The Beautiful and the Wicked

by Liv Spector

  Marana fell into a strained silence. He was almost panting from the stress.

  “Christ, take it easy,” Lila said, sitting down in the metal folding chair opposite his desk. “I’m not going to bust your chops. Besides, it’s not your fault.”

  Marana shot her a suspicious look. “You’re right,” he said cautiously. “It’s not my fault.” He sounded like he didn’t believe it.

  “It’s simple. Elise probably offered one of your cops a shitload of cash to destroy the evidence. End of story.”

  “Don’t make accusations you can’t back up, Lila.”

  “Then what do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.” Lila stood up. There was no point wasting any more time. “Thanks for reminding me why I left the force, Rafa. Sometimes I miss this place, but it doesn’t take much for me to remember it was never worth all the bullshit. I’ll leave you to do what you’re good at, which is absolutely nothing.” She left his office, loudly slamming the door behind her.

  She knew, right then and there, that as long as Rafa Marana was in charge of the case, there’d be no justice for Elise. She felt angry at herself for having any hope that the Miami PD could actually put the right person behind bars. In less than a day and a half, Elise had managed to sidestep a possible murder charge, and Lila knew that the corrupt and incompetent cops working the case wouldn’t do anything about it. All they were worried about was how to protect their own sorry asses by not pissing off the powerful. It was really that simple.

  As Lila left the station, the searing anger she felt began to be replaced by bewildered disappointment. Would Elise really get away with murder for a third time? It seemed, even with all the cards stacked against her, that justice was no match for her wealth and privilege. But Lila had been here before—­up against the most powerful players in the city—­and she’d come out on top.

  In a flash, she knew exactly what she had to do. The only chance she’d have at putting Elise behind bars was if she did it herself. And there was only one man who could help her make that happen.

  She picked up her phone and dialed the first person on speed dial. “Teddy, be at my place by six tonight. I want to talk about a new case. Okay? Got to run.” Lila quickly hung up the phone. She knew getting Teddy on board with her plan would take a lot of coaxing, so she rushed home to begin preparing her pitch.

  CHAPTER 3

  LILA HEARD A knock on the front door. She glanced at the clock: 6:00 P.M. Teddy was right on time, as always. She pressed the space bar on her keyboard, pausing the video she’d been watching. Even with the moving images now frozen and Teddy waiting at the door, she found it impossible to look away from the computer screen.

  The subject of her rapt attention was an old segment from a second-­rate Miami news show. Recorded eleven years ago, back in September 2008, it was a puff piece about a very high profile superyacht docked at a hotel in downtown Miami. It was a Lifestyles of the Grotesquely Rich and Wildly Famous kind of thing that wasn’t of any interest to anybody . . . except Lila, who’d played it so many times over the last ten years that she knew each and every frame by heart.

  Her obsessive viewing wasn’t just because the yacht being adoringly profiled was owned by none other than Jack Warren. It was mainly because this three-­minute bit of throwaway TV contained the last recorded image of Ava, Lila’s long-­lost sister. Blink and you’d miss her. But Lila never did. Ava appeared for a few seconds on the very edge of the left side of the frame, just a pixelated blur in the deep background behind the cheerful reporter smiling brightly into the black-­eyed Cyclops of the camera. But Lila could spot Ava anywhere. She knew the contours of her sister’s face, her gait, the slight stoop of her shoulders better than she knew her own.

  Lila had queued up the video because she planned on showing it to Teddy that night. But she’d been sucked into watching it once more. Then again. Then a third time, squinting at the screen, wanting, more than anything, to be there on the boat the night that Jack was murdered and Ava’s life was destroyed. She wanted so desperately to be able to protect her older sister in the way that Ava had protected Lila for most of her early years, when their mom was too busy scrounging up a living to be at home with her two daughters.

  Proving her sister’s innocence was something Lila had dreamed about for a decade. And thanks to Teddy’s time machine, she knew it was finally possible. But first, she’d have to make the case to Teddy, and she knew it wouldn’t be easy. Tonight, she’d show him everything, starting with this video.

  Lila’s concentration was broken by yet another, now-­impatient rap on the door. She tore herself away from her desk and walked to the foyer as the knocks grew faster and louder.

  “Christ! Keep your dress on,” Lila teased. “I’ll be there in a second.” She flung the front door open to find Teddy leaning against the doorjamb, tan and smiling with his light brown hair elegantly swept up and away from his handsome face. Outfitted in an expertly tailored cream linen suit, which hung perfectly off his long, lean body, he looked as if he’d stepped out of the pages of The Great Gatsby. A bottle of Veuve Clicquot in his arm provided the final touch.

  “You’re looking better,” he said, gliding past her and entering the main room like he owned the place, which, in fact, he did. He handed her the champagne. The bottle was ice cold and perspiring in the humid Miami air. “Feeling up for a drink?”

  “Champagne, Teddy? This isn’t a celebration.”

  “I know,” he said, shrugging off her serious tone, refusing to be chastened. “I can tell from your face that it’s all business. But I figured, good news or bad, you could use a drink. I know I could.” He headed straight for the wall of windows, which overlooked the cerulean expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, but were now covered by closed blinds.

