by Liv Spector
“Listen,” Dylan said. “Where are you right now?”
“Ninety-five. I just passed exit two,” she said.
“I live fifteen minutes away. Come over. I can still make you lunch. You can tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll figure it out. Trust me, whatever the problem is, it can wait. A little break will make things seem clearer.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You need to eat.”
Actually, Lila couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a sit-down meal. Maybe Dylan was right. Maybe what she needed more than anything was to get some space and perspective on the case.
The morning had been a heartbreaking bust. The rational part of Lila knew she should be by herself and try to focus, to get a grip on a case that had slipped out of her hands yet again. But the rational part of her wasn’t in charge at the moment. She wanted to see Dylan, and she wasn’t going to justify anything to herself right now.
“Text me your address,” she said. “I’ll be there in ten.” Lila pressed her foot down on the gas, letting the car unleash its full power.
At least out here, with her car ripping down the highway, Lila could remember what it felt like to be in control.
CHAPTER 21
SITTING RIGHT ON the water, with the sparkling decadence of Miami just across the bay, Dylan’s house had a surprisingly intimate feel. With teak ceilings and coral rock throughout, it was Polynesian splendor mixed with the coziness of an Aspen ski lodge.
When Dylan saw Lila, her clothes rumpled and her face red from heat and frustration, he took her in his arms.
“I’m glad you came,” he said, pulling her closer.
In his embrace, Lila felt the balled fist that was in her stomach begin to relax.
“Here,” he said, taking her hand, “I’ll show you around. Then we’ll get good and drunk so you can shake off the morning.”
The house was peppered with tokens from Dylan’s travels around the world. Tribal masks from Ghana, one collected for each year he went on safari there. Textiles from Peru, where he and his brother had hiked the Inca Trail. A collection of ancient stoneware vases from when he’d lived in Japan for a few years. The rug underfoot had come from a Moroccan souk. Each item carried a story that Lila found intoxicating.
“You travel a lot with your brother?” she asked as she felt Dylan’s eyes on her.
“Yep,” he said as he led the way down the hall, pulling her behind him.
“So, your brother lives here?” She felt awkward. She wondered if coming here had been a mistake.
“He’s out of the country right now. But he’s planning on settling in Miami soon. We’re talking about starting a business, rehabbing old sailboats.”
Lila nodded.
Dylan burst into laughter. “God, you’re not very good at this, are you?”
“What?”
“Human conversation! You’re being so formal.” His infectious smile made her smile as well. Suddenly, she felt lighter. “You know, I have kissed you,” he went on, teasing. “Don’t you remember?”
Lila’s cheeks instantly burned. “Yes,” she said, still smiling, “of course I remember.”
“Oh, good. For a second I worried I made that bit up.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and walked her into his kitchen. “Sit here,” he instructed, pointing to a stool by the counter. “And drink this, please. You’re in need of serious help.” He handed her a glass of wine.
“Do I seem that tense?”
“Oh, no. You’re as light as a lead balloon,” Dylan joked. “But now you can relax. All you have to do is watch me cook, and as long as I don’t burn the place down, that should be a fairly low-key activity.”
Lila settled back with her wine, sipping it slowly. She did watch Dylan. In fact, she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. All the physical elegance and efficiency he showed when he sailed was on display in the kitchen as well. She felt giddy just being close to him. Every time he brushed past her on the way to the stove, she shivered.
“Try this,” he said, holding out a spoonful of sauce. Lila opened her mouth, then closed her eyes as she sampled his cooking. It tasted of fresh herbs, lemon rind, and a dash of something she couldn’t place.
“So, what do you think?” he asked, searching her eyes, his face close to hers. She broke his gaze by looking down at the floor. She was trying with all of her might to conceal how intoxicated she was at this very moment—with him, his cooking, the wine, the house, the aromas of the food wafting toward her. It was too much.
A feeble “Yummy” was all she managed to say. He looked at her quizzically as he went back to the stove, carefully minding his many bubbling pots and simmering pans.
“So, wanna tell me what happened to you today?” Dylan asked.
“Not at all,” she said.
“Ah, a woman of mystery. I like that.” He walked back toward her, refilled her glass, and then he kissed her on the lips. The taste of his mouth, the feel of his lips, and the effects of the wine pulled Lila’s mind out of its whirring machinations. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply, the anger and disappointments of the day channeling rapidly into her desire for him.
They dined on his terrace under a ring of palm trees, with the Miami skyline serving as their view. The food was exquisite. Dylan and Lila sat shoulder to shoulder, holding hands under the table while they ate.
Lila couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this happy. She knew she was flirting with disaster, but she didn’t care. Whatever happened, this moment was worth it.
After they finished their meals, they took the bottle of wine and walked over to the pool. They sat next to each other on the lip, dipping their toes into the warm water.
“Thanks for all this,” Lila said. “You made a horrible day wonderful. I would never have thought it was possible, but you managed.”
She slipped her hand under his shirt to feel his skin and his warmth. They kissed again.
