Silent Fall

by Barbara Freethy

  "It means that for a moment I felt as if I were Erica, and I could see the shadow of a man watching me. I felt her fear, her surprise, her desire to flee. But then a second later I felt as if I were outside, hiding behind that tree across from the cabin, and I was waiting for my chance to get her." Catherine's voice broke off, and she pulled away from him. "I just want to go home. I can't help you. I'm sorry. It's too hard."

  "You're not afraid of something being hard," he told her.

  "You don't know anything about me."

  "I know that two months ago, when Jake and Sarah were in danger, you were brave enough to knock down a man with a baseball bat. You showed more than a little courage in a difficult situation. I was very impressed." To this day he wondered if they would all still be alive if Catherine hadn't been willing to put her life on the line the way she had.

  "That was different. I knew what was real and what wasn't—who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. I acted on instinct. But I can't help you if you don't believe me, and I can see in your eyes that you don't. You think I'm conning you or something."

  "I'm a logical person. I believe in what I can see."

  "Sometimes you have to have faith."

  "I lost my faith a long time ago."

  "You don't believe in anyone or anything?"

  "I trust my brother, Jake, because he's never let me down. He's the only one. And I've certainly never had any experience with the supernatural, so forgive me if it all sounds a little bizarre."

  "I understand. You're not the first person to judge me. And I doubt you'll be the last. To be honest, I don't always understand the visions either. So I should just go home and leave you to get on with things. You can do this on your own."

  "You're not the kind of woman to run away, Catherine." He didn't know why he felt such a need to keep her with him, but all of his instincts were screaming at him to hang on to her.

  "I've been running away my whole life. You have no idea how good I am at it." She met his gaze head-on, and he saw nothing but truth in her eyes.

  "Then it's time to stop running." He shifted his feet, searching for the right words. "Dammit, Catherine, you're the one who started this with your prediction about Erica coming into my life. Two women, you said: One is danger; one is salvation. If Erica is danger, then you have to be salvation. You're the only one here who fits the bill."

  "You're used to getting your way, aren't you? Don't bother to answer. That was a rhetorical question. I'll say one thing: You're persuasive, and very good at arguing all sides of a discussion."

  "So, have I convinced you to stay?"

  "For the moment. Then we'll see." She gave him a small smile. "What you don't realize is that by asking me to stick around, you're putting yourself directly in my line of vision, so if you have any secrets don't expect to keep them."

  Her words made him uneasy, but he told himself to get over it, because if he didn't believe in her visions then he had nothing to fear. She might be a little more perceptive than most people, but he'd learned a long time ago how to hide what he was thinking or feeling. He could keep her out of his head, and he would keep her out, because there was a part of him he couldn't let anyone see.

  "So what's next?" Catherine asked.

  He was relieved by the question. They were getting back to business, what he did best. "I need to check out my room in the lodge, see if Erica left me any surprises there."

  Upon entering the building, Dylan felt like a marked man. The man and woman working the reception desk both gave him long, wary stares. And when he requested another room key, the woman looked very much as if she wanted to say no, but in the end she just handed him a key and asked him to be sure to check out by eleven o'clock.

  "I'd like to stay another night," he said.

  "I'm sorry, but your room is booked for today," the woman replied. "You'll have to collect your belongings and check out."

  Dylan could see the firm resolve in her eyes. Management obviously wanted him out of there as soon as possible. He couldn't blame them. Having a possible murderer or assault suspect staying in the hotel was bad for business.

  "I'll go up and pack." He paused. "Has there been any new information on the missing woman? Did the sheriff search the woods?"

  The woman hesitated, then shook her head. "I know some people have been looking, but I don't think they found anything."

  "That's too bad," he muttered. "Thanks."

  "No problem. I hope everything was satisfactory for your stay."

  "It was just dandy," Dylan drawled as he walked away. "Apparently I'm presumed guilty until I'm proven innocent," he said to Catherine as they headed across the lobby and got in the elevator. "Management definitely doesn't want me hanging around."

  "But the sheriff does. Where will you stay?" She groaned at his pointed smile. "Not with me."

  "Hopefully it won't be for long. Once things are cleared up I'll return to San Francisco, and you'll get back to your life."

  "What if things aren't settled before tonight?"

  "How do you feel about having a roommate?"

  "Not thrilled. My room has only one bed, so you'll be sleeping on the floor," she warned.

  "If you insist." He grinned as her cheeks flushed. She certainly wore her emotions on her face. He wondered what had gotten her so worked up now. He knew he should leave it alone, but he couldn't help himself. He liked seeing her rattled. He didn't appreciate being the only one off balance. "Is it me you don't trust, Catherine? Or yourself?"

  "What? You think I can't resist you?" she asked.

  "It's a question."

  "A stupid question," she snapped. "Maybe if you weren't always thinking about sex, you wouldn't be in this mess. Did you ever consider that? If you hadn't slept with Erica and avoided her calls, she might not have been inclined to help anyone set you up for murder."

  "I told you before, she didn't do this because I didn't call her back. She wasn't in love with me. We weren't having a relationship. We were both on the same page."

