“I just have to figure out how to do returns.” Sasha smiled shyly. “I messed it up last time I tried, and I gave a customer a refund for twice as much as they actually paid.”
“Thankfully, it was Mrs. Quincy—the middle school principal.”
“Thankfully?” Callie laughed. “I’d think she’d be the last person you want to make a mistake with. I had to have a handful of meetings with her back when she was vice principal andMallory kept getting into trouble. She was… what’s the nice way to put it? Very strict, I guess.”
“Definitely,” Kate agreed. “She’s honestly terrifying. But being such a stickler for the rules, she came back when she realized Sasha’s mistake and we got it all figured out. No big deal. If it had been someone else, they might’ve kept the extra money and never said anything.”
“I got lucky.” Sasha pushed some rice around on her plate. “But I’ll make sure I get it right next time.”
Kate beamed. “I know you will. I’m not worried.”
They all ate in silence for a few seconds and then the phone rang in the back room. Sasha jumped to her feet. “I’ll get it.”
“No, no, you sit,” Kate said. “Finish your food. It’s just the shelving guy calling me back. I need to talk to him about a rush job on a couple shelving unit replacements.” She smiled at them. “He and I have a rapport, so I’m hoping to use that to my advantage.”
Sitting back down slowly, Sasha was visibly disappointed to have her escape thwarted. Callie waited until Kate was in the back office before clearing her throat. “So, uh… I need to come clean. I didn’t come to the bookstore just to bring you lunch. I also came to talk.”
Sasha inhaled sharply, not meeting Callie’s gaze. “I had a feeling that might’ve been the case.”
“I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I didn’t know what else to do.” She let out a soft, nervous laugh. “It’s pretty obvious you’ve been avoiding me the last two days.”
“I haven’t really been avoiding you…” Sasha set her plate on the counter and folded her hands on her lap. “I’ve been busy with work and Dot stuff. Plus, your family’s all together. I didn’t want to be in the way.”
Callie sighed. “Sasha… We both know that’s not the full story. We haven’t talked at all about why you were in mybedroom the other day and if we don’t clear the air…” Callie paused, she’d never been good at giving ultimatums or threats. Still, she hoped Sasha would be able to glean from her tone that this was serious.
Sasha kept her eyes on the floor and said nothing.
“Look,” Callie went on, “I know my coming here might seem kind of aggressive, but I promise, I’m not angry.”
Sasha snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“It’s true. I have no reason to be angry yet, because I don’t even know what’s going on. And I can tell you’re nervous, but you’ve got to understand, whatever you were doing is most likely not as bad as what scenarios are running through my head. This is your chance to explain yourself. I really think you should take it.”
Sasha rubbed her hands together for a few seconds and then seemed to make up her mind. She pushed her long hair out of her face and squared her shoulders. “Yeah, okay,” she said, finally meeting Callie’s gaze. “I’ll talk. I’ll answer all your questions. Just let me go tell Kate that I’m taking my break and then we can go for a walk. I don’t want to be interrupted while we’re having this conversation—especially not by my boss.”
Callie gulped, not being too comforted by this request, but she nodded. “Yeah, of course,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
Chapter 2
Having used up almost all her courage to confront Sasha in the bookstore, Callie found herself waiting for Sasha to speak first as they walked together. Naturally, the young woman didn’t seem keen to jump into this conversation, so neither of them said anything for a while. When they reached end of the block, Callie gave Sasha a look, and that seemed to be enough to break the ice.
“I know what you saw—it looked pretty bad,” she began. “But it wasn’t what you think. At all.”
“Then… what was it?” Callie didn’t see how what she saw could be anythingotherthan Sasha rifling through her private papers. What she really wanted to know waswhy, but hopefully Sasha was getting to that part.
“I was looking for Dot’s pacifier. She’d lost it the day before and I had already searchedeverywhere.”
Callie deflated a little. She knew there was a chance Sasha was lying, but she hoped the young woman would be a little less obvious about it. On the other hand, there was something a little charming about how terrible Sasha was at coming up with an alternative explanation. It validated Callie’s earlier assumptions that she wasn’t capable of being a hardened scammer.
“But then I remembered that you were playing with her the day before,” Sasha continued. “And I thought maybe you brought her up to your bedroom. If she dropped it on the floor inthere, it would’ve been very easy for someone to kick it under the bed, so that’s why—”
“Sasha, stop.”
“I’ve done it before,” she went on, laughing a little self-consciously, “kicked her pacifier under the bed, I mean. In fact, you don’t want to know how many pacifiers we lost while we were at the shelter. I moved those boxes out of the way just so that I could get a better look, and—”
“And then you started looking for the pacifierinthe boxes?” Callie finished her words. “You thought somehow it had not only been kicked under the bed, but that someone had then taken a lid off one of the bankers’ boxes and dropped the pacifier on top of all my important documents? Is that really the story you want to go with?”
“I—I—” Sasha stumbled over her words.
