Dearly Devoted Dexter (Dexter, #2)

by Jeff Lindsay

Dear Departed Dexter, so much potential, so many dark fellow travelers still to dissect, and now so tragically cut short in his prime. Alas, Dark Passenger, I knew him well. And the poor boy was finally just about to get married, too. How more than sad—I pictured Rita in white, weeping at the altar, two small children wailing at her feet. Sweet little Astor, her hair done up in a bouffant bubble, a pale green bridesmaid dress now soaked with tears. And quiet Cody in his tiny tuxedo, staring at the back of the church and waiting, thinking of our last fishing trip and wondering when he would ever get to push the knife in again and twist it so slowly, watching the bright red blood burble out onto the blade and smiling, and then—

Slow down, Dexter. Where did that thought come from?

Isn't it odd what we think about when we're dying? The car had settled onto its flattened roof, moving with no more than a gentle rocking now and completely filled with water so thick and mucky that I could not have seen a flare gun firing from the end of my nose. And yet I could see Cody perfectly clearly, more clearly now than the last time we had been in the same room together; and standing behind this sharp image of his small form towered a gigantic dark shadow, a black shape with no features that somehow seemed to be laughing. Could it be? I thought again about the way he had put the knife so happily into his fish. I thought about his strange reaction to the neighbor's missing dog—much like mine when I had been asked as a boy about a neighborhood dog I had taken and experimented with. And I remembered that he, too, had gone through a traumatic event like I had, when his biological father had attacked him and his sister in a terrifying drug-induced rage and beat them with a chair.

I had a son. Someone Just Like Me.

It would sound far too melodramatic for me to say, “The thought spurred me to furious action,” and I am only melodramatic on purpose, when there is an audience. However, as the realization of Cody's true nature hit me, I also heard, almost like an echo, a deep unbodied voice saying, “Undo the seat belt, Dexter.” And somehow I managed to make my suddenly huge and clumsy fingers move to the belt's lock and fumble with the release.

What a terrible thought to picture all the poor people of this world who must do without air, people like . . . . . . Deborah?

No sooner out of it than I had to go right back in again. Still, family was family, and complaining had never done me a bit of good.

At first my only reward was another gout of mucky water, which did nothing to make the job more pleasant. But I kept at it, and soon Debs gave a convulsive shudder and vomited a great deal more water—most of it on me, unfortunately. She coughed horribly, took a breath that sounded like rusty door hinges swinging open, and said, “Fuck . . .”

“Your collarbone is broken,” I said.

CHAPTER 21

“You recognize this one?” I asked. Doakes nodded. “Frank Aubrey,” he said.

I leaned in for a look: in the same spidery hand I had seen before Dr. Danco had written HONOR.

Once more he gave me his very unpleasant smile. “Down to you and me,” he said. “And I don't know about you.”

“Just you and me,” Doakes said again, “and no more referee.”

“Don't trust you,” he said.

“That doesn't matter. We're running out of time,” I said. “With Frank finished and delivered, Danco will start on Kyle now.” He cocked his head to one side and then shook it slowly. “Don't matter about Kyle,” he said. “Kyle knew what he was getting into. What matters is catching the Doctor.”

“Sergeant Doakes,” I said, “Deborah is my only family, and it is not right for you to question my commitment. Particularly,” I said, and I had to fight the urge to buff my fingernails, Bugs-style, “since so far you have not done doodley-squat.”

“Oscar got away,” I said. “Looks like it.” “That only leaves one person we can be sure Dr. Danco might be interested in,” I said, and I pointed right at his chest. “You.”

“Slick motherfucker,” he said. “Yes, I am,” I admitted. “But I'm right, too.”

CHAPTER 22

Left to my own devices, I pondered the last few surprise-filled hours. Deborah in the hospital, me in league with Doakes—and my revelation about Cody during my near-death experience. Of course, I could be totally wrong about the boy. There might be some other explanation for his behavior at the mention of the missing pet, and the way he shoved the knife so eagerly into his fish could have been perfectly normal childish cruelty. But oddly enough, I found myself wanting it to be true. I wanted him to grow up to be like me—mostly, I realized, because I wanted to shape him and place his tiny feet onto the Harry Path.

Now that we had clearly laid out the bait for Dr. Danco, step two was to get him to a specific place at the right time, and the happy coincidence of Vince Masuoka's party was too perfect to ignore.

“This will work, Deborah,” I said. But neither one of us really believed me.

I could think of no guidelines on what we were wearing this season to a party forced on you to celebrate an unwanted engagement that might turn into a violent confrontation with a vengeful maniac.

“We have to get you squared away,” I said, and Cody looked at me with large blinkless eyes and nodded. “Okay,” he said.

