alexei was now on the other side of the pool, having what looked like an intense conversation with Fernando Salazar, the so-called Cuban Kissinger and member of the Janus Society.
Just as Lila was about to make another excuse so that she could listen in on their conversation, the two men nodded at each other, then parted ways.
Effie saw Lila looking at Alexei. “Just a warning,” she said. “That guy is not someone you want to cross, at all.”
“Why?” Lila asked, excited to finally be getting some valuable information out of Effie.
“People say he’s Russian mob for sure.”
“You believe them?”
“Seems likely. He’s always got armed guards. He’s as rich as a sultan. Supposedly he’s some oil tycoon, but who knows?”
“And what about that guy he was just talking to?” Lila pointed at Salazar, hoping that now, unlike with Meredith, Effie might reveal something about the Janus Society.
“Ugh. He’s, like, the king of the Cubans. My dad told me he fought in the day of the pigs, or whatever?”
“The Bay of Pigs?”
“That’s it,” Effie said, putting her finger to the tip of her surgically perfected nose.
“Do you know him?” Lila pressed. She hoped that Effie was drunk enough to let something slip.
Effie shot her a devilish smile. “Of course,” she said. “Isn’t it clear to you by now that I know absolutely everyone?” Effie flagged a passing waitress for another vodka drink and a bottle of Evian, and Lila knew the moment had passed.
As the afternoon went on, Effie worked away at her drink, inundating Lila with the gossip on every man, woman, and child that passed by. “Oh, that guy? He spent five years in prison for insider trading. See that woman over there? She travels to Brazil so some quack can inject her butt with this weird stuff that’s totally illegal in this country. That girl got kicked out of school for cutting herself; rumor is that she and her brother, who’s over there, are doing it. And that guy, the cute one, I fucked him. Smallest dick I’ve ever seen. Such a shame. He’s so hot.”
The whole nonstop monologue detailing the scandals, incest, embezzlements, crimes, and punishments of Miami’s high society had Lila’s head swimming. She wished she could take out a notepad and write everything down—she marveled that Effie’s brain managed to keep track of it all. The problem, Lila realized as Effie launched into yet another sordid story, wouldn’t be finding the villain among the innocent victims. The real difficulty would be locating any innocence in this city at all.
“How do you know so much about everyone?” Lila asked, when Effie finally came up for air.
Effie smiled, looking incredibly pleased with herself. “Secrets are the key to everything. Other people chase after money and sex and power. But not me. I learned a long time ago that knowing everyone’s dirty little secret is as good as gold.”
The club was packed with Janus Society members. Chase Haverford, the hotel magnate and host on the night of the massacre, was at the bar by the pool, shouting obscenities into his phone. Javier Martinez spent the afternoon drinking mojitos and ogling the cabana boys while playing game upon game of dominoes with his young Dominican lover. Javier’s vast fortune was always a source of gossip within the Miami social scene. He was an antiques and art dealer, but he was far too wealthy for that to be his only source of income. Lila knew there were constant whispers that he was mixed up in the black market, but nothing had ever been proven, even after his death.
When Lila walked by the tennis courts on her way to get sunscreen from the ladies’ locker room for Effie, she spotted Sam Logan, the tennis star, giving an impromptu lesson to a woman wearing a miniskirt that looked to be a child’s size. And then Neville Crawley, “of the Newport Crawleys,” quickly passed by, heading from his yacht to the golf course. Despite the day’s crushing humidity, he was wearing a blue blazer with gold buttons.
Lila used her cell phone to take pictures of each and every Janus Society member present. Most of the time, to hide the fact that she was acting like a paparazzo, she pretended to be taking a selfie, positioning herself in front of the camera and pouting while really training the lens on her chosen subject. No one even batted an eye at a beautiful girl taking endless pictures of herself. Extreme vanity, in this world, was a given.
