Page 94 of You'll Be the Death of Me

“Yes?” Cole said.

“Welcome back. Your supervisor would like to see you in her office. Here is something for Ms. Rodgers to wear, given the state you arrived in. Please report in ten minutes.”

A wave of embarrassment hit Dell hard enough to knock her down if she’d been standing. Whoever was at the door knew she was in the other room naked? And now they had only ten minutes to get dressed and report to someone’s office?

“Whatisthis place?” she muttered.

“Um, thank you,” Cole said from down the hall. “Can I ask what—?”

“Your supervisor will provide more details,” the man said. “Good day.”

Dell imagined him nodding and turning on a heel to walk away. She heard the front door close and Cole’s footsteps returning to the bedroom.

“Who was that?” Dell asked.

“A messenger,” Cole said with a frown. His eyes jumped with nerves. “We have to—”

“Go see your supervisor—yeah, I heard,” she said, and held out her arm. “Not weird at all that they know I’m naked and need something to wear. Were they watching us this whole time? You know what, don’t answer that. Give me the bag.”

The flush in his face was confirmation enough that they’d been spied on. “Right. I’ll give you a few minutes to freshen up. Bathroom is down the hall.” He pointed to his left and set a small gift bag on the bed.

“Wait, why do you have a bathroom if you don’t need to—?”

“To ease the transition,” he said. “They give you all the comforts of home so it’s not such an abrupt shock.”

“So, you lived like a monk?” she said, and gestured around the room.

He smirked at her. “Well, the comforts ofahome, notmyhome. We have a tight budget, hence the department backup. I can tell you more later. Beatrice doesn’t tolerate tardiness, so we need to go.”

“Beatrice?”

“Yes, my supervisor.”

“What do you think she wants?”

“I can’t imagine anything good if we were both brought here.”

Dell grimaced and reached for the bag. “I’ll be ready in a few.”

He left her to change. The bag held a pair of flats, a short navy-blue dress with a circle skirt, a bra, and underwear, all in her size. “Not weird at all,” she said, and stood from the bed. She dressed and then found the bathroom.

To her surprise, everything worked. “Functional plumbing, who would have thought,” she muttered, and turned on the sink to splash water on her face. A tiny hope flitted in her mind that the shock of cold water would wake her from the bizarrest of dreams, but no such luck. She dried her face with a soft towel and looked in the mirror. At least she still looked like herself, even if she’d been improbably teleported to another realm.

“Ready,” she announced when she entered the living room.

Cole stood near the breakfast bar, on the other side of a low-profile sofa and coffee table. The kitchen was behind him through a cutout wall.

“What’s in your fridge?” she asked, and nodded at the stainless-steel appliance.

“Nothing. We should go. It’s a walk to Beatrice’s office.” He held out his hand for her to take.

“What about your TV? Anything good streaming in the afterlife?” She pointed at the flat screen opposite the sofa.

“Actually, yes. You can watch literally anything here,” he said, and pulled her toward the front door.

“Really? That’s awesome.”

“Yep. And if we’re not about to get our heads chewed off by Beatrice, I’ll show you the library. Every book ever written, at your request.”