in the quiet of his apartment for a few minutes, digesting what he’d read.
A picture formed in his mind both based on the particulars he’d taken in, and the things he could surmise using his experience as a homicide detective who had entered homes a hundred times over, similar to the one described in the news pieces.
A house of horrors.
His lungs tightened, making it hard to breathe.
His mind filtered through the information, breaking it down into emotionless facts in an attempt to process it without letting it break him.
Elizabeth Nolan had grown up on the outskirts of a small poverty-stricken town near Dayton, Ohio. Her mother left when she was seven, her brother was eleven, and her little sister, Madelyn was just three. Her father, a pipe fitter by trade, was out of work more often than he was employed, and the family most often subsisted on food stamps, and the small amount of disability benefits Madelyn Nolan received for an undisclosed illness.
In court, Julian described their father as a drunk who flew into frequent and violent rages, becoming physically abusive with his children, including his sister Elizabeth, who was also the target of sexual abuse.
The children, who were quiet and kept to themselves, had few friends, if any.
On a cold night in February, Amos Nolan came home drunk, beat his eldest daughter, and dragged her to the root cellar where he often left one of his children for days at a time when he became angry at some slight or another.
On that night, Julian Nolan, retrieved a carving knife from the kitchen, walked to the root cellar, came up behind his father and slit his throat from ear to ear. With his father dead, he moved on to his sister, slitting her throat in the same manner and leaving them both dead in the root cellar, or so he thought.
He then used gasoline and matches from the shed out back to set the house on fire, with his disabled sister Madelyn still inside.
By the time distant neighbors reported the blaze on the isolated property, it was too late. When firefighters arrived, the house had burned to the ground, and thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Nolan was unconscious in what had been the front yard. She’d lost almost half of her blood, suffered smoke inhalation, and had second-degree burns over the entirety of her hands and arms.
They later found Julian walking down the dirt road toward town. He surrendered easily, and admitted to the crime immediately.
His attorney used the defense that the abuse had caused his client to snap, though Julian Nolan showed no emotion in court, even when his sister Elizabeth took the stand, a bandage across her throat, her voice not yet healed from the wound that, had it gone a millimeter farther, would have ended her life.
A seventeen-year-old Julian received life in prison for his crimes, but in fact, as of three days before, only served fifteen years of that sentence. Evidently, he had been an exemplary prisoner.
The crime must have been reported on the news all those years ago, but if it was, Reed had been blissfully unaware. While Liza was lying in a hospital, broken and brutalized, Reed had been going about his happy-go-lucky teenage life, playing baseball for his school team, hanging with his buddies, and working up the nerve to kiss his first girlfriend.
He felt sick, shaken to his core. No wonder, God, no wonder Liza was still attempting to work through her past. How had she made it out? How in the world was she still standing? A mixture of awe and respect burst through him like fireworks exploding in a darkened sky. He thought of his birth mother, of her seemingly impossible strength to endure, and he realized Liza shared that strength. He wondered if she even knew and suspected she didn’t. She saw her weaknesses, and she still felt the pain of things that were not her fault. But he doubted she celebrated her courage, her mere survival. Instead, she covered her scar with clothing, jewelry, or—when unclothed—the fall of her hair. He hadn’t even noticed it until they were in the bright light of her office, where her hand fluttered to it and away as shame altered her features.
He closed his computer, tossing it onto the couch next to him. He hesitated only a moment before he stood up and grabbed his jacket and his keys.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Liza pulled the robe more tightly around her body as she tiptoed toward the hotel room