Page 2 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“I’ll be fine,” she says, because he almost needs the reassurance more than she does. “Just woke up like this.”

He pulls away, smoothing his hand over the back of her workout tank top, fiddling with the hem. “Anything you need, I’m right here,” he vows, and he’s said it a million times, but it’s always a balm. “Don’t beat yourself up, do something fun instead of just the norm.”

“Do you need coffee?” she asks, shaking her hand loose so she can grab her purse, her original plans be damned.

Another smile, and it’s almost like she doesn’t need to worry about feeling unsatisfied.

It doesn’t last,of course. She’s not even to the coffee shop before her phone rings and ruins everything.

Delina sighs, of course, because who the heck actually makes phone calls this day and age, before letting her car answer the phone. “Hello?”

She hopes her voice is as annoyed as she feels.

There’s a delay, then a click on the line, and she clutches her white leather steering wheel out of annoyance, before tapping her nails on it.

“Yes, is this Miss…” the voice on the other line trails off, as if reading from a prompter, “Delina Joyanne Frisse?”

Delina raises a blonde eyebrow out at the rock dells outside her car. Most people don’t say the middle name. “Who’s calling?”

“This is the Prescott post office at city square. Your PO Box is full, and we called to check since nobody has been in to clean it this year.”

Delina coasts her car into the coffee shop parking lot, then brakes, unwilling to step outside of the air conditioning for this call. It’s just now starting to tilt into the coolness of fall, but in the full sun it’s still far past what she would consider reasonable. “You must be mistaken. I don’t have a PO Box.”

Nobody has a PO Box anymore.

“Your billing address is on Willow Court Way, right?” She wasn’t going to confirm that, of course. “Birthday October Eighth?”

“That’s…” She trails off, squinting out of the car.

“We have on our records that it was set up by a Dr. Joyanna Frisse fifteen years ago, and it is cleaned out at least once every six months,” the impersonal voice rattles off. “With strict instructions to call this number if it ever gets too full.”

She sits up straight at her bio-mother’s name, then straighter when she does the mental math.

Delina and her father had moved into Prescott fifteen years ago, back when she was a struggling preteen and he wanted a bit smaller of a town to deal with her in.

“Well, shit,” Delina says, still sitting in her car. “I guess this is for me.”

Something a little bit like wonder peeks into her mind, replaced quickly by a thin sheen of anticipation.

She knows her bio-mother was strange, but creating a mystery PO Box for her daughter is some mystery movie shit.

“If you can stop by the post office this week, we can deliver the items to you.”

“I don’t have a key,” Delina informs her, which feels like an important part of this conversation, unless the media has lied to her about how PO Boxes work. “I didn’t even know about it, that’s my mother.” She winces at that, unintentionally blurting out personal details.

“Oh, that’s no problem, miss, our instructions say your ID is sufficient.”

Delina glances at her car clock. “What are your hours?”

In the end,the post office was the least of her worries.

“Oh, wow, you look just like her,” the petite Post Office clerk says, the moment Delina flashes her ID. “I mean, her hair was gray and all, but…” she gestures at her face. “It’s like you’re a clone.”

“That’s not weird, not at all,” Delina says, syrupy sweet, but her heart is pounding. “Did she come by often?”

“Every six months, like clockwork. Nice lady.”

Her own mother, setting this up and then returning twice a year, but never bothering to stop by and introduce herself. Just mysterious behavior suited for a spy story. “Sure.”

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