She was checking over her work when a knock on the apartment door startled her. She’d never known Essie to receive a visitor before, and she wondered why the person hadn’t used the intercom system to call first. Liv hunched her shoulders and stayed very still. She planned not to answer, but the pounding came again.

Liv padded along the hallway to look through the spyhole in the door. With her imagination still inhabiting a fictitious world, she imagined Georgia’s lost love, or Essie’s mystery man, standing on the other side of it. Instead, she saw the woman with the caramel hair and tight jeans, who’d nipped past her into the building a few weeks ago. She held a huge bouquet of white roses in her arms.

Liv frowned as she tentatively opened the door and peered through the gap. “Yes?”

The woman flashed Liv a toothy smile, as if they’d been friends since childhood. “Hi, hon. These flowers arrived for Essie Starling. The delivery guy asked me to bring them up,” she said.

Liv relaxed a little. “It looks like someone’s bought the entire shop.” She opened the door farther and reached out to take the bouquet. But the woman kept a firm hold of it.

“Yeah, I’m thinking I should give them to her in person,” she said.

Liv noticed a tag on the flowers and tried to glimpse who’d sent them, but it was turned over. The woman didn’t look like a stalker, or the type to make blankets out of cat hair, but she still felt a prickle of unease. “I’m sorry, she’s not here,” she said.

“You sure about that, hon?” The woman raised herself on her toes and looked over Liv’s head, in the direction of the writing room. “I can see her laptop’s on. I’ll just pop in and pass these to her. Only take a min.” She stepped a pointed snakeskin shoe over the threshold.

Liv’s heart rate shot up. She pressed a hand to the doorframe and blocked her entry. “Excuse me. Who are you?”

The women sucked in a breath before holding out a slim hand with tapered lilac nails. “Chloe Anderton, Sheen magazine.”

Blood rushed to Liv’s brain, making her light-headed. “You’re a journalist?”

“Hey, don’t say it like that. I’m one of the good guys. Sheen is a new mag. Imagine Vanity Fair meets The Times, with a focus on media. We have a great online presence, too. I’m a huge fan of Ms. Starling, and I’m writing a feature about—”

“I’m very sorry, she’s not here,” Liv interrupted. “The laptop is mine. Ms. Starling is working away at the moment. She’s not contactable and she doesn’t give interviews.” She tried to close the door but the journalist’s foot stopped her.