Jeff Lindsay - Dexter's Final Cut

“Oh,” Jackie said, looking very deflated. “But that’s … I mean, do you think Anderson would, um, not tell anybody?”

Deborah looked away. “He’ll tell,” she said.

“He’ll probably call a press conference,” I said.

“Shit,” Jackie said. “Shit, shit, shit .” She sank into a chair, looking for all the world like a forlorn rag doll. “I can’t-I won’t ask you to risk your career,” she said, and she said it with such hopeless, noble resignation that I wanted to kill something for her-like Anderson, for instance. But as that happy thought flashed through my mind, it was instantly replaced by one of those wonderful moments of insight that come only once in a lifetime, and only to the Just. “Oh,” I said, and some of my gleeful surprise clearly showed in my voice, because Jackie looked up, and Deborah frowned at me.

“What?” Jackie said.

“Deborah has to tell Anderson,” I said happily, and I said it again for emphasis. “Anderson.”

“I know his fucking name,” Debs said.

“And you know his fucking character, too,” I said.

“For fuck’s sake, Dex, what the-”

“Deborah, think a minute,” I said. “It might not hurt very much.”

She glared at me for a moment longer, then blew out a vicious breath. “All right, fuck, I’m thinking,” she said, and her face took on the look of a mean-spirited, slightly constipated grouper.

“Wonderful,” I said. “Now, picture this in your thoughts: You, Sergeant Deborah Morgan, Defender of the Faith and Champion of Justice-”

“Cut to the fucking chase, huh?” she said.

“You go to Detective Anderson,” I said patiently. “You, a person he thinks very highly of.”

“He hates my fucking guts,” she snarled. “So what?”

“So that’s just the point,” I said, and I let the glee creep back into my voice. “He really does hate your fucking guts. And you take him your file on this stuff, and you tell him you have a very important lead -you tell him, Deborah. Not me or Jackie or Captain Matthews- you tell him. With witnesses.” I looked at her expectantly and, I have to admit, I smirked, too. “What does he do?”

Deborah opened her mouth to say something that looked like it would be rather venomous-and then her jaw snapped shut audibly, her eyes got very wide, and she took a very deep breath. “Holy shit,” she breathed, and she looked at me with something approaching awe. “He does nothing . He loses the fucking file. Because it’s me .”

“Bingo,” I said, which was something I’d always wanted to say. “He’s afraid you would get the credit, so he does nothing-but you have done everything , by the book, with witnesses. You’re in the clear; Jackie’s secret is safe; all’s right with the world.”

“Would that really work ?” Jackie said softly.

Debs squinted, jutted her jaw, and then nodded once. “It might,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “It’s at least a probably.”

“All right, it will probably work,” she said.

“And if you maybe twist the knife a little?” I said. “You know, like how important this lead is, and he should drop everything he’s doing to work on what you found?”

Debs snorted. “Yeah,” she said. “That would do it.”

“Oh,” Jackie said, “that’s- Dexter, you’re so- Thank you, thank you both so much.”

“But even if it does,” Debs said, turning to a suddenly hopeful Jackie, “that doesn’t keep you safe.”

“Oh,” Jackie said, and she looked deflated again.

“We’ve got to find this guy before he finds you,” Deborah said. “And in the meantime, we have to put you where he can’t get to you.”

“I, um … I can just stay with you, here at headquarters, during the day?” Jackie said. “And then the hotel at night, with the door chained and bolted.”

It’s always nice to encounter innocence, but in this case I thought I should say something. “Hotels are not safe,” I said. “It’s much too easy to get into the room and grab somebody.” I tried to say it as if I was very sure, which I was, but without sounding too much like I knew it was true from personal experience, which I did. It must have worked, because Jackie looked like she believed me.

“Well, then, um,” she said. She looked imploringly at Debs. “Where do I go?”

“You can’t stay with me,” Deborah said. She shrugged. “Sorry. I won’t put Nicholas at risk.” Nicholas was her son, born a few months after the father had disappeared in a fit of noble sacrifice. He was a very nice baby, only a few months younger than my daughter, Lily Anne, and Deborah doted on him.

“I could hire a bodyguard, but they’re always so …” She sighed again. “Some muscle-bound retired SEAL with a pistol and an attitude. And if the Taliban are after me, I’d be safe. But this? I mean, a homicidal psychopath? I need somebody who really understands that.” She looked directly at me as she said it, which I suppose was only fair, but it was still a bit unsettling. “Not just somebody who can shoot.” She looked back at Debs. “Of course, it’s nice if they can shoot, too, but …” She looked back at me and blinked, her eyes huge and moist. “I need somebody I can really trust ,” she said. “Like I trust you guys.” She shook her head.

She kept looking at me, and if I was really as smart as I like to think I am, I would have known where this was going-but for some reason, I didn’t. “Dexter,” she said. “I know this is a huge thing, but … is there any way that, you know.”

I must have looked like I didn’t know, because she stepped toward me and put a hand on my arm. “It’s just for a few days,” she said. “And I’ll pay you whatever you ask, but … could you?”

I was certainly ready to agree in theory, but I still didn’t know what she was asking me. I understood that she wanted me to help, but I didn’t really see how I could help her find a safe place to stay. All I got was a mental picture of Jackie sleeping on my couch, with Cody and Astor tiptoeing around her to get to school, and the image was so unlikely I couldn’t even respond, except to say, “Uh-”

“Please …?” she said, in a voice that was suddenly soft and a little hoarse and a lot more intimate than a kiss. And even though I still didn’t know what she was asking me to do, I wanted very badly to do it.

“Well, um,” I said, trying to sound very willing, which can be difficult when you don’t know what you’re agreeing to.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Deborah said helpfully. “I can help you square it with Rita.” She nodded at Jackie. “He can actually shoot, too,” she said. She reached into her bottom desk drawer and brought out a Glock 9mm pistol in a clip-on belt holster. “You can use my backup piece.”

I looked at the Glock, and I looked at Jackie’s pleading face, and the light began to dawn at last. “You mean …” I said. “I mean, you … That’s, that’s …” And although in normal times Eloquence is Dexter’s middle name, nothing would come out that was even intelligible.

“Please?” Jackie said again, and the look she gave me would have melted a marble statue.

Dexter, of course, is made of sterner stuff than any mere mortal, and imploring looks from a beautiful woman have never had any power over Our Wicked Warrior. And it was an absurd idea, something far too strange even to contemplate-me, a bodyguard? It was out of the question.

And yet somehow, when the workday ended that evening and all good wage slaves trotted dutifully away to hearth and home, I found myself on the balcony of a suite at the Grove Isle Hotel, sipping a mojito and watching as a spectacular sunset blew up the sky behind us, reflecting orange and red and pink onto the water of Biscayne Bay. There was a tray of cheese and fresh fruit on the table beside me, and the Glock was an uncomfortable lump in my side, and I was filled with wonder at the unavoidable notion that Life makes no sense at all, especially when things have taken a sudden and extravagant turn into surreal and unearned luxury. Terror, pain, and nausea I can understand, but this? I could only assume I was being set up for something even worse. Still, the mojito was very good, and one of the cheeses had a very nice bite to it.