Silent Fall

not going to let you kill yourself either."
    "You think I’d rather go to prison for murder than die? You’re a fool. I’ve been trapped in this chair forever. I won’t roll it into a prison cell."
    "Julie, don’t," Dylan said one more time. "Think about what you’re doing."
    "It’s too late." Her hand tightened on the gun as she pressed it against her temple.
    "Oh, God," Catherine murmured.
    Dylan rushed across the room, grabbing for the gun before Julie could pull the trigger. For a moment she struggled, but he was too strong. He pulled the gun out of her hand and stepped back.
    "I hate you," Julie said, tears streaming down her face. "I hate you for being alive, and I hate you more for not letting me die."
    "I know you do." Dylan’s chest heaved with his ragged breath. "But you’re my sister. God, Julie, don’t you realize that? You’re my sister. We’re blood. And I won’t let you die for what they did. You need help, and I’m going to get it for you."
    Julie put her head in her hands, and her racking sobs rent the air as the hatred and grief of a lifetime rolled out of her. Dylan stared down at her as if he didn’t know what to do.
    Catherine crossed the room, and this time she pulled him into her arms, turning his face away from Julie. "It’s not your fault," she said, gazing directly into his eyes. "It’s never been your fault. Never. You didn’t do this to her."
    "No, but they did -- my mother and her father. They were both married. They had other families." He shook his head, his jaw tight, as if he were struggling with himself not to break down. "They ruined everything. They ruined her."
    "But they’re not going to ruin you," Catherine said.
    "It was all about our fathers and mothers," he murmured. "You, me, Julie -- we were victims of our birth."
    "We’re not victims anymore. It stops here, Dylan, right now," she said firmly. "It’s over. It’s all over."
    * * *
    Dylan stood at the rail of the ferry, watching the sun set over Orcas Island as it faded in the distance. It had been forty-eight hours since Julie had put a gun to her head, since his half sister had revealed the depth of her madness and the extent of their parents’ betrayal. He hadn’t slept for two nights, his mind grappling with the new history that had suddenly been written for him. And during the daylight hours he’d been too busy calling Mark and the various police departments in Washington, California, and Nevada to sort out the mess.
    Fortunately Julie had confessed everything to the local police, who had taken her into custody. He was temporarily off the hook. Julie, however, was on her way to the prison ward of a mental hospital. Eventually she would face murder charges for Erica’s death, and other assorted charges still to be determined.
    As for Catherine’s father, his body had washed ashore late last night. He was really dead. Catherine could finally let go of her fear. She was free now, and, Dylan supposed, in an odd way so was he.
    Catherine slid down the rail, touching her shoulder to his. Her beautiful hair glistened in the late-afternoon sunshine. "Are you ready to go home?"
    It was a simple question, but he didn’t have an answer. Where was home? Who was he?
    He wasn’t a Sanders anymore. Jake was only his half brother, not that that made a difference. Jake would always be an important part of his life. But it might not be the same. Dylan hoped it would, but who knew?
    Everyone else was dead, both literally and figuratively. His real parents were gone. He still had to come to grips with the fact that he would never ever know them. He doubted he would ever know Julie either. According to a local psychiatrist, she’d had a psychotic breakdown and had retreated into her head. It was possible she might never come out of it. Apparently her mother’s mental illness had been well-known on the island, and the woman had spent years on antidepressants before the episode that had driven her off the edge of sanity and filled her with a desire to kill herself and her children to punish her husband -- his real father, Thomas Bristow.
    He’d read through some of the letters his parents had written to each other back in the days of their affair, and he knew there had been real love between them. It was small compensation, but it was something.
    And the man Dylan had called his father was not going to be in his life