Where the Truth Lives
Page 25
Because he doesn’t expect it, she told herself. Yes, and because of that, it didn’t bring up memories of running her childhood household so fearfully and desperately for so much of her young life.
A chill danced across her skin and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She suddenly felt . . . watched. She glanced over her shoulder, frowning as she increased her pace. The sun had long since set, and the moon was high in the sky, but the downtown streets were well lit, and plenty of people were out and about, walking home from work, or stepping out for dinner.
Still, that chill turned into a cold lump in her belly and she picked up her pace, tempted to run the last half block to Reed’s building.
When she made it to the door, she scooted quickly inside, letting out a relieved exhale as she stepped into the brightly lit lobby. As she stood waiting for the elevator, she glanced over her shoulder at the front door where a man was walking past. She only saw his profile, but for a second she thought it was Reed. The man kept walking though, head down, hands in pockets, and Liza turned forward again as the elevator dinged and a car opened up. She gave herself an internal head shake. You can’t get him off your mind, can you?
As she rode up to Reed’s floor, the lights in the elevator buzzed once and blinked, the elevator giving a jolt. Liza’s gaze flew to the fluorescent bulbs overhead. “Don’t even,” she said, as a twist of terror swirled dizzily through her. But the elevator gods apparently weren’t listening, because the car gave another small jolt and shuddered to a halt. The lights buzzed again and blinked out. Liza let out a strangled sound of terror as her pulse skyrocketed. Oh God, no. No, no. A sob moved up her throat. She brushed against something in the dark and she squealed, jumping back.
“Shh,” Mady said. “You’re fine. Liza, listen to me. That was just the wall. You’re fine.”
“Stop it,” she said in a strangled whisper. “You’re not here. I’m not fine.”
“You are. You’re in the elevator in Reed’s building. There are four walls surrounding you. You’re safe. The lights will come back on in a minute.”
“No, no, they won’t.” There was something there, in the dark. She could feel it. Move, move! she tried to command herself. But she couldn’t. She was frozen, just like then. Terror vibrated beneath her skin, causing her to break out in a cold sweat.
I’m so cold. Has he forgotten I’m here? It’s so dark. Please, please, Dad, please let me out.
“You’re okay,” Mady said, her voice soothing. “Remember all those stairs you climbed in the dark? You did that, Liza. And you can do it again. Move. Do it, just to prove you can.”
But there had been a destination to head toward then. Here, she just had to wait. “I can’t. I’ll be stuck here in the dark—”
The lights blinked back on and the elevator continued its ascent with another small shudder. Relief flooded Liza, so intense, she let out a gasp, sniffling and almost breaking into laughter. Oh God, I’m a mess. Still such a mess. Shame sizzled through her. She felt like a failure, such a miserable failure.
When the elevator opened, Liza practically jumped free of the car, taking in a deep breath and letting it sweep through her body. You’re okay now. You’re okay. She took a moment to try to regain some calm, brushing the sweat from her brow before stepping forward. But as she made the walk down the hall, that chill vibrated inside her again. The stairwell was to her right and Liza heard footsteps ascending toward her. Her heart beat more swiftly as she clutched the plastic handles of her grocery bags, the ones she’d somehow held on to despite her fear. Or maybe because of it. You’re just spooked. It’s just a resident. Other people do live in this building, you know. Still, her fast walk turned into a jog as she turned the corner to where Reed’s door was and collided with someone turning from the opposite direction. She let out a small squeal, her heart thundering, jumping back, her gaze flying up to . . . Reed.
“Hey,” he said, stepping forward and reaching for her upper arms, steadying her. “I heard the elevator and was coming out to meet you. Are you okay?”
Liza let out a small, somewhat hysterical-sounding laugh, feeling utterly ridiculous, and still shaky. “Yes, I’m fine.” She shook her head, holding up the grocery bags. “I went to the grocery store and then the elevator stopped and went dark for a minute. I . . . I sort of panicked.”
He frowned, taking her in, his gaze moving from her damp brow, to the bags in her hand that were shaking along with the tremors moving through her body.
He took the groceries from her and her shoulders shifted with the lack of weight. “That fucking elevator,” Reed swore. “Liza, I’m so sorry. I’ll put in a call to maintenance. These old buildings are full of character but have far too many glitches.”
“No, it’s okay, really. I . . . survived.” Barely. A final tremble moved through her. She looked behind her into the hallway from which she’d come. “I thought I heard someone in the stairwell though,” she said, realizing no one had emerged.
Reed’s gaze moved over her face quickly and then he walked around her to the stairwell door, opening it and looking down and then up. He turned back, walking toward her. “No one. They must have been going to a different floor.”
She nodded and blew out a breath, trying to appear calm as Reed led her inside his apartment, where they went to the kitchen and he set the bags down. “I got ingredients to make stir-fry,” she said. “I hope you like that.”
He nodded, giving her the ghost of a smile as his gaze moved over her again as though assessing if she was really okay. “I do. Let me wash up and I’ll help.”
He came back in the room a few minutes later, his shirtsleeves rolled up and holding a folder in his hands, which he set on the counter. Work, she figured.
