He came to a stop at a red light and slid her a long, searching glance. “What were you going to say?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“Alice.” When she didn’t respond, and moved only to lace her poor, shredded fingers in front of her, he reached over to lay a hand over the bandaged knot of hers. “You know what? When you do that with your hands, it looks like you’re praying for all the souls you’re about to devour.”
That brought her head around. Finally. “What?”
“That’s what I first thought when I saw you strike that knotted-hand pose—that you were praying for me before you demolished my ass. But I’ve learned a lot about you since that time. I can see now that whenever you grip your hands like this,” he added, gently tightening his fingers over hers, “it’s your tell that you’re not okay.”
“My tell?”
“It’s a term Felix fuckface would know. A tell is a poker player’s way of subconsciously telling everyone what they’re holding. I once knew a guy who’d always lick his lips whenever he had a hot hand. Another one would jiggle his leg when he had nothing. My own brother, Tyr, clears his throat when he’s jammed up and can’t see a way out. Study someone long enough, you can read their tells and know basically what’s going on with them.”
She took all this in with wide eyes. “You think I have a tell?”
“Stems, I know you do. When you lace your fingers like that and get real still, it means you’re trying like hell to bottle everything up. It’s definitely your tell, and I gotta say, babe, it makes me fucking crazy when you do it around me.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you learned yet that you’re safe with me? You don’t have to bottle shit up when we’re together. I told you that your demons and my demons get along great, so you don’t have to hide them from me. I already know they’re there.”
“I…” She seemed to have something stuck in her throat, if the way she swallowed was any indication. Then she glanced out the window and discreetly pulled her hands out from under his. “Light’s green.”
Fuck.
With a shake of his head, he turned his attention back to driving. “You said you remember how I told Payne that I believe in you, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was so soft it was like a caress. “I’ll never forget it.”
“I said that because it’s true, Alice. I do believe in you. Question is, is that a two-way street? Do you believe in me?”
The silence stretched for so long, he figured that was all the answer he was going to get. Then she turned gingerly in her seat to look at him straight-on.
“I do believe in you, Loki.”
Thank God. “Then tell me what you were about to say. You were the daughter of…what?”
She took in a shaking breath. “I don’t talk about…this…with anyone. Not even Joelle or Felix, and they were around when it happened. I wouldn’t talk about it, so they followed my lead until it was something that just became like…I don’t know. A forbidden subject.”
“What wouldn’t you talk about? What happened?”
“My father. He…died.”
“When you were twelve,” he said when she couldn’t seem to find a way to go on. “And your mom died when you were two.”
She nodded. “It was always just me and my dad, the two of us against the world. But that was all I needed. He was my everything.”
Damn, that near-painful twisting in his chest was back with a vengeance. “So you really were left alone in the world.”
“Yes, I was.” A quick glance her way showed her face was as stoic as ever, but there was a sheen of tears in her eyes that struck him like a knife in the heart. “The thing is, he… My father didn’t have to leave me alone in the world, Loki. He had a choice.”
That didn’t sound good. “He committed suicide?”
“In a way.” She took another deep breath. “It was road rage.”
Oh, hell. “Was he the one with the rage?”
“Yes.” It was no more than a whisper. “At first, I didn’t believe it. For months, maybe even a couple of years, I refused to believe what the authorities said—that my father had been guilty of…that. I mean, he was the Fielding family’s chauffeur, for crying out loud. Whoever heard of a chauffeur having road rage?”
“Damn,” he muttered, unable to stop himself. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
“No one did. He was literally a professional driver. But more than that, my dad was a good man, Loki. Sweet and funny and generous. He was my best friend, my buddy, my protector. He never showed me anything close to rage. Sure, he had a hot temper, or as he called it, the Halliday temper, but he’d never been abusive or violent. I kept thinking that the police somehow had the wrong person, and that my dad hadn’t died in a fiery crash on the freeway. It was a long time before I stopped expecting him to walk through the front door, with a goofy grin on his face and a simple explanation that would magically make my world whole again.”
“Damn,” he muttered, hurting for the little girl she’d been.
“But as the weeks turned into months, and my dad didn’t come home, I slowly adjusted to the fact that he really was dead. But I still couldn’t accept how he’d died. I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself how he could just… lose it. It didn’t make sense. Part of me still can’t make any sense of it, and the hell of it is, he’s not around for me to ask.”
“That’s what you were talking about when you spoke to that Womack guy,” he nodded, turning another corner. “You know what it’s like to have a family member lose it, you said. Though I didn’t quite get why you were so forgiving of him when he refused to even look at you. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a total shithead.”
“He was ashamed, Loki.”
“Of what? His fucked-up kid?”
“Yes. I’m injured because his family member attacked me. It was shame that made him act that way. I know how that feels because…” Her voice cracked, making him almost crash the damn car in his rising alarm. “Because I know that shame all too well.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what she was talking about. “Your dad hurt someone besides himself? A member of the Fielding family?”
“He wasn’t working at the time. He was alone in our family car when he…”
“When he lost it.” Thank God she hadn’t been in the car with him.
Her nod was stiff, like her muscles didn’t want to reveal just how much pain she’d bottled up inside. “The police said that some sportscar cut my dad off on the freeway. Witnesses testified to how he gave chase—some of them even said they saw him hanging out the window screaming profanity and flipping the bird as he chased this car down. Another thing that made this so hard for me to believe,” she added with a grimace. “My dad was totally G-rated whenever he was in front of me. I never saw him as a potty mouth.”
“I don’t have kids, but it’s a good bet I’d want to protect them from that kind of shit, even from me, until they’re mature enough to handle it. I’d be willing to bet your old man protected you from his darker side.”