The Rich and the Dead

by Liv Spector

  Kiyoshi’s face was as stoic and unreadable as an owl’s. “Cuban moonshine,” he said, pulling an unlabeled bottle out from behind a pile of coconuts. He then poured a bit into the blender. Lila knew that wouldn’t be good enough.

  “Why don’t you grab us a table?” she suggested to Willow. Once the young woman had walked away, Lila slipped Kiyoshi a hundred-dollar bill with the instructions to “make those drinks as stiff as a corpse.”

  She watched with delight as he poured half the bottle into the blender.

  That should do it, Lila thought.

  About halfway through the smoothie, the Cuban moonshine started to work its magic. Lila continued to talk so incessantly about her fake ex-husband and his fake mistress that she was beginning to believe she really had been wronged.

  “And you should see the slut he’s with now. She’s barely out of high school. He’s using our money to produce her album.”

  “What if they’re really in love?” Willow said slowly. She was drunk. Lightweight, Lila thought, with a feeling of smug superiority. “I mean . . .” Willow paused, lowering her face to the straw to take another sip. “People fall in love and people fall out of love.”

  Lila waited, sensing that Willow was on the edge of confessing. In the ocean, a group of surfers battled loudly for a wave. The shack started to fill up with sunburned tourists and marijuana-soaked locals. Kiyoshi put Fela Kuti on the sound system.

  “The man I love is married,” Willow said finally. “That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?”

  “I guess that depends.” Lila had to strike a delicate balance. In order to get more out of Willow, she needed to make her feel bad about her actions, but not so bad that she would clam up.

  “I mean, it started as nothing. He’s a client of mine. And all I remember about our first few sessions is how much sadness he had in his body. You couldn’t not feel it. I mean, his aura was literally black, you know?” She finished her drink and signaled Kiyoshi for another. Lila made eye contact with the bartender, nodding to make sure the second drink was as strong as the first.

  “So we start talking,” Willow said, taking a deep sip of her second drink. “Turns out, his wife is having this big affair and their marriage is essentially over. Well, love is my religion.” She placed her two tiny hands over her heart and made a small sound that sounded like the cooing of a dove. “I don’t know how it happened. I was trying to heal his broken heart and somehow we fell in love.” And a few months from now, Lila thought, Meredith Sloan will be dead and Scott Sloan will be married to a Ukrainian lingerie model. Ain’t love grand?

  “If she’s having an affair, why doesn’t he just leave her?” Lila asked.

  “They run a big business together. If he leaves his wife for me, he’s worried that he’ll lose everything in the divorce. But his wife’s lover is really high-profile, so we know that it’s bound to become common knowledge soon enough.” Willow let out a long, pitiful sigh. “The only way the marriage will end is if she leaves him first.”

  “Will she?” Lila prodded gently.

  “Who knows? All I know is that they’re so unhappy.” Willow leaned in toward Lila’s face. She smelled like coconut oil and baby powder. “I couldn’t live the way they do, with so much anger and hate.”

  “I’ve been there,” Lila said. “And it isn’t pretty. That much misery can make people do crazy things. Once I found out about my husband’s affairs, I had these long, intricate daydreams about him stepping off a curb and being plowed down by a truck.”

  Willow’s face lit up with the delight that comes from a shared understanding. “Yep,” she said, nodding, “Scott has those. Oh, does he ever!”

  “He fantasizes about killing his wife?”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds really bad. I know it’s a karmic nightmare to wish another person ill, but it helps him release his anger. And he has so much anger.” Willow sighed. “I mean, it’s not like he would ever actually do it. He’s absolutely terrified of his wife. She’s a real nightmare. At least, that’s what he tells me.”

  It seemed to Lila that bashing her boyfriend’s wife was something Willow had been aching to do.

  “She sounds awful,” Lila offered, desperate to keep Willow talking. “Actually, I don’t think the world would miss her too much if she was hit by a truck.”

  At this, Willow let out a big laugh. Then, as if shocked by her own reaction, she became stern-faced. “That’s the last thing he wants, trust me.”