When his hand gently moved up her thigh to between her legs, a brief, feeble protest arose in her mind. This is too far. This is much, much too far, too fast. But Lila’s mind was no match for her heart. She wanted him desperately. She needed to feel the weight of him on top of her, the sensation of his skin on hers.
After they made love, Dylan rose from the bed, taking Lila’s hand in his. “Come with me,” he said, tenderly. Together, naked, satisfied but not satiated, they walked down the stairs and outside. The sun was just beginning to set. The ocean breeze on her naked skin, Dylan’s hand in hers, made her feel weightless and free.
Her usual shyness had no place in this moment. Let people look at us, she thought. We are perfect. We are beautiful.
Wordlessly, Dylan dove into the pool, and she followed after him. There they stayed until the darkness of night enveloped them. Swimming, kissing, sliding in and out of each other’s embrace under a canopy of stars, brimming with the sweet stupidity brought on by passion’s earliest expression. Buried in the past, in a sea of lies, Lila felt that she had accidentally stumbled upon something pure, something beautiful. Was this what falling in love felt like?
As she fell asleep in his arms, Lila drowsily let herself wonder if she and Dylan could have a future together. Not a present. But a future.
CHAPTER 22
LOVE’S DISTRACTIONS DIDN’T last that long for Lila. After spending the night holed up with Dylan, she was anxious to get back to the case, though emerging from the little cocoon the two of them had created required most of her willpower. But she knew time was growing short, and the killer still eluded her.
She drove straight from Dylan’s back north to Liberty City. Frederic Sandoval’s house was seemingly undisturbed, except for a small memorial of lit candles and flowers that had been placed on the cement stoop. Lila walked around to the back of the house, jimmied the lock, and stealthily entered his kitchen.
Moving with the ease of a practiced professional, she searched methodically and quickly for
papers, correspondence, clues. But all she found were old half-filled prescription bottles, a carton of Camels, a bag of worthless lottery tickets, and a sink of unwashed dishes. The sad detritus of a small life.
Then, under Sandoval’s bed, she found boxes and boxes of photo albums filled with pictures, newspaper articles, and magazine profiles of Pedro Bolivar, the Colombian tennis star. Bolivar was ranked number two in the world, after Sam Logan, the world champion and victim of the Star Island killer. The scrapbooks were extensive, dating from when Bolivar was a boy to the present. Was Sandoval somehow connected to Logan? And where did Javier fit into all of this?
She had to figure it out. Lila grabbed the albums and went back to her car.
Intent on spending the next few days reviewing every bit of information she had compiled, including Teddy’s database, Lila pulled into the Star Island estate and was relieved to see Effie’s car gone from the driveway. It was Sunday night, which meant that she was probably well into her third pisco sour at the Regent Cocktail Club, where she was sleeping with a model/bartender aptly named Adonis.
When she got to the guesthouse, Lila closed all the blinds and went to the safe, where she exchanged her gun for Teddy’s thumb drive and her computer. She poured herself a big glass of Wild Turkey and tried to relax, in the hope of stumbling upon a revelation. But her mind kept on spinning in circles. The Janus Society. Javier’s arms smuggling and his surveillance of Sandoval. Sandoval’s death. And Sandoval’s obsession with Sam Logan’s major tennis rival.
None of it made any sense.
With everything that she knew, and with everything she’d given to this case, how could the killer still be outwitting her?
She searched anew for the name Frederic Sandoval online. The only thing that came up was the notice of his death. The police had said he had been found dead of natural causes. A memorial service was set for Wednesday at 10 A.M. at the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.
For the remainder of the evening and into the early morning hours, Lila reviewed all the information, trying to look at everything with fresh eyes. There must be something obvious that she was missing.
Once again, she flipped to the Javier section of Teddy’s database. How could there be nothing about his illegal doings in Teddy’s exhaustive compilation of newspaper articles, tax returns, and earnings reports? How did Javier’s secrets stay hidden even after his death? Did someone close to him know and protect his memory after his murder?
The image of Sandoval dying on the floor before her was flitting wildly around her brain, jumping out to surprise her at unexpected moments. She’d be reviewing notes one second and then suddenly think of Sandoval, desperate for air, pain flooding his body, the life draining out of his eyes.
Teddy had a file on Javier that contained scans of every document found in his office and on his desk after his murder. Lila had no idea how he’d managed to gather all this material. There must’ve been someone on the police force who sold him this stuff for the right price. Lila figured that somebody working for Javier had erased incriminating information from his computer after his death, but she reviewed the other documents just to see if Teddy had found something that she’d missed.
There were take-out menus, payroll forms, pieces of correspondence with buyers and artists. Lila scrolled through hundreds of pages. Then something strange caught her eye, something she hadn’t seen before. It was the scan of a newspaper article, which, she surmised from the jagged edges now digitally immortalized on the PDF, had been ripped out of the paper.
Man Shot Outside South Beach Liquor Store
A Miami man was gunned down on December 26 in what was reported as a drive-by shooting on Lenox Avenue in South Beach, police said.
The victim, Dylan Rhodes, age 31, is currently in critical condition at Miami General Hospital.
Officers responded to a 911 call, which reported the shooting just after 2:00 P.M. They discovered the victim had sustained serious injuries. Emergency medical personnel transported him to a nearby hospital, where it was determined he had suffered a gunshot wound to the lower back, according to a police statement.
