Silent Fall

Maybe Mark or someone has come up with something else for us to think about."
    "Julie wrote back," Dylan said a moment later. "She says that Blake took a trip with a woman she thinks might have been Erica. They went to Seattle together." He looked up. "That confirms what Mark told me, but I don’t get why she would have gone there with Blake." He paused. "I suppose Blake could be involved, too. He could have known my father through the Metro Club. I have to believe that my father is at the heart of this. And the timing with Jake being out of town plays into that. No one would believe my father is a monster, except for him."
    "And me," she said quietly, reminding him that even without Jake he wasn’t alone.
    "And you," he echoed.
    She leaned across the table and stole a quick kiss. "Why don’t you go get me that breakfast? Some food might bring clarity."
    "We’ve tried everything else."
    As Catherine set down the envelope on the table, her gaze tripped over the return address. She’d seen those numbers before. "Dylan, wait," she said, grabbing his arm as he got up. She handed him the envelope. "Three-seven-four Falcon Way. Remember the vision I had at Erica’s apartment? She was holding a key and a note with directions to get to an address. The word Falcon was there."
    "Damn," he muttered, staring down at the address. He lifted his gaze to hers. "That key Erica had was to my mother’s beach house on Orcas Island, and those were the directions: right off the bridge, left on Falcon, pink flowers in the window box. Why didn’t I realize it before?"
    "Are you sure?"
    "Yes. And Erica flew to Seattle. From there she could have driven up to Anacortes and gotten the ferry to Orcas Island, where my mother used to take us every summer. That’s the beach you keep seeing in your visions."
    "But why would Erica go there?" Catherine questioned.
    "To meet someone -- my father, perhaps? To hide out? Who the hell knows? Maybe Blake went with her, and that’s where the three of them concocted this plan.
    This is the best clue we’ve had so far."
    "We’re not going to get breakfast, are we?"
    "On the way," he said, packing up his computer. "Grab your stuff. We have a long drive ahead of us. At least we’re narrowing down the list of enemies. The only person who knows about that house is my father."
    "And your mother," she couldn’t help adding. "Don’t forget about her."
    "You won’t let me," he said heavily. "But I can’t think about her right now. If she’s dead, then she’s dead. And if she’s not... well, we’ll have to see what happens."

Chapter Seventeen

    The trip to Seattle took fifteen long hours as they made their way over the northern California border, up through Oregon, and finally crossed into Washington State. They stopped to eat twice, filled up the gas tank three times, and learned the words to just about every song on the radio. Catherine drove for a couple of hours, but Dylan did most of the driving, his foot heavy on the gas, his eye on the mirror for any cops. They didn’t talk about the past, agreeing to put a moratorium on any more personal revelations until they got off the road. Instead they discussed politics and vacation spots, art, books, movies, music. Dylan was well-read, with opinions on just about everything.
    Catherine loved listening to him talk. She liked the enthusiasm he brought to topics he was interested in. He cared about a lot of things. He was involved in the world. He made her want to care, want to defend her positions. He pushed until she pushed back. And in the end she realized she’d shed the cocoon she’d hidden herself inside the past few years. Under Dylan’s warm but often challenging gaze she’d blossomed.
    She wouldn’t be the same person when this was over. And she was glad to say good-bye to the girl who’d been very good at hiding and not so good at living. Life was short. She knew that better than anyone. She had to get on with it. Maybe telling Dylan about her father was the first step in freeing herself from the ties of the past.
    She would have liked to have finished reading his grandmother’s journals, but the sight of them always seemed to annoy Dylan, and reading in the car tended to make her nauseous, so she decided to save the diaries for later. They had enough to consider as it was.
    They reached Seattle at two in the morning. Dylan checked them into another