by Liv Spector
CHAPTER 37
BY 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.
IN 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.
IT WAS NEW 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
LILA 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. Keepin
g 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.
He’s not in the house yet, Lila thought. She still had a shot at stopping the murders.
But to get inside the northeast side of the house, Lila would have to break the window herself. With the butt end of her revolver, she hit it until it shattered. Then, with her sweatshirt hood up over her baseball cap to protect her skin from the shards of glass, she crawled into the basement, careful not to leave any fingerprints.
She blinked in the sudden darkness. All the lights were out, and Lila struggled to see. But her memories of the place quickly kicked in, and, as she rushed down the hall toward the wine cellar, her eyes adjusted. The only sound was that of her feet against the floor. Then her ears were assaulted by a bout of screaming, and the noise of a gunshot ricocheting down the halls. Immediately after, there was another. And another. The noise was so powerful, she felt the pain of it rip through her.
Instinctively, she hit the floor. Then the fourth gunshot exploded. Lila sprang back up to her feet and started running as fast as she could toward the bone-chilling screaming that was growing louder with each step. Then she heard a fifth shot. The sixth. Then another. Still running. Fighting her body to go faster. The throbbing veins in her head making her feel she was about to explode into a thousand jagged pieces. Then the eighth shot. She was counting. Was she still running in the right direction? Then another. Then another.
Finally, she stood at the wine cellar door. She moved to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. She threw her body against it. Another shot rang out. One wall stood between her and the murderer. She put her entire weight into the door, screaming bloody murder. Then another shot. Twelve.
“I’ll kill you,” she screamed at the murderer behind the door. She kicked at the door, feeling no pain, only panic, only rage. She took the butt of her gun and brought it down, over and over, on the door’s hinges and handle, attacking them ferociously until she heard something give. Then, with one final kick, the door fell into the room. The smoke from the gunshots poured out. And there they were, the Janus Society members, all dead on the floor. The killer was nowhere in sight.
She rushed past the dead bodies and through the rest of the cavernous wine cellar, her gun in her hand, searching for the murderer. She spotted an open door. She ran through it, then up the stairs and out onto the large lawn overlooking the ocean. Scanning the property, she didn’t see any movement.
“Where are you?” she whispered into the night sky.
For the next two hours, Lila searched everywhere, but she found nothing.
CHAPTER 39
A STRAY SLANT of sunlight peeking from between two heavy motel curtains forced Lila awake. The clock read 9:36 A.M. The moment she opened her eyes, she closed them again and rolled over into a fetal position. She was still in last night’s clothes. The smell of spilled bourbon clung to the stagnant air.
She didn’t think she had the strength in her to ever get out of bed again. It felt as if the entire weight of the world was pressing down upon her bruised, aching flesh. But in a little under seven hours, she needed to be back at the warehouse in North Miami so that she could go back to 2018. Back to her ruined life. And she would be going back empty-handed, knowing nothing more than she had when she arrived.
What if I don’t go back? she thought suddenly. The very notion of running away released a bit of energy inside her, energy she didn’t think she had. There was nothing waiting for her in 2018. Suddenly, the thought of returning to that life, its isolation and its numbness, was unbearable. What if she just stayed here? What would happen if she and her past self were coexisting like that? Would one of them flicker out of existence at some point, like a ghost?
Lila knew that if she stayed in the past, she would have to remain hidden. But she still had plenty of Teddy’s money left, more than enough to disappear forever. She could get in the car and drive south, buy a place along the rugged Pacific coast of South America, and live out the rest of her life on her terms.
Yes, she thought, that was what she would do. Either way, she was letting Teddy down. He had put his faith in her, and she had failed. There was no point in going through the excruciating exercise of telling him that she’d spent months following false leads while spending his money and wasting his time.
And then there was Dylan, lying broken in a hospital room, thinking that the woman he loved had abandoned him when he needed her the most. How could she explain the truth to him when so much of what he knew about her was a lie?
It all added up to one big, hopeless mess.
Soon Lila had packed up her things, loaded the car, and headed north. She’d drive up, out of Florida, and then go west, clinging along the southern underbelly of the United States, through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, then head down into Mexico.
Alone in the car, her mind made up, she finally felt a slight semblance of control, and with that came a bit of peace. When she saw the exit to Fort Myers, she took it without thinking it through. Before her brain processed the turn, her instincts had kicked in. She was going to her childhood home.
