I felt small and prickly feet on my spine and heard a cautious unfolding of dark leathery wings in the distance. Shadow Guy was Cody’s name for his Dark Passenger, and although it was untrained it could not be ignored. I stopped and looked at the small red car that had caught his attention, searching for some clue that might resonate with my own inner sentinel. Someone was half-visible through the windshield of the car, reading the New Times, Miami’s weekly alternative paper. Whoever it was gave no sign of interest in us, or anything else besides the cover story, an expose of our city’s massage parlors.
“That guy is watching us,” Astor said.
I thought of my earlier alarm, and the mysterious bouquet of roses. It was the flowers that decided me; unless there was a slow-acting nerve toxin in the roses, there was no real threat hovering around me. And while it was possible that the person in the car really was a predator of some kind — this was Miami, after all — I felt no twinge of warning that he was focused on us.
“That guy is reading the paper,” I said. “And we are standing in the parking lot wasting time. Come on.”
Cody turned slowly to look at me, an expression of surprised peevishness on his face. I shook my head and pointed at the hospital; the two of them exchanged one of their patented looks, and gave me a matching expression that said they were disappointed but not surprised at my substandard performance. Then they turned together and began to walk again toward the hospital door. Cody glanced back at the car three times, and finally I did, too, but there was nothing to see except a man reading the paper, and eventually we got inside.
Dexter is nothing if not a man of his word, and I led them straight to the vending machine for the promised candy bar. But once again they dropped into sullen silence, staring at the vending machine as if it was some kind of torture device. I began to fidget with impatience — another real human emotion, making two of them so far, and I had to say I was not enjoying my transformation to the species. “Come on,” I said. “Just pick one.”
“But we don’t want one,” Astor said.
“Would you rather be hungry?” I said.
“Rather have pizza,” Cody said softly.
I could feel my jaw beginning to tighten, but I maintained my icy control and said, “Do you see pizza in this vending machine?”
“Mom says that too much candy can make you have diabetes,” Astor said.
“And too much pizza makes you have high cholesterol,” I said through clenched teeth. “And going hungry is actually good for you, so let’s forget the candy bar and go upstairs.” I held out my hand to them and half turned toward the elevator. “Come on,” I said.
Astor hesitated, mouth half-open, and we stood that way for several long seconds. Then Cody finally said, “Kit Kat,” and the spell was broken. I bought Cody his Kit Kat, Astor chose a Three Musketeers, and at last, after what had seemed as long and painful as major surgery, we all got into the elevator and headed upstairs to see Lily Anne.
We made it all the way to Rita’s room without a word about pizza or diabetes, which I regarded as a miracle, and in my new human optimism I actually thought we might get through the door and into Lily Anne’s presence. But Astor stopped dead just outside the closed door, and Cody trickled to a halt behind her. “What if we don’t like her?” Astor said.
I blinked; where does this stuff come from? “How can you not like her?” I said. “She’s a beautiful little baby. She’s your sister.”
“Half sister,” Cody said softly.
“Jenny Baumgarten has a little sister and they fight all the time,” Astor said.
“You’re not going to fight with Lily Anne,” I said, appalled at the thought. “She’s just a baby.”
“I don’t like babies,” Astor said, a stubborn expression growing on her face.
“You’re going to like this one,” I said, and even I was surprised at the tone of firm command in my voice. Astor looked at me uncertainly, and then at her brother, and I took advantage of their hesitation and seized the moment. “Come on,” I said. “Inside.” I put a hand on each one and herded them both through the doorway.
Not much had changed in the tableau; it was still Madonna and Child, with Lily Anne lying on her mother, who held her with one arm. Rita opened her eyes sleepily and smiled as we came in, but Lily Anne simply twitched a little and kept sleeping.
“Come meet your sister,” Rita said.
