Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

“But you don’t have any idea.”

“No.”

“So great, then why’n’t you tell me what you were doing here instead?” he said.

And there it was, full circle, back to the real question—and if I answered it right, all was forgiven, and if I did not respond in a way that would make my suddenly smart friend happy, there was a very real possibility that he would follow through and derail the Dexter Express. I was waist-deep in the outhouse without a rope, and my brain was throbbing, trying to push through the fog to top form, and failing.

“It’s … it’s …” I looked down and then far away to my left, searching for the right words for a terrible and embarrassing admission. “She’s my sister,” I said at last.

“Who is?” said Coulter.

“Deborah,” I said. “Your partner. Deborah Morgan. She’s in the ICU because of this guy, and I…” I trailed off very convincingly and waited to see if he could fill in the blanks, or if the cute remarks had been a coincidence.

“I knew that,” he admitted. He took another sip of soda and then jammed his fingertip back into the mouth of the bottle and let it dangle again. “So you find this guy how?”

“At the elementary school this morning,” I said. “He was shooting video from his car, and I got the tag. I traced it to here.”

Coulter nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “And instead of telling me, or the lieutenant, or even a school crossing guard, you figure to take him on by yourself.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Because she’s your sister.”

“I wanted to, you know,” I said.

“Kill him?” he said, and the words hit me with an icy shock.

“No,” I said. “Just, just—”

“Read him his rights?” said Coulter. “Handcuff him? Ask him some tough questions? Blow up his house?”

“I guess, um,” I said, as if reluctantly letting out ugly truth. “I wanted to, you know. Rough him up a little.”

“Uh-huh,” said Coulter. “And then what?”

I shrugged, feeling somewhat like a teenage boy caught with a condom. “Then bring him in,” I said.

“Not kill him?” Coulter said, raising one badly trimmed eyebrow.

“No,” I said. “How could I, um …?”

“Not stick a knife in him and say, This is for what you did to my sister?”

“Come on, Detective. Me?” And I didn’t quite bat my eyes at him, but I did my best to look like the charter member of the Geek Patrol that I was in my secret identity.

And Coulter simply stared at me for a long and very uncomfortable minute. Then he shook his head again. “I dunno, Dex,” he said. “Doesn’t really add up.”

I gave him a look of pained confusion, which wasn’t entirely acting. “What do you mean?”

He took another swig of soda. “You always play by the rules,” he said. “Your sister’s a cop. Your dad was a cop. You never get in any kind of trouble, ever. Mr. Boy Scout. And now you decide you’re Rambo?” He made a face as if somebody had put garlic in his Mountain Dew. “Am I missing something? You know, something that makes sense?”

“She’s my sister,” I said, and it sounded incredibly feeble, even to me.

“Yeah, I got that already,” he said. “You got nothing else?”

I felt trapped in slow motion while large and ponderous things whizzed past me. My head throbbed and my tongue was too thick, and all my legendary cleverness had deserted me. Coulter watched me as I numbly and painfully shook my head, and I thought, This is a very dangerous man. But out loud, all I could manage was, “I’m sorry.”

He looked at me for just a moment longer, then turned away. “I think maybe Doakes was right about you,” he said, and then he walked across the street to talk to the firefighters.