When she got back to the chair with SPF 50 for Effie, Lila saw yet another Janus Society member, Vivienne Hunter, stepping inside a private cabana, her head wrapped in an Hermès scarf. She was pale as snow, the majority of her face obscured by large sunglasses. Her lips were thickly painted a deep red and penciled outside of her natural lip line, giving her an “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille” kind of vibe.
“Ugh, I know,” Effie said, following Lila’s gaze. “That woman is about as happy in the sun as a vampire. Why does she even bother coming here? I mean, really, move to Transylvania with the rest of the living dead.”
“And I can assume you know her?” Lila asked. Effie knew Vivienne well enough to die with her.
“That old bat? What’s there to know except that she’s made a fortune selling cheap lipsticks. But now she looks like an animatronic wax figure. Something out of Madame Tussauds.”
The crime scene photos that Lila had studied for years came screaming into her mind. She saw Vivienne Hunter dead, a sapphire necklace hanging from her white neck, her slightly parted scarlet lips echoing the gaping crimson gunshot wound in the center of her forehead. Lila shivered.
The sun began to set, turning the light around them into a hallucinatory mix of purples and pinks. A cooling breeze came off the ocean. The club staff began putting amber-colored tea light vases on all the tables. Lila glanced over at Effie, who looked quite bedraggled now that she was sobering up.
“Want to head back?” Lila asked. Effie nodded, threw on her dress, and began walking to the docks. Lila followed close behind, wondering if she should try to drive the boat home.
As they were both about to climb aboard Effie’s terror express, a wooden sailboat pulled up to the dock. Suddenly something heavy and wet clunked Lila on the head.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed, ducking forward in a protective crouch. Effie shrieked. A thick rope fell splat at Lila’s feet.
“Just wrap it on the cleat,” a voice shouted to her.
“What?” Lila asked, rubbing the back of her head. Who on earth would hit her in the head with a wet rope, then instruct her to do something with it?
She looked up to see a young, tanned man flashing an amused smile at her and Effie. He looked so familiar, but Lila couldn’t remember where she’d seen him before.
“Christ,” Effie shouted. “You got my dress wet!” Effie’s clothes, like her moods, were not to be trifled with.
With a disgusted look on her face, Effie bent down, picked up the wet rope, and weakly tossed it. It fell limply a foot away from their feet. “Tie up your own boat, Dylan.”
Lila grabbed her cell phone and quickly took a picture of Dylan for her files, thinking he wouldn’t notice. But he did. In an instant, he arranged himself in a heroic pose for the camera, putting his foot on the lip of the boat and his fists on his hips. Who does this guy think he is? Lila thought, irritated that she’d been caught.
With a startling agility, Dylan walked along the thin lip of his boat’s deck, one bare foot placed directly in front of the other like a tightrope walker. Then he hopped onto the dock and scooped up the rope.
“Not much of a sailor, are you?” he asked Lila as he wound the rope around the metal cleat bolted into the dock. He was strikingly handsome, with warm brown eyes and a lightning-quick smile. But all Lila sa
w was another South Beach pretty boy.
“She’s from New York,” Effie offered by way of explanation, climbing into her boat.
“Then what’s your excuse, Effie?” Dylan asked. Keeping his gaze trained on Lila, he said, “And does your friend have a name?”
“Lila,” Lila answered. Then she paused, catching herself. “I mean Camilla. Camilla Dayton.”
“You sure about that now?” Dylan laughed.
She looked at him stone-faced, causing his smile to quickly disappear.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked quietly.
Effie revved her soul-clatteringly loud twin engines. She was growing impatient. “Come on, Camilla!”
Dylan continued staring at Lila in a way that made her feel incredibly uncomfortable.
“I’ve got to go,” she said to him.
“What Effie wants, Effie gets. I learned that years ago. The hard way. Anyway, I’m Dylan Rhodes,” he said, extending his hand. Lila shook it, taking note of his tan, muscular forearms, the thick brown hair falling just so into his eyes. “Maybe we’ll run into each other at another, less rushed time.”
