The Rich and the Dead (34 page)

“So what?” he spat angrily.

“That's not what I meant. I meant that I love you no matter what.”

“Sure you love me,” he sneered. “Enough to leave me bleeding on the street, surrounded by strangers.”

“Dylan, I'm sorry. If you just—”

“Just go,” he said with a painful sigh. “And don't worry, I didn't tell the police you were a witness to the shooting. It was them you were running away from, wasn't it? Or was it me?”

Lila stood there, speechless. There was so much to say, but the pure anger in his eyes made it impossible for her to speak.

“Fine,” he said dismissively. “You don't have to explain.”

Just then, a doctor walked into the room. “How are we feeling today, Dylan?” he asked in a booming, cheerful voice. Then he saw Lila, with her pale and tearstained face. “Sorry, I don't think we've met,” he said, extending his hand. “I'm Dr. Verma, and you are?”

“Leaving.” Dylan interrupted Lila, who was shaking the doctor's hand. “She's leaving.”

“Yes,” Lila said, sneaking a side glance at Dylan, who avoided her eyes. “I'm leaving.”

She walked toward the door, then turned to see him one last time. “Good-bye, Dylan,” she whispered.

Dylan said nothing in return.

On her way out of the hospital, Lila felt something inside her snap. The man she loved believed that she had betrayed him. He gave his heart to her, and she paid him back by abandoning him. Then, as he lay there in a hospital bed, he asked her to explain herself, and she was too busy drowning in her lies to speak.

Who had she become? In pursuit of the Star Island killer, she'd ended up hurting far more people than just herself. Lila got in the car and slammed the door, blinking back tears. She'd had enough. She was sick of all the lies, of the charade. It was time, once and for all, to end this. It was time to confront Effie.

CHAPTER 37

B
Y THE TIME
Lila drove up to Effie's house, she was in a boiling rage. She rushed through the front door. Effie was slumped at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee by her elbow and her head in her hands. Hearing the footsteps, she looked up to see Lila.

“Where the hell have you been?” Effie said, her voice raw. “I was worried. I heard about Dylan. Is he okay?”

“I find it impossible to believe that you care, Effie,” Lila snapped.

“Excuse me?” Effie shot back. “I know your boyfriend is in the hospital, but you don't have to bust my ass about it.”

“Just cut the shit, Effie.”

“What?”

Lila shook her head in disbelief. She hoped she wasn't making a huge mistake, but she couldn't wait on this anymore. She was going to show her hand.

“I know everything. I know about the forty-five in your bedroom with the silencer.”

Effie bolted up from her chair, a confused and wide-eyed look on her face.

“I know about Shane Johnson.”

Effie started to speak, but Lila kept talking over her.

“I know that he thinks you're Camilla Dayton. And that you've been traveling under my name on a fake passport.”

Effie turned her back to Lila and looked out over the lawn to the ocean. The sun was slowly rising, the sky a mix of bruised blues and purples. It would be the second-to-last sunrise Effie would ever see.

“I've got you, Effie. Any one of those things will have you in prison for a decade, at least.”

“I underestimated you,” Effie said. “I guess you're not the boring little lamb I thought you were.”

“Effie, listen to me.” Lila grabbed her friend's arm and spun her around so that they were face-to-face. “I won't say a word of any of this. Just promise me one thing.”

“Oh?” Effie sneered. “And what's that?”

“The Janus Society,” Lila said. “I know what you're going to do.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Effie said icily. “I'm going to pretend we never had this conversation.”

“You can call off Shane. And this will all be over. But you have to do it right now.”

Effie began to laugh, which caused her to hold her head in pain. She stopped laughing and groaned. “Laughing doesn't mix well with a hangover. Neither does listening to a stupid, raving bitch.”

“Effie, please. Just tell me why. Why are you doing it? Is it because of Chase? Because your dad's under investigation? Tell me.”

Effie gave her a confused look. “It's already been done. You think you know what's going on. But let me tell you, you're in so far over your head, you're already drowning. You're asking me to stop? Me?” Effie tapped her fingers on her chest. “Well, let me tell you as simply as possible,” she said, leaning close to Lila's face. “Back. The. Fuck. Off. Do you understand?”

“I'll go to the police,” Lila said.

“Something tells me you won't, because you can't. Otherwise you would've already done it.” Effie walked away toward the staircase. “So, I'm glad we had this little talk. Now, get your ass out of my sight and your shit out of my house. It's been a pleasure having you.”