  "Or so you thought. Never underestimate the fury of a woman scorned. When you tell a woman you're going to call her, you should call her."

  "Just for the record, I didn't tell her I would call her." He followed her off the elevator. "I don't make promises I can't keep." He paused. "It sounds like you're speaking from personal experience. Have you missed a few calls over the years?"

  "Men can be pigs sometimes."

  He smiled at her bluntness. He liked the way Catherine didn't mince words. "Don't tell me you've waited for the phone to ring?" He suspected she had too much pride for that.

  "When I was young and stupid," she admitted. "But not anymore."

  "You don't have a high opinion of men, do you?"

  "Not the ones who have been in my life. I've never met one yet who would stick around when things got tough."

  "Maybe you haven't met the right man."

  "Are you suggesting that would be you?"

  "No," he said quickly, although he had to admit he'd always liked a challenge, and he'd love to prove Catherine wrong. If he wanted to stick, he could. At least, he thought he could. Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He didn't know if he had it in him to stay with anyone. Because it wasn't just the staying part that bothered him; it was all the rest of it—the emotional investment, the intimacy, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, the constant pressure, the incessant need to make someone happy. Shit! Who wanted that?

  Shaking the distracting thoughts from his mind, he slipped his key card into the lock and opened the door. His room was not at all as he'd left it, which had been neat and in order. He'd arrived at the hotel the day before only an hour before the wedding ceremony and had used the room simply to change his clothes.

  So who had messed up his bed, tossing around the covers, the blankets, and the pillows? Who had moved his computer out of its case and onto the desk? Who had unzipped his overnight bag and strewn his clothes on the floor? Someone had been in his room. Why? To search
for something or to plant evidence?

  "So, are you normally a slob?" Catherine asked.

  "I didn't leave the room like this. Someone was in here."

  "It appears that way," she agreed. "What were they looking for? Or do you think it was the police who came in here?"

  "Doubtful. It would take some time to get a search warrant, and the hotel clerk certainly didn't mention it." Although he did wonder if the hotel had the authority to let the sheriff in without a warrant. That might be possible, since they were the legal owners of the property. "At any rate, the only thing someone might want would be my computer, and it's still here. I'll have to go through my files, see if anything was opened."

  "Maybe we should call hotel security and make a report."

  Dylan considered her suggestion but quickly dismissed it. The last thing he needed at the moment was to deal with more questions. He wanted to get a handle on what was happening first.

  "Nothing was taken, so it would be difficult prove a crime was committed and would probably just focus more attention on me," he replied.

  He repacked his overnight bag, slipped his computer back into its leather travel case, and surveyed the room one last time. Just to be extra careful, he opened all the drawers and the closet and even glanced under the bed, hoping not to find anything of Erica's in the room. Once he checked out, the room would certainly be searched. Of course, what he couldn't see were possible fingerprints. "If Erica came in here and touched things, her prints could be all over and would certainly hurt my alibi."

  "Just because she was here wouldn't prove you were. And the fact that you got a new key from the manager supports the idea that your key was taken."

  "I agree, but I can see how the sheriff might be able to build a circumstantial case against me. Everything that happened last night was plotted out beforehand. Someone took a lot of time and forethought to set me up."

  "Maybe we should wipe down the tables and the doorknobs and other surfaces," Catherine said, striding into the bathroom. She grabbed two towels off the rack and tossed one to him as she reentered the room. "At least we can make sure they don't find her prints here."

  Dylan nodded. "Good thinking. Have you done this sort of thing before?"

  "Maybe," she said, giving him a cryptic smile. "But that's not important now, is it?"

  "You're a very interesting woman. I like a good mystery, you know."

  "Then you must be loving your life right now."

  "I like a good mystery when it doesn't involve me," he amended. "I'd rather be the detective than the victim or the villain."

  They worked quickly, wiping off all the furniture and doorknobs; then Dylan tossed the towels in the tub and doused them with water—for what reason he didn't know, except that it seemed like a good finishing touch. When he returned to the room he picked up the phone by the bed and punched the number for the front desk. "I'm checking out of room three oh four," he said when the clerk answered. "I'll leave the key in the room." He gave one last look around as he hung up the phone, remembering the one item he had not located. "Erica must have taken my car keys, unless I lost them in the woods. But I did see my car in the lot when we pulled in, so she didn't take it."

  "How will you get home?"

  "I'll figure that out later. I guess I'm good to go."

  "My room is just down the hall," Catherine said as she opened the door.

  Catherine's room was set up the same as his, but her bed was made and everything was in order. Obviously the maid had been in. As Dylan set his bags down on the bed, his gaze caught on the painting displayed on the easel. It was an abstract slash of dark colors that collided with one another in an angry, sinister manner. He'd seen other such paintings at Catherine's beach house and had been struck before by their intensity and passion.

  Catherine immediately moved in front of the picture. "Don't look," she said, holding up a hand. "I meant to put it away, but it was still wet when I went downstairs."

  "You know that makes it impossible for me not to look," he told her. "Besides, I saw the gruesome pictures at your house. I know you have a dark side."

