The Rich and the Dead by Liv Spector Page A

doing it. And that guy, the cute one, I fucked him. Smallest dick I’ve ever seen. Such a shame. He’s so hot.”
    The whole nonstop monologue detailing the scandals, incest, embezzlements, crimes, and punishments of Miami’s high society had Lila’s head swimming. She wished she could take out a notepad and write everything down—she marveled that Effie’s brain managed to keep track of it all. The problem, Lila realized as Effie launched into yet another sordid story, wouldn’t be finding the villain among the innocent victims. The real difficulty would be locating any innocence in this city at all.
    â€œHow do you know so much about everyone?” Lila asked, when Effie finally came up for air.
    Effie smiled, looking incredibly pleased with herself. “Secrets are the key to everything. Other people chase after money and sex and power. But not me. I learned a long time ago that knowing everyone’s dirty little secret is as good as gold.”
    The club was packed with Janus Society members. Chase Haverford, the hotel magnate and host on the night of the massacre, was at the bar by the pool, shouting obscenities into his phone. Javier Martinez spent the afternoon drinking mojitos and ogling the cabana boys while playing game upon game of dominoes with his young Dominican lover. Javier’s vast fortune was always a source of gossip within the Miami social scene. He was an antiques and art dealer, but he was far too wealthy for that to be his only source of income. Lila knew there were constant whispers that he was mixed up in the black market, but nothing had ever been proven, even after his death.
    When Lila walked by the tennis courts on her way to get sunscreen from the ladies’ locker room for Effie, she spotted Sam Logan, the tennis star, giving an impromptu lesson to a woman wearing a miniskirt that looked to be a child’s size. And then Neville Crawley, “of the Newport Crawleys,” quickly passed by, heading from his yacht to the golf course. Despite the day’s crushing humidity, he was wearing a blue blazer with gold buttons.
    Lila used her cell phone to take pictures of each and every Janus Society member present. Most of the time, to hide the fact that she was acting like a paparazzo, she pretended to be taking a selfie, positioning herself in front of the camera and pouting while really training the lens on her chosen subject. No one even batted an eye at a beautiful girl taking endless pictures of herself. Extreme vanity, in this world, was a given.
    When she got back to the chair with SPF 50 for Effie, Lila saw yet another Janus Society member, Vivienne Hunter, stepping inside a private cabana, her head wrapped in an Hermès scarf. She was pale as snow, the majority of her face obscured by large sunglasses. Her lips were thickly painted a deep red and penciled outside of her natural lip line, giving her an “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille” kind of vibe.
    â€œUgh, I know,” Effie said, following Lila’s gaze. “That woman is about as happy in the sun as a vampire. Why does she even bother coming here? I mean, really, move to Transylvania with the rest of the living dead.”
    â€œAnd I can assume you know her?” Lila asked. Effie knew Vivienne well enough to die with her.
    â€œThat old bat? What’s there to know except that she’s made a fortune selling cheap lipsticks. But now she looks like an animatronic wax figure. Something out of Madame Tussauds.”
    The crime scene photos that Lila had studied for years came screaming into her mind. She saw Vivienne Hunter dead, a sapphire necklace hanging from her white neck, her slightly parted scarlet lips echoing the gaping crimson gunshot wound in the center of her forehead. Lila shivered.
    The sun began to set, turning the light around them into a hallucinatory mix of purples and pinks. A cooling breeze came off the ocean. The club staff began