Silent Fall

he’d kept it from her.
    Now she knew everything. The pieces had come together.
    There were no more secrets... well, perhaps just one. And soon, very soon, it would come out.
    Catherine blinked her eyes open, the female voice ringing through her head. It took her a moment to remember where she was. The motel room was dark, the only light coming from the digital clock by the bed. It was six o’clock in the morning. She’d made it past four forty-four, but still she’d dreamed.
    Who was the woman who felt so betrayed, so sad? Dylan’s mother? She’d seen her before in a beach setting. It had to be her. Why did the universe keep showing her Dylan’s mother? What was the point?
    She glanced over at Dylan, sleeping peacefully on his side. He looked so relaxed, so at ease, but she knew it wouldn’t last. When he woke up he would be faced with questions and decisions, and she doubted he had any more ideas than she did on how best to proceed. They needed a clue, a new lead.
    Sliding out of bed, she gathered her clothes and went into the bathroom. She took a quick shower, got dressed, and returned to the room. Dylan was still fast asleep. Taking a seat in the chair by the window, she pulled the curtain open just enough to let in some of the early morning light. Then she picked up the first of the two journals and began to read.
    The opening pages were all about Dylan’s birth, the joy his grandmother had felt upon meeting her second grandson. She wrote about how happy Richard and Olivia were with their small but growing family.
    The light grew brighter as Catherine read, absorbing the daily details of Dylan’s early life like a sponge.
    Reading about his family made her feel closer to him. She smiled when she discovered his first word had been no. That didn’t surprise her. Dylan had probably been born with a strong sense of his own opinion. He’d always known what he wanted, and he’d always gone after it, sometimes at the risk of infuriating his father, but that had all come later, obviously. Certainly there was no mention of any problems in the family in those first few years -- at least, none that his grandmother cared to chronicle.
    "What are you doing?"
    She looked up in surprise to see that Dylan was awake and looking decidedly sexy and grumpy with his shadowy beard and irritated scowl. "I’m just reading."
    "You can’t leave my past alone, can you?"
    "It won’t leave me alone." Closing the book, she got up and sat down next to him on the bed. "I think I dreamed about your mother again. The scene was the same, the background of the beach. Someone was building a sand castle. She felt an overwhelming sense of grief, loss, betrayal. Her family had been shattered."
    Dylan’s pulse pounded in his neck. "The family broke because of her, Catherine. She left. She didn’t stay and fight."
    "She wasn’t as strong as you are."
    Dylan dragged a hand through his hair. He let out a breath. "I wasn’t strong either. I didn’t leave my father. I didn’t run away. I stayed until he kicked me out. Maybe she had more guts to go. I don’t know anymore. And I don’t know why she’s in your head."
    "I think the answer must lie in the journal somewhere."
    He stared at her for a long moment, his scowl deepening. "Ravino’s not behind this, is he?"
    "I don’t feel any connection to him," she admitted. "But I’ve never met him, so perhaps that’s why."
    "You’ve never met my mother, yet she seems to come into your head on a regular basis. Why not Ravino?"
    "I can’t answer that."
    "Well, I can. Because he’s not the one. It’s my father," Dylan said with a resigned shrug. "It has to be him. This is his plan. Maybe he used Erica because he knew she was my source and that she could easily be bought. He’s the one who figured out I was at my grandmother’s house. And he didn’t kill me because he wasn’t ready to have me die yet. There’s something else he wants to do to me. Something else he wants me to know, perhaps."
    Catherine listened as Dylan unraveled the twisted threads in his head. She didn’t disagree with his assessment of what had happened so far, but she thought he was missing a critical piece; she just didn’t know what it was. When he finally wound down she said, "Are you hungry? I read in the hotel brochure that they have a free continental breakfast. I could go down and get