The Beautiful and the Wicked

 

DEDICATION

For my sister

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A
N ENORMOUS THANK
S
to Katie McGee, May Chen, and Joelle Hobeika, for their artful and indispensable editing, insight, guidance, and good cheer every step of the way.

I would also like to thank:

My father, for encouraging me to follow my passions.

My sister, for being my best friend from the moment I entered the world.

My mother, for continually opening my eyes to life's beauty, magic, and wildness.

My beloved friends David Aaron Bell, Sonia Verma, Jeff Oliver, Ayla Teitelbaum, Corey Kohn, and Sarah Browder. I feel so lucky to have you all in my life.

Anna Carey, CJ Hauser, Cristina Moracho, and Marie Bertino, whose brilliance and dedication to the craft of writing always leave me awestruck and inspired.

Tim Foy, a man who makes any old black-­and-­white day turn Technicolor. Thank you for making my life more magnificent than I could have imagined.

 

EPIGRAPH

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”

—­
A
NDRÉ
M
ALRAU
X

 

CONTENTS

 

PROLOGUE

I
T'S AN UNFORTUN
ATE
fact of life that the more you have, the more you want. That's just how appetites work. Excess leads to insatiability. And whatever is true for humankind is writ large for the filthy rich. After all, it's not hard to see that the wealthy are ravenous.

Just listen closely to the idle chatter buzzing about the charity balls, the art-­fair parties, and the gala benefits, which are the jet set's lifeblood. Beneath the casual flirting, the backstabbing, the grandstanding, and the posturing, what everyone is
really
talking about can be boiled down to one central question: who has more? Be it money, companies, sex, homes, horses, serenity, charity, love—­whatever it is doesn't matter. Everything can be quantified. Everything can be bought.

And no one had more of everything than Jack Warren. He made sure of it.

A rags-­to-­riches Silicon Valley billionaire several times over, Jack was both envied and reviled. He'd been called a tech genius, a megalomaniac, a messiah, and a monster, depending on whom you asked. But, be he savior, Satan, or sadist, he was above all viciously competitive. Whatever he put his energies toward, he made sure
his
was the best in the world—­no matter the cost.

This relentlessness wasn't always charming. He was known by everyone, but loved by very, very few. But Jack didn't mind the bad feelings—­indeed, he thrived on them. To him, every new enemy was a mark of distinction, for he deeply believed that great men must have a great number of adversaries. And he didn't become the sixth richest man in the world by playing nice.

So, when the rumors began to circulate that Jack was turning his exacting attentions toward building a luxury yacht, everyone was anxious for details. How much would it cost? How big would it be? How could they get an invite? The two most interested parties were one Russian oligarch and a certain Middle Eastern emir who had spent the last decade waging a quiet two-­man war over who could build the largest superyacht imaginable. They weren't excited to find out that Jack was crashing their private skirmish.

But they had no reason to worry. Size didn't matter for Jack. That was a concern for men who were small of mind (and small in other departments, Jack would add with a wink). Let the Russian and the Saudi battle over whose behemoth was bigger. He was on a different quest—­a quest for audacious beauty. It would take six years, $500 million, and hundreds of artisans, designers, builders, and craftsmen to make Jack Warren's dream a reality, but as always, he did what he set out to do. He built the most exquisite yacht the world had ever known:
The Rising Tide
.

In the early fall of 2008, the 423-­foot yacht set off on its maiden voyage. With its interiors designed by Philippe Starck, accented with lavish Baccarat crystal tables, stingray-­skin-­upholstered walls, hand-­stitched leather paneling, a helicopter pad, a swimming pool, a spa, and a three-­thousand-­square-­foot master suite with a retractable moonroof for stargazing, it was the most luxurious thing anyone had ever seen.

But among all the endless speculation about the boat, what no one could have guessed was that this pinnacle of luxury would be the very site of Jack Warren's bloody murder. On a warm September night in 2008—­during a celebration for Jack's fiftieth birthday—­as his guests drank Dom Pérignon under a canopy of stars far out in the Caribbean Sea, Jack would finally meet a rival he couldn't best: death.

