The Beautiful and the Wicked

by Liv Spector

  “Welcome,” Paul said, with a beaming smile and his voice full of gravitas, “to paradise.” He dramatically stretched out his arms with his palms facing up to the sky, like a magician who’d just pulled off an impressive trick. There was a high-­pitched whiz of something moving through the air that got everyone’s eyes searching upward, and then, with a crack, an explosion of fireworks illuminated the sky. Gold. Red. Green. Concentric circles of light danced across the black sky, accompanied by silver streaks of man-­made shooting stars racing, booming, dancing, fleeting, falling. It was quite an accomplishment. Everyone ooh’d and aah’d. There are few ­people harder to impress than a crowd of constantly aggrieved billionaires, but Paul managed to do it. The glorious fireworks display was as awesome as he had intended. Pleased with himself, he looked happily at everyone’s delighted faces—­everyone with the exception of Jack Warren, whose features were set in a bitter scowl.

  As the thunderous sounds of the fireworks waned, music came pouring across the waters. It was reggae, the music of the tropics, of joy, and of relaxation. Two large speedboats raced out toward the yacht, which had just dropped its mighty anchor in the deep waters.

  Josie, wearing a breezy Isabel Marant minidress, clapped her hands in delight.

  “Everyone off,” Paul yelled as he scooted ­people into the speedboats now idling by the yacht’s rear. They all piled in: Thiago, Esperanza, Elise, Jack, Josie, Seth, Clarence, Charity, Paul, and Daniel. Even Ben hopped aboard.

  “Do you think we can go?” Sam whispered to Lila as both women stood watching the giddy guests on the cusp of a fabulous night.

  “You both certainly cannot,” Edna said from behind them. Of course she was listening, Lila thought. Even Big Brother wasn’t this intrusive.

  “But—­” Sam whined.

  “But nothing. This is a party for the guests of this boat. You are not a guest, you are a stewardess,” Edna said, in a slow and clear voice, as if she was speaking to a dim-­witted child.

  “Then why does Ben get to go?” Sam asked. Her eyes, full of longing, were glued to the speedboat that was taking Ben and the others to the island.

  “He’s been invited by Mr. Mason. Our captain was also invited, but Captain Nash declined.” Edna’s eyes narrowed. “Remember, no cheek, sulk, or moods. There’s plenty to do on board. All the guest cabins need to be cleaned. The sheets need to be laundered and pressed. The silver needs a good polishing. Shall I go on?”

  “No, Chief Stewardess,” Sam and Lila said in unison.

  “The guests will reboard the yacht in less than twenty-­four hours, so we don’t have much time. Sam, why don’t you begin with scrubbing the toilets? And, Lila, you get started with the bed linens. That ought to help remind you girls about who you are on this ship.”

  With a forlorn look over her shoulder at the carnival of delights just out of her grasp, Sam slunk down belowdeck to get her cleaning supplies, a sadsack Cinderella still waiting for her fairy godmother.

  Lila, on the other hand, was happy to be away from the pulse and push of the party. Though she wouldn’t have considered herself a fan of housework before she went undercover, now she realized there was no better way to scour the yacht looking for clues. With every tuck of a sheet and fold of a towel, she hunted for evidence to finally prove her sister’s innocence.

  As she went from room to room, carrying out her duties both as a maid and as a detective, she went through a laundry list of what she knew so far. Elise still remained her number one suspect. That much was certain. Every day, as Lila watched Jack serve up steady doses of betrayal, humiliation, scorn, and neglect to his wife, she grew more and more convinced that Elise was the killer. Even if Elise had been a stable and good woman, which she most definitely was not, such circumstances could turn her murderous. Not to mention the billions of dollars that would become hers the moment her monster of a husband was dead. No one else had more to gain, and less to lose, than Elise.

  But there were questions Lila couldn’t ignore. Elise Warren seemed incapable of doing almost anything, much less committing a murder, by herself. She was practically drowning in a soup of booze and pills. Did she really have the fortitude to put a bullet in her husband and then frame Ava for the whole thing? However, Elise could get someone else to do her dirty work for her—­Edna, maybe. It was obvious that the chief stewardess would take a bullet for her precious mistress.