  “Relax, I was just making a bad joke,” Lila said, putting her hand on top of Willow’s. She knew that keeping the mood light was imperative to keeping the conversation going. “Obviously, I know you don’t want her to die.”

  “Oh, I know.” Willow snatched her hand from under Lila’s and gave it a tiny flick, followed by a nervous giggle. “The whole thing is so ugly, I sometimes wonder how I became a part of any of it. All I meant was that, if she dies, he gets nothing. Her family made sure of that.”

  “Her family?” Lila asked. If what Willow was saying was true, this news changed everything.

  Willow nodded. “She comes from serious money. If she dies, he gets zero. It’s all in their crazy prenup. Leave it to her to control him even from the grave,” she added, a little bitterly. Lila liked drunk Willow. She had a bit of a tough streak.

  So, Lila thought, as Willow rambled on. If Meredith dies, Scott gets nothing. If that’s true, it wouldn’t be remotely in his interest to kill her.

  “Anyway,” Willow was saying, “Scott and I have been trying to get news of his wife’s affair out in the public, to force the divorce. Both of us have sent anonymous tips to the South Beach gossip columns several times.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing.” Willow pouted. “We think the papers don’t want to risk a lawsuit. So it seems pretty hopeless at the moment,” she said with her face in a frown and her body in a slouch. Then, shaking off her temporary blues, Willow straightened her back and looked thoughtfully out toward the ocean. “But I know it will all work out in the end.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Lila said, knowing perfectly well that it wouldn’t. “Oh, I meant to ask,” she added with a studied casualness, “have you ever heard of the Janus Society?”

  “Janus Society? Is that the new club on Ocean Drive?”

  “Never mind. Forget I asked. Let’s go back,” Lila said, pulling Willow to her feet. On the way out, she put another hundred on the bar for Kiyoshi. She always rewarded the barkeeps with generous pours.

  LATER THAT EVENING, Lila was back at her hotel room, once again on her laptop. She was hoping that somewhere in the thousands of pages of files, Teddy had included a copy of the prenuptial agreement between Scott and Meredith Sloan. After a quick search, Lila located it in Meredith’s file.

  Decoding the legalese wasn’t easy, but after rereading the document a couple of times, Lila found the telltale clause buried in the twenty-six pages: “Prospective Husband and Prospective Wife waive the right to share in each other’s estates upon their death.”

  With that one line, Scott Sloan lost his main motivation for the murder of his wife. Really, given that most of their money came from Meredith’s family, Scott had everything to lose from her death.

  Lila couldn’t remember what had happened to Scott after he’d remarried. She quickly searched through the files for any financial information on Scott Sloan after 2014. What she discovered shocked her. Though he was still living the moneyed life, it was all an act. Without Meredith’s money, he was drowning in debt. Even the millions he made selling his half of the real estate business to her family did little to help him out of a $25 million hole.

  Scott was a first-class asshole, that much was clear. But he was not the Star Island killer. Lila crossed her first suspect off the list.

  CHAPTER 13

  THERE ARE EIGHT bedrooms—not including the master suite, of course—a grand reception room, home entertainment center, personal gym, and double boat dock,”
Meredith Sloan was saying as she walked Effie and Lila around the empty house on Star Island Drive. “They’re asking twenty-five million,” she said. “But in this soft market, we can give them an opening offer of twenty.”

  Lila absorbed this information with a thoughtful nod. Meredith had agreed to show her around some of South Beach’s most opulent homes, and Lila felt she had to at least pretend she was interested in purchasing one of them. Currently they were touring the Mediterranean-style monstrosity that just so happened to be next door to Effie.

  Effie, who was along for the ride, didn’t feel the need to pretend to be interested in anything. “God, Camilla, I really want you to move in here so we can be close, but this place is a dump,” she said, looking around in horror. “Does it even have staff quarters?” she asked Meredith.

  “Yes, there are ample staff quarters on the ground floor and a coach house for guests,” Meredith said quickly. “It’s really the complete package. Everything a young lady looking to settle down needs.”