“You both keep saying that,” Astor said. She stood there looking peevish until Cody pushed past her and walked over to stand beside the bed. His head was just about level with Lily Anne’s, and he studied her for a long moment with apparent interest. Astor finally dribbled over to stand next to him, seemingly more interested in Cody’s reaction than in the baby. We all watched as Cody slowly put a finger out toward Lily Anne and very carefully touched her tiny curled-up fist.
“Soft,” Cody said, and he stroked her hand gently. Lily Anne opened up her fist and Cody let her grasp his finger. She closed her hand again, holding on to Cody, and wonder of all, Cody smiled.
“She’s holding me,” he said.
“I wanna try,” Astor said, and she tried to get around him to touch the baby.
“Wait your turn,” he told her, and she took a half step back and jiggled impatiently until he finally took his finger away from Lily Anne’s fist and let Astor have a turn. Astor moved right in to repeat what Cody had done, and she smiled, too, when Lily Anne clutched her finger, and the two of them took turns at this new game for the next fifteen minutes.
And for a whole half hour we didn’t hear a single word about pizza.
SIX
It was very enjoyable for me to watch the three children — my three children! — bonding with one another. But of course, any child could have told me that when you are enjoying yourself within sight of a grown-up it is only a matter of time before the fun ends. And Rita, as the only real grown-up in the room, did not let us down. After a short while she looked at the clock and then spoke up. “All right,” she said, adding the dreaded words, “it’s a school night.”
Cody and Astor exchanged another of their eloquent looks, in which no sound was made but a great deal was said. “Mom,” Astor said, “we’re playing with our new sister.” She said it as if it were in quotation marks, so Rita couldn’t possibly object. But Rita was an old hand at the game, and she shook her head.
“You can play with Lily Anne more tomorrow,” she said. “Right now, Dex — Daddy — has to take you home and put you to bed.”
They both looked at me as if I had betrayed them, and I shrugged. “At least there’s pizza,” I said.
The kids were nearly as reluctant leaving the hospital as they had been going in, but somehow I managed to herd them out the door and into my car. Rather than repeat the horrors of the trip over and reel from the fumes of pizza all across town, I let Astor use my phone to order as we drove, and we had only been home for ten minutes or so when our dinner was delivered. Cody and Astor tore into the pizza as if they hadn’t eaten in a month, and I felt lucky to get two small slices without losing an arm.
After we ate we watched TV until bedtime, and then plunged into the familiar rituals of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, and climbing into bed. It was a little bit strange for me to perform the ceremony; I had witnessed it often enough, but Rita had always been the High Priestess of bedtime, and stupidly enough, I felt a little anxious that I might do some part of it wrong. But I kept thinking of what Rita had said in the hospital, when she had verbally stumbled and called me “Dex-Daddy.” I truly was Dex-Daddy now, and all this was my turf. Soon I would perform the same rites with Lily Anne, guiding her, and her siblings, through the treacherous shoals of night time and safely into bed, and I found this an oddly comforting thought. In fact, it sustained me all the way up to the time when I finally had Cody and Astor tucked in and I reached for the light switch.
“Hey,” Astor said. “You forgot prayers.”
I blinked, suddenly very uncomfortable. “I don’t kn
ow any prayers.”
“You don’t have to say it,” she said. “Just listen.”
I suppose that anyone with even a little bit of self-awareness will eventually feel like a complete hypocrite in the company of children, and this was my time. But I sat down with a very solemn face and listened to the singsong nonsense they recited every night. I was reasonably sure they didn’t believe any of it any more than I did, but it was part of the procedure, and therefore it had to be done, and we all felt better when it was over with.
“All right,” I said, standing up and turning off the light. “Good night.”
“Good night, Dexter,” Astor said.
“Night,” Cody said softly.
In the normal course of things, I would probably sit down on the couch with Rita and watch another hour of television, just for the sake of disguise maintenance; but tonight there was no need to subject myself to the ordeal of pretending the programs were funny or interesting, so I didn’t return to the living room. Instead, I went down the hall to the small room that Rita called my study. I had used it mostly for research connected to my hobby. There was a computer for me to track down those special individuals who deserved my attention, and there was a small closet where I could store a few harmless items like duct tape and fifty-pound-test fishing line.
