Page 88 of Unexpected Redemption

Boss braces himself on the back of one of the chairs, his arms stiffening. “If it’s lighter, there’s even less of a chance that something’s inside it.”

“A jump drive or something with some weight to it, sure.” She sets the baby doll in the middle of the table. “Paper, however, weighs next to nothing.”

Klein and Mia trade glances and then shoot wide eyes at me.

Boss rubs his palms together. “Did you guys get photos of it already?”

“Yep,” I answer, searching the room for something heavy.

When I don’t find anything fast enough, I grab the doll and place it on the floor. One hard stomp of my boot heel and a soothing crackle greets our ears.

Pulling my foot away, I quickly stoop and find a tiny piece of paper among the splintered wood pile.

Lettie tips her chin up, crossing her arms at her chest. Wearing a well-earned smirk, she says, “Deep inside the cocoon is where the magic happens.”

Impressed murmurs and whispers fill the lair.

“What does it say?” Boss asks me.

“I don’t know.” That hurt to admit more than I expected. I glance at Mia and Klein. “Either of you recognize this language?”

They wrinkle their noses.

Mia extends her palm, and I pass the paper to her.

After studying it briefly, she mumbles, “I think it’s Greek.”

“Like Yuri’s story,” Lettie muses.

Mia heads to her computer to look it up, and I trail her a step behind. While I wait for her to translate it, my phone rings.

“This is Tomer,” I answer.

“Not sure if this is good or bad news for you,” Detective Salgado begins, omitting a pointless greeting. “Yevdokim Ivanovich was killed in jail this morning.”

Oh fuck.

Our case against Viktor just lost a key witness.

Chapter 18

Sketchy emails

LETTIE

The pointer on my screen hovers over a strange email, and my finger itches to click the mouse.

Something stops me from opening it.

This is probably spam. Especially since it showsmeas the sender. I might have memory issues and a squirrel running my brain, but I’mfairlycertain I’d remember sending an email to myself.

I’m curious to see what’s inside, but I don’t want to infect all of Redleg’s servers by opening it.

Hold up. Don’t they have spam filters?How did it get through?

Picking up my desk phone, I call Tomer’s office. He’ll tell me if it’s safe to open. Isn’t that part of what IT people are for? The hell if I know. We didn’t have IT at Bask. But it sounds good, so I’m going with it.

He answers on the second ring. “Is it important, sugar?”

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