“Camilla, now!” Effie barked.
“Sure. Nice meeting you,” Lila said, pulling her hand away and turning back toward Effie.
That night, as Lila was logging her observations for the day and downloading her pictures, she lingered over her final shot—the one of Dylan Rhodes, posed as the conquering hero. She couldn’t help smiling at the sight of it.
“Idiot,” Lila said aloud in the solitude of her hotel room.
But she kept looking at the picture.
CHAPTER 12
ON SUNDAY MORNING, from the veranda of her hotel room, Lila called the number listed on the business card Scott Sloan had given her. She didn’t want to waste any time. Based on what she’d overheard yesterday, she believed that Scott knew about the existence of the Janus Society. And if he knew of its existence, then he might have had a reason to kill its members, including his wife.
“Hello, Scott Sloan’s office,” a woman with a syrupy Southern accent answered.
“Scott, please,” Lila said.
“He’s unavailable at the moment. But I could transfer you to his wife, Meredith’s line?”
There was nothing inherently suspicious in that, Lila knew, but she couldn’t help wondering where Scott had gone without Meredith. Didn’t they share all their clients?
“No,” Lila snapped, acting on impulse. “This is Andrea Baxter,” she said, grabbing the first name that popped into her head. “We had an appointment and I’ve been waiting for forty-five goddamned minutes.” In Lila’s experience, the old saying about catching more flies with honey than vinegar was 100 percent bullshit.
“Oh, my stars,” the secretary said. “That’s impossible. He wouldn’t have scheduled you now. He’s unavailable between eight forty-five and ten thirty every morning.” Unavailable, Lila thought. That was the second time Scott’s assistant had used that word. Where was he?
“Well, I’m standing here like an idiot at three Indian Creek,” Lila said, really laying it on thick. She could hear the woman on the other end of the phone begin to breathe audibly. “How fast can he get here? Because if I don’t see him in ten minutes, he’s losing a huge commission.”
“I’ll try him, but he’s at the Four Seasons now, so it would take over an hour to reach you,” the assistant babbled. “What did you say your name was? I’m sure we can reschedule if you’ll give me a—”
But Lila had already hung up the phone, hopped into her Maserati, and was speeding south along Collins Avenue toward the Four Seasons. It might be nothing, but she knew from experience that it was best to pursue every lead. And right now, Scott Sloan was definitely a suspect.
By the time she walked into the lobby it was 9:20. His secretary had said he’d be here until 10:30, which meant there wasn’t much time. Scott was somewhere in the hotel, but Lila had no idea where. The solicitous man at the front desk confirmed that he wasn’t a guest, and Lila didn’t find him during her brief survey of the pool and the hotel restaurants.
Lila stopped for a moment, giving her mind a chance to process everything. The assistant had said he was unavailable for almost two hours every morning and then let it slip that he was at this hotel. What could he be doing? Maybe the gym?
Sure enough, after signing a fake name at the registry for the hotel’s subterranean fitness club and searching its many nooks and crannies, Lila spotted Scott in a small room off the long hallway. She peeked through the tiny window of the door to see him standing on a yoga mat, balancing on one leg with his arms stretched into the air, swaying side to side to keep his balance. Next to him was a young woman with blond hair down to her waist, wearing tiny white shorts and a tank top with the Om symbol on it.
“Yoga?” Lila wondered aloud. Boozy, country-club Scott didn’t strike her as the yoga type.
Lila quickly ducked to make sure that neither of them saw her spying through the window. She turned to leave but glanced back one last time—just in time to see Scott quickly kiss the yoga instructor on the mouth. From the way the woman kissed him back, Lila knew it wasn’t the first kiss they’d shared. Now things were beginning to make more sense.
