Silent Fall

daughter."
    " Her daughter. Her demon child."
    "I have your blood, too."
    His fingers tightened around the gun. "This isn’t about the past. You’re just a job I have to finish."
    "This is what you do? You kill people? Did it get easier after you killed her?"
    "It was always easy."
    Suddenly it made sense. The murders she’d seen in her dreams had been tied to her father. He’d been killing people for the past twenty-four years, people she couldn’t save. And now she might not be able to save herself. He was going to win again. She couldn’t let him. She had to find a way out.
    "I’m good at it," he said. "Everyone dies sometime. I just make it happen sooner."
    "Who told you to kill me? Did you know it was me?"
    "Actually, I didn’t. Not that it matters. But life is funny sometimes."
    "You think this is funny?" She shook her head in disbelief. "I know you weren’t always like this. You had to have been human sometime. People told me when I was a little girl that it was the drugs that changed you, that you weren’t born evil, that somewhere inside was a decent person."
    He laughed. "They told you a fairy tale."
    She saw the wild light in his eyes and knew that it hadn’t all been a fairy tale. "You’re high now, aren’t you? You feed on the drugs and then you kill and then you get more money to buy more drugs. It’s a never-ending circle."
    "Pleasure after pleasure," he said, his voice silky. "It’s a hell of a way to live, baby girl."
    "Don’t call me that. Don’t stand there and say you’re going to kill me and then call me your baby."
    "You have a lot to say for someone who’s going to die."
    "Someday someone will catch you. They’ll make you pay," she told him, her anger driving her on. She couldn’t think about whether or not she was saying the right thing. She just had to say what she felt.
    "No one ever catches me. I’m invincible."
    Looking at his face she could see that he believed everything he said. He was the god of his own mind, the ruler of his own world. And she knew without a doubt that, daughter or no daughter, he would take her life. She hated to plead, but she wanted to live more than she wanted to save her pride. "You could let me go. You should let me go," she amended. "I’m your child. You owe me that much. You took my mother away. I grew up alone, without anyone."
    "You were better off without her."
    "When will it stop? You’re not a young man anymore. You’re... old," she said, noting the gray in his hair, the sag in his cheeks, the lines around his eyes. The monster was suddenly beginning to look more human.
    His hand shook ever so slightly. "I can still take you out."
    Catherine held her breath, her gaze fixed on his finger and the trigger. She could be dead in another second, or --  
    She didn’t have time to finish the thought. A large rock hit her father square on the back of the head. He fell to his knees, the gun hitting the deck with a clatter. She reached for the weapon as Dylan came storming down the pier like a linebacker intent on making the hit of his life. Her father had barely gotten to his feet, blood streaming off the back of his head, when Dylan barreled into his midsection. The force of the tackle took them both to the edge of the pier.
    Her father took a swing at Dylan’s face, connecting with his nose.
    More blood.
    Dylan punched back with a roar of fury.
    The two men grappled with each other as they skidded off the deck.
    Catherine screamed in terror as they lost their footing and went into the water. She ran to the edge, gun in hand. If she could just get a clear shot she would take it.
    Wouldn’t she?
    Doubt flashed through her head. Could she kill her own father?
    For Dylan... for her mother... for all the people her father had ever hurt. She could do it, and she would.
    But she couldn’t risk hitting Dylan. The men were fighting, fists flying, the water swirling around them, as they each tried to push the other under the water. The waves from their struggle sprayed her face with a fine mist. She wiped her eyes just as they disappeared under the dock. Then she heard a couple of heavy thuds.
    Kneeling down, she searched the water, her gut clenching as blood turned the white edges of the waves red. She could no longer hear their battle. It was quiet, very, very quiet.
    "Dylan!" she screamed.
    He didn’t answer. No one did.

Chapter Twenty

    For long,