Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Dexter 1)

“Out with it,” she said through her teeth.

“Somebody was here, and he scared the kids. He took off in a car with a faculty parking tag.”

Deborah stared at me, her eyes hard and opaque. “Shit,” she said softly. “The guy Halpern said, what’s his name?”

“Wilkins,” I said.

“No,” she said. “Can’t be. All because the kids say somebody scared them? No.”

“He has a motive,” I said.

“To get tenure, for Christ’s sake? Come on, Dex.”

“We don’t have to think it’s important,” I said. “They do.”

“So to get tenure,” she said, shaking her head, “he breaks into Halpern’s apartment, steals his clothes, kills two girls—”

“And then steers us to Halpern,” I said, remembering how he had stood there in the hall and suggested it.

Deborah’s head jerked around to face me. “Shit,” she said. “He did do that, didn’t he? Told us to go see Halpern.”

“And however feeble tenure might seem as a motive,” I said, “it makes more sense than Danny Rollins and Ted Bundy getting together on a little project, doesn’t it?”

Deborah smoothed down the back of her hair, a surprisingly feminine gesture for someone I had come to think of as Sergeant Rock. “It might,” she said finally. “I don’t know enough about Wilkins to say for sure.”

“Shall we go talk to him?”

She shook her head. “First I want to see Halpern again,” she said.

“Let me get the kids,” I said.

Naturally enough, they were not anywhere near where they should have been. But I found them easily enough; they had wandered over to get a better look at the two heads, and it may have been my imagination, but I thought I could see a small gleam of professional appreciation in Cody’s eyes.

“Come on,” I told them, “we have to get going.” They turned 132

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away and followed me reluctantly, but I did hear Astor muttering under her breath, “Better than a stupid museum anyway.”

From the far edge of the group that had gathered to see the specta-cle he had watched, careful to be just one of the staring crowd, no different from all the rest of them, and unobserved in any specific way. It was a risk for the Watcher to be there at all—he could well be recognized, but he was willing to take the chance. And of course, it was gratifying to see the reaction to his work; a small vanity but one he allowed himself.

Besides, he was curious to see what they would make of the one simple clue he had left. The other was clever—but so far he had ignored it, walking right past and allowing his coworkers to photograph it and examine it. Perhaps he should have been a little more blatant—but there was time to do this right. No hurry at all, and the importance of getting the other ready, taking him when it was all just right—that outweighed everything else.

The Watcher moved a little closer, to study the other, perhaps see some sign as to how he was reacting so far. Interesting to bring those children with him. They didn’t seem particularly disturbed by the sight of the two heads. Perhaps they were used to such things, or—

No. It was not possible.

Moving with the greatest possible care, he edged closer, still trying to work his way near with the natural ebb and flow of the onlookers, until he got to the yellow tape at a point as close to the children as he could get.

And when the boy looked up and their eyes met, there was no longer any possibility of mistake.

For a moment their gaze locked and all sense of time was lost in the whir of shadowy wings. The boy simply stood there and stared at him with recognition—not of who he was but of what, and his small dark wings fluttered in panicked fury. The Watcher could not help himself; he moved closer, allowing the boy to see him and the nimbus of dark power he carried. The boy showed no fear—simply DEXTER IN THE DARK

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looked back at him and showed his own power. Then the boy turned away and took his sister’s hand, and the two of them trotted over to the other.

Time to leave. The children would certainly point him out, and he did not want his face seen, not yet. He hurried back to the car and drove away, but not with anything like worry. Not at all. If anything, he was more pleased than he had a right to be.