 

CHAPTER 1

L
ILA
D
AY WAS
plunged out of darkness into a blinding, prismatic light. She shut her eyes against the glare. Wild flashes of color danced and darted behind her eyelids. A searing pain sliced through her fingers before she realized it was from the death grip she had on the arms of the leather chair beneath her. Her breath was shallow, struggling. Her lungs burned. A deafening whir ripped through her eardrums. She opened her eyes, trying to locate the source of the metallic screech. Everything erratically illuminated, then darkened. Her eyes darted around this strange space. It was an egg-­shaped pod of sorts, about the height and width of an elevator.

Where am I? she wondered.

A small screen flickered to life before her blinking eyes, causing her nearly to jump out of her skin. The high-­pitched noise suddenly stopped, replaced by a silence more frightening than the commotion that had preceded it. Now all she could hear was the sound of her own shallow breath.

A man with an angular face and light brown eyes came into view on the screen. Lila could tell he was looking directly at her. His face was serious, searching.

“Breathe, Lila,” the man said. “Breathe.”

Lila? Her own name sounded unfamiliar to her. The man looked worried, making Lila feel even more anxious.

A whoosh of air blew her long hair back. She looked up to see a large door opening outward, revealing a thin crack of golden light in the ceiling above her. The sudden change in pressure made her ears pop painfully.

“Lila?” the man said, studying her. “Are you okay?”

“I'm okay?” she croaked, realizing it was more of a question than an answer. Her own voice sounded strange.

The man turned away, talking to someone else offscreen. She strained to hear what they were saying, unable to make out a word.

Another man's face came into view, filling the entirety of the screen. He was much older than the first man, probably in his seventies. His broad shoulders were encased in a dark wool suit. Tufts of white hair peeked out from under a black chauffeur's cap, which was pulled low on his head.

“Your name is Lila Day,” he said firmly. He had a crisp English accent. “You have returned from the year 1998. You are back in the year 2019. Do you understand me?”

She wondered if she was dreaming.

The man continued to speak calmly, as if he were gently waking her up from a hypnotic trance. “You are experiencing a brief period of readjustment. Focus on your breathing. Nod if you understand.”

Lila nodded.

The small crack in the ceiling above her yawned wider as the giant door slowly opened like a single petal peeling apart from a flower bud. Cold air rushed to greet her. Her lungs drank it in. Goose bumps sprang up on her chilled skin. As the door lowered outward, down to the ground, she could see that her little cocoon sat in a much larger room, every inch of which was covered in gold foil. She leaned forward, hoping to see more, but a harness around her waist restrained her. When she craned her neck, she saw that the outside of the pod was constructed out of panels of highly polished green stone—­jade or emerald, most likely. Her brain struggled to digest the incomprehensible reality of the scene.

Once the door opened completely, a metal staircase unfurled, giving her passage from the pod to the world outside. She undid the harness and started to stand up, eager to escape, but her legs were weak and buckled beneath her. She collapsed back into the chair.

The younger man came back on the screen. “Don't try to move,” he said. “I'm coming to you.” Then he disappeared.

Lila struggled to stand once more, but it was no use. She felt like a helpless rag doll.

Seconds later, the man she'd seen on the screen materialized before her, climbing up the stairs into the pod. Something about him instantly calmed her nerves. She had an innate understanding that he was there to help. The moment he put his hand on her shaking arm, his familiar touch unlocked something in her brain.

“Teddy?” she said, suddenly realizing who he was. The man looked at her. A flash of relief and excitement flickered across his face.

“You know who I am?” he asked cautiously.

Lila nodded. She saw the heaviness of his worry drop away as if he'd just shrugged off a cumbersome coat. He wrapped his arm around her back and hoisted her up. “You gave me quite a scare for a second,” he said, with a relieved smile. She felt his warm breath on her face. She closed her eyes, taking in his now-­familiar scent and touch.

With each step down the industrial steel staircase, Lila's memories began to unlock. What had felt foreign a mere second ago suddenly became familiar. Once again she remembered who she was, where she was, and what she was doing—­though the truth of it all was still strange. She was Lila Day, in the home of her friend and patron, the billionaire Teddy Hawkins, returning from the past after hunting down a wanted killer.

