When she reached the lobby, she noticed a woman meandering on the pavement outside as if waiting for someone. She wore jeans so tight they looked sprayed on, and her long glossy hair was at least four shades of caramel. She looked like the kind of woman who’d sit on her kitchen worktop for OK! magazine, grinning over a slice of watermelon.

As Liv walked through the door, the woman darted inside and flashed her a megawatt smile. “Thanks, hon. Forgot my key.”

Liv smiled back. It was only afterward she remembered entry was via an electronic fob, not a key. The thought was probably nothing, but it played on her mind as she walked to the museum.

The ornate orange brick building was wedged between the library and a discount clothes store, so was often missed by shoppers. A portly man dressed as William Shakespeare, resplendent in black knickerbockers and a frilled collar, opened the door for her.

Liv wandered around looking at the exhibits while waiting for Anthony to arrive. She admired notes by Charles Dodgson for Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, and a copy of the book when it was later published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, under his pen name Lewis Carroll. There was Tennessee Williams’s pen, and one of Evelyn Waugh’s diaries.

There weren’t many other visitors around and Shakespeare kept looking over at her, so Liv moved into a different room to escape his attention. She learned that Mary Shelley started to write Frankenstein when she was only eighteen years old, and that J.R.R. Tolkien worked at the Oxford English Dictionary for two years. Her favorite piece of information was that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini were once friends.

When Anthony showed up, he was dressed in jeans and a blue linen shirt with a worn leather satchel across his body. There was a bee-shaped pin on the lapel of his jacket. He didn’t look entirely comfortable in casual clothes and still had a formal air about him. Liv wasn’t sure whether to shake his hand or not, so improvised with a smile and a hello.

As they walked around the museum together, Anthony’s nostrils flared. “Ah, you smell like Ess—” he said before stopping himself.

Liv side-glanced at him, wondering how he knew. She had to remind Jake of her own favorite fragrance each time he asked for birthday ideas. She didn’t want to tell Anthony she’d used Essie’s perfume that morning. “I borrowed her scarf,” she said. “Her scent’s probably still on it.”