Silent Fall

records, which they might do if she stays missing?"
    "Exactly why I should call. I can argue that why would I try to contact her if I knew she was dead?" As he’d expected, Erica’s voice mail picked up. He waited for the beep and then said, "Erica, it’s Dylan. Hope you’re all right. Call me back, would you? I’m very worried about you, and I want to know why you drugged me and left me in the woods."
    "You’re pretty clever," Catherine commented.
    "I’ve spent a fair amount of time on criminal cases the past year. I’ve picked up a few things. You seem to know a lot about the police as well, for a woman who lives a quiet life in a seaside town," he said pointedly, knowing there was far more to her past than she’d revealed.
    "It’s no secret that I grew up in foster care and on the streets. I’m not naive when it comes to law enforcement. Like you, I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years. What about Erica’s work? Her colleagues might know where she would stay if she wasn’t at home."
    "I’ll call them tomorrow. Her modeling agency won’t be open on a Sunday, and she hasn’t worked at the Metro Club since the Ravino case broke."
    "What about Erica’s friends?" Catherine asked as she got to her feet. "Do you know any of them?"
    "No."
    "Family?"
    "We talked mostly about Ravino."
    "When you talked," she said dryly.
    "I’m not going to try to pretty up my one-night stand, Catherine," he said bluntly. "It was what it was."
    "At least you’re honest about it," she said with a sigh. "Most men pretend they have deeper intentions when they don’t."
    "Are you speaking from experience?"
    "Perhaps."
    "You don’t seem the type to have had many casual affairs."
    "What type is that?" she asked.
    "The easy-come, easy-go kind of woman. Nothing is easy about you, as far as I can tell."
    "You don’t know me very well."
    She was right. He didn’t know her, but he wanted to. She was different from anyone he’d ever met, and he was a sucker for secrets. Finding the truth was the driving mantra of his life. He couldn’t walk past a mystery without trying to solve it, and Catherine was definitely a puzzle to him.
    "Actually," she added, interrupting his thoughts, "I think sex can be easy. It’s intimacy that’s much more difficult. You can give away your body, disconnect --   but your heart, your mind, that’s a whole different thing."
    "I wouldn’t have thought you’d want one without the other -- sex without love, love without intimacy. You have so much... You’re so..." He couldn’t find the right words to describe her.
    "I have so much what?" she asked, curious.
    "Passion. Intensity. Depth. You’re emotional. You’re sensitive."
    "That’s why intimacy is more difficult. It takes a lot out of me. It opens me up and makes me vulnerable," she confessed. "And the intensity I have... it scares people. No one really wants to see the future, not even when they think they do. You’ll be scared one day, too, and you’ll leave, and you’ll hope to God you never see me again."
    "You’ve already scared me, and I’m still here," he reminded her.
    "For the moment. It will get worse, especially when you start to believe in me, which you haven’t done yet."
    She was right. He still didn’t trust her sixth sense, so to speak, but he doubted that would ever happen. "Why are you trying to warn me away?"
    "Because you and I... we shouldn’t get involved." She paused, biting down on her bottom lip, her deep blue gaze fixed on his. "Even if we..."
    "Even if we what?" he asked, unsettled by the way she was looking at him now -- not like a psychic but like a woman, a woman who wanted him. His body hardened as his mind immediately stripped off her clothes. She would not appreciate that he was now imagining her naked, her beautiful breasts filling his hands. Or maybe she already knew what he was thinking. There was knowledge in her eyes, as well as desire.
    "Even if we have an attraction. I feel the pull between us," she said simply. "Don’t you?"
    "Uh, yeah, sure." He cleared his throat. "Are you saying you want to have sex with me?" His body began to sing with anticipation.
    She hesitated and then said, "Maybe I do. But not now." She turned quickly and headed toward the door.
    "Hey, where are you going? We’re in the middle of something, in case you hadn’t