As the disparate puzzle pieces of her story began to cohere into a recognizable self, Lila's brief moment of forgetting was forgotten.

Teddy placed her down in a straight-­backed chair, in a room full of blinking and buzzing computers. The control room. She sat facing the jade geodesic dome from which she'd just emerged. It was a wonder to behold, Teddy's most brilliant creation—­a machine that could travel through time. She closed her eyes, listening to the beep and click of all the machines surrounding her. She'd spent countless hours in this very room with Teddy and his right-­hand man, Conrad, the distinguished gentleman in the chauffeur's cap she'd seen earlier onscreen. And it was Conrad who approached her now, putting a thermometer into her ear and clamping a pulse reader over the tip of her index finger.

“I hate to say it, but it seems the transient global amnesia is back,” Teddy said to Conrad. Conrad nodded, prepping Lila for a few rounds of full-­body scans and neuroimaging.

“Her vitals are weaker than I'd like,” Conrad said.

“Don't fuss over me like a ­couple of mother hens. I'm fine,” Lila slurred as she struggled to stay awake. She could barely keep her eyes open, and her head nodded to her chest. Conrad wrapped her up in a Mylar blanket, which crinkled as he tucked the silver sheet around the contours of her body.

“We need to bring your body temperature up,” he said.

“I'm just going to close my eyes for one second,” Lila murmured.

She heard Teddy agree gently. “Of course. Rest.”

Before the greedy hands of sleep pulled her down into the darkness, Lila raised her head and looked Teddy in the eye. “I got him. I know who the killer is,” she managed.

“I wouldn't doubt it for a second,” Teddy said with a comforting smile. But Lila could see from the way he was tensing his jaw that there was something else on his mind.

Slowly and with great physical effort, she wrestled a thumb drive from the depths of her jeans pocket, holding it out toward Teddy. “It's all here. All the evidence the police need.” She tried to toss it to him, but couldn't summon any strength. The thumb drive slipped from her enervated hands and made a hollow clank as it fell to the floor.

“Great,” Teddy said, bending down to scoop it up. “We'll go into it all soon enough. First, you should relax.”

But before he had finished speaking, Lila was asleep.

W
HEN SHE STARTLED
awake, she saw she was no longer in the subterranean confines of Teddy's elaborate laboratory. She'd been moved to a chaise longue beneath a large umbrella in the shadow of Teddy's estate on La Gorce Island, the hyperexclusive, hyperprivate Miami Beach enclave. She could hear the waters of Biscayne Bay serenely lapping against the seawall just a ­couple hundred feet from where she lay. The high, midday sun bleached out the lush landscape surrounding her.

She sat up groggily, shielding her eyes and looking around the vast manicured estate. She was all alone. Then she heard the telltale splash of water coming from the direction of the pool. Of course, she thought with a smile, he's swimming. It was something Teddy could do in a seemingly endless loop, back and forth, for hours.

She walked along the soft grass to the edge of the long, slate-­gray pool that bisected the villa's perfectly manicured lawn, pleased to feel that her strength had mostly returned. Teddy's lithe form cut through the water elegantly, but ferociously. She could tell from the intense effort and concentration of his movements that he was blowing off steam. A bit of concern crept into her thoughts. Something was wrong.

Once Teddy noticed Lila, he pulled up short, hauling himself out of the water effortlessly. Conrad appeared as if by magic, holding out a fresh, white robe.

“Thanks,” Teddy said to Conrad with a nod, wrapping himself up in the terrycloth robe, which sported his initials monogrammed over the heart. Lila's gaze was absentmindedly focused on the two crescent-­shaped indentations that Teddy's swim goggles left below his eyes. It took a moment before she realized those eyes were now staring directly at her.

“Lila?” Teddy said, waving his hand in front of her face. “Are you okay? You seem pretty out of it.”

“I do?” she asked dreamily. Conrad and Teddy were giving her that concerned look again. “What?” she asked. “I'm fine. Totally fine. Just . . . yeah,” she admitted. “Maybe a little out of it.”

