Silent Fall (17 page)

"Between the seats. It fell out of her purse when she reached for your keys."

He took a breath but didn't bother to ask her how she knew. He jogged back to Erica's car, and she watched him reach between the seats, finally pulling out a hot-pink metallic phone. He was already reading through the numbers when he returned to the car. "Anything else?" he said.

"Nothing that will help you, I don't think. You already know that Erica was in your apartment, and that someone came in after her. She went out the window in your bedroom and ran toward the Palace of Fine Arts."

"You're channeling her again, even though she's dead? Do you think there's a chance that the woman in the park is not her?" Dylan asked.

She immediately cut him off with a wave of her hand, seeing the hopeful glint in his eyes fade. "No, I'm sorry."

"Then where did the vision come from?"

"It was her car. I was watching you, and when you touched the door I suddenly saw her and all the rest."

Dylan sat down in the seat and pulled the door shut, then stared at the cell phone in his hand. "I don't recognize any of these numbers, but I certainly don't mind spending the afternoon calling them. Erica must have had some contact with whoever used her to get to me. That person has to be on this phone. We're getting close, Catherine. I can feel it."

"I hope so. But I don't think we should hang around here."

"I agree. Looks like you finally got the driver's seat. Go down to the corner and turn left. I'll direct you back to my grandmother's house from there."

"Do you think we'll still be safe there?"

He turned on the car radio, flipping through the channels until he got to the news. "As long as we don't hear my name I think we're still okay—for a few hours, anyway."

Catherine shivered as a chill ran through her. She had the distinct feeling they weren't going to have that long.

Chapter 13

Catherine's tension eased as she drove away from Dy-lan's apartment. Leaving Erica's Jetta behind seemed to break the link between them. Her mind felt light again, yet she couldn't deny a lingering sadness. Her visions had taken her into Erica's head. She had experienced the same fear, the same desperation, and Erica was now dead. She'd lost her battle, and there wasn't a damn thing Catherine could do about it. Erica might have made some huge mistakes, but she certainly hadn't deserved to die.

And it wasn't over. There was still a fight to win, Catherine reminded herself. That was what she had to focus on now. She couldn't do anything to save Erica, but she could help Dylan, and hopefully together they would find Erica's killer and make sure he paid for what he'd done. Erica would have justice, even if she wasn't completely innocent.

Having glimpsed Erica's thoughts, Catherine knew the woman had been conflicted about what she was doing. Not that that justified her actions, but Erica had obviously felt some pressure to set Dylan up; she'd had some reason to participate, and Catherine suspected that whoever had coerced or invited Erica to participate had known exactly how to manipulate her. That person was very, very clever. She and Dylan were going to have to be smarter.

They had almost reached Dylan's grandmother's house when Catherine spotted a supermarket with a deli. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of food, and she decided to make a quick stop. It was already after one o'clock, and they would need some fuel to keep them going. Dylan looked up from the cell phone when she pulled into the parking lot.

"Groceries," she said simply.

"Want me to go with you?"

"I think I can make it on my own, and your face is the one we're most worried about being seen," she replied.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. We might see a photo of both of us on the evening news."

She paused, her hand on the door. "The only photo they'd have of me is the one on my driver's license. That's a scary thought."

"Don't flash your license or a credit card in the store. Do you need cash?"

"I have enough. I'll be right back."

It felt surprisingly normal to walk into the market, to be around people who were completing their average, everyday Sunday chores. So much had happened 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 Dy-lan'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," Dylan said with a sigh.

Catherine 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."

Catherine 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 feelings," she said, ignoring the jab. "If she didn't call you at the station, who else would she have called?"

"I can't think of anyone." He paused. "Maybe . . .

God, I wonder if Blake Howard is a member of the Metro Club. It would be just like him to belong to an exclusive men's club where he could network with the rich and powerful. If that's true, and he knows Erica—"

"Then he's another connecting link between Erica and all the players we've named so far," Catherine said, with a rush of new excitement. "That would certainly point away from your father. How do we find out if Blake is a member?"

"I'll call his assistant, Rita. She'll know. Even if he is a member, it's a long shot he's behind this. Blake doesn't have that much of a reason to hate me; nor, as I said before, is he that smart."

"Sometimes people play dumb on purpose. It lets them slide under the radar."

"Possibly. I know he's ambitious, and he's also rich. He has some family money backing him. I can't recall him reacting in any particular way to my story on Ravino, although I never asked for his opinion. If he is a Metro Club member, then he probably knew the senator, too, or hoped to." Dylan paused. "You have a good sense of direction. My grandmother's house is on the next block."

"I know. I paid attention when we left."

"You'd make a good reporter, Catherine."

She let out a small laugh. "No way. I could never objectively report the news. I'd get too involved and probably be really depressed most of the time."

"You build up a thick skin over the years. Well, maybe not you," he admitted.

