I had been hoping for a chance to devote some serious time to my own personal misery and find a way to start on the problem of the absent Passenger. Failing that, it would have been nice just to relax a little bit, perhaps even catch up on some of the precious sleep I had lost the night before, as was my sacred right.

It was, after all, a Saturday. Many well-regarded religions and labor unions have been known to recommend that Saturdays are for relaxation and personal growth; for spending time away from the hectic hurly-burly, in well-earned rest and recreation. But Dexter was more or less a family man nowadays, which changes everything, as I was learning. And with Rita spinning around making wedding preparations like a tornado with blond bangs, it was a clear imperative for me to scoop up Cody and Astor and take them away from the pandemonium to the shelter of some activity sanc-tioned by society as appropriate for adult-child bonding time.

After a careful study of my options, I chose the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium. After all, it would be crowded with other family groups, which would maintain my disguise—and start them on theirs as well. Since they were planning to embark on the Dark Trail, they needed to begin right away to understand the notion that the more abnormal one is, the more important it is to appear normal.

And going to the museum with Doting Daddy Dexter was 110

JEFF LINDSAY

supremely normal-appearing for all three of us. It had the added ca-chet of being something that was officially Good for Them, a very big advantage, no matter how much that notion made them squirm.

So I loaded the three of us into my car and headed north on U.S. 1, promising the whirling Rita that we would return safely for dinner. I drove us through Coconut Grove and just before the Rick-enbacker Causeway turned into the parking lot of the museum in question. We did not go gentle into that good museum, however. In the parking lot, Cody got out of the car and simply stood there. Astor looked at him for a moment, and then turned to me. “Why do we have to go in there?” she said.

“It’s educational,” I told her.

“Ick,” she said, and Cody nodded.

“It’s important for us to spend time together,” I said.

“At a museum?” Astor demanded. “That’s pathetic.”

“That’s a lovely word,” I said. “Where did you get it?”

“We’r

e not going in there,” she said. “We want to do some -

thing.”

“Have you ever been to this museum?”

“No,” she said, drawing the word out into three contemptuous syllables as only a ten-year-old girl can.

“Well, it might surprise you,” I said. “You might actually learn something.”

“That’s not what we want to learn,” she said. “Not at a museum.”

“What is it you think you want to learn?” I said, and even I was impressed by how very much like a patient adult I sounded.

Astor made a face. “You know,” she said. “You said you’d show us stuff.”

“How do you know I’m not?” I said.

She looked at me uncertainly for a moment, then turned to Cody. Whatever it was they said to each other, it didn’t require words. When she turned back to me a moment later, she was all business, totally self-assured. “No way,” she said.

“What do you know about the stuff I’m going to show you?”

“Dex ter,” she said. “Why else did we ask you to show us?”

DEXTER IN THE DARK

111

“Because you don’t know anything about it and I do.”

“Duh-uh.”

“Your education begins in that building,” I said with my most serious face. “Follow me and learn.” I looked at them for a moment, watched their uncertainty grow, then I turned and headed for the museum. Maybe I was just cranky from a night of lost sleep, and I was not sure they would follow, but I had to set down the ground rules right away. They had to do it my way, just as I had come to understand so long ago that I had to listen to Harry and do it his way.

Tags: Jeff Lindsay Dexter Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net