Book excerpt: POSTMORTEM Will Henderson lived a lonely, dinner for one existence; a professed bachelor and twenty-five year veteran of the United States Postal Service, he faithfully weaved his way through the multi-cultural Mission District, delivering countless bank statements, credit card bills, and even an occasional love letter spattered in bright red lipstick. His love affair with the Postal Service was indeed a lasting one; longer, and by all accounts, happier than most marriages. Still, despite his passion for all things postal—he rarely engaged with any one of his nameless recipients; cursory glances were somehow his specialty. However, there was one exception. Emily Everington remained somehow different; a kindly eccentric widow who formerly ran Mission Heights, the only fully renovated bed and breakfast in the district. Little did he know their lives would become forever linked that balmy, fateful July day; his so-called ordinary existence was about to take an extraordinary turn, leading him down a macabre pathway fraught with seduction, betrayal and death…