Silent Fall

crazy, and Jake was better at following the rules than I was. My father used to say that if I weren’t such a stupid fool, he wouldn’t have to continually teach me a lesson."
    Catherine was sorry she’d asked, seeing the pain in Dylan’s eyes. She knew there was never a good reason for abuse, and most abusers justified their actions by claiming it was the victim’s fault. Obviously Richard Sanders had done just that. She shivered as Dylan’s father’s image flashed through her mind again. His features had become indelibly imprinted on her brain, and what she saw was a cold, hard, ruthless man.
    "You were right, Catherine. I shouldn’t have dismissed my father as a suspect so quickly. I sure would like to know who left me this CD," Dylan said. "Is this supposed to help me? To point me in my father’s or someone else’s direction?"
    She wished she could give him the answers he wanted, but she’d never felt more at a loss for words. Slowly she shook her head. "I don’t know, Dylan."
    He blew out a breath and threw back his shoulders. "Well, there’s only one thing to do." He ejected the disc and slipped it back into the case.
    She was almost afraid to ask. "What’s that?"
    "Talk to my father."
    * * *
    The tape of Ravino and his dad played around and around in Dylan’s head as he drove across town to his father’s house. He could see the two men hunched over the small table, deep in conversation, and then the way they’d both smiled up at Erica. His father had known Erica, too. Had he also had an affair with her? The thought made him sick to his stomach -- that he and his father might have slept with the same woman... He was tempted to pull over and throw up, the way Catherine had done the night before. But he didn’t have time to be sick. He needed to think. He had to figure out what was going on.
    The idea that his father could be involved in his current troubles was mind-blowing, although he had to admit that ever since he’d woken up in the Tahoe woods he’d had the feeling that this particular payback was very personal. His father had hated him forever. The question wasn’t really why would he do this, but why wouldn’t he? And if he knew Ravino and Erica... hell, the three of them could have been in on it together.
    But why had someone left him the video? And when had the meeting between his father and Ravino actually occurred -- before or after Ravino had killed his wife? He had so many questions. But at least now he had someone else to ask. His father was probably home on a Sunday, in the house Dylan had grown up in. It wasn’t where he would have chosen to have a meeting; just going into that house made Dylan feel like a vulnerable kid again. But he reminded himself that he was anything but that. And the only way to win was to take back control of the game.
    "You might want to slow down," Catherine suggested as he took a turn on what felt like two wheels. "The last thing we need is to get stopped by the cops for speeding."
    He eased his foot off the gas, wondering how his crazy, psychic partner had become the voice of reason, when he’d usually prided himself on acting on facts rather than emotion.
    "Do you know what you want to say to your dad?" Catherine asked.
    "I’m going to ask him if he’s setting me up."
    "That’s one way to go," she said dryly. "Or you could be more subtle. If you put your father on the defensive right away he won’t tell you anything. Why not go in with the question of how he knows Ravino -- or Erica? Tell him you saw a video of them together at the Metro Club. That might get him talking about Ravino."
    "It’s not a bad idea," he said somewhat grudgingly. "But you don’t know my father. No matter what I say to him, the conversation will go ballistic within thirty seconds. We’ve never been able to have a discussion that didn’t end in an argument." He glanced over at her. "With Ravino in jail, I knew we needed to link Erica to someone else. I sure as hell didn’t think it would be my father."
    "Or the link could be any one of the other dozen people who were in the room that night. The video lasted for several minutes," she continued. "Erica and Ravino talked to other people, including that man with the ring that looked familiar to you. Maybe your father wasn’t meant to be the focal point of that video."
    "Of course he was. Otherwise no one would have