  He let out a tiny cluck of disapproval. “You know, Lila, ­people pay millions for this view, but every time I come by you have the windows covered like some shut-­in vampire.”

  Lila bristled. Things were getting off to a bad start. She was ready to plead for a chance to save her sister and Teddy was fussing about the lighting.

  He raised the blinds and pushed the windows open. The hot tropical sun poured into the apartment with a blinding ferocity, and the sounds of South Beach flooded in right after it. Car horns blared from the street below. Two lovers threw accusations at each other in a very public spat. House music pounded out of a convertible overburdened with large, booming speakers. In an instant, the pure essence of the Miami Beach boardwalk filled up the room. Teddy breathed it all in deeply, as if the sounds and smells of the street fortified his spirit.

  “Much better,” he said with a relieved exhale.

  Lila lived in a penthouse apartment in one of the famous old Art Deco buildings that were once the pride of Miami Beach, but had mostly fallen into disrepair and out of fashion. Back in 2016, Teddy purchased this building on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Tenth Street when he found out a developer was going to tear it down and throw up yet another soulless, hastily built glass tower. Soon after, he’d offered Lila the penthouse for free. But she was uncomfortable with a favor that she couldn’t reciprocate. They compromised. On the first of every month, she gave him money for the rent. Whenever Lila asked why he never once cashed any of her checks, he was always quick to change the subject. Teddy’s generosity was something Lila had given up fighting.

  Lila blinked rapidly as her eyes struggled to adjust to the sunlight. She retreated to the relative darkness of the kitchen to open the champagne. Maybe a drink was just what she needed, what they both needed.

  She knew it would take an ironclad case to convince Teddy to let her go back in time to prove her sister’s innocence. But she’d spent all afternoon practicing and knew exactly what she would say.

  “Like I said on the phone, I’ve got a prop
osal for you.” Lila walked back into the living room and handed Teddy a glass of champagne.

  “Uh-­huh,” Teddy said. She detected a note of hesitancy in his tone. Taking a long, slow sip of champagne, he peered at Lila over the crystal rim of his glass with his eyebrows raised. She waited for him to speak. “Tell me, does this new case have anything to do with Elise Warren?”

  “How’d you guess?” Lila asked with a sarcastic lilt in her voice.

  Teddy shrugged his shoulders and walked onto the balcony, leaning out over the railing. Lila followed.

  “Hear me out,” Lila said.

  “I don’t need to. I already know what you’re going to say. I knew it the very moment I heard about Herrera’s suicide.”

  “Oh? Enlighten me,” Lila said. “Tell me what I’m thinking. If you get it right, then you can add mind reader to your long list of unique skills.” She curled into a large Adirondack chair painted robin’s-­egg blue and looked out onto the boardwalk. Her eyes fell on a bodybuilder wearing a stars-­and-­stripes string bikini flexing her muscles for a group of tourists who were happily taking her picture.

  “You want to travel back in time to prove that Elise is guilty of killing Jack. And, more to the point, you want to prove your sister’s innocence. Am I right?”

  Lila wasn’t surprised that Teddy had anticipated her plan. He had a knack for quickly sussing out ­people’s motivations, but so did she. That’s why they were such a good pair.

  “And let me guess,” Lila said. “You’ve got reservations.”

  “We’re talking about your sister here, Lila. Working a case when you’re this emotionally involved is too risky. And, honestly, it bothers me that you’re asking.”

  “Bothers you?”

  “After what happened on Star Island, you and I both swore to each other that we’d never take on a case when there was any chance that our feelings would blind us to the facts.”

  “You seem to forget that I caught the Star Island killer, Teddy.”

  “You seem to forget that you broke every goddamn rule there was, and you did it because you got wrapped up in the world you set out to infiltrate. The way you acted, it’s a wonder you made it out alive.”

  Lila stared at him in disbelief. “Are you questioning my professionalism?”

  “You bet your ass I am. But professionalism isn’t your strong suit. Never has been. You’re good at what you do because you do take things personally. You do become involved, which separates you from most detectives, who stopped giving a fuck a lifetime ago.”

  Teddy turned away from Lila. A tense silence hung in the air between them.

  “You’re proving my point. I’m the one to do it because I’m the only one who really cares.” She kept her words simple and measured, being very careful to conceal any hint of the desperation she felt, even though she was on the verge of shaking Teddy by the shoulders until he capitulated.

  “I didn’t build a time machine just so you could get revenge on Elise Warren,” Teddy said.

  “I’m not after vengeance. I’m after justice. I thought you were, too.”

  Teddy had hit Lila right where it hurt, and she didn’t want to hear it. With every case, she put all of herself on the line. That was what made her good. But it also made her hard to work with.

  She’d been the youngest female homicide detective in the entire history of the Miami PD. And she was one of the most successful, too—­until a two-­year search for the Star Island killer got so personal that it ended with her forced resignation.

  But what had been her undoing also became her salvation.

