The Beautiful and the Wicked Read online

  He slowly, calmly, turned his face away from hers.

  “Just do what I say,” Lila said. “Now, wrap his wrists and feet up in the tape. And, Fernando, if you so much as move a hair on your head, I’ll shoot you dead, and that’s a promise.”

  Nicky’s hands were shaking so hard that it took a few minutes to steady herself enough to hog-­tie Fernando. But after she’d wrapped the tape several times around his wrists and his ankles, Lila said, “That’s good enough. Now grab both bags and let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Nicky said.

  Lila pointed the gun at her head. “Do it. Now. You don’t have much time.”

  Nicky dropped her head and her defiant posture sank into a defeated slouch. She slunk to the table and threw both duffel bags over her narrow shoulders.

  “Fernando, don’t you fucking move,” Lila warned. “This place will be swarming with cops in two minutes, and if they see you’ve moved an inch, they have orders to shoot first, ask questions later.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “You two bitches will be dead and buried before the day is over. No doubt about that.”

  “Not likely,” Lila said as she hustled Nicky out of the house and then down the street.

  When they got to Lila’s rusted, dented Pontiac, Nicky’s suspicions were confirmed. “This ain’t a cop car. You want to show me that badge of yours?”

  “Just get in.” Lila was growing impatient. She had to dispense with Nicky and be in her place on the yacht in a little under five hours. All Nicky’s protestations and foot dragging weren’t making life easier for either of them.

  As they drove north up the South Dixie Highway, back to Miami, Nicky continually oscillated between scowling and pleading for her life. One second she’d be cursing Lila, the next she’d be weeping, begging for her freedom. “I can’t go to jail again,” she cried.

  “What were you going to do with those drugs?”

  “If you don’t know, I ain’t telling you a damn thing,” she said, feeling brazen. But then a moment later, her defiance was replaced by despair. “But what does it matter anyway? It’s all over. If Fernando thinks I’m a rat, I’m done.” She looked out of the car window, slowly shaking her head. “That bullshit you pulled today made me a dead woman. Simple as that.”

  Lila’s conscience twisted inside of her. She really had put Nicky in a bad situation, but what choice did she have? Her sister’s freedom depended on it. “Is someone on Jack Warren’s boat expecting those drugs?” she asked. She weaved in and out of traffic along the highway, always keeping Nicky in her sights.

  Nicky arched one eyebrow and shot Lila a suspicious look. “How the fuck do you know about my gig on the boat?”

  “Just answer the question.” Lila had to know what she was walking into. If someone had hired Nicky to be a drug runner or a smuggler, she needed to know.

  “Why should I help you with anything?” Nicky asked.

  “Because you don’t have any other options. And I’m going to save your life.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?”

  “Answer the question! Are you smuggling for someone on the boat?”

  Nicky paused, giving Lila a good once-­over as if she was weighing her options. Then she looked out the window, a forlorn mood settling over her. “Nope. I don’t work for nobody but myself. Planned on doing some dealing wherever we were docked.”

  “That many kilos of coke is a lot of weight to move for one woman.”

  “That’s the thing about rich ­people on vacation. They’ve got loads of money and no idea where to buy drugs. Trust me, the demand is there. It’s the whole reason I started working on these fucking yachts in the first place.”

  “And no one on the ship has ever met you before?” Lila pressed.

  “Why the hell do you care?”

  “What I wouldn’t give for just one straight answer,” Lila said aloud to herself.

  “No,” Nicky said, staring straight ahead at the road. “I’ve never met anyone on the yacht before. Okay? Are we done with the questions?”

  They drove along in silence for another few minutes, until Lila pulled the car up to PortMiami, where a large cargo ship was being loaded with shipping containers.

  “Why the fuck are we stopping here?” Nicky said. “Shouldn’t you be taking me to the police station? I knew you were a lying bitch. I’m going to sue your ass so fast. If you so much as—­”

  “Do you ever shut the hell up?” Lila said as she pulled handcuffs out of her briefcase, clicking one to Nicky’s thin wrist and the other to the car’s steering wheel. She grabbed two $10,000 stacks out of one of the duffel bags and opened the car door.

