Silent Fall

eyes as she realized what was happening. I wrapped my hands around the door handle, but the current was too strong. It pulled me away. Eventually I washed up on the shore, my back broken. I was alive, but they were dead. And I would never walk again. Because of you."
    Dylan swallowed hard, his face pale. "Julie --"
    She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "My father lied to me when I was in the hospital. He told me that I’d imagined my mother’s ranting words, that she hadn’t tried to kill me, that he hadn’t had an affair, that none of it was true. I wanted to believe him. My mother and sister were dead. He was all I had left. But he lied. And last year when he died I found out that he’d bought the house across the street, that he’d wanted to have it because it was where she was happy. I read the truth in the letters your mother had written to him, letters that he couldn’t give away because she was the love of his life. I finally realized what had triggered my mother’s breakdown. It was you."
    "What do you mean?"
    "You were sick. You were in the hospital. You needed blood. Your mother kept calling my father because you both had some rare blood type. My father had to tell my mother that he’d betrayed her in order to save you. You’re the reason my family broke apart and she tried to kill me. You’re the reason I ended up like this. My father saved you, but he didn’t save me."
    "God, Julie -- please. Think. I was a little kid, too," Dylan cried. "I was born. I didn’t choose my parents."
    "But they always chose you," she said dully. "Over and over again. I knew I had to find you, meet you, make you pay. So I hired a private investigator to track you down. I got a job at the station. I thought for a few days you might recognize me from the past, but you barely glanced at me. You were set on making yourself a superstar. I couldn’t stand that your life was so good. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair."
    Dylan licked his lips. He darted a quick, pleading look at Catherine, but she didn’t know how to help him. And she feared that if she got in the middle it would make things worse.
    He turned back to Julie. "What about my mother? Do you know what happened to her? Do you know how she died?"
    Julie shrugged. "My mother killed her, too. She took her out on the boat one day. She told her she wanted to make peace, be friends again. They were friends, you know, all of them. Then she pushed her off the boat and left her in the middle of the sound. Two days later she drove us off the cliff. It was her final act. She wanted to take everyone my father loved away from him. That was his punishment. And mine."
    Julie’s words came with a sense of finality, as if she had said everything she intended to say. Catherine started, realizing a split second too late where this was headed.
    "Stop!" Julie pulled a gun out from under the blanket on her lap and aimed it at Catherine. "Don’t take another step."
    "She’s not the one you want to kill," Dylan said. "I am."
    "But you’d suffer more if you watched her die. You like her; I can tell. I saw the way you looked at her when she came to the office. No one has ever liked me. Who would? I’m in a wheelchair."
    Catherine heard the pain as well as the madness in Julie’s voice. She knew nothing she could say would change any of it, and she suspected that Julie wanted to hear only from Dylan.
    "I won’t let you kill her, Julie. I won’t let you kill either of us," Dylan said firmly. "I’m fast. I can get to you before you pull the trigger. In two seconds I’ll have that gun out of your hand."
    Julie stared back at him, weighing his words.
    Catherine wasn’t sure that Dylan could do what he’d said, but she could see that Julie was wavering. And that was all that mattered.
    "You’re right. You’d win," Julie said. "You always win. You’re the golden boy and I’m just the cripple." Slowly she turned the gun toward her own head.
    Dylan took a step forward. Catherine put a hand on his arm, afraid that it was a trick, that Julie could just as easily turn the gun back and shoot one of them.
    "I’m tired of fighting you," Julie continued. "I’m tired of fighting the world. It’s been a long struggle to survive. I should have died when I was meant to die. That would have been easier."
    "No," Dylan said with a definitive shake of his head. "I’m