  “Of course, if you bought this place, you’d have to completely renovate. The southwestern thing is so passé.” Effie sniffed as she took in the turquoise walls and the cowhide furniture with a visible shudder. “It’s like living in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.” She gestured pointedly at a cow skull hanging over the adobe fireplace.

  Lila looked around. Her shabby Little Havana apartment was smaller than the foyer of this house. The fact that it was seen as at all reasonable for one person to live in a ten-thousand-square-foot house all by herself, as Effie did, struck her as sheer lunacy.

  “Can I see the pool?” Lila asked sweetly. She needed some fresh air.

  As they stood by the palm-tree-lined heated pool, Effie leaned toward Lila and whispered, “This place is a total shithole. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Totally,” Lila said, smiling. Only Effie Webster would be able to call this mansion a shithole, but Lila needed an excuse to leave. The two women grinned at each other.

  “Thanks, Meredith,” Effie said, giving her two air kisses on her sunken cheeks. “We’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Lila said to Meredith.

  “I have other listings I can show you,” Meredith said, clearly anxious not to lose Lila as a client. “Maybe later in the week?”

  “Okay!” Lila and Effie both called out over their shoulders as they turned to walk back to Effie’s place.

  “God,” Effie said in disbelief, “you live next to people for years and you never know what unbelievably bad taste they have. It’s like everyone is a stranger!” She burst into laughter. “I mean, did you see their collection of taxidermied armadillos? I should’ve taken pictures. No one’s going to believe me.”

  “That was grotesque,” Lila said, then let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll never find a place as beautiful as yours.”

  “That’s true,” Effie said, never shy to take a compliment.

  “If I do buy that place,” Lila continued, “I’d have to gut it. I’d need to be over here every day to oversee the renovations.”

  “Of course!” Effie exclaimed. “Never trust anyone in construction. They’re criminals.”

  “But it’ll be such a hassle. The drive to and from the hotel every day will be brutal . . . ,” Lila said leadingly. “And I hate the idea of buying somewhere that I haven’t lived before. I’d really be buying that place for the location, you know? Is it crazy to commit to somewhere that I’ve never spent more than a day?”

  Effie stopped abruptly in her tracks. “I just had a brilliant idea! You should just move into my guesthouse while you figure out where you’ll buy.”

  That was exactly what Lila was hoping she’d say. Nothing could be better for her investigation than living with one of the victims. Her access would be 24/7.

  “That’s very generous, Effie,” Lila said carefully, “but it’s too much to ask of you.”

  “How much is that room at the Ritz costing you each night?”

  “Five thousand dollars,” she said. Even though it felt like pretend cash, and Teddy had given her $100 million of disposable money, it made Lila absolutely ill to pay that much each night for a place to lay her head.

  “That’s crazy when I have this huge empty guesthouse. And we’re together almost every day anyway. Come on,” Effie said in a singsong voice. “It’ll be fun. We’ll be roommates! Besides, if it doesn’t work out, you can always get your hotel room back.”

  Roommates. Lila had never actually lived with another woman before. And what Effie said was true—they did spend most of their time together. They walked back into Effie’s mansion through the sliding glass doors that led directly to the kitchen.

  “Okay,” Lila said slowly. “Roommates.” She smiled as Effie danced around her colossal kitchen in search of celebratory champagne. Never in a million years would she have guessed that she, Lila Day, would be roommates with a girl who was a socialite, and kind of a bitch.

  “Great!” Effie squealed as she opened a bottle of Veuve with a loud pop. “It’s settled. You’ll move in tomorrow. It’ll be easier to find a house on Star Island when you’re already here. And if you do buy the house next door, you’ll be close to supervise its necessary demolition.” Effie poured them two glasses of bubbly and raised hers with a wink. “Here’s to us.”

  “Thank you, Effie!” Suddenly, Lila threw her arms around Effie, feeling a genuine warmth toward this bouncing, silly, fragile creature. “You’re the best!” she said, realizing that, in a strange way, she actually meant it.