  “That’s not your money to take,” Nicky growled.

  “Just stay here. Don’t move.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck you, too,” Lila said. As she was getting out of the car, she turned to Nicky, “And if you don’t know I’m your only hope right now, then you’re dumber than you look.” She slammed the door shut and began to walk toward a dockworker who was supervising the loading of the ship. Right before she approached the man, she heard three short, loud honks from behind her. She turned to see Nicky sitting in the car, giving her the finger.

  “What an idiot,” Lila muttered under her breath, returning Nicky’s gesture in kind.

  Lila knew that any longshoreman worth his salt would play ball with her if she flashed enough money around. Sure enough, in just two minutes, the dockworker took the twenty grand she was offering, promising he’d keep Nicky safe. Then she walked back to the car.

  “Feel like taking a trip?” Lila said as she opened the passenger door, leaning over Nicky as she removed the handcuffs.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “See that ship there? It’s headed to Qingdao, China, and it’s leaving in half an hour.”

  “China?” Nicky said slowly, as if she’d never heard the word before.

  “That’s right. But it stops in New Orleans, and Japan, and Vietnam, and plenty of other places along the way.” Lila handed Nicky the duffel of drug money. “How much is in there?”

  “A hundred grand. Or I should say it was a hundred grand before you dipped your sticky fingers into my pile,” Nicky answered, pressing the bag tightly to her chest.

  “Take it and go somewhere far away and start a new life.”

  “In China? What am I going to do in China? I don’t speak Asian!” Nicky protested as a steady flow of tears began to stream down her face.

  When Lila concocted this whole plan, she hadn’t really thought through how it would impact Nicky. But looking at this strung-­out and confused young woman weeping, on the brink of the unknown, she felt terrible.

  “Listen,” she said softly as she put a firm, reassuring hand on Nicky’s shoulder. “The life you had here wasn’t going anywhere good. Now you have a chance to make a fresh start. The world is yours for the taking.” Her attempt at a pep talk made her internally cringe. She was no Oprah, that’s for sure.

  And Nicky seemed to agree. The more Lila talked, the harder she cried.

  “Plus,” Lila said. “The truth is, if you stay here, they’ll kill you.”

  “Thanks to you!” Nicky shouted. Her drawn face was now red, mascara pooled around her puffy eyes.

  “Listen, I’m sorry, okay. But this was something I had to do.”

  “Whatever.”

  “But, there’s one more thing I need before you go,” Lila said somewhat sheepishly.

  Nicky shot her a bewildered look. This strange woman had, in the course of an hour, totally obliterated her life, and that, seemingly, wasn’t enough. “Are you seriously asking me for a favor?”

  “I’m not asking for anything,” Lila said, going back into tough-­cop mode. She couldn’t let this profoundly messed up woma
n get the better of her. She was here for her sister. She had to remember that. She reached into Nicky’s pockets and fished out her cell phone. “I’m going to have to take this.”

  “Fuck you do!” Nicky said, trying to grab it back. But Lila slapped her grasping hands away.

  Lila said, “Just one more thing.”

  “What?” Nicky scowled.

  “Smile for the camera.” Lila pointed Nicky’s phone at Nicky and took a picture.

  When the shutter noise sounded, Nicky gave Lila a confused look. “What the fuck is that for?”

  “A little keepsake of our time together,” Lila said. “Now get on the boat, Nicky. It’s your only choice.” She got into the Pontiac and began to drive away, watching Nicky in her rearview mirror. At first, she didn’t move. Then, right before Lila exited the port, she looked back to see Nicky slowly running to the boat, the duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

  CHAPTER 6

  AS SHE DROVE the rusted Pontiac along the streets of downtown Miami, Lila’s conscience started nagging at her. She pictured Nicky, marooned on a freighter headed to the middle of nowhere, crammed between the looming towers of cargo, her pale, oval face stained with running rivulets of black mascara as seamen wolfishly eyed her and her big bag of money with hungry, sideways glances.