  Then there was Seth Liss. He and Jack clearly detested each other. Liss had already started going through the corporate channels to remove Jack as head of the company, with the full consent of the board, Paul, and Thiago. But that could take ages, and Liss knew perfectly well that a well-­publicized shake-­up in the leadership of the company would greatly damage its reputation and profit margins. On the other hand, if Liss got Jack out of the way quickly, like say, with four bullets to the chest, then he wouldn’t have to wait to assume the reins of leadership.

  The biggest surprise for Lila was Thiago Campos. From all her research over the last decade, she thought she knew a fair amount about the man. But there was something between Jack and Thiago this morning over breakfast that she couldn’t put her finger on, something loaded. Thiago had said Jack had “responsibilities,” and he meant more than just running Warren Software – that much was clear. Now Lila needed to figure out a way to decode the message Thiago was sending to Jack.

  All of these thoughts were spinning through her mind as she devoted hours to combing through all of the staterooms. She searched every drawer, examined the tops and bottoms and insides of every cabinet, opened makeup bags, purses, prodded the insides of every shoe, and lifted up every mattress, knowing eventually she’d find something hidden or in plain sight that would point her to Jack’s killer.

  But it was in Jack’s room that she found a real treasure. There, atop his unmade bed, was a laptop that she’d never seen before. He must normally keep it locked away in his desk drawer. Her pulse quickened. She closed the door behind her and opened the computer, pulling up his email. She was surprised to see that Jack had a dozen or so messages from Urs Hunziker, the Swiss banker who was counseling Seth on how to handle Jack.

  Lila opened one of the emails. Just as she began to read, Edna Slaughter walked in. Lila slammed the laptop closed and leaped off the bed so fast that the chief stewardess didn’t see her on Jack’s computer. All Lila had seen in her quick scan of the correspondence were the words “King Charles” and “betray” and “Liss.”

  “I’ve got this room, Chief Stewardess Mrs. Slaughter,” Lila said to Edna as she began to take the pillowcases off the pillows.

  “I have repeatedly told you that Mr. and Mrs. Warren have requested that only I ser­vice their rooms.”

  Lila stood there silently, desperate to return to her search of Jack’s computer but, once again, Edna would be a giant roadblock. Not only was there the constant threat of being fired, which would completely and disastrously derail her mission, but having every move and moment strictly monitored made gathering facts and evidence next to impossible. The worst part was, there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you to it,” Lila said in the most deferential tone she could conjure, but really she wanted to tell Edna to shove it where the sun don’t shine.

  “Yes, you will,” Edna said. “I’ll finish up here. You go to the laundry room. There’s a load of linen sheets that need to be pressed.”

  And with a nod, Lila left Jack’s room. She was annoyed, but that didn’t stop her brain from buzzing. Could it be possible that instead of Liss playing Jack, Jack was playing Liss? If Urs had told Jack about Project King Charles, then how much did Jack know? And was he aware that his two closest friends and advisers were on Liss’s side? Or, were they?

  These were the questions she ran through her head as she was stuck doing the laundry until midnight. She was getting so wound up that she didn’t hear Sam cal
ling her name until she felt Sam’s breath on her neck.

  “Nicky!” Sam cried directly in her ear, scaring Lila half to death. “Didn’t you hear me? I’ve called your name like a thousand times.”

  “Sorry,” Lila said as she folded her last bedsheet. “My mind was on other things.” Like when was Ava going to board the yacht? Or, what bad blood was brewing between Thiago and Jack? Or, was Seth willing to murder his boss to become CEO? And according to the police report, there would be four gunshots the night Jack died. But, except for her own revolver, Lila hadn’t yet seen a gun on the ship. Where was it?

  Sam gave her a relaxed smile. Lila could smell beer on her breath. “A bunch of us are having a little party of our own in the galley. Ready to come join us?”

  “Actually,” Lila said, “I’m really beat. I think I’ll go back to the room and lie down.”

  “Don’t be so lame,” Sam said with a roll of her eyes. “Is it just because Ben won’t be there?”