  Lila and Effie decided to celebrate their new roommate status with a day at the Fisher Island Club. They were on the way there, with Effie at the wheel of her speedboat of terror, when Effie grinned wickedly at Lila. “I know what’s going to happen today,” she shouted over the churning water and roaring twin engines.

  “What?” Lila asked, as she gripped the sides of the boat. Over the last two weeks, she’d become more accustomed to certain things, but Effie’s nautical style was not one of them.

  “Today we’re going to find you a man! It’s been long enough of Ms. Mopey Divorcée. Plus, you acting like a nun is making me feel too slutty. The men of Miami are waiting for you! All you have to do is say the word.”

  “Okay,” Lila agreed, though she had zero interest in actually dating any of the men Effie knew. But this way, she thought, she could get Effie to introduce her to more of the men of South Beach. One of them might know something relevant to the murders.

  “Yay! Let the manhunt begin!” Effie exclaimed as she pulled up to the dock of the club.

  When they stepped inside the clubhouse’s grand dining room overlooking the ocean, the room was absolutely packed. A gorgeous man wearing a cream linen suit stood atop the bar, holding a bottle of Cristal in one hand and a large saber in the other. Lila gasped when she realized who it was.

  Teddy Hawkins.

  “Champagne!” Teddy cried to a rapt audience. “In victory one deserves it! In defeat one needs it!” With that, he swept the saber across the top of the champagne bottle, slicing the lip of the neck right off and sending the cork flying through the air. Everyone in the room erupted into a cheer.

  Suddenly, the dining hall was flooded with waiters, all carrying trays of champagne in crystal flutes.

  “Who is that?” Lila asked Effie.

  “Teddy Hawkins. You know, the tech guy.”

  “Oh, right. I’ve seen him on TV, but never in person.”

  “Well, I’ll introduce you. He’s a good friend,” Effie boasted.

  Lila couldn’t take her eyes off Teddy. The man before her now was radiant and strong—vibrating with life, pouring champagne, laughing. He was the very opposite of the driven and tormented man who’d sent her back in time. Future Teddy was fixated on the Star Island massacre with a frightening intensity. This Teddy came across as some sort of rock star.

  Spotting Meredith Sloan standing alone at the bar, holding champagne flutes in both hands, Effie grabbed Lila’s
hand and quickly walked over to her. The women all greeted each other in South Beach fashion, by touching cheeks while pursing their lips in an air kiss. Effie, who was an expert at this greeting, always kept her eyes open, already scanning the room to see who she would say hello to next.

  “You’re here,” Meredith said, in that tone of hers that was warm on the top and cold underneath. “Have you thought any more about the house?” Even when there was a lilt in her voice, her eyes remained steely. Lila sensed that there was an impenetrable toughness at the core of Meredith Sloan.

  “I have,” Lila said vaguely.

  “What’s all this fuss about?” Effie interrupted, gesturing to the boisterous celebration going on around them.

  “Well, my darling Teddy just took his company public,” Meredith said.

  The three women turned to look toward Teddy, who was standing in a sea of middle-aged white men in suits, a veritable Brooks Brothers army that looked as if it were trying to consume him.

  “As of the opening of the markets this morning,” Meredith continued, “that man over there is a billionaire.”

  “How do you know Teddy?” Lila asked Meredith. She did call him darling, after all.

  “Everybody knows Teddy,” Effie said.

  “We’ve known each other our whole lives.” Meredith smiled, looking quite pleased with herself. “Our families used to winter together in Miami and summer on Cape Cod.”

  “I know!” Effie squealed to Lila with sudden delight. “We’ll introduce the two of you!” She hooked her arm under Lila’s and dragged her toward Teddy. “Maybe you’ll really hit it off. He’s a nice guy,” she whispered into Lila’s ear.

  Teddy had only warned Lila against meeting herself from the past, but she couldn’t help worrying at the thought of meeting him. What if something she did or said somehow changed who he was, causing him to never build a time machine and thus never send her back in time? Then what?

  “Teddy! Congratulations!” Effie exclaimed. “Meredith told us the exciting news about your company.”