There was also a small filing cabinet, which I kept locked, that contained a few folders holding notes on prospective playmates, and I sat at my little desk and opened this up. There wasn’t a great deal there at the moment. I had two possibilities, but due to the press of events I had not really pursued either of them, and now I wondered if I ever would. I opened a folder and looked inside. There was a murderous pedophile who had twice been released because of a convenient alibi. I was fairly sure I could break the alibi and prove his guilt — not in the legal sense, of course, but enough to satisfy the strict standards my cop adoptive father, Harry, had poured into me. And there was a club in South Beach that was listed as the last place where several people had been seen before disappearing. Fang, it was called, a truly stupid name for a club. But in addition to the missing-persons reports, the club had turned up in a few INS documents. Apparently, they had an alarmingly high rate of turnover in their kitchen staff, and someone at INS suspected the dishwashers were not all running home to Mexico because the Miami water tasted wrong.
Illegal immigrants are a wonderfully easy target for predators. Even if they vanish there is no official complaint; family, friends, and employers don’t dare complain to the police. And so they do vanish, in numbers that no one can really guess, although I believe it is high enough to raise a few eyebrows, even in Miami. And someone at this club was clearly taking advantage of the situation — probably, I thought, the manager, since he would have to be aware of the turnover. I flipped through my file and found his name: George Kukarov. He lived on Dilido Island, a very nice Beach address not too far from his club. A handy commute for work and play: balance the books, hire a DJ, kill the dishwasher, and home for dinner. I could practically see it — a lovely setup, so clean and convenient that it almost made me envious.
I set down the file for a moment and thought about it. George Kukarov: club manager, killer. It made perfect sense, the kind of sense that got Dexter’s inner hound up on point and salivating, whining eagerly, quivering with the need to be out and after the fox. And the Passenger fluttered in agreement, stretching its wings with a sultry rustle that said, Yes, he is the one. Tonight, together, Now…
I could feel the moonlight coming through the window and pouring through my skin, slicing deep inside me, stirring the dark soup of my center and making these wonderful thoughts float up to the top, and as the smell of the simmering broth drifted up and out on the night air I could picture him taped to the table, squirming and curdling with the same sweaty terror he had sauteed from who knows how many, and I could see the happy knife go up —
But the thought of Lily Anne drifted in, and now the moonlight was not so bright, and the whisper of the blade faded. And the raven of Dexter’s newborn self croaked, Nevermore, and the moon went behind the puffy silver cloud of Lily Anne, the knife went back in its sheath, and Dexter came back to his small suburban life as Kukarov skittered away into freedom and continued wickedness.
My Dark Passenger fought back, of course, and my rational mind sang harmony. Seriously, Dexter, it crooned with oh-so-sweet reason. Could we really let all this predatory frolicking go unchallenged? Let monsters wander through the streets when it is well within our power to stop them in a final and very entertaining way? Could we really and truly ignore the challenge?
And I thought again of the promise I had made in the hospital: I would be a better man. No more Demon Dexter — I was Dex-Daddy now, dedicated to the welfare of Lily Anne and my fledgling family. For the first time human life seemed rare and valuable, in spite of the fact that there was so much of it, and for the most part it consistently failed to prove its worth. But I owed it to Lily Anne to change my ways, and I would do it.
I stared at the file folder in my lap. It sang softly, seductively, pleading with me to sing along and make lovely music in the moonlight — but no. The grand opera of my brand-new child covered it over, overture swelling, and with a firm hand I fed the folder into the shredder and went to bed.