  In 2018, Teddy, then a stranger, asked her to travel back in time to find the notorious killer who had eluded her for so long. At the time, she thought Teddy was completely insane. Time travel was nothing but science fiction. Then he proved to her that it was real and she said yes.

  In the long, fraught months she’d spent in the past, hunting for the killer, she did break all the rules of time travel that she’d sworn to uphold. But then she caught the killer, and everything changed.

  After she put one of the world’s most notorious murderers behind bars, she had her brief fifteen minutes of fame. The mayor of Miami gave her keys to the city and the chief of police begged her to return to the force. But she’d never been a fan of the spotlight. When the world’s attention moved on to other things, she felt nothing but a huge sense of relief.

  Then there was the money. Lila had lived a life of barely scraping by for thirty years, but after she solved the case, Teddy had made sure she’d no longer be in need of anything. He moved her into a fabulous penthouse and let her select any car she wanted from the arsenal of luxury automobiles sitting untouched in his vast garage. Since he spent more annually on champagne than she made as a cop, she didn’t feel too conflicted about being on his payroll. After all, she’d risked life and limb to catch the Star Island killer, a murderer whom Teddy was desperate to bring to justice. And she’d been solving cold cases with him ever since.

  Now it was August of 2019—­just a little over a year since she’d first traveled back in time, but it felt like a lifetime. It seemed as if her existence had been neatly divided into two parts: before time travel and after.

  And now she was desperate to go back in time to solve the crime that made her become a cop in the first place. She couldn’t let Teddy say no.

  “Here,” Lila said, standing up. “Come inside. I want to show you something.”

  She walked down the hall, with Teddy following closely behind, and stopped right outside her office door.

  “I want you to know that I totally understand why you’d have reservations about sending me back to investigate Jack’s death. But first I need you to hear me out.” She opened the door to her office and they both stepped in.

  “Jesus, Lila,” Teddy gasped as he looked at the walls of Lila’s tiny work space, every inch of which was covered in photos, maps, and evidence connected to Jack’s murder. “How long have you been working on this?”

  “Ten years,” she said. “On and off.”

  “I can see that.”

  “No other case has ever meant more to me, Teddy. And I’m asking you to help me finally, once and for all, prove my sister’s innocence.”

  As Teddy began to peruse some of the files stacked up on Lila’s desk, she saw the stern look on his face begin to soften. “Okay,” he said tentatively. “I’m not saying yes. I’m just saying I’ll listen. I bet you have a plan, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m all ears, but first . . .” Teddy grabbed his cell phone and made a call. “Conrad. It seems Lady Day and I will be sequestered in her apartment for a good amount of time. Can you be a sport and bring us some dinner?” He paused. “Great. We’ll keep it simple tonight. Just a few things from Nobu. The miso black cod, the lobster tempura, of course, a sashimi selection, and the king crab legs with wasabi glaze.”

  An amused smile momentarily flickered across Lila’s otherwise serious face. Only Teddy would put this conversation on pause so that his manservant would pick up something with a wasabi glaze. She had to admit, she loved him for it.

  Once he finished placing his order, he turned back to Lila. “Now you have my full attention.”

  “Sure you don’t want to get some hand rolls or something?”

  “Oh! I forgot you love those. And Conrad’s probably already calling in the order! Just wait one second,” he said as he scrambled to dial his cell phone.

  “Jesus, Teddy. I was kidding.”

  He looked confused for a brief second, then he smiled. “That’s good. A joke. And here I was worried that I’d be spending the evening with the humorless Lila Day. I’m glad the nice version has decided to come out to play.”

  It was then that Lila and Teddy settled in and began poring over the piles of evidence connected to the Warren murder that
Lila had spent the last ten years collecting.

  She started with her point of entry into the world, her undercover identity. Lila took down a picture she’d tacked up to her wall of a pretty young woman with short bleached blond hair, almond-­shaped eyes, and full lips. She handed it to Teddy. “This is Nicky Collins, a member of the crew. Age twenty-­eight in 2008. There’s not much info on her. The data trail is really spotty. Doesn’t have an extensive employment record, which probably means she did a lot of temporary, under-­the-­table work. Poor credit rating. She’s got one credit card, a Visa, with an address in Shreveport, Louisiana. Credit limit of only four hundred dollars. Back in 2005, she got picked up for possession of marijuana. She pleaded guilty and got her felony charge reduced to a misdemeanor. She served eight months at a minimum security prison, Gasden Correctional Facility. When she got out, she started working as a stewardess in high-­end yachts. None of her applications make note of her arrest record, obviously. There’s a Florida driver’s license dated June 2004. Her passport was issued in August 2008, right after she was hired to work on The Rising Tide. It was the first passport she’d ever applied for. A staffing agency hired her for the job. I’ve got her application here,” Lila said, tossing Teddy a photocopied piece of paper. “And an email that the staffing agency sent to the head stewardess, whose name is Edna Slaughter, right here.”

  Teddy studied the papers. “So this is the identity you’re planning on assuming in order to gain access to the yacht?”