With Tilda away, Cash has the villa in Peter Bay to himself; Virgie, the housekeeper, has been given the week off. Another guy might revel in the freedom, might make a list of all the ways to push the envelope. Cash can borrow liberally from Granger’s wine fridge and make a trip to Starfish Market for thick, marbled steaks and charge them to the house account. He can snoop through the master wing—Granger and Lauren’s bedroom, sitting room, closets, offices, and bathroom—and see what secrets he can dig up. Money? Pills? He can bring Winnie back; he can let Winnie swim in the pool. Of all these ideas, only the last one holds any appeal—although Cash suspects that the villa has cameras placed so strategically that he can’t even find them and block them.

The first night alone, Cash cracks a beer and checks his phone frequently to see if Tilda has texted or called. She and Dunk were taking his boat all the way to San Juan and flying to Anguilla from there. Tilda sent the full itinerary to Cash’s phone and when he looks at it, he sees that she was supposed to land in Anguilla at three o’clock. At seven, he still hasn’t heard from her and so what is he to think but that she has forgotten all about him? She and Dunk landed on the tiny airstrip and were whisked away by a private car—Cash pictures a vintage Peugeot—to the lush tropical entrance of Midi et Minuit. Midi et Minuit, built in the 1920s, was the private beachfront estate of French perfume heiress Helene Simone until the early 1980s, when it was transformed into a resort. In those days, it attracted guests like John and Cristina DeLorean and Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, and it was famous for its midnight disco parties. The owners went bankrupt in the crash of 1987, and Midi et Minuit closed until the year 2000, when it was bought by a businessman from Monte Carlo who poured fifty-five million dollars into the property and turned it into the epitome of “low-key luxury” and “barefoot chic.”

Cash wonders if Tilda and Dunk were greeted with welcome cocktails and chilled towels while the hotel’s most famous resident, Bijou, a Yorkshire terrier, yipped around Tilda’s ankles until she scooped him up and gave him kisses. Were Dunk and Tilda mistaken for a couple? Undoubtedly yes, despite the reservation for separate rooms. Or maybe during their day of travel, Tilda and Dunk had bonded over their excitement about this new venture; maybe they’d had drinks on the plane, and maybe Tilda fell asleep with her head accidentally leaning on Dunk’s shoulder. Maybe by the time they reached the resort, they asked to share a room. But no, not yet, not the first night. Cash has enough faith in Tilda to know that nothing has happened between them yet.

Why hasn’t she called? Or at least texted to let him know she arrived safely?

Cash’s fingers hover over his phone. Should he text her?

No, he won’t. And he’s not going to sit around the villa pining away either. He doesn’t have money to waste on going out to dinner, but, oh, well, he’s doing it anyway. He drives Tilda’s Range Rover into Cruz Bay and sits at the bar at the Banana Deck. He orders the shrimp curry and chats with the bartender, Kim, who immediately says, “You hang out with Tilda Payne, right? I saw you two at Christmas Cove a few weeks ago. Is she working tonight?”

“She’s…away,” Cash says. Kim seems friendly enough for Cash to spill his guts to. He could tell her that Tilda is away for a week with some millennial millionaire who lives out in the East End, but how pathetic would that sound? Instead, Cash raises his beer glass. “I’ll have another one, please.”

He stops at two beers, eats his curry, and chats a little more with Kim, telling her that he works on the Treasure Island.

She says, “Oh yeah?” and studies him for a second. “You know, rumor has it that Ayers is pregnant.”

Whoa! This is unexpected. Cash’s face must register genuine shock because Kim leans across the bar. “I shouldn’t have said that, it’s probably not true, please don’t tell anyone.”

“Oh, I won’t,” Cash says. Kim moves down the bar to help another customer and Cash realizes their conversation is over. He scans the place to see if anyone looks familiar or even promising to talk to; he needs some friends. He thinks about stopping by La Tapa on his way home to give Ayers a heads-up that her secret is out, but that will only upset her, and swinging by Tilda’s place of work while Tilda is away feels weird and desperate. Besides which, Skip will be working, and he hates Cash’s guts.

Cash pays the bill, waves to Kim, and tries to look like a man who has important people to meet. He could check out Beach Bar, see if a band is playing tonight, or he could try his luck at the Parrot Club, though he definitely does not have money to gamble away. Another drink sounds appealing—maybe at the Dog House Pub, where he can watch basketball on TV? But he’s driving Tilda’s Range Rover, it’s a seventy-thousand-dollar vehicle, and two drinks is a wise limit.

He checks his phone, which he miraculously avoided doing all through dinner (there is nothing more pathetic than a dude alone at dinner looking at his phone) and finds nothing from Tilda. For an instant, he wonders if she’s okay. Did her plane crash? Was she kidnapped? Or, a more likely possibility, did something happen to her phone? Did she leave it in the airport restroom? Did it fall into her personal plunge pool? If anything dire had happened, Cash assumes he would have heard from Granger or Lauren. If something happened to her phone, she would have simply texted from Dunk’s phone.

Tomorrow, maybe he’ll see if James the boat captain wants to grab a drink. James will say no; he has a wife and a baby girl out in Coral Bay, and he likely gets his fill of Cash while they’re on the boat.

Well, it’s not like Cash doesn’t know anyone else on the island. He calls his mother—gets her voicemail. Then he calls his brother—gets his voicemail.

Cash tosses his phone onto the seat beside him and yells as loud as he can. The sound, desperate even to his own ears, is absorbed by the expensive leather.

Cash wakes up in the morning to a new day—chirping geckos, singing birds, blue sky, pearlescent sunlight. There’s a text from Tilda. Finally. Cash opens it.

It says: Arrived! Followed by a single kissy-face emoji. Sent at…12:47 a.m.

Cash stares at the text, willing it to say something else, something more. She was supposed to land yesterday at three in the afternoon. Why is she only texting him at a quarter to one the following morning? He checks to see if there’s a missed call from her. Nope. So this is it. Technically, it checks the box—she’s let him know she made it safely—but it feels perfunctory, like an afterthought. Oops, forgot to text Cash. Does she miss him? If the answer is yes, why doesn’t she say so? She used to text that she missed him if the Treasure Island was a few minutes late pulling into Cruz Bay or if he got held up in the customhouse coming back from the BVIs. This feels like a blow-off. Why did she wait so long to text and what was she doing up so late?

Cash texts back: Glad you made it safely. I miss you!

He waits to see if she responds, but there’s nothing. She must still be sleeping.

While Cash is driving to work, his phone rings and his whole body relaxes. There she is.

He’s on the dicey curve above Hawksnest so he answers without checking the display. “Hello?” He has the radio up, 104.3 the Buzz out of San Juan, which is playing Michael Franti, and he makes no move to turn it down. He wants to sound happy, busy, unconcerned.