RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,132
flame when she turns and sees the expression on my face. “What? What's that look for?”
I'm reeling from the fact that she managed to get that lock to open. Fucking reeling. I know precisely why she learned that skill, and I know precisely why she would carry the tools required to pick a lock with her at all times. It’s just still pretty fucking amazing. “You’re just full of surprises, Little E,” I tell her, winking playfully. She still hasn’t told me anything about her past in Tel Aviv. I’ve been waiting patiently for her to open up about it, but I’m not gonna fucking push her.
“You can learn all kinds of things on YouTube,” she says. “I watched a thousand videos, learning how to do that in as many situations as possible.”
A cold, sickly feeling creeps up my back. I quickly brush it off, forcing a smile onto my face.
“Why would your father lock that door? Seems like a weird thing to do,” she says, smoothly changing the subject. Scanning the hallway with the little porthole windows along its north-facing side, and the four doors leading off from it on the other side, she frowns deeply.
“This was my mother's place,” I say. “She would come up here to paint and read. She used to sleep up here sometimes. I've claimed it as my space now, but my father doesn't like it. He says it upsets his new wife. It has nothing to do with Patty, though. He just hates that I'd rather spend my time up here with the ghosts of my dead mother instead of suffering downstairs with the rest of them in the land of the living. He threatens to clear everything out of here and brick up the door sometimes.”
“Why hasn't he?”
“Because he knows I'd burn the entire fucking house down if he did.”
She just nods, accepting this as something I would do. A truth about me that makes sense. “Are we gonna get in trouble for coming up here, then? Is he gonna be angry?”
“He's always angry. Don't worry, though. He won't be angry with you. You're a guest. When you meet him, he'll be sweet and interested, and charming, and you'll wonder how I could possibly hate him so much. You'll take his side and think I'm completely unreasonable when I don't fall down and worship at the fucker's feet.”
She blinks at me owlishly. She's so fucking beautiful that the sight of her feels like a punch to the gut. Again, she shakes her head. “No, I won't. I know all about sociopathic fathers, Wren. I've been dealing with one my entire life. I know the front they put on for the rest of the world. I’ll always see through that charade, no matter how many other people it might fool. Come on.” She smiles gently. “Why don't you show me around? Tell me about your mom. I want to know all about her.”
The paintings are calmer than mine. The blues, blacks, greys, and whites are softer, so much subtler and more intentional than mine, too. Elodie paces the floorboards of my mother's studio, studying each canvas in turn, pulling back the dust cloths and letting the heavy sheets sigh to the floor. Her inquisitive eyes pick over the brushstrokes, her fingertips poised just above the surface of the oil paint, as if she's reaching inside the painting in her mind, stroking them over the subject matter with a reverence that makes my chest pull tight.
I'm far more comfortable painting my stormy landscapes. My mother painted people. She loved capturing the emotion and the intelligence in someone's eyes, and she was damn good at it, too. “She was so talented,” Elodie breathes. “Who's this?” She gestures to the painting in front of her, of the man with the staunch expression and the curious light in his eyes. My jaw's so clenched that it takes real effort to work my teeth apart.
“My father. A couple of years before she found out she was pregnant. Amazing how twenty years can change someone.”
She steps closer, investigating the lines of the man my mother captured with her art. She was generous with him. Made him look less stern than he was, even then. I've never seen the softness she depicted in his face. There's a glimmer of love in the bastard’s eyes that's been missing my entire life.
“She was far better than I'll ever be,” I say.
Elodie shakes her head. “That's not true. You're just as good, Wren.