Silent Fall

reading about her childhood, her family, first love, that sort of thing. I was just getting to the part where you were born when I found these last two books, but I couldn’t get them open, and then the window blew, and you know the rest."
    Dylan swallowed back a sudden knot of discomfort in his throat. He didn’t want to know what his grandmother had written.
    "Maybe the journals will give us some insight into your father," Catherine added. "You might find out what your grandmother really thought about your father."
    "That he was a prince, no doubt," Dylan said cynically. "She didn’t see him as an abusive bully, that’s for sure."
    "But she did see him as spoiled. She wrote at great length about how saddened she was by the miscarriages she suffered between her daughter Eleanor’s birth and your father’s birth, and how much she wanted a son. She said that when Richard was born, she couldn’t stop herself from spoiling him rotten. She knew it was wrong, but she wanted to give him the world. The older he got, the more he took. She worried when your parents married. She wasn’t sure if your mother would be strong enough to handle him." Catherine drew in a breath. "After reading it all, I wonder why your father picked your mother. They were so different. He was an ambitious businessman eager to rise to the top. She was a kindergarten teacher with ordinary parents. What made them want each other?"
    "Hell if I know." Dylan put up a hand as Catherine opened her mouth again. He felt a desperate need to stop her from saying another word. "I don’t want to hear any more, Catherine."
    "Dylan, I know you don’t think the past is important, but --"
    "But nothing," he said, cutting her off. "It’s my past, and I get to decide what I want to know. Just let me drive. I can’t do this right now." He wasn’t sure he could ever do it, but he certainly needed to be in a place where he could get away if he had to. Odd that he should think of it that way, as if the past could still hurt him. It was over and done. Wasn’t it?
    He didn’t pretend to have Catherine’s psychic abilities, but his own instincts were telling him that he couldn’t ignore the fact that Catherine kept bringing his parents back into the present. It had to be because of his father’s association with Erica. Dylan just couldn’t figure out how his mother entered into it. Maybe it was that Catherine’s senses enveloped everything and didn’t filter out what wasn’t necessary.
    He rolled his neck around on his shoulders, hearing the crack of each joint. Everything in his life was a big question mark. Two days ago he would have said he had all the answers. Now he had none. But he did know one thing for sure.
    "They made a mistake tonight," he said. "If they wanted us dead they should have done it, because I won’t give anyone another chance to kill you or me."
    Catherine didn’t reply. He didn’t know if she believed him or not. And despite his confident words, he had no idea how he was going to back them up.
    ***
    Catherine’s face was as cold as ice. Her teeth had started to chatter with the ever-present wind blasting through the broken window next to her. She pulled her sweater up over her mouth, but she could still feel the sting of the night air against her cheeks. Her eyes were watering, so she closed them, trying to relax, to find some peaceful place to escape to in her mind, not that her mind had ever given her much peace.
    She should be feeling more relaxed by now. They were a hundred miles away from the city, deep into wine country. The police wouldn’t be able to find them; nor would the man who was after them. He had to have given up by now. It was only logical to think they were safe for the moment. Unfortunately her instincts always beat down logic, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that trouble wasn’t far behind.
    She wanted to believe that Dylan would protect her. She knew he would try. If it came down to it he’d put himself before her. He was that kind of man: unselfish, courageous. She’d never met anyone like him. She just wished Dylan could see himself for what he was now. In his head he still saw the cowardly child who couldn’t escape the bully, the one who did everything wrong and nothing right, the one who felt isolated, lost, and helpless. All the bad things he’d ever heard about himself probably played over