Smiling, Lila turned and walked back to the club reception desk to book a private session with the “darling yoga girl with the long blond hair.” It turned out the girl, whose name was Willow Morris, had an opening in a couple hours. Lila happily booked it, then headed to the spa gift shop. Camilla Dayton would be needing some yoga pants.
“My name’s Camilla,” Lila said as she stepped into the yoga studio at noon. Willow, instead of shaking Lila’s outstretched hand, put her own palms together, closed her doe eyes, and gave her a small bow.
“Namaste,” Willow said.
Lila was struck by the girl’s wide-eyed, cheerful face. It was the kind of face that missionaries wear as they walk up to strangers asking them if they know Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior—the face of a true believer. Lila smiled, already faltering. She’d handled a broad range of characters in her day—ex-cons, drug dealers, corrupt politicians—but sincerity and earnestness were her kryptonite, and she didn’t know how to face them.
Amid burning incense, sitar music, and flickering candles, Lila grudgingly began her first-ever yoga class. She quickly found that she was about as limber as a cement block. And if Willow told her to “relax and breathe” one more time, she might just deck her. Lila wasn’t a yoga expert, but she’d been breathing on her own for thirty years, and it had been working just fine so far.
While they were moving through a series of what Lila could only think of as sadistic contortions, Willow asked Lila about herself, which gave Lila the opportunity, between groans, to tell the now-familiar story of her escape from New York, the philandering ex-husband, the agony of loss. Willow stood nodding in sympathy, a slight frown on her face.
“Everything,” she said, “contains both meaning and the opposite of meaning, which is no meaning.” Lila felt her body quivering with the effort it took to keep her balance while also suppressing an eye roll. Instead, she simply nodded.
“Breathe your ex-husband out!” Willow shouted as Lila struggled to mimic her posture. “Breathe your freedom in!”
After the ninety-minute lesson was over, Lila casually asked Willow out for a drink—saying that, being new to the city and all, she’d love to pick her brain about Miami.
“There’s a place right down the beach that does a killer guava smoothie. Guava is really good for detoxifying your organs,” Willow offered, bending in a way that made Lila wonder if she had any organs at all.
As they walked together, Lila returned to her tale of the philandering husband back in New York. In order to get Willow to spill about Scott, she figured she needed to do much more spilling herself.
“What breaks my heart the most is that he lied to me.” Lila breathed in sharply, hoping Willow would get the sense that tears were about to flow. “And what
I hate most of all is that I should’ve known. Before I was his wife, I was his mistress. I mean, how dumb am I?” Lila looked at Willow to see if she was getting anywhere.
Willow’s head was turned away from Lila, toward the ocean, her face sporting her usual serene smile.
“If a man cheated on another woman with me, why did I think he wouldn’t cheat on me with another woman?”
Willow took Lila’s hand in hers; her eyes looked like those of a baby seal about to be clubbed. “There are no patterns in the now. You trusted, and opened your heart. That’s all that truly matters.”
“Tell that to my divorce lawyer,” Lila said with a sigh.
After a short walk, they arrived at a little palm-frond shack just feet from the ocean’s edge. A young Japanese guy wearing only a crocheted Rastafarian hat and surf shorts was behind the bar. Bhangra music blasted from an old speaker atop a defunct vending machine. The bartender nodded to Willow, who nodded back.
“Hey, Kiyoshi,” Willow said. “Can you whip us up two of those guava smoothies when you get a chance?”
Lila knew it was early in the day to drink, but she also knew she wouldn’t get any information out of this girl through the power of antioxidants alone. She needed to get Willow drunk, and she needed it now.
“Um . . . ,” she said, fumbling with the straps of her new Lululemon top. “I hate to admit it, but after dredging up all those memories, I could really use a drink.” Willow paused, looking at Lila, and Lila worried she’d gone too far. But then, to her relief, Willow loudly slammed her hand on the bar.
“You’re right! A drink is what we both need. Kiyoshi always has a bottle of something behind that bar of his. Am I right, my man?” she asked.
