Silent Fall

beginning to wonder why he’d ever liked working alone. "I’ll look in the hall closet. You might want to put a hat over that gorgeous hair of yours. It’s not exactly forgettable." He saw the glitter of surprise in her eyes. "You don’t know how beautiful you are, do you?"
    "I’m not... not beautiful," she said, stumbling over the words. "I have freckles and pale skin."
    "And beautiful breasts and gorgeous eyes and a very nice pair of hips." As he’d expected and hoped, a delicious flush spread across her cheeks. He wondered if the rest of her body would show such heat.
    "Stop that," she told him. "You are very bad, Dylan."
    "I’d like to be." He laughed at her expression, a mix of curiosity and dismay.
    "You’re good with the lines, aren’t you?"
    "I’m good with a lot of things."
    She rolled her eyes. "And quite full of yourself -- not your most attractive quality. I’m going to look for a disguise. We’ll need to find a big hat to fit that enormous head of yours." She got up from her chair and headed into the hallway. She was already rifling through the clothes when he got there.
    Dylan wasn’t surprised to see that his grandmother had kept not one but a half dozen of her deceased husband’s jackets, as well as some baseball caps and fishing hats. She’d always been a pack rat.
    Catherine handed him a tan fishing cap and a bulky brown corduroy jacket. She put on one of his grandmother’s black peacoats and covered her hair with a blue floral scarf.
    "Sexy," he said with a sarcastic grin, as her outfit added twenty pounds to her frame and twenty years to her age. "You’re going to look hot when you’re old."
    "Stop flirting with me, Gramps," she chided.
    He laughed, and for a moment the weight he’d been carrying for the past twenty-four hours eased. "At least with these outfits we’ll look right at home in my grandmother’s fifteen-year-old Ford Taurus."
    "Just don’t speed. It will ruin the illusion," she told him as they left the house.
    "Hey, when I’m old I still plan to be driving in the fast lane," he said as they got into the car. "I’m not going to let anything slow me down." Catherine gave him a thoughtful look. "What did I say now?" he asked, wishing he could read her mind as well as she seemed to read his.
    "I was just thinking how I slowed myself down years ago, and how I’ve been living like a hermit for way too long," she said.
    He was surprised by her revelation, and by the fact that she’d actually given him the opening to ask a personal question. "Why have you been doing that?"
    She shrugged. "I don’t know."
    "Yes, you do. Come on; tell me."
    "I guess I thought that if I hid myself away, the dreams wouldn’t be able to find me, but they always do. And I’m tired of living in the shadows, afraid to go into the light, afraid to be myself. I haven’t been in the fast lane for a very long time. I want to get back there, I think. Well, maybe not all the way to the fast lane, but the second to the slow lane would be a start," she amended.
    He smiled and impulsively leaned over and kissed her mouth. He was tempted to linger, to bring her fully awake, but he would need a lot more time to do it right. "I suppose you want to drive now," he said.
    "Would you let me?" she asked with a gleam in her eye. "Or would it kill you to be in the passenger seat?"
    "It would kill me, but for you I’d do it."
    This time Catherine leaned in and kissed him. "Thanks, but I don’t need to drive. I just need you to be willing to let me."
    "I’ll never understand the way women think."
    She laughed. "You don’t have to. Let’s go, old man. We’re not getting any younger."
    * * *
    Twenty minutes later Dylan parked down the street from Erica’s condo. The new development was in the trendy South of Market area, where a lot of young singles lived. As they left the car Dylan and Catherine strolled arm in arm down the block, as if they were an older couple out for an evening walk. As they passed Erica’s front door Catherine looked for any sign of police activity, but there was no yellow tape on the door, no police cruisers nearby, nor were there any lights on inside the condo.
    "What do you want to do?" Catherine asked.
    "That’s Joanna’s place," Dylan said, tipping his head toward the condo next to Erica’s.
    "How do you know that?"
    "Research. There’s a light