Teddy paused, giving her a sideways glance. It was the fifth time she'd traveled back from the past, and each go-­round left her a bit more dazed than the last, but it wasn't a big deal. Nothing a few stiff drinks wouldn't cure.

“Let's sit,” Teddy said, pointing to a cluster of furniture huddled beneath a saffron-­colored cloth canopy. “We've got a lot of catching up to do.”

“What's wrong?” she asked as they sat.

“Wrong?”

“I know you, Teddy. Something's on your mind. So you might as well spit it out.” Lila paused, watching him carefully. “If you're worried about me, then don't be. I'm fine.” But Lila's halfhearted reassurances did nothing. Teddy remained silent, preoccupied. She continued, “I got a little more knocked around coming back this time. No big deal. It's worth it, trust me. I'd suffer so much more to catch the Key West killer. I mean, that guy was sick beyond repair. A real—­”

“Yes. Yes,” he said, cutting her off. Lila felt a prickle of irritation. She hated being interrupted. “I had Conrad drop off your evidence at the police station for Detective Bellilo, just as we planned. I suspect they'll make an arrest within the next ­couple of days. You did excellent work, Lila. Excellent.” He took a deep breath, like he was trying to build up his courage. “I'm just glad you're okay. And I know you need to rest, but I've got something to tell you. I don't think it can wait.” He looked out to the ocean, his eyes following a kite surfer who was sailing twenty feet high in the cloudless azure skies.

“What is it?” Lila asked impatiently. Teddy usually wasn't one to shy away from difficult conversations.

“Something big happened when you were in the past.” Teddy kept his eyes out on the ocean.

“How long was I gone?” Lila asked. She'd spent four weeks in 1998, but the present moved at a glacial pace compared to the time in the past. She had no idea how much of 2019 she'd missed.

“Not long. A little under two days. Forty-­seven hours, thirty-­eight minutes, and five seconds, to be precise.”

Just then, Conrad arrived carrying a large silver serving tray loaded with countless treats. Lila saw lobster tails, a bowl of caviar chilled over crushed ice, cucumber sandwiches, and slices of mango. As always with Teddy, it was a magnificent spread, but she was desperate to know what he had to say. Food was the furthest thing from her mind.

“Wild Turkey for you,” Conrad said to Lila, setting a crystal whiskey glass in front of her filled with one perfectly round ice cube submerged in her regular booze of choice.

“You're an angel, Conrad,” Lila said, keeping her eyes on Teddy, who looked momentarily relieved by this brief interruption.

“And a gin martini for you, sir.”

“Cheers, Conrad.” Teddy immediately wrapped his fingers around the glass's elongated stem and threw half the drink back. He breathed a deep sigh, then nodded at Conrad, who wordlessly returned to the main house. Teddy leaned over and took Lila's hand in his, looking her squarely in the face. “I've got something to tell you, but I want you to promise me that you'll stay calm.”

A nervous laugh burst from Lila's lips. How could she ever hope to stay calm when he was acting like this? “Just spit it out,” she said, feeling her pulse begin to increase.

Teddy nodded. Then he downed the rest of his drink, still clearly stalling. “Enrique Herrera was found dead yesterday morning,” he said slowly.

Lila suddenly grew cold, despite the fact that she was baking in the hot Miami sunshine. “What from?” Her voice was flat. Serious.

“Gunshot to the head.”

“Why didn't you tell me earlier?” She scrambled to her feet. She didn't know where she was headed, but she had an overwhelming need to go . . . she'd figure out where in a second.

“When was I supposed to tell you? While you were
passed out
? Lila, a ­couple hours ago you didn't even know where you were.
Who
you were! I thought it would be better for you to catch your breath before you shot off again.” He sighed. “I knew you'd react this way. Ready to leap before knowing where you'll land.”

She shook her head. Teddy should know better than to try to control her. Avoiding his gaze, she focused on the ice under the untouched caviar, watching it as it slowly turned to water.

“What are the police saying?” she asked.

“That it's suicide. The maid found him in his bedroom with the back of his skull blown off and a smoking gun in his hand.”