“Thank me quietly,” he croaked.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered back, and staggered softly away to his cubicle.
It was an unusually quiet day, by which I mean that, besides the lack of new cases, the forensics area was silent as a tomb, with the occasional pale-green ghost floating by suffering silently. Luckily there was also very little work to do. By five o’clock I had caught up on my paperwork and arranged all my pencils. Rita had called at lunchtime to ask me to come for dinner. I think she might have wanted to make sure I had not been kidnapped by a stripper, so I agreed to come after work. I did not hear from Debs, but I didn’t really need to. I was quite sure she was with Chutsky in his penthouse. But I was a little bit concerned, since Dr. Danco knew where to find them and might come looking for his missing project. On the other hand, he had Sergeant Doakes to play with, which should keep him busy and happy for several days.
Still, just to be safe, I called Deborah’s cell phone number. She answered on the fourth ring. “What,” she said.
“You do remember that Dr. Danco had no trouble getting in there the first time,” I said.
“I wasn’t here the first time,” she said. And she sounded so very fierce that I had to hope she wouldn’t shoot someone from room service.
“All right,” I said. “Just keep your eyes open.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. I heard Chutsky muttering something cranky in the background, and Deborah said, “I have to go. I’ll call you later.” She hung up.
Evening rush hour was in full swing as I headed south to Rita’s house, and I found myself humming cheerfully as a red-faced man in a pickup truck cut me off and gave me the finger. It was not just the ordinary feeling of belonging I got from being surrounded by the homicidal Miami traffic, either; I felt like a great burden had been removed from my shoulders. And, of course, it had been. I could go to Rita’s and there would be no maroon Taurus parked across the street. I could go back to my apartment, free of my clinging shadow. And even more important, I could take the Dark Passenger out for a spin and we would be alone together for some badly needed quality time. Sergeant Doakes was gone, out of my life-and soon, presumably, out of his own life, too.
I felt absolutely giddy as I wheeled down South Dixie and made the turn to Rita’s house. I was free-and free of obligation, too, since one really had to believe that Chutsky and Deborah would stay put to recuperate for a while. As for Dr. Danco-it is true that I had felt a certain twinge of interest in meeting him, and even now I would gladly take a few moments out of my busy social schedule for some real quality bonding time with him. But I was quite sure that Chutsky’s mysterious Washington agency would send someone else to deal with him, and they would certainly not want me hovering around and offering advice. With that ruled out, and with Doakes out of the picture, I was back to plan A and free to assist Reiker into early retirement. Whoever would now have to deal with the problem of Dr. Danco, it would not be Delightfully Discharged Dexter.
I was so happy that I kissed Rita when she answered the door, even though no one was watching. And after dinner, while Rita cleaned up, I went out into the backyard once again, playing kick the can with the neighborhood children. This time, though, there was a special edge to it with Cody and Astor, our own small secret adding a touch more zest. It was almost fun to watch them stalking the other children, my own little predators in training.
After half an hour of stalking and pouncing, however, it became apparent that we were severely outnumbered by even stealthier predators-mosquitoes, several billion of the disgusting little vampires, all ravenously hungry. And so, weak from loss of blood, Cody, Astor, and I staggered back into the house and reconvened around the dining table for a session of hangman.
“I’ll go first,” Astor announced. “It’s my turn anyway.”
“Mine,” said Cody, frowning.
“Nuh-uh. Anyway, I got one,” she told him. “Five letters.”
“C,” said Cody.
“No! Head! Ha!” she howled in triumph, and drew the little round head.
“You should ask the vowels first,” I said to Cody.
“What,” he said softly.
“A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y,” Astor told him. “Everybody knows that.”
“Is there an E?” I asked her, and some of the wind went out of her sails.
“Yes,” Astor said, sulkily, and she wrote the E on the middle blank line.
“Ha,” said Cody.
We played for almost an hour before their bedtime. All too soon my magical evening drew to a close and I was once again on the couch with Rita. But this time, free as I was from spying eyes, it was an easy matter for me to disengage myself from her tentacles and head for home, and my own little bed, with well-meaning excuses of having partied too hard at Vince’s and a big day of work tomorrow. And then I was off, all alone in the night, just my echo, my shadow, and me. It was two nights until the full moon, and I would make this one well worth my wait. This full moon I would spend not with Miller Lite but with Reiker Photography, Inc. In two nights I would turn loose the Passenger at last, slide into my true self, and fling the sweat-stained costume of Dearly Devoted Dexter into the garbage heap.
Of course I needed to find proof first, but somehow I was quite confident that I would. After all, I had a whole day for that, and when the Dark Passenger and I work together everything seems to fall right into place.
And filled with such cheerful thoughts of dark delights I motored back to my comfy apartment, and climbed into bed to sleep the deep and dreamless sleep of the just.
The next morning my offensively cheerful mood continued. When I stopped for doughnuts on the way to work I gave in to impulse and bought a full dozen, including several of the cream-filled ones with chocolate icing, a truly extravagant gesture that was not lost on Vince, who had finally recovered. “Oh, my,” he said with raised eyebrows. “You have done well, O mighty hunter.”
“The gods of the forest have smiled upon us,” I said. “Cream-filled or raspberry jelly?”
“Cream-filled, of course,” he said.
The day passed quickly, with only one trip out to a homicide scene, a routine dismemberment with garden equipment. It was strictly amateur work; the idiot had tried to use an electric hedge clipper and succeeded only in making a great deal of extra work for me, before finishing off his wife with the pruning shears. A truly nasty mess, and it served him right that they caught him at the airport. A well-done dismemberment is neat, above all, or so I always say. None of this puddled blood and caked flesh on the walls. It shows a real lack of class.
I finished up at the scene just in time to get back to my little cubbyhole off the forensics lab and leave my notes on my desk. I would type them up and finish the report on Monday, no hurry. Neither the killer nor the victim was going anywhere.
And so there I was, out the door to the parking lot and into my car, free to roam the land as I pleased. No one to follow me or feed me beer or force me to do things I would rather avoid. No one to shine the unwanted light into Dexter’s shadows. I could be me again, Dexter Unchained, and the thought was far more intoxicating than all Rita’s beer and sympathy. It had been too long since I felt this way, and I promised myself I would never again take it for granted.
A car was on fire at the corner of Douglas and Grand, and a small but enthusiastic crowd had gathered to watch. I shared their good cheer as I eased through the traffic jam caused by the emergency vehicles and headed for home.