"Thanks."

"It's not an insult."

"Really? I can't imagine that you like emotional women."

"I don't like women who are drama, drama, drama. But that's not you. You're just . . . complicated."

"I'll give you that," she said, as she parked the car in front of his grandmother's house. "And I'll take complicated over crazy any day of the week."

As she stepped out of the car Catherine realized that the neighborhood had come to life since they'd left earlier that morning. Down the street a man watered plants in front of his house. Across the block two kids were playing catch. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, the fog lingering on the edge of the horizon but still several hours away from blowing in off the ocean and covering the city.

She followed Dylan up to the house, keeping an eye out for anything unusual, but everything appeared normal. It was doubtful anyone knew where they were, but sooner or later the news about Erica would come out. And certainly Dylan would be a person of interest, if not an outright suspect.

"Do you think you should call your lawyer again?" she asked as they entered the house.

"Mark said he'd e-mail me with news, so I'll check my computer in a minute."

Catherine set the bags of food on the kitchen counter and began unpacking the deli sandwiches she'd picked up. She'd also gotten a rotisserie chicken and some salad makings for dinner. The fewer times they had to leave the house the better.

"Wow," Dylan said as she handed him his turkey-and-ham combo with all the fixings. "I was expecting eggplant with tomatoes on some type of whole-grain bread."

"That's mine," she said with a smile. "How did you guess?"

"I must be picking up on some of your psychic powers."

"That must be it. Speaking of which . . ." She sat down at the table, not sure she wanted to bring up her latest vision, but then again, it could be important, and she might not be able to understand the significance without Dylan.

He set down his sandwich and gave her a wary look. "Why do I get the feeling I'm about to lose my appetite?"

"I was standing in line at the supermarket and there was this mom and her kid in front of me, and the little boy had a Band-Aid on his forehead. I suddenly flashed on another scene. I think it was you and your mother. You had fallen and scraped your knee. She said, 'Don't worry, Dylan. Mommy will make it better.' "

Dylan didn't blink for a long moment, and then he sat back in his chair with a definite shake of his head. "That couldn't have been my mother. She didn't do anything to make my life better."

"You were small, maybe five or six," Catherine said, seeing the echo of pain in his eyes. "I think you were on a deck. It was summer. There was a breeze."

"God." He breathed out. He rested his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands.

She didn't say anything, giving him a moment to regroup. Finally he lifted his head and gazed back at her. "I fell on the pier near our beach house. She put a Band-Aid on my knee. I can't believe I remember that now." He took a breath. "Why would you see that? It doesn't have anything to do with Erica or her killer."

"It has to do with you. Maybe I saw it because we were just in your father's house. Perhaps I was picking up on the vibes there, the lingering ties to your mother, your desire to find out what happened to her."

"My mother hasn't been in that house in twenty-three years."

"But she lived there once, and she's tied to you and to your father. She's also tied to this house. Her photo is upstairs."

"How is your vision supposed to help me?" he challenged. "And you know, it's not like you couldn't have made it up. Every kid skins his knee. Every mother puts on Band-Aids."

She didn't waver in the face of his accusation. He was rattled by his memory, and he'd rather attack her than face what her vision might mean to him. "You remember the incident I described," she said quietly. "And you know somewhere in that thick, stubborn brain of yours that I didn't make it up. We are way past that."

He looked away from her gaze, staring down at his sandwich. After a moment he said, "Even if it was true, so what? Even if she was kind to me back then, even if she cared for a minute, it means nothing to me now. So why should I care about that one moment in time?"

"There had to be other moments, Dylan."

"A few," he conceded. "I got sick after we came back from the beach. I remember being in the hospital for a long time. But eventually I got better, and the next thing I knew she was gone."

"You were in the hospital?" Catherine queried. "You never mentioned that before."

"It's not important. I survived."

"What was wrong with you?"

"I don't remember, some kind of virus or infection. It never came back. I still don't see how your vision is supposed to help me."

"I didn't say it would help you. I just wanted to be up front about it." She knew that Dylan wanted a specific reason for why she'd gotten that brief glimpse into his childhood, but she couldn't give him that. She didn't know herself. "For some reason it's important that you remember her."

"I don't want to remember her," he said, jerking to his feet. "Don't you get it, Catherine? I've spent most of my life trying to forget her. The last thing I want to do is bring her back." He strode toward the door.

"Where are you going? Don't you want to eat?"

"I'm not hungry anymore. I'm going to check my e-mail and review the Metro Club video on my computer." He paused in the doorway. "The past isn't what's important, Catherine. It's the present and the fu-ture—the future I do not want to spend in jail. Why don't you concentrate on that for a while and stop trying to piece together my broken family?"

She didn't bother to argue, even though she knew that he was dead wrong. He wouldn't be able to figure out his present or his future until he'd come to terms with his past.