  He walked around her to stare at the painting. "When did you do this?"

  "Last night. When I wake up from a nightmare I have to paint," she said with a sigh. "It's ugly, isn't it?"

  "Definitely not my taste. What did you dream about?"

  She shook her head. "I don't remember. I never remember. Sometimes just for a second I hear screams in my head, and then that's it. I wake up feeling a terrifying panic."

  "Are the screams female?"

  A flicker of doubt sparked in her eyes. "I think so. I never thought about it. But, yes, I believe they're female screams."

  "Are you sure last night's screams weren't real? If something happened to Erica you might have heard her cry out. Her cabin isn't that far away."

  "I'm certain it wasn't Erica I heard. The screams were in my head, along with . . ." She stopped talking. "Along with a lot of other crap, nothing that concerns you."

  "I'm not so sure about that." He looked back at the picture. Tilting his head, he considered the lines that seemed to stand out, depending on the angle and the light. "It's a face, isn't it?"

  "I don't want to talk about it or analyze it," she said quickly.

  "Tough, I do. Answer the question."

  Catherine frowned, obviously annoyed by the order, but after a moment she said, "I think it's a face, but I'm surprised you can see it."

  "Who is it?"

  "I don't know."

  "I think you do." He gave the portrait several more minutes of consideration, feeling something tickling the back of his brain, some tiny detail that he recognized but couldn't quite figure out. And then it hit him— what appeared to be a tiny gold cross in the center of the chaos of colors. "Erica wore a cross on a necklace," he said, pointing to the tiny gold lines. "I remember thinking that it was an odd choice for a woman who didn't seem to be the religious type." He gazed at Catherine and saw the answer in her eyes. "This is Erica, isn't it?"

  "It could be, I guess."

  His pulse began to race. "You're not guessing at all. You know it's her."

  "I think it is," she admitted. "But usually I don't recognize the faces that I paint. They're strangers. They're not people I think I've ever seen, or if I saw them I didn't notice them. But they all feel like they're calling out to me. As if they're afraid and I'm the only one who can save them. But how can I save them when I don't know who they are?"

  He heard the despair in her voice, and even though he didn't completely understand what she was saying, he could see that she was very disturbed by the fact that she couldn't seem to make her visions or her dreams work to help anyone. "This might be your breakthrough. If it's Erica, then you can help her."

  "I don't know."

  "Don't doubt yourself."

  "I can't help it. I've been living with these nightmares for a long time. I don't want to be this way, you know. All my life I just wanted to be normal. But that's not going to happen. So most of the time I try not to look too closely at anything."

  "And does that work for you?"

  She made a face at him. "Obviously not. Well, let me rephrase that. It works in the daylight, but at night, when my subconscious takes over, I have no control. I'm just along for the ride."

  "That must make for some exciting nights."

  "That I don't remember in the morning. All I'm left with is another gruesome picture."

  "No one is completely normal, Catherine. Everyone is a little crazy. Trust me; I know. I've covered a lot of crazies in my life. On the scale of nutty, you're not so bad."

  "You're just trying to make me feel better."

  "I'm trying to make you see that just because you paint your nightmares doesn't mean that you're out of your mind."

  "The only difference is that I think my nightmares might be real . . . actually happening in the world. It's difficult to explain, but sometimes I feel like I'm inside the head of someon
e who is really . . . evil. It scares the hell out of me. For a long time I was afraid that I was sleepwalking, that I was leaving the house and killing people in my dreams. When I was younger I even set up barricades so I could make sure in the morning that I hadn't left."

  "And you hadn't," he said, sure that she didn't have a mean bone in her body.

  "No, but I still felt like a witness to something I couldn't remember. I used to read the newspapers in the morning after my dreams, wondering if I'd see news of some murder that would trigger a memory in my mind, but there was never anything that seemed familiar."

  He wanted to tell her that that was because her dreams weren't real. But she'd probably just interpret that as another slam, and he sensed it wouldn't take much to drive her away. Right now she was the only ally he had. "Why do you think you drew Erica's face, especially the cross? Did you notice it last night when you saw her at the bar?"

  "Not consciously." She pressed a hand to her temple, as if he were giving her a headache. "Can we stop talking about this?"

  "How often do the nightmares come?"

  She sighed. "You're very stubborn."

  "So I've been told."

  "It depends. Usually when I get them they go on for a couple of days or sometimes weeks. Then they just stop. It seems that the more in touch I am with the people around me, the more likely I am to have the nightmares. It's as if I open up some emotional transmitter and I can't filter out the bad from the good."

  "When did they start this last time?"

  She bit down on her bottom lip. "The night after I had the vision about you. The nightmares have been getting worse the last two months, intensifying every night. And this is the first picture where I've ever recognized the face. It must mean something."

  He ran a hand through his hair, feeling as if he were getting off track. He wasn't going to find the answers to Erica's disappearance in a painting or in Catherine's dreams. He had to get real. "I'm going to call my lawyer." He needed to bring an objective party into the mix, and his longtime friend Mark Singer was a damn good criminal attorney. He would know the best course of action to take.