RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,62
There’s no sugarcoating it. And she would be a crappy friend if she left me on the side of a mountain road. I’m grateful that she’s in possession of a fully functioning conscience. That said, I don’t want to put her in a compromising position, though.
We sit in silence, watching the twin beams from the headlights pierce through the dark like swords of light, illuminating fifteen feet of blacktop in front of us. After a while, Carina says, “Fucking piece of shit. I knew he was creepy, but I didn’t know he was this creepy. He was probably gonna load up that phone with spyware apps. He’d have been listening to your calls and reading all of your texts. He would have been able to access your camera whenever he wanted…God, I didn’t even think about that until now.”
“Mmm.” I’ve thought about it. I have experience with cloned phones and all manner of different spyware. It’s all been loaded onto my phone before. What Carina doesn’t know is that my phone is already brimming over with ghost apps and dummy screens, all designed to trick me into thinking I’m not being watched. My father would have made sure of it. “We’ll get in, get the phone, and then we won’t have to worry about any of that,” I mumble.
“You should call the cops, Elle. I’m serious. This is some shady shit.”
“Let’s just see what we’re dealing with first.” I’m fobbing her off. I’m sure she knows that. But getting the police involved now would be bad. For starters, Wolf Hall will report the incident to my father, and there’s no way in hell I’ll risk him jumping on a plane to come and find out what’s going on in person. I’d rather be dragged over hot coals than have to face him.
My pulse jumps all over the place when Carina kills the headlights and turns into the driveway that leads through the forest to Riot House. I can tell by the way she grips onto the steering wheel that she’s anxious. About getting caught breaking into the place or being here in general, I can’t tell, but I’m beginning to feel really bad for putting her through this.
In the pressing darkness, all I see are trees. And then we turn a sharp corner, and the house appears out of nowhere, the three-story structure so large and imposing that it’s a miracle it isn’t more obvious from the road. It’s difficult to tell how old the place is. Perhaps it would be easier to assess when the place was built during the daytime, when there’s a little more light to work with. Right now, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows on the second floor makes it look modern, but the exterior makes it appear very old indeed.
“Just looking at the place makes me wanna throw up,” Carina murmurs. “Doesn’t it look like it was conjured right out of your nightmares?”
I look at the house, shrouded in shadows, each window cast into darkness, and…the place looks desolate. “No,” I tell Carina. “I don’t have nightmares.”
She blows out a long breath through her pursed lips. “I envy you. That must be nice.” She twists the key in the ignition, killing the engine. “Then what are you afraid of? Monsters? Ghouls? Flesh-eating beasts?”
“No,” I tell her, staring up at the house with a steely resolve. “I’m afraid of real life. The people who are supposed to care for you the most.”
Carina doesn’t ask how I know how to pick a lock. She urges me to hurry up and get it done, peering over her shoulder into the forest as if she’s expecting Dashiell to emerge from the night with a hatchet in his hand, ready to dismember both us into tiny pieces. He doesn’t come, though, and I have the door to Riot House open in record time.
I enter, preparing myself for the avalanche of empty beer cans and festering takeout containers, but the place is neat as a pin. Scratch that. It’s actually beautiful.
Carina turns on the flashlight feature on her phone, dispersing the dark, and I marvel at the grand entranceway I find myself in. A huge, magnificent staircase stands before me, splitting off to the left and to the right, leading to the eastern and western wings of the house. On the first floor, huge paintings hang on the walls—mostly cool, sleek contemporary art that doesn’t seem to be of anything in particular, but as I gaze at them I’m hit with the