“I don’t know what you were complaining about earlier. It’s really nice out here.” Wash had been expecting an oven, but the evening was pleasant with a light breeze that, as Wash looked on, stirred Zoë’s hair.

Zoë nodded her head and said, “It’s cooler.” Wash realized she was too busy looking around to enjoy the evening. He was familiar with that look. It saw everything, everywhere. That look had saved him from Niska and was obviously what had kept her, and probably Mal, alive in the war. Wash found it disconcerting, at times, to be with her when she was looking that look.

“You can stop looking,” he whispered to her. He knew she would hear him, no matter how softly he spoke. Sometimes whispering got her attention more effectively than speaking aloud.

She blinked a few times and then gazed at the sky. “Sorry, love. Old habits.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes you need them. Just as long as you come back to me.” Wash squeezed her hand, amazed, as always, that it was his hand she was holding. How’d he get to be so lucky? “So, what do you think is going on?”

“Don’t know. This is too easy.” Zoë’s gaze traveled from one building to the next and down each side street, lingering on each person they passed. “Check that note again; maybe we missed somethin’.” She knew they hadn’t, but it kept Wash busy while they walked.

Letting go of Zoë’s hand, Wash pulled out the note Flaherty had left for them. “’I loved your dinosaurs. Please go to the following house and have a nice evening. Flaherty.’ Then it has directions to the house.” Wash raised the note above his head in the dying sunlight, trying to find something, anything, more on the paper. Nothing. He put it back into his pocket. “You know, that just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think he even saw the dinosaurs.”

“Probably he heard us talkin’ about them sometime.” Zoë and Wash had talked with Mal about the note. They had all agreed that it would be worth checking out, but Zoë would take a com unit just in case. Zoë always