I got to work just a little bit later than usual the next morning, since I had to deliver Cody and Astor to school first. In the past this had always been Rita’s task. Now, of course, everything was different; it was Year One of the Lily Anne Golden Epoch. I would be dropping the two older children at school for the foreseeable future, at least until Lily Anne was a little bit older and could safely ride around in a car seat. And if it meant that I no longer got to work with the first robins of the day, it seemed like a very small sacrifice.
The sacrifice seemed slightly larger, however, when I finally got to the office and found that someone other than Dutiful Dexter had actually brought in doughnuts — and they were all gone, leaving only a tattered and stained cardboard box. But who needs doughnuts when life itself is so sweet? I went to work anyway, with a smile in my heart and a song on my lips.
For once there was no frantic call for me to rush off to a crime scene, and I managed to get through a great deal of routine paperwork in the first ninety minutes of the day. I also called Rita, mostly to make sure that Lily Anne was doing well and had not been kidnapped by aliens, and when Rita had reassured me in a sleepy voice that all was well, I told her I would come to visit that afternoon.
I ordered some supplies, filed some reports, and got my whole professional life almost entirely squared away, and although that did not quite make up for the doughnuts, it nonetheless made me feel very pleased with myself; Dexter dislikes disorder.
I was still wrapped in my pink cloud of satisfaction a little before ten o’clock, when the phone on my desk rang. I stepped over and picked it up with a cheerful, “Hello, Morgan!” and was rewarded with the surly voice of my sister, Deborah.
“Where are you?” she said, rather unnecessarily, I thought. If I was talking to her from a phone attached to my desk by a long wire, where would I be? Maybe cell phones really do destroy brain tissue.
“I’m right here, on the other end of the telephone,” I said.
“Meet me in the parking lot,” she said, and hung up before I could protest.
I found Deborah beside her motor pool car. She was leaning impatiently against the hood and scowling at me, so in a fit of strategic brilliance I decided to attack first. “Why do I have to meet you out here?” I said. “You have a perfectly good office, and it has chairs and air-conditioning.”
She straightened up and reached for her keys. “My office is infested,” she said.
“With what?”
“Deke,” she said. “The smarmy dim-witted son of a bitch won’t leave me alone.”
“He can’t leave you alone,” I said. “He’s your partner.”
“He’s making me nuts,” she said. “He leans his as
s on my desk and just sits there, waiting for me to fall all over him.”
It was a striking image, Deborah falling up out of her desk chair and all over her new partner, but however vivid the picture, it made no sense to me. “Why would you fall all over your partner?”
She shook her head. “Maybe you noticed he is like stupid good-looking?” she said. “If you haven’t, you’re the only one in the entire fucking building. Including especially Deke.”
I had noticed, of course, but I didn’t see what his ridiculous good looks had to do with anything under discussion. “Okay,” I said. “I noticed. So what?”
“So he thinks I’m going to throw myself at him, like every other chick he’s ever met,” she said. “Which is nauseating. He’s dumber than a box of rocks, and he sits there on the corner of my desk flossing his perfect fucking teeth and waiting for me to tell him what to do and if I have to look at him for two seconds longer I’m going to blow his fucking head off. Get in the car,” she said.
Deborah had never been one to disguise her real feelings, but even so, this was quite an outburst, and I just stood for a moment and watched her as she climbed into the car and started the engine. She revved it for a moment and then, to make sure I got the message that she was in a hurry, she hit the siren in a brief whoop that startled me out of my reverie and into the passenger seat. Before I even had the door closed she had put the car in gear and we were rolling out of the lot and onto the street.
“I don’t think he’s following us,” I said as she hit the gas hard and accelerated out into traffic. Deborah didn’t reply. She simply swerved around a flatbed truck piled high with watermelons and sped away from the station and her partner.
“Where are we going?” I asked, clinging for dear life to the armrest.
“The school,” she said.
“What school?” I asked her, wondering if the roar of the engine had hidden an important part of our conversation.
“The rich kids’ school Samantha Aldovar went to,” she said. “What’s it called, Ransom Everglades.”
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