“Ty,” I breathed, moving back to the letter and then I couldn’t figure out what to say.
“What?” he barked in my ear, I jumped at his harsh tone and realized he’d mistaken mine.
“No, no, it’s not bad, baby, it’s not…” I sucked in breath. “Okay, now, listen. I was thinking about paint chips and curtains and going to La-La Land to get you some dessert for tonight and so I wasn’t –”
“Babe,” he bit off, clipped and impatient.
“Right,” I whispered, sucked in more breath then went on. “I accidentally opened your mail and what I accidentally opened was a handwritten letter from Misty Keaton that lays it out that she lied about not being your alibi.”
Silence. A very long silence. A very long, very heavy silence.
So I called, “Ty?”
“You’re shittin’ me.” That was a whisper.
“No,” I whispered back.
“You’re shittin’ me,” he repeated.
“No, honey.” I kept whispering. “Do you want me to read it to you?”
“Yeah.”
I picked it up, my hand still slightly shaking and I read it to him.
My hand dropped to the counter when I was done and he murmured, “Shit.”
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fuck,” he murmured in answer.
“That’s not an answer, honey,” I said gently.
Silence.
“Ty? Honey, talk to me.”
“Right now, Lexie, take that upstairs and put it in the safe.”
I grabbed the envelope with the letter and immediately started walking to the stairs saying, “I don’t know the combination.”
“Twenty-four, fourteen, thirty-three, sixty-seven.”
“Um… is there a bunch of right and left rolling with that?”
“Mama, it’s a keypad.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“Twenty-four, as in, two then four, then hit the enter key, one then four, enter key and three then three, enter then six then seven, enter and open. You with me?”
“I think I can negotiate a keypad, honey lumpkins, but my locker at school you had to do all this winding around, back and forth and eventually I had to learn how to pop it because I could never get the f**king thing open.”
“This isn’t your locker at school. It’s a f**king expensive fireproof safe with a keypad.”
“Whatever,” I muttered then said, “I’m here, hang on.” I squatted, punched in the numbers then turned the handle and it opened. I put the letter in on top of Ty’s wads of cash, his gun, clips, ammo, the envelope with our marriage certificate and my boxes of diamonds then I closed the safe. “It’s there.”
“Good, baby. Gonna call Tate and see how to play this. Obviously, I can’t waltz into the Carnal Police Station so it needs to be safe until I know what to do with it.”