A feeling of well-being descended as Liza asked him about his day as they chopped vegetables and went about making dinner together, and she told him about hers. She’d gone to the gym where she was a member and swam laps in the pool and then had taken advantage of the sauna. Then she’d come back and treated herself to an afternoon of Netflix. She tried to sound cheery as she talked about it, but Reed smiled at her knowingly as he set two plates on the table.
“You hate this. Not working.”
She let out a huff of breath as she began opening a bottle of wine and peeked up at him. “Yeah. I do. But you know, it’s good practice for me. I’ve never . . . enjoyed my own company, I guess. So I’m looking at this week as . . . therapy. You know how I like self-applied therapy,” she said, giving him a wry smile as she handed him a glass of wine.
He chuckled, swirling his wine and tilting his head as his brows dipped. “I do have some personal insight into that.” Their eyes held for a moment. Yes, you do, don’t you? She had the urge to apologize to him, but that felt awkward, and it was not the time. She looked away, walking to the stove where she dished up their food and brought a bowl of chicken and vegetables, and a bowl of brown rice to the table.
They sat down and dug into the food, chatting about mundane things for a bit, and it felt good. It felt normal and average and absolutely everything Liza had ever craved in her life. I could so easily fall in love with you, Reed Davies, she thought, and though a trickle of fear followed the thought so did a sparkle of something else. Happiness? Hope? She wasn’t sure. It was a new feeling, one she’d never felt before.
Reed took a sip of his wine and then stood, reaching for the folder he’d left on the counter. “I hate to start talking about this damn case at home,” he said, flipping the folder open, “but I need to show you a couple of photos and ask if you recognize the people in them.”
“Okay. Who are they?”
“Milo Ortiz and Sabrina McPhee. They’re the people who found two of the murder victims.”
“Oh. Okay.” The other poor souls who’d unsuspectingly come across eyeless corpses. “Do you think . . . we’re connected somehow?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sliding two photos across the table. “It’s just a hunch.
It might not pan out.”
She nodded, placing the two photos side by side and looking at the late twenties or early thirties man, handsome with light brown skin and hazel eyes, and a woman who looked to be about the same age with shoulder-length brown curls and deep brown eyes. She tilted her head, taking a few moments to look at them. “They look . . . vaguely familiar. Maybe?” She brought her hands up and massaged her temples. “Were they patients at Lakeside at some point?”
“I don’t think so, though that’s unconfirmed right now.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Yes, there’s definitely something familiar about them. But, no, I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’ve ever met them. Maybe they’ve used mental health services in general?”
“That could be,” he said. “There’s confirmation that at least one of them had a . . . difficult past.”
Her gaze lingered on him for a moment. By the look in his eyes, she got the feeling the word difficult, deeply understated whatever Reed was referring to. Liza slid the photos back across the table. “It can be a small community, those who use mental health services. You tend to encounter the same people, hear the same names, even pass by the same faces, whether you run into them directly or not. That could be it.”
He picked up the photos and put them back in his folder. “Yeah, okay, maybe. I’ll have to see what else we can find out about them.”
They cleared the dishes and Liza picked up the bottle of wine, holding it up in question. “No, thanks,” he said. “Actually, I’ll clean this up, and then I’m going to make a trip downstairs to the gym. I need a workout.” He gave her the ghost of a smile and rubbed at his eye. He looked tired. He had to be. He’d been working around the clock on this current Hollow-Eyed Killer case. She’d barely seen him in the last few days. He was probably frustrated too, had energy he needed to burn. She felt guilty, suddenly. Awkward. She grabbed their plates from the table, wondering if she wasn’t there, if he’d choose a different way to burn off some energy. Maybe he’d go to a nearby bar, pick up a woman . . . but . . . no. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t Reed Davies. That had been her MO. For different reasons than to burn off energy, but still.
“Let me clean this up,” she said. “You go.”
“No, this’ll only take a few—”
“Seriously, I’ve got it,” she said, laying her hand on his exposed forearm.
He glanced at it as if he too could feel the frisson of heat that passed back and forth between their skin. His eyes met hers and held for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
Liza turned back to the kitchen, happy to busy her hands with something. She loaded the dishwasher as Reed went and changed, and a few minutes later, he leaned into the kitchen wearing a hoodie and gym shorts, a duffel bag in his hand. “I’m going to set the alarm. See you in a bit.”
She turned, smiled. “Okay. Have a good workout.”
Liza listened as he keyed in the alarm code and then turned back to the sink, resting her hands on the edge. She felt wired too. Pent-up. Frustrated. The solution, for her, had always been to immerse herself in work, first at school, and then once she’d begun her career. And now, she’d been temporarily stripped of her safety net. She hadn’t been allowed to take any of her case files home with her, and without them, about the only thing she could do was go online and brush up on clinical methods of treating psychopathology . . . perhaps read some new psych journals . . .
But she’d meant what she’d told Reed—she needed to practice sitting with her own thoughts. That was a form of therapy too and an important one. She needed to feel safe in her own head. And frankly, she didn’t really feel like looking up the latest published psychology papers. She didn’t know what she felt like. “Because,” she murmured, “you don’t know your own mind.” Which proved the point.
