by Liv Spector
“Yes, hello, Ms. Gomez. This here is Nicky Collins, one of the stewardesses,” Edna said. “And she’s running so very behind that I can’t spare her right now. We’ve just got soooo much to do before the big soiree.” Edna grabbed Lila’s arm and squeezed it painfully. “Now, dear Nicky,” Edna said, “please bring those bags up to the master suite. And then Chef Vatel needs you in the galley.”
With a small nod of her head, Lila happily walked away from the reporter and her questions. She knew that at any moment Ava would make an appearance, and she didn’t want to miss it.
And then she saw her—her arm, to be exact, reaching out toward the railing. Just seeing her sister’s disembodied wrist was enough to make Lila let the heavy bags fall from her hands as she stood looking at the sister she hadn’t seen for a decade.
Lila hurried to stand where Ava couldn’t see her. Though her long dark hair was chopped into a bleached pixie cut, and yes, she was ten years older than her past self, it wouldn’t be enough. These two sisters knew each other as well as they knew themselves. Lila understood that Ava would see beyond any disguise in an instant. It was crucial that Lila never interact with her.
Suddenly Ava turned, and Lila’s heart broke. Her sister’s beautiful face was looking sadly out to the ocean; she seemed lost in thought, unaware of her surroundings. Lila could tell from her swollen red eyes that she’d been crying.
Both sisters were natural-born tomboys, much happier in a T-shirt and jeans than a dress, but standing there on the yacht, Ava looked like she’d stepped out of the pages of Vogue. A blow dryer had straightened out any of the natural waves in her blond hair. Her face was artfully made up, her full lips painted, a sparkle of pink dusted across her cheekbones, and her eyes were rounded and highlighted dramatically with eye shadows and liners, though her tears were threatening to ruin it all.
Just as Lila had seen in the TV news video, Ava wore a floor-length, spaghetti-strap dress with a low back, which showed off her lean, tan body. A long gold chain sat at the nape of her swanlike neck and fell all the way to the middle of her back. Lila had never seen her sister look more beautiful, more fragile, and more miserable than at this very moment. More than anything, she wanted to run to her sister, grab her hand, and drag her as far away as their legs could carry them—away from this yacht, from Jack Warren, and from the dark world that surrounded him. But there were rules that Lila had promised to follow. For her sake and for her sister’s, she knew she had to let the tragic events awaiting them unfold.
She was still staring up at the balcony where her sister was standing, when she saw Ben heading in her direction. She instantly straightened up and smiled at him, but his stone-faced expression went unchanged. It was almost as if he was looking right through her.
It had been a couple of days since he’d found her with the packages of cocaine, and during the entire time, Lila had been in a state of constant worry, terrified that he would rat her out. But nothing had come of it. She wasn’t sure whether that little bit of good fortune was thanks to Captain Nash saving her ass or Ben keeping his mouth shut. From the look on Ben’s face, it was safe to say he was still pretty angry.
“Hi, Ben,” she chirped as she gathered up the shopping bags around her.
“Hey,” he said coldly.
“Let me ask you a question,” Lila said. “Have you ever seen that woman before?” She pointed to Ava, who just then turned around and stepped off the balcony. But not before Ben had gotten a good look at her.
“Nope. Can’t say I have.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“Not really. But I could make an educated guess,” Ben said. “From the look of her, and the room she’s stuck in, which is far away from the other cabins, I’d venture to say that she’s Jack’s flavor of the month.”
“Flavor of the month?” Lila felt her stomach turn.
“Don’t play dumb,” Ben said with an exhausted shake of his head. “It insults both of us. Though I will say: even though I’ve seen Jack do a lot of cruel shit, bringing his mistress on board when his wife and kid are here is a new low, even for him.”
“You can say that again,” Lila said.
“Not like you can judge,” Ben snapped.
“Please, Ben. It’s not what you think. It’s so much more complicated. I’m . . .” Lila trailed off.
“You’re what?” Ben asked.
