‘Justin wrote something in this book,’ Annalie told her. ‘It’s on the page for the poem “The Tyger.” Does that mean something to you?’

Peach’s fingers tightened on the ragged cloth of the book. ‘What did he write?’

‘Look.’

Peach turned the brittle pages. She knew exactly where the poem was. She found it – What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry? – and Annalie was right. Someone had written a single word on the page. Not someone. Justin. It was his handwriting. There was no mistaking it.

The message had to be for her, didn’t it? This was their poem. They’d read it over and over in bed, so many times, with such emotion that it was like the words of the poem had taken the place of sex between them. Every stanza was burned into her memory, and she could hear it in Justin’s voice.

He wouldn’t write on that poem to anyone but her. He’d written one word, but not a word. A name.

What made no sense was that it wasn’t her own name on the paper.

Instead, Justin had written: Alison.

11

Cab couldn’t take his eyes off Caprice.

The sconce lights, shaped like torches, played shadows across her white skin. She wore a sleeveless black dress, and her strong arms ended in manicured hands and scarlet nails. Her full brown hair covered the straps of her dress and swished in little curls across the slopes of her breasts. A double gold chain hugged her neck, and gold hoop earrings peeked out between the locks of her hair. Her deep red lips folded into a smile as he watched her.

‘Like what you see?’ she asked.

‘I do.’

‘I do, too,’ Caprice said. ‘You may have noticed I’m pretty direct.’

‘So I gather.’

‘You’re tall, and you look like a movie star. People see you and think, he must be somebody. It turns me on to be seen with you.’

‘Here I was thinking the same thing about you.’

Caprice didn’t duck the compliment. She didn’t bat her eyes at him and protest: Me? At my age? Instead, she took a sip of expensive Albariño and said: ‘Oh, I know I turn you on.’

‘Am I that transparent?’ Cab asked.

‘Yes, you are, but your mother called and told me.’ Caprice laughed. ‘How’s that for a pick-up line?’

‘Actually, it’s not the first time I’ve heard it.’

She laughed again. He liked her laugh, which was confident and smart. ‘Knowing Tarla, I bet not. She’s a force of nature. Do you ignore her advice? Or are you one of those sons who protests and protests and then does what she wants anyway?’

‘I’ll let you know when I figure it out,’ Cab said.