  This caught Lila off guard. “What? Ben?”

  “You can tell me!” Sam begged. “Come on, I’m not stupid. I’ve seen how you two look at each other. And I don’t blame either of you. You’re both freakin’ hot! You’d have such gorgeous babies. It’d be insane.”

  “Oh, Sam, please,” Lila said with an embarrassed grin. Yet as she walked back to her room alone, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from drifting to Ben. A little heat did exist between them. It wasn’t something she’d admit to out loud but it was impossible to deny. But so what? She’d learned her lesson the hard way. Getting mixed up with anyone in the past was never going to happen again.

  Lila returned to her tiny coffin of a room, grabbed her laptop from the drawer underneath her bunk, and unearthed the thumb drive, which she’d stuffed into the toe of one of her canvas boat shoes. Since she’d gone undercover on The Rising Tide, she hadn’t had more than a few minutes alone to herself, so this moment of quiet solitude felt like a luxury. Her bunkmate was away, it wasn’t too late, Mrs. Slaughter was nowhere in sight, and she had a bit of time alone to devote to the case.

  Tonight, she wanted to review all her information on Thiago Campos. Lila knew Thiago was from the Brazilian elite, and that he and Jack were old friends from Harvard. She knew that Jack dropped out of college to focus on his company and Thiago went on to graduate in 1980. But what Thiago had said that very morning was news to Lila. She had no idea that his family’s money had been used to start Jack’s software company. Because of the Camposes’ role in supporting the brutal Brazilian dictatorship, all Thiago’s family money could be perceived as dirty. If Jack never publicly acknowledged that his friend from São Paulo had provided him with the seed capital he needed to finance his company, maybe it was to avoid any unsavory connections surfacing between Warren Software and the South American torturers and kleptocrats who ran Brazil for twenty years.

  And if the Campos family gave Warren Software its funding, then to what extent were they still invested? From the intensity of Thiago’s concern this morning, Lila would guess that his family fortune was deeply tied to Jack.

  Lila decided to analyze Warren Software’s public records to see if she could figure out how big a stake the Campos family held in the company. But she quickly realized the search wouldn’t be easy. Like most investors looking to stay anonymous, Lila knew that the Campos name could be kept hidden through numerous shell companies. Just as she was about to dig deeper into Warren’s SEC filings, there was a knock on the door. Lila quickly closed up her computer and returned the thumb drive to the tip of her shoe. She opened the door to find Ben smiling at her from the hallway.

  “Sam sent me to bring you to the party,” he said, grabbing both of Lila’s hands and pulling her out of her room. He had a tipsy glaze to his eye, and his hair and clothes smelled like wood smoke from Paul Mason’s bonfire.

  “I should change,” Lila said. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in cutoff jeans and a threadbare tank top.

  “Please,” Ben said. “Don’t change a thing. It’s just us crew. I mean, we’ve seen you in your little stewardess uniform. It can’t get any worse than that, right?”

  Lila playfully punched his arm, and he grabbed her hand, dragging her down to the crew’s mess, where she heard soca music playing above the sound of boisterous conversation. When they entered, their arrival was cheered by one and all. A very drunk Sam was dancing with Mudge, who had his callused hands on her hips as they awkwardly swayed to and fro. Pedro, the nineteen-­year-­old deckhand, was drinking from a red plastic cup while tending to the music on the stereo. Asher, the most devoted partier of the crew, was nowhere to be seen.

  Lila was surprised to spot the elusive Captain Nash sitting in the corner drinking whiskey. He was a weathered-­looking man, with skin that spoke of a lifetime of sun and salty air. He had a thick, silver beard and dark, prominent brows that sat heavily over his stern eyes. He didn’t look like a guy who smiled very much. Since she’d been on the boat, she’d never seen him socialize with the crew or with the guests. Mostly he just stuck to his captain’s quarters and the bridge. Even now, as fun and merriment swirled around him, he sat there solemnly, keeping his eyes trained on Lila.

  “Why is he staring at me?” Lila whispered to Ben, who had just returned from grabbing her a drink.

  “Aren’t you used to men looking at you?”

