by Liv Spector
With the Land Rover about twenty feet away, she came to a complete stop, and the SUV, with enviable ease, went off-road around the left side of her car.
Lila scowled at the reckless driver as he passed. But he just smiled at her, giving her a little two-fingered salute as his car drove by and quickly retreated in her rearview mirror.
There was something familiar about him, but her mind was too focused on seeing Dylan to dwell on anything else.
A few minutes later, she pulled up to Dylan’s house. It was a grand stone mansion, with beautiful tall, arched windows and a terra-cotta roof. Her heart jumped. There he was, waiting for her on the front porch. Though he was sitting in a very advanced-looking mechanical wheelchair, he looked exactly the same as she remembered. Unlike Teddy, who had aged in the face of tragedy and loss, Dylan looked as robust and as youthful as ever. He was beaming from ear to ear. Her heart leaped when she saw that smile. Against all odds, he seemed happy she was there.
The moment she got out of the car, she heard him call her name. “Camilla!”
She ran toward him, then bent down and threw her arms around him. The chair made the embrace awkward.
“It’s you,” he said softly, putting his hands on her face, as if to make sure she was real. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
Lila felt relieved, drunk with happiness.
Dylan was looking up at her, reflecting all that she felt right back. “I’ve wondered about you every day. And now you’re here.” He laughed with joy. “Please, come inside.”
Lila followed Dylan into the home’s intimate main room. It had stone walls and exposed beams on its vaulted ceilings. Although it was the middle of summer, the smell of fireplace smoke hung in the air.
Dylan couldn’t stop smiling. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he said. “Where have you been? And why now? After so many years, what made you decide to see me today?”
“I came as soon as I could,” she said. “I came the moment I realized my life didn’t make sense anymore without you.” She paused, then walked over to him and put her hand in his. “Plus, the last time I saw you in the hospital . . . it couldn’t be the last time.”
“I said things that day that I’ve regretted every day since.”
“You shouldn’t,” Lila replied.
“Yes, I should. It doesn’t matter now why you left me. Or why you left Miami. You did leave town, didn’t you?”
Lila nodded.
“Thank God. It was either that or I had consecutively hired four of the most incompetent private detectives in all of history. None of them could find a trace of you, here or anywhere.”
“I can explain—”
“I don’t want you to,” Dylan said, interrupting her. “Here, sit down.” Lila settled into a leather chair. Dylan scooted so close that their knees were touching. “For the past three and a half years I’ve been here, mostly on my own, and I’ve had a lot of time to think. First, I was shot. Then all those people on Star Island. And you were gone. It felt like the world was just one empty and treacherous place. So I came up here to figure it out. But all I could think about was you. You won’t believe me, but I made a deal with God, or whoever it is that runs the show, that if I ever found you again, there’d be no questions, no need for explanations, and no past. All we’d have was that very moment. And then the next moment. And then the rest of our lives together.”
Lila ran the tips of her fingers along his glorious face. Along his eyebrow, down his cheekbone, then to his full lips. “I like that plan,” she said.
“Plus,” he went on, “there’s hope I won’t be in this damn wheelchair forever.”
“Really?”
“I hope so. You remember meeting Dr. Verma at the hospital, when you visited me?”
“I don’t want to think about that horrible night ever again,” Lila said.
Dylan reached for her hand and ran his thumb lightly over her knuckles. “Well, that man has been my guardian angel from the moment I got shot. We’ve known each other since we were children and went to the same boarding school. When I arrived at the hospital, he was there to meet the ambulance. Since then, he’s dropped everything to devote himself to my case.”
Looking at Dylan now, drinking all of him in, Lila could believe that he might fully recover. His vitality had in no way faded. He was wearing a cotton T-shirt, which showed off his muscular chest and arms, and jeans. Even his legs looked powerful.
“Dr. Verma has been here every day, working with me,” Dylan continued. “I’m not going to lie and say it’s been easy. For the first few months after the accident, I didn’t even want to get out of bed, but he was there to keep me on track. If it wasn’t for him and my brother, I don’t know where I’d be.”
“Your brother?” Lila asked, distracted. The upward splatter of mud on Dylan’s jeans had momentarily caught her attention.
“Sure. My brother’s here almost every day. Actually, you just missed him. He left a couple minutes before you arrived.” Lila got up from her chair, walking over to the window. There was a beer perched on a shelf around the height of her shoulder. Beads of condensation clung to the glass bottle. The window looked out onto the mangrove forest, a dense riot of overgrown tropical green. There were two sets of muddy footprints that went up the stairs, and two hunting guns resting in the rifle rack.
Lila heard Dylan behind her. “There’s a lot to look forward to.”
She leaned down to kiss him. She tasted beer on his breath. By the door she saw a muddy pair of shoes.
“In a few years, I may be able to walk again.” Something else in the room caught her eye. It was an ancient-looking tapestry hanging over the fireplace.
“What’s that?” Lila asked, pointing to the tapestry. It was exquisite, made of wool and embroidered with metallic and silk threads.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? When my dad died, it was the only thing of his that I wanted. It’s the Rhodes family coat of arms. It’s been in my family for many, many generations.”