“I’m . . .” Shut up, she said to herself, forcing herself to stop talking. If she couldn’t tell Ben the truth (and he wouldn’t believe her even if she could), what was the point of continuing to lie to him? If he was going to make trouble for her, he would’ve done it already. But there was a wounded look in his eyes underneath the terse annoyance on the surface. She felt a pang of regret for getting them both in this situation.
“I’m sorry. That’s it. I’m sorry that you feel misled. That’s never what I wanted. But you kissed me,” Lila said.
“You kissed me back,” he said.
Lila’s mind flashed to that moment in the hallway—the feel of his mouth on hers, the way he pressed her up against the door, the overwhelming, burning attraction she’d felt. Her desire suddenly reignited by the memory, she stood looking at him dumbly, not knowing what else to say.
“Fine,” Ben said, dismissing her. “See you around.”
“Yeah, see you,” Lila said, though Ben was already out of earshot.
Before she could dwell any longer on the mess she’d made, her attention was pulled away by the sound of two people arguing. She walked toward the voices, climbing up to the second level, then along the side deck, closer to the balcony where she’d seen Ava.
“I want to go!” Lila heard her sister wail.
She heard the sound of Jack’s voice, but he was quieter, more restrained than usual, so she couldn’t clearly make out what he was saying. Lila thought she’d have better luck if she listened to the argument from outside her sister’s door. She put Elise’s shopping bags down and dashed inside the yacht, up the spiral staircase one level to where her sister was stashed. Then she tiptoed down the hallway toward her sister’s voice.
“Why are they here?” she heard her sister cry through the door. “I thought it was just going to be us?”
Lila grew frustrated. Even though she was closer, all she could hear of Jack’s side of the conversation were some incomprehensible mumbles. Then it was quiet for a moment until, suddenly, something smashed against a wall, violently ending the brief silence. Her sister let out a spine-chilling scream.
The door swung open, and Jack stormed out. He was so angry that he didn’t even seem to notice or care that Lila was standing right at the door. She could hear his slightly labored breathing, and his always carefully arranged hair was now disheveled.
Jack rushed down the hall, passing Thiago and Esperanza, who were strolling arm in arm toward Lila. The sound of Ava’s frantic weeping could be heard well beyond the closed cabin door.
As soon as Thiago and Esperanza went past, Lila heard Thiago whisper to his wife, “If that man keeps this up, he’ll soon end up dead.”
Lila’s heart almost stopped. Did Thiago simply mean that any man who brought his mistress on a yacht with his wife and his daughter was playing fast and loose? Or was there more to it than that?
She watched the couple walk by without acknowledging her. She knew she’d have to pay closer attention to Thiago Campos. But not at that very moment. Right now the sound of her sister crying made it impossible to leave. Hearing Ava’s misery caused a small blossom of hatred to bloom in the pit of Lila’s stomach. She detested Jack Warren for making her gentle and loving sister so inconsolable.
But more than anything, she was furious with herself. She’d had ten years of preparation, two weeks with full access to everyone aboard Jack’s yacht, and she prided herself on being a good detective. Yet, despite having every advantag
e—despite traveling back in time—she knew even less than she’d known when she started. At least before she traveled back to 2008, she’d thought she knew who the murderer was. But now all of her assuredness was gone. She’d become so lost in the case that everyone seemed like a suspect.
Her sister’s wailing died down, and there was silence. The hallway was empty, so Lila pressed her ear against Ava’s door. She heard her sister’s footsteps and then the sound of water as the shower was turned on.
She sighed. She couldn’t afford to loiter at that spot any longer. There was too much to be done. So she gathered up Elise’s purchases and headed for the master suite. But a fist of rage squeezed at Lila’s heart as she walked away from Ava, devastated that she had so little to show for all her effort.
Lila knocked on the door to the master suite and, hearing nothing, quietly entered. The blinds were closed and the lights were off, making it difficult to see. She flipped the light switch on and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Elise sitting at her vanity in front of a large mirror.
“Mrs. Warren, I—I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were here,” Lila stammered.
Elise had her head in her hand and a half-full martini glass at her elbow. The sickly-sweet smell of alcohol coming out of Elise’s pores mixed in the air with her Hermès perfume. Elise didn’t move or speak.
