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There was no better take on this: I’d been abandoned by my father. Was he dead or alive, and did that make it better or worse?

It was like the old adage—is there other life out there? Either answer is terrifying. The thought made me think of Sonny.

I grabbed my phone and texted him: Dinner? I know a great pizza place.

He answered quickly. How about I cook tonight? I make an amazing pizza pie.

He’d already prepared a picnic for us. We could go out. It would be fun. But the idea of a quiet house and pizza with a guy who challenged my typical sour mood and expression wasn’t unappealing.

An address came through. It was attached to a home in Tumacácori, the community right next door to Black Vulture.

Okay then. I texted. Let me get cleaned up.

See you in an hour or so?

I’ll be there.

I hopped into the filthy Jeep and steered back to the post office. I picked up the box from Pearly, who mentioned that “that nice boy Chris looked back behind the building and didn’t find anything.” Maybe she was imagining it all, she said. I told her that it was good that she’d mentioned it to the sheriff and she should stay on her toes.

I set the box inside my lab before I hopped in the shower and searched my closet for something that wasn’t a T-shirt and jeans. The one dress I owned was for work meetings, so clean jeans and a blouse with some fringe it was. The shirt made me look like I was headed to a rodeo, but it would have to do.

As I was in the closet, my eyes angled toward the back corner. I needed to get going, but I spotted three boxes that had been tucked back there a long time ago. I hadn’t forgotten about them, but I hadn’t really remembered them either.

I set the clothes on the bed and then dug through shoes and smaller boxes, making my way to the three that I was pretty sure had been packed and tucked away by Wilmot.

They were all about two feet by two feet cubed. They’d been sealed shut, the edges of the tape browned from time.

Once they were out of the closet, I put my hands on my hips and glanced down at them. Were there things inside that might help solve crimes, answer mysteries? I wasn’t interested in looking into the past for any other reason. I was going to talk to Susan, but I wasn’t going to search the boxes for who she was or had been.

I took a deep breath and let it out. I grabbed my knife and sliced open the first box.

Inside were books. That was it. They looked like interesting enough books, but I could not understand why they might have been boxed up and saved. Even if they’d been my mother’s, why had Wilmot wanted to keep them?

I grabbed the first couple on the top. I was a reader, and I knew enough about popular fiction to understand how these books were a time capsule of sorts. If they were, indeed, my mother’s, she’d liked romance back in the day. I’d heard of a few of the authors, but my tastes went mostly to thrillers and mysteries. I set the books back into the box.

The second box knocked me off my axis for a moment. Clothes had been packed tightly inside it. Feminine clothes. Pastel colors and pretty flowers.

Tears choked my throat.

I had never met my mother. Wilmot hadn’t spoken about her. There weren’t pictures of her everywhere. He hadn’t disrespected her existence, but he hadn’t celebrated it either.

Those around Black Vulture who’d known her said she was “lovely and kind,” but I would never know. Unless Aunt Susan wanted to tell me more about her.

Now at least I knew that she liked to dress in a much more feminine way than I did.

I swallowed the surprise tears and grabbed the item on top of the box. It was a pretty dress with tiny blue flowers.

“This seems suspiciously fortuitous,” I muttered to myself as I held up the dress in front of me and looked in the dresser mirror.

I wasn’t sure if the entire image was pretty or not, but the dress was, if maybe dated. However, Black Vulture was never considered fashion forward.

I sniffed the thin fabric. It didn’t smell like anything at all. I slipped it over my head and watched in the mirror as it flowed down, the hem stopping at the top of my knees.

It fit fine, maybe a little tight in the shoulders, but the cinched waist didn’t make me feel like I needed to suck in my gut.

I’d washed and dried my hair with the plan of pulling it up into some sort of tail or twist to keep it out of my eyes, but the dress seemed to call for me to keep it down. It touched my shoulders and would probably drive me crazy in a matter of minutes.

“Yeah. No.” I grabbed the brush and a giant clip from the dresser. A twist and clip later and my hair was piled into a messy bun. I freed a couple of strands on each side of my face. I looked downright girly or at least more feminine than usual.