Silent Fall

in the past few days, Catherine had begun to feel caught up in a vacuum. Now she could breathe again, give her brain a rest, peruse gossip magazines and listen to the idle conversations of the people waiting in line to check out.
    A mother and her young son were in line in front of her. The boy was about four or five years old and was standing in the back of the shopping cart, holding on to the side with tiny, grubby hands. A colorful Band-Aid, decorated with red stars, crossed his forehead, and he was not happy about it. He kept putting his fingers to the Band-Aid. The mother smoothed the golden curls away in a loving, tender gesture. "Don’t touch," she said. "We want to keep your skin clean."
    Catherine’s heart sped up as another voice came into her head, another woman, another child....
    The little boy was crying, his knee scraped. The mother knelt down on the deck and placed the Band-Aid over his cut. Then she put her arms around the child and gave him a tight squeeze. Her yellow summer dress blew in the breeze. "It’s okay, Dylan. You’re all right. Mommy will make it better."
    Catherine rocked back on her heels as she realized she’d seen Dylan with his mother, the woman who’d left him so many years ago, who’d abandoned him to his abusive father, the woman Dylan thought hated him. But the woman in her vision had seemed soft and caring, tender and kind. Something was off about Dylan’s memories. Or maybe there was something Dylan didn’t know about his mother. Catherine sensed that what she’d seen was important in some way. It had been just a brief moment in time, but it meant something. She had to figure out what.
    Maybe she’d tapped into his mother because they’d been at his father’s house where so many of Dylan’s memories were stored. Or perhaps she was remembering because Dylan was remembering. But that didn’t seem likely. Dylan was intent on forgetting his past, not bringing it back.
    After checking out of the store she returned to the car to find Dylan on the phone. He hung up with a frown as she set her groceries on the backseat and then slipped behind the wheel.
    "Who were you talking to?" she asked.
    "Unfortunately, no one. That was the third no answer, no message machine that I called. I thought this phone was going to be more helpful, but so far I’ve spoken to a woman at a hair salon where Erica went, connected with her wireless company, and reached a pizza place."
    "It’s funny how those details make her seem less evil, more human, just like us. It’s really horrible, what happened to her."
    "Yeah," Dylan said in a clipped voice.
    "You’re not letting yourself feel it, are you?"
    He shot her an annoyed look. "What’s the point? If I waste time and energy feeling sorry for Erica, I may end up just like her."
    She knew he wasn’t as callous as he pretended to be. He cared. She’d seen it in his eyes last night when the reality of what had happened to Erica had become clear. But she could understand why he needed to keep his emotions under lock and key, at least for now. Perhaps if he let himself feel too much, he wouldn’t be able to go on the way he needed to go on.
    Dylan was far more used to compartmentalizing his feelings than she was. As a journalist he had to stay apart from the action. He had to keep a distance between the horror he was reporting and himself. That was what he was doing now. She, on the other hand, felt as if part of her had died the night before. And she felt a sharp edge of pain every time the last image she had of Erica played in her head. She hoped someday she would be able to forget it.
    "Erica made a lot of calls in the last two weeks," he said with a sigh.
    She started the car and drove out of the parking lot. "Any numbers look familiar?"
    "She called my news station three times last week."
    "Well, you said she’d tried to call you before she came to Tahoe, so that makes sense."
    "The odd thing is, I don’t remember getting any messages from her at work. She left messages on my cell and also my home phone but not at work."
    "She might not have wanted you to know how many times she was calling, and if you weren’t in she just hung up."
    "Yeah, you’re probably right."
    She heard the doubt in his voice. "What are you thinking, Dylan?"
    "I’m not sure. I just have a bad feeling. Shit. I’m starting to sound like you."
    "You should listen to your