CHAPTER 23

I could do nothing but watch as Sergeant Doakes, with a last molten-stone glare, went through the front door and out into the night. They levered me into the chair and stood around me in a tight half-circle and it was obvious that I was going nowhere. I hoped Doakes was as good as he thought he was, because he was clearly on his own for a while.

I stood up, walked carefully around behind the crowd, and slipped out the front door. I had thought that Sergeant Doakes would wait somewhere near the house, but he was nowhere to be seen. I walked across the street and looked in his car. It was empty, too. I looked up and down the street and it was the same. There was no sign of him. Doakes was gone.

CHAPTER 24

Doakes would be gone. Whisked away forever into a final haze of lopped off limbs and madness, never to lighten my dark doorway again. Liberty for Dexter, free to be me, and all I had to do was absolutely nothing. Even I could handle that.

Oh. Deborah. There was that, wasn't there?

I called Doakes's top secret telephone number again. The voice gave me the same coordinates and hung up; wherever they were, they were still there, down this dark and dirty little road.

I don't pray, of course. What would something like me pray to, and why should It listen to me? And if I found Something, whatever It was, how could It keep from laughing at me, or flinging a lightning bolt down my throat? It would have been very comforting to be able to look to some kind of higher power, but of course, I only knew one higher power. And even though it was strong and swift and clever, and very good at stalking silently through the nightscape, would even the Dark Passenger be enough?

BLALOCK GATOR FARM Trespassers Will Be Eaten

At the far end of the house there came the sudden roar of an engine and as I tensed involuntarily the airboat leaped away from the dock. The engine revved higher and the boat raced off down the canal. In less than a minute it was gone, around a bend and away into the night, and with it went Dr. Danco.

CHAPTER 25

It was Kyle Chutsky. Most of him, anyway. As the tape came off and Chutsky was able to wiggle up to a sitting position, it became apparent that he was missing his left arm up to the elbow and his right leg up to the knee. The stumps were wrapped with clean white gauze, nothing leaking through; again, very nice work, although I did not think Chutsky would appreciate the care Danco had used in taking his arm and leg. And how much of Chutsky's mind was also missing was not yet clear, although his constant wet yammering did nothing to convince me that he was ready to sit at the controls of a passenger jet.

“You're welcome,” I said. I turned the car around and headed back toward Alligator Alley. I thought Chutsky had fallen asleep, but halfway along the little dirt road he began to talk.

“I'm glad your sister wasn't here,” he said. “To see me like this. It's— Listen, I really have to pull myself together before—” He stopped abruptly and didn't say anything for half a minute.

He was silent for a while. Then I heard him sigh heavily. “I just don't know if I can do this,” he said. “I could take you back to the gator farm,” I said cheerfully.

CHAPTER 26

I wondered where Dr. Danco had taken Doakes. It didn't really seem important, just idle curiosity. But as I thought about the fact that he had indeed taken him somewhere and would soon begin doing rather permanent things to the sergeant, I realized that this was the first good news I'd had in a long time, and I felt a warm glow spread through me. I was free. Doakes was gone. One small piece at a time he was leaving my life and releasing me from the involuntary servitude of Rita's couch. I could live again.

“Take me back to my hotel, buddy. I got work to do.” “What about a hospital?” I asked, thinking that he couldn't be expected to cut a walking stick from a sturdy yew tree and stump on down the trail. But he shook his head. “I'm okay,” he said. “I'll be okay.”

And really, when you're not wanted there's not much you can do except leave, which is what I did. The last I saw of Chutsky he was leaning on the bell captain as the bellboy pushed a wheelchair toward them out the front door of the hotel.

Very few people call me, especially this late at night. I glanced at the phone; it was Deborah. “Greetings, sister dear,” I said. “You asshole, you said you'd call!” she said. “It seemed a little late,” I said. “Did you really think I could fucking SLEEP?!” she yelled, loud enough to cause pain to people in passing cars. “What happened?” “I got Chutsky back,” I said. “But Dr. Danco got away. With Doakes.”

Truthfully, I could imagine very well what it had been like, and I had done so many times already. What I was having difficulty with was this new side of Deborah. She had cried at her mother's funeral, and at her father's, but not since then, as far as I knew. And now here she was practically flooding the car over what I had come to regard as an infatuation with someone who was a little bit of an oaf. Even worse, he was now a disabled oaf, which should mean that a logical person would move on and find somebody else with all the proper pieces still attached. But Deborah seemed even more concerned with Chutsky now that he was permanently damaged. Could this be love after all? Deborah in love? It didn't seem possible. I knew that theoretically she was capable of it, of course, but—I mean, after all, she was my sister. It was pointless to wonder. I knew nothing at all about love and I never would. It didn't seem like such a terrible lack to me, although it does make it difficult to understand popular music.