I was already aware that it would really make a difference in my bank account, but beyond that I still didn’t see the point. Would everyone truly have a better time if they were served a series of apparently alien objects of uncertain use and origin instead of cold cuts? There is a great deal I don’t understand about human beings, but this really seemed to take the cake—assuming we would have a cake at all, which in my opinion was not a sure thing.

There was one thing I understood quite well, however, and that was Deborah’s attitude about punctuality. It was handed down from our father, and it said that lateness was disrespect and there were no excuses. So I pried Vince’s fingers off my arm and shook his hand. “I’m sure we’re all going to be very happy with the food,”

I said.

He held on to my hand. “It’s more than that,” he said.

“Vince—”

“You’re making a statement about the rest of your life,” he said.

“A really good statement, that your and Rita’s life together—”

“My life is in danger if I don’t go, Vince,” I said.

“I’m really happy about this,” he said, and it was so unnerving to see him display an apparently authentic emotion that there was actually a little bit of panic to my flight away from him and down the hall to the conference room.

The room was full, since this was becoming a somewhat high-profile case after the hysterical news stories of the evening before about two young women found burned and headless. Deborah glared at me as I slipped in and stood by the door, and I gave her what I hoped was a disarming smile. She cut off the speaker, one of the patrolmen who had been first on the scene.

“All right,” she said. “We know we’re not going to find the heads on the scene.”

I had thought that my late entrance and Deborah’s vicious glare at me would certainly win the award for Most Dramatic Entrance, but I was dead wrong. Because just as Debs tried to get the meeting moving again, I was upstaged as thoroughly as a candle at a fire-bombing.

“Come on, people,” Sergeant Sister said. “Let’s have some ideas about this.”

60

JEFF LINDSAY

“We could drag the lake,” Camilla Figg said. She was a thirty-five-year-old forensics geek and usually kept quiet, and it was rather surprising to hear her speak. Apparently some people preferred it that way, because a thin, intense cop named Corrigan jumped on her right away.

“Bullshit,” said Corrigan. “Heads float.”

“They don’t float—they’re solid bone,” Camilla insisted.

“Some of ’em are,” Corrigan said, and he got his little laugh.

Deborah frowned, and was about to step in with an authorita-tive word or two, when a noise in the hall stopped her.

CLUMP.

Not that loud, but somehow it commanded all the attention there was in the room.

CLUMP.

Closer, a little louder, for all the world approaching us now like something from a low-budget horror movie . . .

CLUMP.

For some reason I couldn’t hope to explain, everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath and turn slowly toward the door.

And if only because I wanted to fit in, I began to turn for a peek into the hall myself, when I was stopped by the smallest possible interior tickle, just a hint of a twitch, and so I closed my eyes and listened. Hello? I said mentally, and after a very short pause there was a small, slightly hesitant sound, almost a clearing of the mental throat, and then—

Somebody in the room muttered, “Holy sweet Jesus,” with the kind of reverent horror that was always guaranteed to pique my interest, and the small not-quite-sound within purred just a bit and then subsided. I opened my eyes.

I can only say that I had been so happy to feel the Passenger stirring in the dark backseat that for a moment I had tuned out everything around me. This is always a dangerous slip, especially for artificial humans like me, and the point was driven home with an absolutely stunning impact when I opened my eyes.

It was indeed low-budget horror, Night of the Living Dead, but in the flesh and not a movie at all, because standing in the doorway, DEXTER IN THE DARK

Tags: Jeff Lindsay Dexter Mystery
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