RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,110
hand across the white paint of the windowsill. “Mara used to sit up here and write in her journal every night. She’d scribble away for hours, committing her most personal, private thoughts to paper. And when she was done, she’d hide her journal away, putting it in the safest place she could think of.” She runs her hand to the edge of the windowsill, reaching underneath it, and a loud snapping noise fills the room. Mercy takes hold of the painted wood…and just lifts it up in her hands, pulling it away from the wall.
What the…?
“Jesus Christ.” Carina spits out a string of curse words under her breath. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. The cops searched this room high and low and they didn’t find anything. You knew where she hid her journal, and you didn’t say a word?”
“What, you think I should have just handed it over?” Mercy laughs—a cold, silvery, cruel sound that makes my pulse thump at my temples. “I would have thought you’d be glad I kept my mouth shut. Mara didn’t hold back when she held that pen in her hand. I’m sure there were plenty of things she wrote about you that would have raised a few eyebrows, if her journal fell into the wrong hands.”
I get up, anxiety pulling taut down my spine as I cross the room, toward the bay window. Carina grabs my hand, trying to pull me back. “Elle, really, it’s not worth it. Don’t buy into her bullshit, okay?”
I shake myself free, not listening, needing to see.
I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets. Turns out that I’ve been shut in the dark, all of the students and even the teachers at the academy keeping me on the other side of a locked door that they won’t open. This is the first time I’m learning anything about this girl, and now I need to know more.
There’s a space in the bay window, concealed beneath the windowsill—a fairly large hidey-hole that would almost be big enough for a person to crawl into if they were set on doing so. Inside: a black lacquered box with white cherry blossoms painted on the lid; a scrunched-up sweater; a pink and grey stripy folder; and a small, fat little leather-bound book with the initials M. B. stamped in gold foil into the front cover.
“Ohh, would you look at that. I just solved a mystery. Maybe I’ll start up a P.I. firm once I’ve been released from this hellhole.” Mercy’s smug as hell as she drops the windowsill onto the floor at her feet with a loud clatter. “My my. Would you look at the time. Turns out I do have somewhere to be after all. If you girls will excuse me, I have a hot date in town. Enjoy flicking through the journal, Elle. I think you’ll find it a riveting read.”
Wren’s sister saunters out of the room with a swing in her hips. She doesn’t bother to close the door behind her, but Carina launches off the bed and races across the room, slamming it behind her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her move so quickly. “You don’t need to read anything,” she says. Wow. When she turns to face me, I barely recognize her. She’s ashen, the color drained from her face, and there’s panic carved into the lines of her features. She looks ten years older than she is, and desperately haunted.
I reach into Mara’s hiding place, taking out the leather-bound book. It’s cold and heavy in my hands, fatter than a Bible, its pages wrinkled and dogeared in places, most of them written on. “What’s this about, Carina?” I have to ask. I hate that my words are so hard and clipped, but there’s something clearly going on here that she doesn’t want me to know about. She strides across the room, holding out her hand for the diary.
“Give it to me, Elle. Seriously. This is one mess that you don’t want to get involved in. Can you…can you please just trust me? Haven’t I been looking out for you since you got here?”
The journal feels like an unexploded bomb in my hand. If I crack it open, it’s going to go off, and everything I know, everything I think I know about this place will go up in smoke. Is that what I want? For things to become even more complicated? My whole life has been one problematic situation after another, after another, after another. Things