  Then again, she got the sense that Nicky was nobody’s victim.

  Nicky had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got swept up in something that was bigger than she was. Lila knew how that felt, and she knew that it sucked. But considering Nicky was transporting a hundred grand of cocaine, she was probably street savvy enough to take care of herself, or so Lila hoped.

  There was no point feeling bad about things. She had a job to do, and if that required her to disrupt the lives of a few ­people along the way, then so be it.

  Nicky’s cell phone vibrated, startling Lila. The caller ID was blocked, but Lila picked it up anyway. No time like the present to start being someone else. She took a deep breath and answered the phone.

  “Hello,” she said, trying to keep her voice flat and affectless like Nicky’s.

  “Nicky Collins?” It was a man’s voice.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Second Officer Asher Lydon calling from Rising Tide.”

  Asher Lydon. From what Lila could glean from the police report, Asher was an interesting character. Now twenty-­eight years old, he’d started working for the Warren family almost six years ago—­months after he suffered a career-­ending injury when he hit a reef headfirst during a Big Wave World Tour, back when he was pro surfer. He’d always worked on Jack’s yachts, but in his police interview he said that Jack had repeatedly promised to bring him into the Warren Software fold. (“He said I’d be great in sales,” Asher told the police.) Whether that was true or not was impossible to say. No one else had corroborated Asher’s story.

  “Oh, hi.”

  “Hey there,” he said in a breezy, sexy voice. “Just calling to tell you that everyone’s got to report to the ship by five P.M. this afternoon.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “And don’t be late. The chief stewardess has a real stick up her ass. Trust me, you don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to be on time.”

  “No worries,” he said. “Oh, and we’re at the Miami Beach Marina, in case no one told you.”

  “Sounds good,” Lila said as the palm trees and the big-­box stores lining Biscayne Boulevard flew by her car window. “What slip?”

  “Don’t worry,” Asher said with an amused chuckle. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding the boat.”

  “Right,” Lila said. “Of course. See you then.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  Lila hung up the phone, not knowing if she’d played that right. She was going undercover as an experienced stewardess, yet she knew absolutely nothing about yachts except that they were big boats full of really rich ­people. But she’d pick things up quickly. She didn’t really have any other choice. And how hard could it be?

  It was already a few minutes after 2:00 P.M. Anxious to get everything done, she pushed the Pontiac as fast as it could go, causing the car’s rusty metal body to vibrate violently. She cursed herself for not taking Nicky’s BMW. She had so much to do, so little time, and zero patience for rundown cars.

  So, first things first, she dumped the Pontiac. She had just forced a drug smuggler to hog-­tie a Colombian psychopath with very flimsy duct tape and left them both alive to tell the tale. There was a good chance that the cartel member had had an opportunity to ID the shit box she was now so cavalierly driving around the streets of Miami. She didn’t want to run the risk of getting into a firefight with pissed-­off members of the Cali cartel looking to get their drugs and money back, so she took the car through a car wash to get rid of any of her or Nicky’s prints on its exterior, making sure to get wipes for the inside as well.

  Then she made her way to the Aventura Mall. There were plenty of things she needed before boarding the yacht, and she figured she’d be able to get everything at this vast megamall. Once she was in its endless parking lot, she carefully wiped the car’s interior and grabbed the metal briefcase with the money and her gun.

  For a brief moment, she stood staring at the coke-­filled duffel bag, weighing her options. Nicky had said that she was going to sell it herself. If that was true, then it would be better for Lila to ditch the coke with the car. But if Nicky was lying, as Lila’s instincts warned her that she was, then she should take the drugs along with her. Lila knew that carrying that amount of class-­A narcotics made her incredibly vulnerable. If she was searched, she’d be up on federal trafficking charges with a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years—­and if she got herself thrown in prison, she’d never make it back to 2019. It would put an end to her entire existence, and probably fuck with the space-­time continuum that Teddy was always going on about.