Lila stared at it. The coat of arms consisted of a blue shield, a knight’s helmet, and three red birds. Something about it was bothering her, tugging at the edge of her consciousness. Then an electric charge shot through her body as she suddenly remembered: the three red birds that were tattooed on the shooter’s forearm when Dylan was shot outside the liquor store. The same three birds that she saw before her. The same ones she had seen out of the corner of her eye on that man’s—Dylan’s brother’s—arm when his Land Rover drove around her just minutes ago. She had been so focused on seeing Dylan that the connection didn’t register.
Calling on all the cocktail party skills she’d picked up as Camilla Dayton, Lila settled her face into a smile, like a mask, trying to be as casual as possible even though a scream was ricocheting around in her head. She crossed the room toward the rifle rack, where she slowly picked up a hunting gun. The sharp smell of gunpowder filled her nose.
When she turned back toward Dylan, she trained the gun on him, trying to steady her trembling hands.
She finally knew who the Star Island killer was.
CHAPTER 42
CAMILLA? WHAT ARE you doing?” Dylan asked, sitting in his wheelchair with a stunned look on his face.
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t speak.
“Please, put the gun down,” he said in a calm, measured tone.
“I . . . I . . . ,” Lila stuttered, “I know.”
“Know what?” Dylan said. His eyes darted around the room.
“I know that your brother was the one who shot you.”
Dylan laughed nervously. “You’ve lost it, Camilla.”
But Lila stayed still, the gun pointed straight at him.
“I saw the blood after you got shot,” she said. “I know it was real. But you and your brother are real marksmen, right? So he shot you, but in a place where it wouldn’t cause any real damage.”
“Are you suggesting I’m faking? That I’ve been faking paralysis for yea
rs?” He was shouting now. His hands gripped the arms of his wheelchair. He narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “You’re being crazy. Please, put the gun down.”
“I’m not suggesting it, Dylan,” she said, shaking her head as she went on. “Your friend Dr. Verma was in on it, too, wasn’t he? That’s why he’s been your only physician. That was the only way to keep your secret. You bought his silence by putting him in charge of the hospital wing. And, when you walk again, he’ll be the genius that fixed you.”
“Camilla, stop this. For your own good.” Dylan’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Then you moved down here, hidden away on this big piece of land, able to live your life without anyone discovering your secret.”
“And why, exactly, would I have myself shot and fake years of paralysis? What would be the point of this elaborate plan?”
“Because you,” she said, the words sticking like knives in her throat, “because you killed those innocent people on Star Island that night. And you knew that no one would suspect you if they thought you were a paraplegic confined to a hospital bed.”
“Innocent!” Dylan said, with an indignant roar. “You think that I would murder twelve innocent victims for no reason? I guess you didn’t know me at all.”
He moved his wheelchair toward her.
“Put the gun down,” he said.
“Stay back!” Her hands were shaking violently.
In a flash, Dylan sprang out of his wheelchair and lunged toward her, wrapping his arms around her legs and knocking her down. She felt her feet go out from under her and crashed hard to the floor. As her right hand collided with the floor, she accidentally squeezed the trigger, sending a stray bullet flying.
Dylan, who was on top of her, clutched his hand around her wrist and ferociously banged it on the wood floor until the white-hot pain caused her to drop the gun.
He picked up the rifle and trained it on Lila, who lay shaken and prostrate on the floor as her ex-lover hovered over her, a wildness in his eyes that she’d never seen before.
“Looks like I wasn’t the only one telling lies. Or would you still like me to believe that you’re who you say you are? Now, get up and sit in this chair.”
From all her years on the force, Lila knew that the best way to get out of a bad situation was to follow orders—at first.
She sat on the chair.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said with a familiar tenderness in his voice. “But you have to tell me how you figured it out.”
Lila sat there silent. She was too stunned to speak.
“Tell me,” he said again, sternly. “Does anyone else know?”
“It was your pants,” Lila said finally.
Dylan, confused, looked down at his pants.
“Mud only splatters up like that if you’re walking around in it, which you can’t do if you’re paralyzed. Then, there was the beer that I tasted on your breath when we kissed. I saw the bottle was set on a shelf that was too high for you to reach from a wheelchair. You must’ve been drinking it before I arrived because it was still cold when I got here.”
“That’s absurd. I could’ve been using a walker outside, and someone could’ve put that beer up there for me. I may be isolated, but I don’t exist out here without others.”
He sat on the windowsill, never letting his eyes or the mouth of the gun stray away from Lila.
“It wasn’t just those things. It was your family crest. Those three birds up there.” Lila gestured toward the tapestry with her head, concerned that any sudden movement with her hands would be taken as a challenge. “I saw the same birds tattooed on the forearm of the man who shot you. Today I saw that your brother has the same tattoo.”
“I love my brother,” Dylan said with a wry smile. “But he’s always been a bit sloppy.”
“But I still haven’t figured out one major thing.”
“What?”