“Ugh,” she said, picking up the hand towel on the counter, drying her hands and then tossing it aside. Maybe she should just go to bed and try to get into one of the novels on Reed’s bookshelf in his living room.
She walked to the room across the hall where she perused his shelves, finally choosing what looked like a courtroom thriller. She smiled as she returned to the guest room. Reed enjoyed crime puzzles so much, he even read fictional stories about solving them.
Liza made herself comfortable on the bed, cracking the book open and beginning to read. She was surprised when she heard the door open and the alarm being turned off, and glanced at the clock to see it was already nine p.m. She sat up, considered going into the hall and saying hi, but why? She didn’t want to be right under his feet all the time. He might want space after coming home from the gym. Maybe it was his routine to take his case notes and sit on the couch with a drink while he went over them. Anyway, it was late, and she was getting tired.
Liza set the book down and went to the bathroom where she washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then put on a clean nightshirt. She folded the covers back and got between the sheets, picking the book back up again. The shower down the hall came on a minute later and Liza lowered the book, glancing at the wall, a flush moving through her body as she pictured Reed peeling off his gym clothes and stepping under the spray. A small thrill tingled between her legs and her nipples pebbled beneath the thin material of her nightshirt. Liza frowned at the closed door on the opposite side of the room, surprise and uncertainty sweeping over her. She had managed to relax enough during sex that her body responded to touch, but she couldn’t remember feeling turned on in response to a thought. A small smile curved her lips, a sensation not unlike wonder spilling through her. Yearning.
What would he do if she joined him in the shower?
Another thrill trembled over her nerves.
She wouldn’t do that, of course. She couldn’t. Because Reed had made it clear that a quick round of sex—shower or otherwise—was not on the table. She turned over, picking up the book again, reading three words and then placing it down.
The water shut off and she strained her ears to hear him, but the only sound reverberating inside her was the staccato beat of her own heart. She couldn’t hear him, but God, she could feel him.
The thing was . . . Reed hadn’t said sex was off the table completely; he’d said that he wanted more from her than that. And therein lay the problem. Liza pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed at it for a moment.
She’d worked hard to overcome her distaste at being touched. Then she’d even begun to enjoy sex, as long as it was temporary and anonymous though Reed was the first man who’d given her an orgasm during intercourse. But she could never become overly intimate with someone because that would lead to uncovering all sorts of truths about her past and who she was.
Then came Reed. Reed who knew her past and somehow—miraculously—seemed to accept and want her anyway. Reed who’d encouraged her to use her past for good. Liza sat up.
She didn’t know a time when she hadn’t held secrets. Shame. She’d thought of her past as a particular kind of loneliness, and it was. But it was also a strength. She’d done those things, as ghastly as they were. As unspeakable. Things others might not have been able to do. She’d done them to survive. To live. And she need not put them into descriptive words for anyone else, but inside herself, she must figure out a way to stitch them over her heart, not as an impenetrable shield, but as a badge of courage. A scar of honor, maybe, because so many of them she’d done out of love.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath as she placed a hand over her chest, feeling it move from deep inside her body, out her mouth. She heard the bathroom door open and then Reed’s footsteps move down the hall toward the kitchen.
Are you ready? This would take courage—a different type of journey through the dark. But he’ll be with you. Yes. She wanted it. Wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. Joy trembled within. It felt ephemeral, delicate. She wanted to capture it, to hold it close. She was afraid, so afraid it’d disappear.
She hurried to the door,
opening it quickly and walking with purpose toward Reed. She didn’t dare hesitate, didn’t dare give herself a chance to rethink this.
When she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she was slightly out of breath. Reed was standing against the sink, a glass of water in his hand, wearing nothing except another pair of track shorts. She let her gaze sweep over his bare chest, her face flushing as she met his eyes.
His brow creased and he lowered his water glass. “Everything okay?”
Liza fidgeted, feeling so damn timid that she wasn’t sure she should go through with this. But she gathered her courage and walked to where he stood, reaching out and letting her fingers trail down his stomach muscles. She watched in fascination as they tensed with her movement, and then she raised her eyes to look into his. He appeared frozen, staring at her with a sudden sharp intensity that caused her heart to beat triple time. He slowly placed the water glass on the counter next to him and took her hand, holding it against his skin. “Liza,” he said.
“Please,” she answered, a nervous laugh almost escaping. She caught it, but she could do nothing about the blush that filled her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to beg. She thought of how powerful she’d felt that night as she’d led him from the bar to his apartment and then straight to his bed. How faraway that woman seemed. What an illusion that power had been.
This is me, she thought. The real me . . . and I’m offering myself to you.
Reed paused again, his eyes moving over her features, his brow still creased as though he was trying desperately to understand her.
“I have to know you understand what this means.”
She nodded. “I do.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Okay, but I’m still going to spell it out.” He paused. “I don’t just want one night of sex. I want you there in the morning, and I want this to be the start of more.”