“Deborah,” I said. Not tremendously clever, but it was all I could think of.
“Because you don’t get a free pass with me,” she said. “Not for something like this.”
“I would never,” I said. “This is not . . .” I shook my head, and it really seemed so unfair. First the Dark Passenger left me, and now my sister and my wits had apparently fled, too. All the rats were swimming away as the good ship Dexter slid slowly under the waves.
I took a deep breath and tried to organize the crew to bail out a little. Deborah was the only person on earth who knew what I really was, and even though she was still getting used to the idea, I had thought she understood the very careful boundaries set up by Harry, and understood, too, that I would never cross them. Apparently I was wrong. “Deborah,” I said. “Why would I—”
“Cut the crap,” she snapped. “We both know you could have done it. You were here at the right time. And you have a pretty good motive, to get out of paying him like fifty grand. It’s either that or I believe some guy in jail did it.”
DEXTER IN THE DARK
197
Because I am an artificial human, I am also extremely clearheaded most of the time, uncluttered by emotions. But I felt as if I was trying to see through quicksand. On the one hand, I was surprised and a little disappointed that she thought I might have done something this sloppy. On the other hand, I wanted to reassure her that I hadn’t. And I wanted to say that if I had done this, she would never have found out about it, but that didn’t seem quite diplo-matic. So I took another deep breath and settled for, “I promise.”
My sister looked at me long and hard. “Really,” I said.
She finally nodded. “All right,” she said. “You better be telling me the truth.”
“I am,” I said. “I didn’t do this.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Then who did?”
It really isn’t fair, is it? I mean, this whole life thing. Here I was, still defending myself from an accusation of murder—from my own foster flesh and blood!—and at the same time being asked to solve the crime. I had to admire the mental agility that allowed Deborah to perform that kind of cerebral tumbling act, but I also had to wish she would direct her creative thinking at somebody else.
“I don’t know who did this,” I said. “And I don’t—I’m not getting any, um, ideas about it.”
She stared at me very hard indeed. “Why should I believe that, either?
” she said.
“Deborah,” I said, and I hesitated. Was this the time to tell her about the Dark Passenger and its present absence? There was a very uncomfortable series of sensations sloshing through me, somewhat like the onset of the flu. Could these be emotions, pounding at the defenseless coastline of Dexter, like huge tidal waves of toxic sludge? If so, it was no wonder humans were such miserable crea-tures. This was an awful experience.
“Listen, Deborah,” I said again, trying to think of a way to start.
“I am listening, for Christ’s sake,” she said. “But you’re not saying anything.”
“It’s hard to say,” I said. “I’ve never said it before.”
“This would be a great time to start.”
“I, uh—I have this thing inside me,” I said, aware that I 198
JEFF LINDSAY
sounded like a complete idiot and feeling a strange heat rising into my cheeks.
“What do you mean,” she demanded. “You’ve got cancer?”
“No, no, it’s— I hear, um— It tells me things,” I said. For some reason I had to look away from Deborah. There was a photograph of a naked man’s torso on the wall; I looked back to Deborah.
“Jesus,” she said. “You mean you hear voices? Jesus Christ, Dex.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not like hearing voices. Not exactly.”
“Well then what the fuck?” she said.
I had to look at the naked torso again, and then blow out a large breath before I could look back at Deborah. “When I get one of my hunches about, you know. At a crime scene,” I said. “It’s because this . . . thing is telling me.” Deborah’s face was frozen over, completely immobile, as if she was listening to a confession of terrible deeds; which she was, of course.