“Why you killed those people. I never pegged you as a cold-blooded murderer.”
Dylan shook his head sadly. “Just trust me when I say that each and every person I killed that night deserved to die. Their murders were a gift to the world.”
“How can you say that?” Lila asked, stunned.
He stood up, grabbed a chair, and placed it directly across from where Lila sat. He settled nervously onto the seat, with the gun resting on his knee.
“You don’t have to look at me like that. I’m still the man you fell in love with.”
“The man I loved was a lie,” Lila said as she leaned as far away from him as she could.
“And it’s becoming increasingly clear that Camilla Dayton is a lie, too. The woman I fell in love with would never be up here waving a gun around and piecing together crimes. So, let’s call it even. Please,” he pleaded. “Let me tell you a story. And, at the end, I promise you’ll understand.”
Lila said nothing. She sat still, waiting.
Dylan exhaled deeply. “I grew up in an incredibly wealthy family. But my parents and grandparents always stressed the importance of charitable work. My grandmother constantly spoke to my brother and me about the noblesse oblige of the wealthy. We were honor- and duty-bound to give back some of the incredible gifts that we were given.”
Lila broke eye contact with Dylan. A murderer talking to her about giving back? It was enough to make bile rise up in her throat. He saw the disdain in her face but continued anyway.
“So when Chase Haverford, whom I’d known for years, started talking to me about becoming part of the Janus Society, I couldn’t have been more honored. No one was doing better work around the world. They were the world’s premier philanthropic organization, bar none. Of course, the identities of the members were secret. I was stunned that someone I knew was part of this elite group, and when he said that I, too, could be a part of it, I jumped at the chance.”
“When was this?”
“Two thousand five. I had just turned twenty-two. I think about that time a lot. I’d give anything to go back and stop myself from saying yes to Chase’s offer. My life, even our lives together, could’ve been so different. Better.”
Our lives? Lila thought in shock. But she smiled at him, cautiously. If he still believed in the fiction of their love, she would play along. It might keep her from getting killed.
“I told Chase I was interested. But I didn’t hear back from him about it for a couple years. When we had that first conversation, Chase said I could never mention that he was a member of the Janus Society. So when nothing came of it, I dropped the whole thing from my mind and never raised the issue with him again.”
“Did it make you angry that you never became a member?” Lila asked, wondering if Dylan had had the murderous reaction to rejection that she’d suspected of Alexei.
“I did become a member. But it took about two years. During that period all of these people came out of the woodwork to befriend me. I gained many intensely close friends at that time. Little did I know, each and every one of them was a member of the Janus Society. They were secretly vetting me to see if I was up to snuff.”
Lila was listening attentively to Dylan. None of it was making any sense to her.
“Once I got in the club, and found out what was really at the heart of it, I desperately wanted out. But it was too late. Once you’re part of the society, you’re in it for life.”
He sighed. “It was my first meeting. Two thousand seven. New Year’s Eve. The secretiveness surrounding those meetings is mind-blowing. Always a different location that we would find out literally thirty minutes before we were supposed to be there. None of us could tell anyone where we were going. Most of the members are major corporate heavyweights, and most have families. Disappearing for even an evening is a big deal for all of us. Disappearing for New Year’s Eve is half the fun. At first, I found the whole cloak-and-dagger routine exciting.”
He paused and stood up. Keeping the gun pointed at Lila, he walked to the shelf and grabbed the beer. “None of this is easy for me to say, Camil
la. But it’s important that you understand. You of all people.”
She nodded, anxious for him to continue.
“When I arrived, I was assigned to kill someone. A complete stranger.”
“What?” Lila asked. She was sure she hadn’t heard him right.
“See that reaction you’re having? That’s exactly how I felt. They expected me to kill? Me? I couldn’t believe it. Then Chase took me aside and explained that it wasn’t a random murder. The person I was eliminating was an enemy of one of the Janus Society members. And now that I was in this society, any enemy of my fellow society members was an enemy of mine.”
“But why did Chase think you could murder someone?”
“The thing is,” Dylan said, with a hint of shame creeping into his voice, “it wasn’t that far-fetched an idea.” He took a long swig of beer.
“Why?”
“I was constantly getting into trouble. A lot of bar fights when I was younger. I was stupid, fearless. Violence wasn’t something that ever frightened me. It’s part of the reason I think Chase approached me. He recognized that there was a darkness in me before I realized it myself.”
“How did he know you wouldn’t run to the cops?”
“Simple. I knew they’d kill me. And Chase told me that anyone I killed always deserved it. And so I did as I was told. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“How many people did you murder? For the club, I mean.”
“Only one,” Dylan said quietly. Then he paused and looked out the window. The sun was beginning to set. “Well, two, actually.”
“Who were they?” she asked.
“I’ve really missed you, Camilla,” he said, crossing the room toward her. He put his hand on her cheek. “I wish today had gone differently.”
Lila didn’t flinch. “Tell me who they were,” she said again.
Dylan sat back in a chair opposite her and looked up at the ceiling. Lila eyed the gun.