No witnesses have come forth, and no arrests were immediately made. The investigation continued into Friday night. “We have no updates at this point,” a police spokeswoman said. “Every angle is being looked at.”
Mr. Rhodes comes from a prominent Miami family. In 2008, Mr. Rhodes’s father, Jack Rhodes, then CEO of Connachta Co., died, leaving his two sons controlling ownership of his company.
At this time, no relatives of the victim could be reached for comment.
Lila read the document again, not believing what she saw. Then she read it once more.
Frantically, she searched Teddy’s endless files for more information. Did Dylan survive the shooting? Was the perp ever caught? But she couldn’t find anything.
Hours later, after scanning so much information so quickly that her eyes were bloodshot and her head was throbbing, she found a long profile in Fortune magazine on the Connachta Company—the business founded by Dylan’s dad. It was dated May 31, 2016. Halfway through the article she read, “After the 2014 shooting and paralysis of company heir apparent Dylan Rhodes, Connachta faced a leadership crisis from which it never recovered.”
Lila breathed a sigh of relief. At least he was alive! She continued reading, “Since the shooting, Rhodes has not been seen in public, refuses all interviews, and lives a protected and reclusive existence. A former family friend who asked to remain anonymous said that shortly after the shooting, Rhodes suffered a ‘complete mental collapse.’ ”
Dylan? A recluse? Lila couldn’t reconcile this description with the Dylan she knew. She kept rereading every bit of information she could find, hoping that somehow the words would magically change. But they didn’t.
She felt tears on her cheeks before she even realized she was crying. The only voice she heard was one in her head that kept repeating, “No. No. No. No.”
CHAPTER 23
FEW THINGS CALMED Lila down more effectively than driving at dangerous speeds along the Florida highways. With the top down so that the whipping wind would drown out the thoughts spinning around her mind, she shot along the road, trying to outrun her pain.
She drove west, cutting across the Florida peninsula toward the Gulf of Mexico. But no matter how fast she drove, she couldn’t escape the despair about to consume her.
Everything felt like it was coming undone. Her friend Effie would die. A random act of violence would soon destroy the mind and body of the man with whom she was falling in love. Her own mother would succumb to the cancer that was gaining strength within her at this very moment. And there was nothing she could do to stop any of it. Somehow, Lila would have to stay strong if she was going to catch the killer and make all this heartbreak worth something.
As she sped through the Everglades, with all their hidden and obvious dangers, Lila thought back to years ago, when she’d kayaked through the labyrinthine mangrove tunnels in Big Cypress National Preserve. Paddling along the murky green water, accompanied only by alligators and the myriad calls of birds, Lila had lost her way. It felt like up became down and right became left in an instant. It took her hours of frantic paddling, in what she suspected was one big circle, to finally emerge from the quagmire just as the sun was setting. She vowed never to set foot in the Everglades again.
Here she was, lost once more, without any idea how to escape.
She had gotten into the car not knowing where she was going, but when she pulled up to a tiny bungalow with roses curling around the white lattice fence, she wasn’t really surprised. She should’ve known she’d end up here. It was a little after nine, and the windows of the house glowed with an amber light. Lila saw a woman standing at the window, deep in her own thoughts. The woman’s face looked very similar to her own.
“Hi, Mom,” she whispered from the front seat of her car.
Lila ached to knock on her mother’s door, to feel her mother’s arms ar
ound her, to hear her voice and smell her perfume.
In less than a year from this moment, Lila’s mom would die, a husk of herself, all alone. Tears flooded Lila’s eyes. Her obsession with finding the Star Island killer had blinded her to her mother’s failing health. She hadn’t been with her at the very end, when it was most important.
Now, through this strange series of events, she was in the past, and her mother was alive again. But Lila couldn’t undo the thing she regretted the most. If she knocked on that door and thrust her future self into her mom’s life, who knew what would happen?
Her mother’s head disappeared from the window. Lila got out of the car and crept around to the back of the house, smelling the fragrant jasmine bush that her mother had planted a week before Lila was born. And there was the tree swing that she and her sister had fought over when they were children, still hanging from the large oak in the backyard.
Lila knew her mother would be sitting on the living room couch with her feet up, reading a book, which she’d done every night for as long as Lila could remember. She tiptoed up to the window and watched her mom for a while, careful not to be noticed. She smiled every time her mom smiled at something in the book. She took in all of her—the warmth; the quick, intelligent eyes; the strength of her. This was as close as she would allow herself to get, and it was both wonderful and acutely painful to be so near and so far away.
After about an hour, Lila watched as her mom stood up and walked from room to room, turning off the lights, then retreated to her bedroom.
“Good night, Mom,” Lila said aloud. It didn’t matter what she said. There was no one there to hear her.
CHAPTER 24
THE DRIVE BACK to Star Island felt like an eternity. Lila kept the car’s top down so that the cold December air would help her stay awake and alert, though it was bordering on unbearable. To keep warm she blasted the heat, enjoying the simultaneous fever and chill that glided over her skin.
