All the amusement left Alana’s face. “No, it’s not,” she said. “The point is that you must go alone or there will be a huge fuss and Joe will find out I told you, and in truth I really don’t wish to risk that. And if you insist on taking a team out there and making a great bloody riot of it, I shall go warn Bobby that you’re coming and he’ll be in Costa Rica before you can do a thing about it.” The dark wings fluttered in her eyes one more brief time, and then she forced a smile back onto her face, but it still wasn’t very pleasant. “What’s the expression? ‘My way or the highway.’ All right?”
I could see a lot of other options besides taking the on-ramp to Alana’s particular road, and I certainly didn’t like the idea of going into a deserted and hostile environment and trying to catch Bobby Acosta without considerable backup, merely because Alana said he was alone and unarmed. But apparently Deborah was made of sterner stuff, because she just looked back, and after a moment she nodded.
“All right,” Debs said. “I’ll do it your way. And if Bobby’s there, I don’t have to let Joe know how we found out.”
“Brilliant,” Alana said. She opened the Ferrari’s door, slid onto the seat, and fired up the engine. She revved it twice for effect, and the thick concrete walls of the parking garage trembled. She gave us one last cold and terrible smile—and once again, just for a second, I saw the shadow flutter behind her eyes. Then she closed the door, put the car in gear, and was gone in a wail of rubber.
Deborah watched her go, which gave me a little time to recover from my encounter with the inner Alana. It surprised me that I was shocked to find a predator in such a cool and beautiful package. After all, it made a great deal of sense. From what I knew about Alana, her biography told a ruthless story, and as I knew very well, it takes a special kind of person to slip the knife in so many times, and apparently so well.
And at least it made sense of her betrayal of Bobby Acosta. It was precisely the right sort of move for a dragon trying to protect her hard-won golden nest; in one clever stroke she safeguarded the treasure and eliminated a rival. Very sound gamesmanship, and the dark part of me admired her thinking.
Debs abruptly turned away from the sound of the vanishing Ferrari and headed for the door back into the lobby. “Let’s get it done,” she said over her shoulder.
We hurried back through the building and out the front door to Brickell Avenue without conversation. Deborah had angled her car in at an illegal spot by the curb in a perfect job of Cop Parking, and we climbed in. But in spite of her haste coming to the car, she didn’t start the engine right away. Instead, she put her forearms on the steering wheel and leaned forward with a frown.
“What?” I said at last.
She shook her head. “Something just isn’t right here,” she said.
“You don’t think Bobby is there?” I said.
She made a face and didn’t look at me. “I just don’t trust that bitch,” she said.
I thought that was very sensible. I knew quite well from my glimpse into Alana’s real self that she could only be trusted to do what was best for Alana, no matter what the consequences might be for everyone else. But secretly helping us put Bobby in jail seemed to fit her agenda nicely. “You don’t need to trust her,” I said. “But she is acting in her own self-interest.”
“Shut up, okay?” she said, and I shut. I watched Deborah drum her fingers on the wheel, purse her lips, rub her forehead. I wished I could find some similar twitch to fill the time, but nothing occurred to me. I did not like the whole idea of the two of us trying to corner Bobby Acosta. He didn’t seem particularly dangerous—but of course, most people thought the same thing about me, and look where that got them.
Bobby might not be deadly—but there was too much about the situation that was unknown and gravely random. And to be perfectly honest, which is sometimes necessary, I thought that any small chance of Samantha remaining silent would be gone forever if I showed up again with another rescue
party.
On the other hand, I knew very well that I could not let Deborah go alone. That would break every rule I had carefully learned over the course of a studiously wicked life. And to my surprise, I found that New Dexter, Lily Anne’s dad, who was working so hard to be human, actually had a feeling on the subject. I felt protective of Deborah, unwilling to see harm come to her, and if she was going to put herself in harm’s way I wanted to be there to keep her safe.
It was a very strange sensation, to be torn by the conflicting emotions of concern for Deborah and at the same time a very real desire to see Samantha out of the way somehow—polar opposites, both pulling at me strongly. I wondered if that meant that I was exactly halfway on my journey between Dark Dexter and Dex-Daddy. Dark-Daddy? It had possibilities.
Deborah snapped me out of my pathetic fugue by slapping her hands on the steering wheel. “Goddamn it,” she said. “I just don’t fucking trust her.”
I felt better: Common sense was winning. “So you’re not going?” I said.
Deborah shook her head and started the engine. “No,” she said. “Of course I’m going.” And she put it in gear and pulled out into traffic. “But I don’t have to go alone.”
I suppose I should have pointed out that since I was right there beside her, she was not technically alone. But she was already accelerating to a speed at which I began to fear for my life, so I simply grabbed for my seat belt and buckled it on extra tight.
THIRTY-SIX
I HAVE ALWAYS REGARDED IT AS AN ACUTE MENTAL DEFECT that some people think it’s perfectly safe to drive at high speeds while talking on a cell phone. But Deborah was one of those people, and family is family, so I didn’t say anything to her when she pulled out her phone. As we roared up onto I-95 she had one hand on the wheel while she dialed a number with the other. It was only one digit, which meant it was speed dial, and I had a pretty good idea who it would be, which was confirmed when she spoke.
“It’s me,” she said. “Can you find Buccaneer Land? Yeah, north. Okay, meet me outside the main gate, ASAP. Bring some hardware. Love you,” she said, and hung up.
There were very few living people Debs loved, and even fewer she would admit it to, so I was sure I knew who she had called.
“Chutsky’s meeting us there?” I said.
She nodded, sliding the phone back into its holster. “Backup,” she said, and then happily for my peace of mind she put both hands on the wheel and concentrated on weaving through the traffic. It was about a twenty-minute drive north up the highway to the spot where Buccaneer Land lay moldering, and Deborah made it in twelve minutes, flying down the off-ramp and onto the back road that leads up to the main gate at a rate of speed that seemed to me to be several very big steps beyond reckless. And since Chutsky was not there yet, we could have gone at a more reasonable pace and still had plenty of time to hang around waiting for him. But Debs kept her foot down until the gate was in sight, and then she finally slowed and pulled off the road beside what used to be the main gate to Buccaneer Land.
My first reaction was relief. Not just because Debs hadn’t killed us, but because Roger, the twenty-five-foot-tall pirate I remembered so well from my childhood, was still there guarding the place. Most of his bright paint job had worn off. Time and weather had removed the parrot from his shoulder, and his raised sword was half-gone, but he still had his eye patch, and there was still a bright and wicked gleam in his remaining eye. I climbed out of the car and looked up at my old friend. As a child I had always felt a special kinship with Roger. After all, he was a pirate, and that meant he was allowed to sail around on a big sailboat and chop up anybody he wanted, which seemed like an ideal life to me back then.
Still, it was very strange to stand in his shadow again and remember what this place had been like once upon a time, and what Roger the Pirate had meant to me. I felt I owed him some kind of homage, even in his dilapidated state. So I stared up at him for a moment, and then said, “Aaarrhhh.” He didn’t answer, but Debs looked at me strangely.