Page 86 of Unexpected Redemption

She timidly removes the lid from the shoe box, peeking inside. Item by item, she empties it, arranging the contents in a line.

Two protein bars. A handful of Hershey’s Kisses. Goldfish crackers. A chocolate bar. The Russian nesting dolls figurine. A novel. And the Narcan.

We all study the contents carefully. Lettie flips through the book.

Like I’ve done several times before, I pick up the empty shoe box and check it inside and out, searching for a false bottom or something we could have missed. No matter how many times I look, it’s still a fucking shoe box.

Lettie studies a protein bar for a beat, turning it around in her hands and bending the wrapper. “May I open this, please?”

“Lovely manners,” I tease quietly. “If you’re hungry, I can get you?—”

Her hands flop to the table, protein bar and all. “I’m not gonna eat them, silly,” she huffs, rolling her beautiful eyes at me.

“Inside the cocoon,” Mia mutters from behind me, easing her way to the table. “I say we open them. Lettie’s on to something.”

I scan my team’s faces, finding no objections. “Let’s do it.”

Everyone grabs an item, tearing off the wrappers with renewed excitement.

“Just chocolate,” Klein announces first, his lower lip jutted. “Is it weird I was expecting a golden ticket to be under the wrapper?”

Mia snickers—the laugh, not the candy. “It’s perfectly you, Cal.”

“Just a protein bar,” Lettie announces. “Unless...” She breaks the bar in half, then repeats it on each half. “Nothing.”

My gaze circles the table. Everyone reeks of disappointment. Boss crunches the crackers into crumbs on the table, still optimistically searching for something.

Anything.

But there’s nothing but crumbs.

“Why the fuck did he want us to get this box so damn bad?” he grumbles.

“It might have sentimental value to Tasha,” Lettie suggests. “It was her only comfort in there. This, a pillow, and a blanket in that disgusting wall cubby. She was proud of that little space. Perhaps she just wants the box back.”Once the words are out, she shakes her head, rejecting her theory. “No, that’s not it. Why send the message instead of asking for the box back?”

Klein holds up the nesting doll, twirling it between his fingers before setting it down.“Anyone know what the symbolism is with these?”

Mia rolls her chair back to her computer, her fingers clacking away. “Motherhood, I think.” A few seconds later, she announces, “They symbolize fertility, the mother’s womb, pregnancy, and carrying the family’s legacy. That’s the series of smaller dolls inside, all coming from the mother figurine.”

A squeak comes from Lettie when she fails to choke off her gasp. She pushes back from the table, stands, and yanks on my ear. “Can I see you in the hall for a minute, please?”

Klein and Mia, both of whom know she’s pregnant, shoot me knowing looks braided with concern. I avoid Big Al’s gaze so he can’t do his brain probe and find out I knocked up his daughter.

Once we’re in the hallway, Lettie closes the door behind us. Her expression screams at me despite her mouth never moving. She clamps my hands in a death grip.

“I know what you’re thinking, sugar bear.”

In a panicked whisper, she says, “How could Tasha know I’m pregnant?”

“She doesn’t know. That’s impossible.”

“Inside the butterfly’s cocoon? And then the damnmothersymbolism? What else could that mean?”

“It’s a coincidence. Those dolls have been in the box since I got it out of that house. We only found out you were pregnant a week ago.”

She shakes loose of my hands to cover her face. “You’re right. You gotta be. I’m overreacting in accordance with my default programming.”

My mouth quirks at her little techy joke. She did that for me.

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