Jeff Lindsay - Dexter by Design

The other car was Rita's.

There was no sign of Weiss. But Rita herself leaned against the front bumper of her car with a look of numb shock on her face, holding Cody by one hand and Astor by the other. Seeing them all together, safe and sound, I slowed to a walk for the last few paces.

She looked at me with no change in expression. “Dexter” she said.

“What are you doing here?” I was just in the neighborhood” I said. “Ouch.” And the ouch was not mere random cleverness: all across my back a hundred fire ants I had apparently picked up when I fell bit me at the same time as if by some telepathic signal. “Is everyone all right?” I said, pulling frantically to get my shirt off.

I pulled the shirt over my head to see the three of them staring at me with a look of mildly annoyed concern. “Are you okay?” Astor said. “Because you just took your shirt off in the middle of the street.”

“Fire ants” I said. “All over my back.” I slapped at my back with the shirt, which did no good at all.

“A man rammed us with his car” Rita said. “And he tried to grab the children.”

“Yes, I know” I said, twisting myself into shapes a pretzel would envy as I tried to get at the fire ants.

“What do you mean, you know?” Rita said.

“He got away” a voice said behind us. “Moved pretty fast, considering.” I turned in mid-ant slap to see a uniformed cop, panting from his apparent chase of Weiss. He was a youngish guy, rather fit looking, and his name tag said Lear. He had stopped and was staring at me. “This isn't clothing optional here, pal” he said.

“Fire ants,” I said. “Rita, could you give me a hand, please?”

“You know this guy?” the cop asked Rita.

“My husband” she said, and she let go of the children's hands, somewhat reluctantly, and began to slap at my back.

“Well” Lear said, “anyway, the guy got away. He ran clear over to US 1 and headed for the strip malls. I called it in, they'll do a BOLO, but ...” He shrugged. “Gotta say he ran pretty good for having a pencil stuck in his leg.”

“My pencil” Cody said with his strange and very rare smile.

“and I punched him really hard in the crotch” Astor said.

I looked down at the two of them through my red cloud of ant bite pain. They looked so smug and pleased with themselves; and to be honest, I was very pleased with them, too. Weiss had done his worst —and theirs was just a bit worse. My little predators. It was almost enough to stop the ant bites from hurting. But only almost especially since Rita was smacking the bites as well as the ants, causing added pain.

“Got yourself a couple of real scouts here” Officer Lear said, looking at Cody and Astor with an expression of slightly worried approval.

“Just Cody” Astor said. “And he's only been to one meeting.” Officer Lear opened his mouth, realized he had nothing to say, and closed it again. He turned to me instead and said, “The tow truck will be here in a couple of minutes. And EMS will want to take a look, just to make sure everybody's okay”

“We're okay,” said Astor.

“So,” Lear went on, “if you wanna stay with your family, I can maybe get this traffic going?” I think that will be all right” I said. Lear looked at Rita and raised an eyebrow, and she nodded.

“Yes” she said. “Of course.”

“All right” he said. “The Feds will probably want to talk to you.

I mean, about the attempted kidnapping.”

“Oh my God” Rita said, as if hearing that word made it all real.

I think the guy was just a random crazy” I said hopefully. After all, I already had enough trouble without the FBI looking into my family life.

Lear was not impressed. He looked at me very sternly. “It's kidnapping,” he said. “With your kids.” He stared at me for a moment to make sure I knew that word, then turned and waggled his finger at Rita. “Make sure you all see the EMS people.” He looked back at me with no expression. “And maybe you better get dressed, all right?” And then he turned and stepped out into the street and began to wave at the cars in an attempt to get traffic moving again.

I think I got them all” Rita said with a last slap at my back. “Give me your shirt.” She took it, shook it out vigorously, and handed it back to me. “Here, you better put this back on” she said, and although I could not imagine why all of Miami was suddenly so obsessed with fighting partial nudity, I put the shirt back on, after looking suspiciously inside for any lingering fire ants.

When I poked my head out of the shirt and into the daylight again, Rita had already grabbed Cody and Astor by the hand again.

“Dexter,” she said. Tou said —how could you, I mean ... Why are you here?”

I was not sure how little I could tell her and still answer satisfactorily, and unfortunately, I didn't think I could just clutch at my head and moan again -1 was pretty sure I'd worn that out yesterday.

And to say that the Passenger and I had agreed that Weiss would come here and take the children because that's what we would have done in his place probably would not go down well, either. So I decided to try a rather diluted version of the truth. “It, ah —it's this guy who blew up the house yesterday,” I said. I just had a hunch that he might try again.” Rita just looked at me. I mean, to grab the kids as a way to get at me.”

“But you're not even a real policeman” Rita said with a certain amount of outrage in her voice, as if somebody had broken a basic rule. “Why would he try to get at you?” It was a good point, particularly since in her world —and generally speaking, in my world, too —blood spatter experts don't end up in blood feuds. I think it's about Deborah” I said. After all, she was a real policeman, and she wasn't here to contradict me. “It's somebody she was after when she got stabbed and I was there.”

“And so now he tries to hurt my children?” she said. “Because Deborah tried to arrest him?”

“That's the criminal mind” I said. “It doesn't work like yours.” Of course, it actually did work like mine, and right now the criminal mind was working on a thought about what Weiss might have left behind in his car. He had not expected to flee on foot —it was quite possible that there was some kind of hint in the car about where he would go and what his next move would be. And more —there might be some kind of horrible clue that pointed a blood-soaked finger in my direction. With that thought, I realized I needed to go through his car now, while Lear was busy and before any other cops arrived on the scene.

Seeing that Rita was still looking at me expectantly, I said, “He's crazy. We may never really understand what he's thinking.” She looked nearly convinced, so in the belief that a quick exit was often the most convincing argument, I nodded at Weiss's car. I should probably see if he left anything important. Before the tow truck gets here.” And I stepped around the hood of Rita's car and up to the front door of Weiss's, which was hanging open.

The front seat held the usual assortment of car garbage. Gum wrappers littered the floor, a water bottle lay on the seat, an ash tray held a handful of quarters for tolls. No butcher knives, bone saws, or bombs; nothing interesting at all. I was just about to slide into the car and open the glove compartment when I noticed a large notebook on the back seat. It was an artist's sketch book, with the edges of several loose pages sticking out, all held together with a large rubber band, and as I saw it the voice in the back of Dexter's Dark Room called out, Bingo!

I stepped out of the car and tried to open the back door. It was jammed shut, dented in from impact with Rita's car. So I knelt on the front seat and leaned over, grabbing the notebook and pulling it out. A siren wailed nearby, and I stepped away from Weiss's car and moved over next to Rita, clutching the book to my chest.