  But if someone on that yacht was expecting those drugs, and Nicky Collins couldn’t deliver, Lila’s cover would be blown, and any chance she had at solving her sister’s murder would be lost. She couldn’t take that chance. Deciding to keep the coke with her, she grabbed the duffel bag and bid the car adieu, knowing it would sit in this lot for many days before the city eventually impounded it. Just another abandoned piece of rust baking away in the South Florida sun.

  With the metal briefcase in her hand and the cocaine-­stuffed bag flung over her shoulder, Lila walked into the antiseptically cheerful megamall. In a little over an hour, she bought all the supplies she needed for the yacht. A laptop for research and reviewing evidence, underwear, a swimsuit, shoes, sunglasses, a few simple items of clothing, and toiletries. She even found ammunition for her handgun at one of the sporting-­goods stores.

  Lila crammed all her goodies into a tiny, mirrored department-­store dressing room and carefully packed her new purchases in an olive-­green army-­navy bag. The bricks of coke and the cash went on the bottom. Her clothes on top of that. She bought a waterproof case for her gun, which she tucked underneath the small mountain of her bras and underwear. She slid the metal briefcase under the bench in the changing room, leaving it empty and open just to avoid the inevitable bomb scare.

  Then came the question about her appearance. She looked into the full-­length mirror as the hum of the fluorescent lights buzzed above her. Standing there, barefoot, wearing only a simple white cotton bra and underwear, she regarded herself closely. She was five feet nine inches, a ­couple inches taller than Nicky.

  Lila grabbed the purloined cell phone and looked at the picture she’d just taken of a very pissed-­off Nicky. She felt a little twinge of pity as she studied the young woman’s face, but mostly she was worried. In truth, she may have overestimated how much she and Nicky looked like each other. They were both white and around the
same age. Nicky’s eyes were hooded and brown, whereas Lila’s were much bigger and hazel. They both had prominent cheekbones and large mouths, but the difference in their noses was problematic. Even though Nicky hadn’t met anyone on the yacht, it was safe to assume that they had copies of her documentation—­that was standard protocol. That meant it was crucial for Lila to come as close as humanly possible to resembling the rather ragged-­looking woman in the picture.

  Lila’s only hope to pass as Nicky hinged on successfully copying her haircut. She was in need of a salon, and on the mall’s first floor, next to a frozen-­yogurt stand, she found one. She walked right in.

  “Can I help you, hon?” asked the hairdresser closest to the door. She had heavy foundation and teased hair the color of cherry Kool-­Aid.

  “I need a quick cut and color.”

  “Sure thing. Sit right over here,” the hairdresser said, pointing to the adjacent chair with the pink teasing comb she was using to diligently back-­comb the hair of her aged customer into exactly the same style as her own. “I’ll be with you in a ­couple minutes. I’m just putting the final touches on Ruth-­Anne here.”

  Lila settled into the chair, carefully placing her oversize duffel bag at her feet. And true to her word, the hairdresser was hovering over her in two minutes flat. She introduced herself as Siggy, and then immediately began raking her fingers through Lila’s long, dark hair.

  “What a treat,” Siggy said. “I never get pretty young things like you in here. And this mane of yours is out of this world.”

  But the woman’s excitement soured the moment Lila showed her what she wanted.

  “You want me to make you look like this poor weeping girl?” Siggy studied the cell-­phone picture of Nicky. She was aghast. “Chop it off and bleach it to holy hell? I will do no such thing.”

  “I’m going away and I need something quick and easy that I don’t have to think about,” Lila said, annoyed that she had to explain herself to this woman.

  “Then I’ll put it in cornrows or something.” She gave Lila an encouraging nod and smile. There was a smudge of fuchsia lipstick on her teeth. “I’ll give you a real Bo Derek look. That’ll do the trick.”