Two blocks from her mom’s house, Lila pulled the car over. She needed to hide any lingering evidence of Camilla Dayton. Looking in the rearview mirror, she pinned up her blond hair and pulled on a baseball cap. She looked like shit. She hadn’t looked this bad since 2018, she thought wryly.
As Lila pulled up to her mom’s, she spotted her outside, hunched over her rosebushes. Lila was shocked by how thin she’d become. Her usually full, pink cheeks were sunken and sallow.
When she got out of the car, her mother didn’t recognize her at first because of the baseball cap she wore to conceal her changed hair.
“Mom?”
“Lila, is that you?” Lila’s mother ran toward her daughter and threw her arms around her. “What a marvelous surprise!” But mother’s intuition kicked in instantly. She knew something was up with her youngest daughter. “What’s wrong? You don’t look so hot.”
“Oh, I’m fine, Mom. I’m heading out on a trip and was passing by. Thought I’d stop in for a moment.”
Her mother took her hand, and together they walked toward the humble home. They sat down silently on the cement front steps, still holding hands, letting the warmth of the winter sun wash over them.
“How are you feeling, Mom?”
“I’m a bit run-down today, but mostly okay.”
Lila squeezed her mother’s hand tighter and rested her head on her mom’s shoulder. Every day since her mother died, Lila had prayed to do the very thing she was doing at this moment—seeing her mom once again, feeling her touch, hearing her voice. She didn’t want the moment to end, even though she knew it had to.
The pure agony of losing her mother, on top of everything else she’d lost recently, came crashing over Lila. She inadvertently let out a long, pain-filled sigh.
“Oh, don’t worry, my baby,” Lila’s mother said, putting her arm around her weeping daughter. “Things will be just fine.”
“I don’t think so, Mom. I think I’m done being a cop. I just can’t take it anymore.”
“That’s not the Lila I know.” Her mother paused, looking closely at her daughter. “Is this about a man?”
Despite her sorrow, Lila had to smile. Her mom had always known things about her without being told. “Yeah,” she admitted. “There is someone, but . . . I messed it up. Now he won’t even talk to me. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Love hurts the most the first time, my darling,” her mother said, knowing that her daughter had never before let a man into her heart. “Shhh,” she murmured, stroking Lila’s hair, letting her cry.
Now that Lila had started crying, she couldn’t find it in her to stop. She couldn’t bear the thought that this was the last time she would ever see her mom.
Her mother held her tighter. “You’ve
got to remember that life and love are worth fighting for, Lila. I know you’ll remember that when it counts.” She held her daughter’s face in her hands and looked softly into her eyes. “Life is always worth fighting for.”
The women sat together in silence for a while as the sun rose higher in the sky. Lila didn’t want to leave. But when she looked at her watch, she was shocked to see that it was almost 2:00 P.M. Suddenly, she knew she had to go back. To 2018. Her mother was right. She couldn’t give up on her life, not yet.
She jumped up from the stoop. “I’ve got to run, Mom.”
Her mother stood up and hugged her tight. “I love you so much, my girl. Now, go knock ’em dead. And remember how proud I am of you.”
“I will. I always will. I love you, Mom.”
Lila ran to her car. She’d have to hurry. She didn’t have much time before the window to the future was closed forever.
CHAPTER 40
LILA KEPT HER eye on the clock as she raced eastward, back to Miami. She was running out of time. In order to make it to room 2867 of the storage facility by 4:16 P.M., as Teddy had instructed, she tore across Florida at dangerous speeds, paying no mind to the startled, honking cars that she zoomed past. Nothing mattered more than returning to her life, becoming Lila Day once again. Enough hiding. Enough retreat. She’d go back and face the future.
It was 4:02 P.M. when she arrived at the storage facility. Fourteen minutes left. She pulled the car up to the exit and sprang out toward the building, leaving the engine running. Nothing from this time was of any use to her anymore. She ran up the stairs to the second floor and sprinted along the hall, scanning the numbers on the doors, her heart beating in her throat, until she arrived at 2867. 4:06 P.M.
She paused, stunned, and stood staring at the door. There was a giant padlock on it. She looked at her watch. 4:08 P.M. She raced back down the halls, down the stairs, and to her car, which somehow, miraculously, was still running, not yet stolen. She reached into the glove compartment for her old police revolver and sprinted back up the stairs.