With that, Effie climbed the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.

I
N LESS THAN
seventy-two hours, Lila would be back in Teddy's time machine with nothing but the clothes on her back. She knew what she had to do to salvage any meaning from this whole experience. She had to stop the Star Island massacre. She had to at least try.

As she drove out of Effie's driveway, she passed three police cruisers pulling in. She kept her head low and watched as two officers got out of the cars to knock on the front door. She assumed the cops were after her about Dylan's shooting. She left Star Island in a hurry, relieved to see that her rearview mirror was free of black-and-whites.

A half-hour drive later, Lila pulled up to Shane's house. His car was in the driveway. All his lights were on, but she couldn't see any movement through the windows. Her first thought was to knock on his door and, once he answered it, to shoot him dead. But Teddy had stressed that, above all else, no one could die by her hands. And the more she mulled it over, the more she realized that she didn't want to play it that way, regardless of the impact it might have on the future. She didn't want to just stop the Star Island killer. She wanted to bring him, and Effie, to justice. And she needed to know why Effie was carrying out this plan, and what had happened to make Effie a victim, too.

I
T WAS
N
EW
Year's Eve, and the streets of Little Haiti were full of celebratory parties. Every other lawn was hosting a barbecue. People wandered happily down the street, red plastic cups in their hands. Firecrackers periodically exploded in the sky.

Lila sat in her car, waiting, watching Shane Johnson's house. Hours passed. Growing anxious, she looked at her watch. It was 11:30. Though the exact time of death at the Star Island murder scene could never be determined, forensic evidence suggested the victims died between midnight and 3
A
.
M
. on January 1, 2015. She knew that Shane would leave his house within the hour.

Sure enough, at 11:55, he left. He was dressed in all black and was carrying a large duffel bag and a camouflage sniper rifle drag bag. He started up his car and headed southwest toward the highway, with Lila in close pursuit. This time, she wouldn't let fate cheat her.

When the clock struck midnight and the arrival of 2015 was celebrated up and down the Eastern Seaboard with cheers and kisses, Lila didn't take any notice. She was four cars behind Shane, going south on I-95, headed straight for Star Island. The closer they got, the more the adrenaline coursed through her body. She was finally going to get all the answers she'd waited so long for.

She watched as Shane's car approached the intersection to Bridge Road, the only way to get to Star Island by car. Then, to her horror, he passed the intersection.

“Where the hell are you going?” she yelled, her hands gripping the wheel.

She kept up with him past Star Island, but she immediately sensed something was off. As she barreled down the causeway toward Miami Beach, Lila was shaking in shock, confusion, and disappointment. Could she have been wrong?

“Where are you going, goddamnit!” she screamed, slamming her hands down on the steering wheel, as she followed Johnson's red Pontiac across the causeway and over to Collins Avenue, where it made a left. Lila let out a primal yell of frustration. It was 12:23
A
.
M
., and she didn't know whether she was trailing the killer or had, once again, followed the wrong path to yet another dead end.

She needed to choose, now. If she stopped tailing Shane, she would be giving up on all the time she had invested in following him and abandoning any opportunity she'd have to stop him from killing the members of the Janus Society.

Should she stay the course, or cut and run? Lila felt the frustration boiling up in her, an infinite scream about to pour from her mouth. After driving five more minutes north, still keeping a two-car distance from Johnson, she made a snap decision.

With a screeching U-turn, she headed back to Star Island, her heart racing. Shane Johnson couldn't be the killer. But she was on her way to finding out who was.

CHAPTER 38

L
ILA PULLED UP
to the stone-lion-flanked gates of 21 Star Island Drive, Chase Haverford's six-acre, $45 million estate, which was about to be transformed into the blood-soaked crime scene of the century.

After frantically buzzing the gate intercom for what felt like an eternity but was most likely thirty seconds, Lila gave up and, taking only her gun with her, climbed over the six-foot-tall gates.

From all her time surveying the crime scene and studying the property's blueprints, Lila knew Chase's estate like the back of her hand. Her gun at the ready, she kept close to the stone-wall perimeter in order to stay out of sight.

Lila remembered that the single sign of forced entry to Chase's home was a broken basement window on the northeast side. Keeping as low as possible, she sprinted across the property until she reached that side of the house, hoping to find the broken window and use it to sneak inside. But the window that should've been broken was intact.