  “Not quite like that,” she said as she returned Nash’s concentrated stare with a curious, questioning look of her own. “He’s looking at me like I owe him money or something.”

  “Don’t worry. I think that’s just what his face looks like,” Ben said, trying to reassure her.

  She gave Nash a small wave, but he sat unmoved. Lila, uneasy under his gaze, faced away from him.

  “So,” she said to Ben, “why are you here on the yacht when you could be sipping champagne with the rich and fabulous?”

  “Oh, you know. It all gets pretty tiresome, right? When ­people have so much of everything, nothing seems to mean anything to them. Do you know what I mean?”

  “More than you know.” In her undercover work hunting for the Star Island killer, Lila had assumed the identity of one of these multimillionaires and she’d learned that the most essential part of fitting in with the glitterati was to never act impressed by all the extraordinary things money could buy.

  Ben continued, “Daniel Poe was the only one who wasn’t boring me to tears. He put on quite a show tonight, stripping off all his clothes and dancing around the fire shouting, ‘The natives are restless. The natives are restless.’ It was definitely worth the price of admission.”

  “I would’ve liked to have seen that.”

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t. But the real pain in the ass was Jack. Everyone was having a good time, some more than others, except him. He bit my head off a few times over absolutely nothing. Sometimes I think I played this all wrong.”

  “Played what wrong?” Lila asked. It seemed as if Jack’s mood might have been contagious because, despite this being his second party of the night, Ben was agitated.

  “Oh, you know, Jack’s always said that I’m his man. That I’m the one who’ll get him the America’s Cup. That’s why I’m here. The only reason I’m here.” Ben sighed. “Then he goes and treats me like I’m just some fly he can swat away when he’s feeling shitty.”

  “It seems like that’s Jack’s way. I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Lila said with total conviction. Soon enough, Jack would be dead and Ben would be without the sponsor he needed to race in the America’s Cup, so why worry? But that’s one of the things that time travel had taught Lila; the empty platitude about not sweating the small stuff wasn’t just another tired old cliché. It was profound and true.

  “You’re right. It’s just hard with Jack. It’s like he’s only in control when he makes everyone else feel out of control.”

  “Yes!” Lila said,
nodding her head, pleased with Ben’s insight. “You’re right. He’s a control freak who likes operating in chaos.”

  “Not a pretty picture.” Ben sighed.

  “Not at all.” Lila looked back to see that Captain Nash had disappeared, and that Mudge had Sam pressed up against the kitchen counter with his tongue down her throat.

  “But I can’t complain. I’m in a tropical paradise having a drink with you. Life ain’t so bad,” Ben said, looking down at Lila with a warm smile. She leaned into him despite herself, and he put his arm around her shoulder.

  She turned her face toward his, about to say something, but when she noticed that his lips were inches away from hers, she forgot what it was. Then things became quiet as he leaned a fraction closer. Suddenly she pulled away, backing up and shaking her head as if she’d just awoken from a spell.

  “I didn’t mean to . . .” Ben started to apologize, but then he fell silent. He grabbed Lila’s hand. “Why don’t I walk you to your room?”

  “Not tonight,” she said. She knew there was no point in putting either of them through an awkward moment in front of Lila’s door. She’d made up her mind to keep things strictly friendly with Ben. It was better for everyone.

  As she headed toward her room, silently congratulating herself for having the strength to walk away from a gorgeous and interested man, Lila saw Asher’s door open slightly, and a very disheveled Josie Warren slip out into the hallway. She was still wearing the dress she was in earlier, but now its halter top was twisted and the skirt was rumpled, as was her hair. It was clear that she and Asher had just had a rather vigorous romp in his cabin.

  When Josie spotted Lila, the young heiress didn’t bat an eye. She just slunk by, wearing a devilish grin on her face, with the telltale scent of Asher’s coconut oil trailing behind her.

  CHAPTER 14

  EVERYONE RETURNED TO the yacht the following evening and waved a fond farewell to their opulent stopover at Parrot Cay. The next destination on their island-­hopping extravaganza would be Turks and Caicos, one of the Caribbean’s most star-­studded, luxurious hot spots.