The countertop of her vanity was littered with plastic pill bottles, silver and gold makeup compacts, and expensive creams and elixirs in frosted-glass bottles promising to stave off old age. And it all seemed to be working on Elise, who sat there dripping with elegant misery in a boned silk bustier with a matching slip, her hair pinned up, her makeup perfectly applied. A strapless Valentino was laid out for her on the bed.
“Do you need any assistance with your dress, ma’am?” Lila asked cautiously.
“No need. I’ll be dining in my room tonight. Be sure to let Edna know.” Her voice was raw and weary.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lila said with a small nod. Then she quickly emptied the shopping bags of their many treasures: the Stella McCartney blouse, the Balmain dress, the Chloé purse. She unwrapped each item that was carefully encased in tissue and set it in the closet, next to all the other items that had been purchased in hopes of somehow numbing this woman’s profound pain.
Once again, Lila felt the briefest flicker of pity toward Elise Warren. After all, if Jack could reduce Lila’s very own, desperately adored sister to a screaming, glass-shattering mess, then maybe Elise’s twisted soul was Jack’s doing.
“Have you seen her?” Elise asked, lifting her head from her hand and taking a big sip of her martini.
“Seen who, ma’am?” Lila asked as she lifted a pair of red patent-leather Louis Vuitton heels out of their shoe box.
Elise glared at Lila in the mirror. “You know who. My husband’s mistress.”
“Oh,” Lila said as she turned her back toward Elise and placed the shoes in her walk-in closet.
“Don’t bother saying anything, you dumb little mouse. I know she’s here. I saw her myself.”
“There is a young lady who has joined the guests on the yacht, ma’am, but that’s all I know.”
“What you know couldn’t fill a thimble,” Elise said as she secured a pair of diamond-and-amethyst earrings to her ears. Lila noticed a slight tremor in her hands as she opened a small gold-and-opal pillbox and put two round blue pills on her tongue. “What I don’t know is why my husband needs to rub my nose in his shit all the time. Of course, the real question is why am I still here waiting to eat it up? Perhaps I’ll just go rub some of my shit in his face.”
Elise stood up from her seat at her vanity, but she was very shaky. Her knees buckled, causing her to lose her balance. She grabbed on to the wall so as not to fall to the floor. Lila rushed to steady her, but Elise swatted her away. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed as she collapsed into the chair. “On second thought, perhaps I will go down, just a little later.” She picked up a tube of lipstick and began to reapply the bright red color to her mouth. “Now make yourself useful and get me another drink.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lila returned with a fresh martini. But Elise Warren had already left, presumably in the Valentino dress that was no longer spread out on the bed. Lila stood by the cluttered vanity, a silver tray in her hand, watching the martini perspire and wondering what she should do. There was no point in tracking Elise down on this giant boat. By then the drink would be too warm, plus she’d probably forgotten she asked for one anyway.
Lila let out a beleaguered sigh, grabbed the drink, and took a large gulp. The sensation of the ice-cold alcohol sliding down her throat was intensely pleasurable. Just as she was about to take another sip, Ben walked out of Elise’s bathroom.
A small yelp of surprise popped out of Lila’s mouth when she saw him.
“What are you doing here?” they said simultaneously. Lila, caught drinking in the master suite, and Ben, caught doing God knows what in the master bathroom. Both were understandably edgy.
“I was just bringing Mrs. Warren a drink,” Lila said quickly, stumbling a bit on her words.
“But you decided to drink it yourself?” Ben asked, with a curious smile on his face.
“She wasn’t here. And so I just thought, ‘To hell with it.’ ” Lila paused, shaking off the humiliation she felt, as if she’d been caught in the act of committing a crime, and frowned. “Wait, what are you doing here?”
Without missing a beat, Ben said, “I was looking for you. Sam said you were on your way here.”
Lila was confused. “But I didn’t see Sam.”
Before she could say another word, Ben moved quickly toward her, until he stood a few inches away. Then he reached out and gripped her waist. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry. May I?” he asked, nodding to the drink Lila held between them.
