Page 154 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
The girl looked like a dictionary. Ink-colored hair on pale skin. Rare words printed across her chest. I wanted to devour her, memorize her words, and dog-ear my favorite pages.
Instead, I swiveled, strode to my desk, and sat. “Are we done here?”
“The centerpiece—”
“Will remain covered.” I opened my laptop. “If that’s all…”
Her eyes found the scorched leather on the perimeter of my desk. She cocked her head to the side and trailed a finger down the spine. My pulse choked me. I considered snatching the ledger and shoving it into my drawer.
I left it out, because like my penance tattoo, it reminded me to never lose sight of revenge. Delilah knew not to touch it, but Emery clearly wasn’t Delilah. She had no sense of boundaries. Just her and a world she thought belonged to everyone equally, which apparently meant what’s mine was also hers.
She released the leather, looking unperturbed by its current condition. “That looks kind of like Virginia’s notebook, except it’s, um, burnt.”
“What?”
If she hadn’t already had it, she’d have my full attention now.
“The notebook.” She motioned to it with a tilt of her chin. “Virginia has one just like it. Well, similar. The same shape and size, but hers had a crown logo on the front and was less… burnt. Like yours, leather wrapped all around it to protect it from fire, water, and dirt.”
I remembered what it looked like, considering that was how this ledger had looked before I tossed it into the Winthrop’s fireplace, barely retrieving it in time.
Finished leather was resistant to fire at high temperatures, so the encasing had protected most of the interior pages. The exterior looked charred as fuck and unrecognizable, however. Obvious proof that I’d tried to burn evidence, which was pretty damn illegal and why I never turned it in to the F.B.I. or S.E.C.
I’d thought I could handle it myself.
I was wrong.
And Dad died.
Emery continued, oblivious, “She used to carry it into the library before bed, obsessing over it. Then, she lost it one day and went absolutely berserk.”
“It was your mom’s?” I clarified, because What. The. Fuck.
I'd found it in Gideon’s office after hearing him talk about the company’s finances. Balthazar even said, as long as there’s no evidence of embezzling…
My eyes glimpsed out the window, confirming a lack of flying pigs. A window cleaner bobbed his head to music, standing on a metal contraption suspended by wires. His hands held a rag and a squeegee.
He inclined his chin to me as if to say, “‘Sup.”
Just my mind exploding. Nothing to see here, but you’ll have some chunks of brain to wipe off the windows by the end of your shift.
“Your mom had a notebook like this one?” I repeated, knowing it changed everything.
Fucking. Everything.
“Yes.” Emery's lips quirked up. “Do you need Q-tips? I bet I can find some.” She folded her lower lip into her mouth, taking her time to wet it. “When Virginia lost it, she tore apart the house to look for it. Her eyes rimmed with so much rage and panic, I assumed she wrote about her affairs in there. She and Dad were always done. Their marriage was the shotgun type after she got pregnant with me.”
Her eyes returned to the ledger and she continued, “Actually, she was convinced someone on the staff stole it. She wanted to fire everyone, including your parents. Called it a clean sweep. Dad convinced her not to. Told her she could find another notebook. He was always good like that.”
My foundation rocked.
Everything I thought I knew morphed.
I stood on a cliff in the middle of a landslide.
The only way to go was down.
Ida Marie and I stared at a painting, our heads tilted, trying to figure out if the subject’s V tapered to an oddly shaped penis or a flesh-colored loin cloth.
