Jeff Lindsay - Dexter's Final Cut

“What kind of letters?” Deborah said.

Jackie licked her lips. “They started out, you know. A little creepy, but just regular fan stuff.” She shrugged. “I get lots of those. And, you know, there’s a standard reply my assistant sends out. Sometimes with a picture. And he didn’t like that. He wanted something more … real.” She raised her hands and fluttered them like two small helpless birds. “Something personal ,” she said. She dropped her hands into her lap. “Which I don’t do, ever. I mean, if it’s a kid with cancer or something, okay, but just a regular male fan letter? I usually don’t even see ’em, let alone answer ’em. My assistant brushes ’em off, and if they don’t take the hint we just ignore ’em. Send their letters back.”

Jackie bit her lip and looked down at her hands. “Which we did. We sent his letters back, and … he really hated that. And he wrote again, but … the letters turned really … nasty. And he sent my picture back all … shredded. Hacked up, and things drawn on it, and, um …” She actually gulped, took a deep breath, looked right at me, and said, “And one of the eyes poked out.”

“Fuck,” Deborah said softly.

“And the letters said some very bad things. Bad enough so Kathy-” She looked up. “Kathy is my assistant,” she said.

“Okay,” Deborah said.

“The letters were so dark and twisted and threatening that Kathy got worried. She showed them to me. I, uh … I don’t know. I didn’t really believe it was serious, but …” She shrugged and lifted her hands and then dropped them into her lap again. “I told her to show them to the police.”

“Did she?” Deborah asked.

“Yes,” Jackie said. “I mean, I assume so. I didn’t really … I mean, Kathy is very good at her job, so I’m sure she did.”

“Okay,” Deborah said. “And then what?”

Jackie shook her head. “Then nothing,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t think about it anymore; I just figured it was taken care of, and I had work to do. You know.”

“Where are the letters now?” Deborah said.

Jackie blinked. “Um. I don’t have any idea. I mean, I could ask Kathy?”

“Where is she?”

“She’s here, with me,” Jackie said. “I mean, here in Miami.”

“Call her,” Deborah said. “I need to see those letters. And I want the name of the cop who saw them-in L.A.?”

Jackie nodded, chewing at her lower lip. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, the Valley, but-”

“All right,” Deborah said. “Where’s your assistant now?”

“I, uh … probably at the hotel?” Jackie said.

“Call her,” Deborah said again.

Jackie nodded and turned away to her purse, which was over in the corner beside the desk. She took out a cell phone and tapped a number, turning away from us to talk. She spoke a few soft sentences, then disconnected, slid the phone back into her purse, and faced us again. “I talked to Kathy,” she said, which would have been my first guess. “The cop in L.A. still has the letters? And she’s going to find his business card and call me back.” She shook her head and looked at us, and then, almost as if somebody had pulled the plug and let all the air out of her, she sank into the visitor’s chair beside the desk. “Holy shit,” she said softly. She closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. “Holy shit,” she said again. She opened her eyes and looked from Deborah to me. “Do you think he’s … I mean, do you think I’m in any real danger?”

“Yes,” Deborah and I said in unison.

Jackie blinked several times. Her eyes got moist and the violet color seemed to go a few shades darker. “Oh, boy,” she said. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I’ll ask the captain to assign somebody to stay with you,” Deborah said.

“Somebody-you mean like a bodyguard? Like another cop?” Jackie said anxiously.

Deborah raised her eyebrows. “Is there something wrong with that?” she asked.

Jackie hesitated, pursed her lips, then clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “Just,” she said. “Oh, boy, this is gonna sound really …” She looked at me, then at Deborah. “Can I be totally honest with you?”

“I hope so,” Deborah said, with an expression of mild disbelief on her face.

“This is … How to put this,” Jackie said. She shook her head, stood up, and went to look out the window. There wasn’t a whole lot to see out there, but she kept looking. “My career is kind of … what. Fading? It’s not really … The offers aren’t coming so fast anymore. And they’re not as good.” She bit her lip and gave her head one slow shake. “It happens. For a woman in this business it’s all over at thirty, and I’m thirty-three.”

Jackie looked up and forced a quick smile. “That’s confidential information,” she said, and Deborah and I nodded.

Jackie looked back out the window. “Anyway,” she said, “the reality is, I need this show to go, and I need it to be a hit, or my career is pretty much over, and I’ve got nothing left except maybe marry a Greek arms dealer or something.” She sighed. “And those offers are slowing down, too,” she said.

It was hard enough to feel a great deal of pain and sorrow for Jackie simply because she was not getting enough marriage proposals from billionaires-and it was even harder to see how that affected our current situation. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But, um …?”

Jackie nodded. “I know,” she said. “Poor pitiful me.” She blew out a breath and turned briskly away from the window at last. “The point is,” she said, “if the network finds out that there have been serious threats on my life, they have to tell the insurance, and the insurance premiums for the shoot go way up-I mean, millions -and since we haven’t even started shooting yet, suddenly it’s a whole lot cheaper to get rid of me and recast the part with somebody younger and probably better-looking.”

“Not possible,” I said without thinking, and Jackie gave me a quick bright smile.

“Cheaper,” Deborah said. “You mean, they’d just dump you to save money?”

“That’s a joke, right?” Jackie said. “They’d dump Jesus to save fifty bucks.”

“Shit,” Deborah said.

“We start shooting next week,” she said. “If I can get, say, a week of film in the can before they find out, I should be okay.” She inhaled deeply and looked at Deborah very seriously. “I know it’s a lot to ask. But … can we not tell them for a week?”

Deborah shrugged. “I don’t have to tell the network,” she said. “I don’t owe them shit.”

“What about Robert?” I said. After all, he was my nearly constant companion nowadays.

Jackie actually shuddered. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “If he finds out he’ll tell everybody . He’d do anything to get me fired from this show.”

“It could be kind of hard to keep him from finding out,” I said. “He’s with me all day long.”

“Please,” she said. “It’s just for a couple of days.”

“Well,” I said, “I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks,” Jackie said, and Deborah cleared her throat.

“I don’t have to tell the network,” she said, “and I don’t have to tell Robert.” Her face dropped into the cold-forged cop face, the one that kept her from showing anything, no matter what she felt. “I do have to tell Detective Anderson. It’s his case.”

“What? But that’s- No!” Jackie said.

Deborah clenched her jaw. “I have to,” she said. “I am a sworn officer of the law now in possession of some vital information pertaining to a homicide case, and Anderson is lead on it. If I don’t tell him, I lose my job. I probably do jail time.”