She shrugged. “Sure.” He picked up the martini, took a small sip, and handed it back to Lila, who finished it off. Then he set the empty glass and the silver tray on Elise’s vanity, causing a clatter as a couple of lipsticks fell to the floor.
“Sorry for what?” Lila asked.
“What?” Ben was distracted.
“You said you were sorry.”
“Right, of course. I wanted to apologize for judging you. For pushing you away.”
Lila knew what was happening: she’d caught Ben red-handed, doing something illicit, and now he was trying to sweet-talk his way out of it. But she wouldn’t call him on anything. He’d caught her transporting drugs and using a false identity. She knew it was better to have him on her side than against her.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. Although the only thing she was sorry for was getting caught.
Ben swept his fingers lightly down her cheek and over her lips. “Christ, you’re so gorgeous,” he murmured, as if Lila’s beauty caused him physical pain. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the mouth. Lila closed her eyes, seeing flashes of white light dance around the darkness. She grabbed him, pulling him close, kissing him deeply.
But then she shook herself out of this momentary madness, realizing she was still in Elise Warren’s room. “Wait, we can’t be here. What if she comes back?” Lila whispered.
“She won’t,” Ben said. “Trust me.” He grabbed Lila around the waist, picking her up so that her feet were dangling inches above the floor, and carried her a couple of feet until her back was up against the door. With a resolute click, Lila heard the sound of Ben throwing the lock. She knew what was next.
And she was okay with it. She needed to make sure that Ben wouldn’t use the information he had against her. And with every kiss, he was asking the same thing of her. They were negotiating a silent treaty of mutually assured destruction.
She was, in fact, more than okay with it, she realized as she wrapped one leg around his hips. Ben quickly unzipped his pants, and
when Lila felt his hand push her underwear to the side, she made no effort to stop him. There was no denying it. She wanted him, with an all-consuming ferocity. And as she felt him move inside of her, she clung to him, pressing her body into his with an unrelenting hunger, wanting only to feel him go even deeper so that she would feel nothing else but him.
She needed, for just a small stretch of time, to escape the pain of the day, to erase the sounds of her sister’s tears, to turn off the steady stream of questions without answers. She needed, with every pulse of pure pleasure she felt as Ben fucked her against the door, to feel a moment of release before returning to the sorrow.
CHAPTER 23
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY.”
Josie threw her arms around Jack’s neck and held him close for a few seconds longer than the billionaire wanted. Lila watched him uncomfortably wriggle his way out of his daughter’s overzealous embrace. “Thank you, dear,” he said, not looking her in the eye.
September 10, 2008, the day Lila had been waiting for, was finally upon her. It was Jack Warren’s fiftieth birthday—the day of his death. The guests were in the middle of breakfast, and despite the joyous occasion, tensions never seemed higher. But Lila could barely breathe as she walked around the dining room, pouring juice and serving eggs. Everything came down to this one day, and everyone around the table was still a suspect.
The most suspicious one of all, Elise Warren, was sitting at the opposite end of the table from Jack. She spoke to no one and barely moved. A small bowl of nonfat yogurt sat untouched in front of her. Her face looked as miserable as a face that had been frozen and plumped by Botox and Restylane injections could look. Lila didn’t know if Elise had confronted Jack about Ava’s presence aboard the ship, but the ugliness of the whole thing, unspoken or not, sat there like a giant turd between them.
“Happy birthday, and cheers to you, Jack,” Paul Mason said. Even though his voice sounded light, his face was unsmiling. After the news of Jack’s decision to move all of his company’s manufacturing back to the USA broke, the company’s stock had plummeted 18 percent in one day of trading. That left Warren Software without the necessary capital to buy Peregrine. The deal that Jack had promised to his old friend Paul was dead in the water, which meant that Paul Mason wasn’t going to get the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of banking fees he’d been anticipating. He was like a dog who’d been doing tricks for treats. Now that the treats were gone, he wasn’t going to be a good boy anymore. That was evident.
