Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

“You ever read, Dexter?” he said, and the way he used my first name worried me—it sounded like he was talking to a suspect. And of course he was, but I was still hoping he wouldn’t think of me that way.

“Read?” I said. “Um, not a whole lot, no. Why?”

“I like to read,” he said. And then, apparently shifting gears, he went on, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”

“Excuse me?” I said. He had lost me somewhere around “I like to read.”

“It’s from Goldfinger,” he said. “Where he’s telling James Bond, I come across you three times where you don’t belong, it ain’t a coincidence.” He sipped, wiped his mouth, and watched me sweat. “Love that book. Must of read it like three, four times,” he said.

“I haven’t read it,” I said politely.

“So we got you here,” he went on. “And we got you at the house that blows up. And that’s two times we shouldn’t have you anywhere around. Am I s’posed to think that’s coincidence?”

“What else would it be?” I said.

He just looked without blinking. Then he took another sip of his Mountain Dew. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “But I know what Goldfinger would say it is if there’s a third time.”

“Well, let’s hope there isn’t,” I said, and I truly meant it this time.

“Yeah,” he said. He nodded, stuck his index finger back into the mouth of the soda bottle, and stood up. “Let’s just hope the shit out of that,” he said. He turned away, walked back around his car, got in, and drove away.

If I had been a little bit more of a fond observer of human foible I’m sure I would have taken great joy in discovering new depths in Detective Coulter. How wonderful to find that he was a devotee of the literary arts! But the joy of this discovery was diminished by the fact that I really had no interest in what Coulter did with his time, provided he did it away from me. I had barely gotten Sergeant Doakes off perpetual Dexter watch, and now here came Coulter to take his place. It was like I was the victim of some strange and sinister Dexter-persecuting Tibetan sect—whenever the old Dexter-hating Lama died, a new one was born to take his place.

But there was very little I could do about that right now. I was about to become a major work of art, and at the moment that was a far more pressing problem. I got into my car, started the engine, and drove home.

When I got to the house, I had to stand outside and knock for several minutes, since Rita had decided to fasten the security chain on the inside of the door. I suppose I was lucky that she had not piled the couch and the refrigerator in front of the door as well. Possibly that was only because she needed to use the couch; she had huddled on it with the two children clutched tightly to her, one on each side, and after letting me in—somewhat reluctantly—she resumed her position, throwing a protective arm around each child. Cody and Astor had almost identical looks of annoyed boredom on their faces. Apparently, cringing in terror in the living room was not the sort of quality bonding time they truly appreciated.

“You took so long,” Rita said as she slid the chain back on the door.

“I had to talk to a detective,” I said.

“Well, but,” she said, sliding back onto the couch between the children. “I mean, we were worried.”

“WE weren’t worried,” Astor said, rolling her eyes at her mother.

“Because I mean, that man could be anywhere right now,” Rita said. “He could be right outside, right now.” And even though none of us really believed that—not even Rita—all four of us swiveled our heads to the door for a look. Happily for us, he wasn’t there, at least not as far as we could tell by trying to look through a closed and locked door.

“Please, Dexter,” Rita said, and the edge of fear was so sharp in her voice I could smell it. “Please, this is—what is … why is this happening? I can’t—” She made several large but incomplete motions with her hands and then dropped them into her lap. “This has to stop,” she said. “Make it stop.”

In all honesty, I could only think of a few things I would rather do than make it stop—and several of those things could easily be part of making it stop, just as soon as I caught Weiss. But before I could really concentrate on making happy plans, the doorbell rang.

Rita responded by lurching up into the air and then settling back down again with one child pulled in tight on each side of her. “Oh God,” she said. “Who could that be?”

I was pretty sure it was not a Mormon Youth Ministry, but I just said, “I’ll get it,” and went to the door. Just to be safe, I peeked through the little spy hole—Mormons can be so persistent—and what I saw was even scarier.

Sergeant Doakes stood on my doorstep.

He was clutching the little silver computer that now spoke for him, and at his elbow was a clean-cut middle-aged woman in a gray suit, and even though she was not wearing a fedora, I was reasonably sure she was the fed I had been threatened with, to investigate the attempted kidnapping.

Looking at the two of them and thinking of all the trouble they might represent, I actually considered leaving the door bolted and pretending we weren’t home. But it was an idle thought; I have found that the faster you run from trouble, the quicker it catches you, and I was quite sure that if I did not let in Doakes and his new friend, they would be right back with a warrant, and probably Coulter and Salguero as well. So thinking unhappy thoughts and trying to settle my face into the right mixture of surprise and weary shock, I opened the door.

“Move. It. Motherfucker!” Doakes’s cheerful artificial baritone voice called out as he stabbed his claw three times at the keyboard of his little silver box.

The fed put a restraining hand on him, and then glanced back at me. “Mr. Morgan?” she said. “Can we come in?” She held up her credentials patiently while I looked at them; apparently she was Special Agent Brenda Recht of the FBI. “Sergeant Doakes offered to bring me down here to talk to you,” she said, and I thought about what a nice thing that was for Doakes to do.

“Of course you can come in,” I said, and then I had one of those happy inspirations that sometimes come at just the right time and I added, “But the children have had such a shock—and Sergeant Doakes kind of scares them. Can he wait out here?”

“Motherfucker!” Doakes said, sounding like he was happily calling out, Howdy, neighbor!