he said, repeating his own line. “And even doctors can’t operate on themselves.”
Liza laughed and seemed almost surprised by the fact that she did. “How in the world are you so perfect, Reed Davies?”
He glanced at her, his face going serious. In response, hers did too. He looked back at the road. “I’m not perfect either.” He paused for a moment, his thumb rubbing the stitching on the steering wheel. “You might be surprised to know my father was a serial killer.”
He felt her eyes on him in the dim light of his car but didn’t look her way. “Are you . . . joking?”
Reed let out a huff of breath that he’d intended to be a laugh. “Sadly, no.”
“How . . . I mean . . . you were raised by a serial killer?”
“No. I was raised by loving parents right across the bridge in Kentucky. My biological father kidnapped and brutalized my birth mother for close to a year. I was the result, and she gave birth to me shackled to a basement wall in an abandoned building.” Liza stared, mouth falling open in shock. Hell, the words still shocked him. The stark truth of them. The atrocity they conjured. It still shocked him that he’d been there, though he obviously had no memory of it. “My birth father took me from her and gave me to the couple who raised me. Josie, my birth mother, found me later but signed away parental rights.”
Liza looked forward as though processing what he’d told her. After a minute, she asked, “When did you find out?”
“When I was fourteen. They’d told me I was adopted before that, but sort of skated around the circumstances of my birth. They thought I was mature enough to handle the full truth when I was fourteen. I met Josie—my birth mom—when I was eighteen. She’s . . . remarkable. She sacrificed everything for me, so I could have a normal life. A loving home.”
“Wow. That’s . . . a lot to process.” She tilted her head, studying him for a moment. Outside, the rain dwindled to little more than mist. “Is that why you’re as noble as you are?”
“How do you mean?”
She shrugged. “You’re completely different than your birth father. If he was the quintessential bad guy, you’re the polar opposite. You’re the good guy, Reed Davies. And I think somehow that’s . . . important to you.”
He pretended to grimace. “Ouch. A good guy. Don’t they always finish last?”
Liza laughed, and shook her head. “Not you,” she said, and there was something soft in her voice that he hoped he’d hear again.
All right, so she was a good detective herself. She’d read him right, seen that need in him to somehow counterbalance the sins of his father. It was important to him. Although he came up short, again and again. “I’m not so noble,” he murmured.
“Yes, you are,” she said, and there was a smile in her voice right before she brought her hand up, covering a big yawn.
“You’re tired,” he said, as the light they were sitting at turned from red to green and he pulled through the intersection.
“Yes,” she said. “And I have noticed that you’ve been driving in circles around the downtown area. Did you have an actual hotel in mind?” She raised a brow and smiled over at him.
He smiled back. “Yes. I’m taking you to one near my apartment so if you need anything I can be there quickly. I was just enjoying spending time with you. Talking.”
“Me too,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
He pulled into the parking garage of a large downtown hotel, driving up the ramp and pulling into a space. He shut off the engine and turned to her. “Can I ask you one last question? It might be sort of personal.”
Liza gave him a slight smile. “All right. I asked you a few personal questions. I guess it’s only right that I offer the same.”
“Look who’s noble now.”
She laughed and Reed’s stomach gave a small jolt. God, what was it about her laugh that got to him the way it did? “What is it, Detective?”
“That scar,” he said softly, his gaze going to the pale pink line across her throat, barely visible in the low light of the parking garage. “Does it have anything to do with losing your sister?”
Her hand fluttered there as if unconsciously, but just as quickly she seemed to become aware of the movement, her hand dropping to her lap where