Sinful Purity (Sinful Series) by K.A. Standen Page B

identity from me? My internal tirade was interrupted by Brett’s cautiously insistent words.
    “Where do we look first, Liz?”
    “Uh, I don’t really know. I’ve never done any breaking and entering before,” I retorted. “I guess I’ll start with the desk. You can look in the filing cabinets.”
    Sister Christine’s desk was just as dark and oppressive as ever, with its grease-colored surface and gothic carvings. Down each side of the desk was a bank of drawers, each consisting of two small, shallow drawers atop one great deep drawer much heavier and larger. I quickly began ransacking the drawers, not wanting to spend one second more than was absolutely necessary, knowing that at any moment our illicit activities could be discovered and swiftly punished.
    “Slow down, Liz,” Brett ordered. “The whole idea is to not let anyone know we were in here.”
    I abruptly stopped and looked down at Sister Christine’s once immaculately organized desk. I had destroyed it. There was no way she wouldn’t know someone had been in here. In my haste, I had tossed and overturned every article in the drawers until some were haphazardly hanging out the sides and onto the floor. Even the drawers I had already slammed shut had small remnants of their contents pinned against the sides. Paper corners peeked out as if trying to hold on to the last bit of dying air before being plunged back into the drawer’s abyss for eternity.
    I panicked. “Brett, what do I do?”
    “It’s all right. Just calm down and think back. I know you can do it. Just reopen every drawer and try to remember the way it looked before you attacked it.” Brett spoke calmly with only a hint of sarcasm while he relentlessly worked to free the lock on the two file cabinets.
    “These nuns really know how to keep things private,” he joked, wrestling with the impenetrable clasp as I methodically tried to restore order to Sister Christine’s desk.
    “Wait. I think I got it,” he said as the lock’s hold broke open and the top drawer of the cabinet came noisily sliding free. “It doesn’t look like anyone goes in here much.” Brett coughed from the dust cloud that was released during the break-in.
    “You got it open!” I exclaimed, more than a little amazed and impressed.
    “Of course I did. Did you have any doubt? But this is going to take a while. This thing is packed full. I don’t think it’s been cleaned out in a hundred years. Some of these files look pretty old, Liz.”
    “Maybe that’s the wrong one, then.” I could begin to feel the hope drain from me.
    “Well, first things first. This one’s open so it doesn’t hurt to look. Right?” Brett thumbed his way through the lives of decades of orphans sentenced to the existence of MIQ.
    “Let’s just try the next one, okay? I don’t know how much time we have,” I pleaded. After all, it wasn’t Brett’s future that hung precariously in the balance. I needed to make sure that no one would ever know I’d been so brash and dishonest as to break into Mother Superior’s office. In one ill-conceived moment, I would recklessly nullify her trust, thus cinching my fate and never being granted parole from my personal hell. How could I have ever let Brett talk me into this?
    Tomorrow would be Monday, the very day I was to have my meeting with Father Brennigan and Sister Christine, in the very office I had just defiled. I could not imagine how I would be able to approach them, pleading not only for my freedom but also for their assistance. How could I muster the sincerity and desperation I felt to my very core when it had been suffocated and replaced by the guilt and shame I felt now? I regretted every second I stood here in Sister Christine’s office, with only my clandestine scheme to blame.
    “Liz, here. I think I found something,” Brett said, breaking the guilt trip that I was already more than a little committed to. “Actually I’m not sure, but I think you should take a look