Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

TWENTY-SIX

THE GOLDEN LAKES AREA WENT BOLDLY AGAINST THE canon law of Miami real estate; in spite of the fact that the word lakes was in its name, there were actually several lakes in the area, and one of them butted up against the far side of the school’s playground. In truth, it did not look terribly golden to me, more of a milky green, but there was no denying that it was actually a lake, or at least a large pond. Still, I could appreciate the difficulty of trying to sell an area called “Milky Green Pond,” so perhaps the developers had known what they were doing after all, which would be yet another violation of custom.

I got to Golden Lakes well before school was over for the day, and I drove around the perimeter a couple of times, looking for a likely place for Weiss. There was none. The road on the east side ended where the lake came up almost to one side of the fence. And the fence was the tall chain-link variety and it went all around the school without a break, even on the lakeside—just in case a hostile frog tried to get on the grounds, I’m sure. Almost to the spot where the side road ended at the lake, there was a gate in the fence at the far side of the playfield, but it was securely closed with a chain and a large padlock.

Other than that, the only way through the fence was in front of the school, and it was blocked by a guard booth, with a police car parked beside it. Try to get through during school hours and the guard or the cop would stop you. Try to get through during drop-off or pickup and hundreds of teachers, moms, and crossing guards would stop you, or at least make things too difficult and chancy for comfort.

So the obvious answer for Weiss was to get in position early. And I had to figure out where. I put my Dark Thoughts Thinking Cap on and went slowly around the perimeter one more time. If I wanted to grab somebody from the school, how would I do it? First, it would have to be going in or coming out, since it would be too hard to breach school security in the middle of class. And that meant at the front gate—which is, naturally enough, why all the security was there, everything from the cop on duty to the very mean shop teacher.

Of course, if you could somehow get inside the fence first, and strike while all the security was focused at the front gate, that would make things much easier. But to do that, you would have to come through the fence, or over it, at a spot where you were not likely to be noticed—or at a spot where you could be inside the school quickly enough that it wouldn’t matter if you were seen.

But as far as I could tell, there was no such spot. I drove around the perimeter one more time; nothing. The fence was set well back from the buildings on all sides except the front. The one apparent weak spot was at the pond. There was a clump of pine trees and scrub brush between the pond and the fence, but the whole thing was too far from the school’s buildings. You could never get over the fence and across the field without being extremely visible.

And I could not drive around again without raising suspicion. I nosed the car onto a street off to the south side of the school, parked, and thought about it. All my keen reasoning led me to believe that Weiss would try to get the kids here, this afternoon, and this icy impeccable logic was seconded by a hot and inarguable blast of certainty from the Passenger. But how? From where I sat, I looked out at the school, and I had a very strong sense that somewhere nearby Weiss was doing the same thing. But he would not simply bust through the fence and hope he got lucky. He had been watching, making note of the details, and he would have a plan. And I had about half an hour now to figure out what that plan was and come up with a way to stop it.

I looked diagonally at the clump of trees by the lake. It was the only place where there was any kind of cover. But so what, if that cover vanished at the fence? Then something caught my eye just to the left, and I turned to look.

A white van pulled up and parked by the padlocked gate and a figure got out, wearing a lime-green shirt with matching cap and carrying a toolbox, very visible even from far away. The figure walked to the gate, set down the toolbox, and knelt down at the chain.

Of course. The best way to be invisible is to be completely, obviously visible. I am scenery; I belong here. I am just here to fix the fence, and there is no need to look at me at all, ha ha.

I started the car. Moving slowly back around the perimeter, keeping my eye on that bright green blob, I felt the cold wings unfold in me. I had him—right where he was supposed to be. But of course, I couldn’t just park and jump out; I would have to approach cautiously, assuming he knew what my car looked like, taking for granted that he would have both eyes wide open and watching for the possibility of Dexter.

So slow down, think this through; don’t simply count on the dark wings to carry you over all obstacles. Look carefully, and notice things: like, Weiss had his back to the van—and the van was parked sideways, nose in to the fence, blocking off the view of the pond. Because obviously nothing could come at him from that side.

Which naturally meant that Dexter would.

Driving slowly and taking great care not to attract any attention, I turned the car around and headed back to the south side of the school grounds. I followed the fence to the end, where the road ended and the pond began. I parked at the very end of the road in front of the metal barricade, invisible to Weiss at the padlocked gate, and got out. I moved quickly to the narrow path between the lake and the fence and hurried forward.

From the distant school building the bell rang. School was over for the day and Weiss would have to make his move now. I could see him, still kneeling at the padlock. I didn’t see the large handles of a bolt cutter sticking up, and it would take him a few minutes either to pick the lock or cut it. But once inside he could simply move along the fence leisurely, pretending to inspect the chain link. I reached the edge of the clump of trees and hurried through. I stepped carefully over small heaps of garbage—beer cans, plastic soda bottles, chicken bones, and other, less pleasant objects—and came to the far end, pausing only for a moment at the last tree to make sure that Weiss was still there, fiddling with the lock. The van was in the way and I could not see him, but as far as I could tell the gate was still closed. I took a deep breath, drawing in the darkness and letting it flow through me, and then I stepped out into the bright sun.

I moved to the right, almost at a run, to come at him from the rear,

around the back end of the van. Silently, carefully, feeling the stretch of dark wings all around me, I crossed the space to the van, came around the back end, and paused as I saw the figure kneeling by the gate.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw me. “Whus hapnin’,” the man said. He was about fifty, black, and very definitely not Weiss.

“Oh,” I said, with my usual wit. “Hello.”

“Damn kids put Super Glue in the lock,” he said, turning back around to face the lock.

“What were they thinking?” I said politely. But I never got to find out what they were thinking, because far away across the field, in the street in front of the main gate, I heard the sound of car horns, followed by the crunch of metal. And much closer at hand, actually inside my head, in fact, I heard a voice hissing, Stupid! And without pausing to wonder how I knew that the accident had been Weiss ramming Rita, I jumped up onto the fence, hooked myself over to the other side, and took off at a run across the playing field.

“Hey!” the man at the lock called, but for once I did not mind my manners and wait to hear what he had to say.

Of course Weiss would not cut the lock—he didn’t need to. Of course he didn’t have to get into the school and try to outwit or overcome hundreds of wary teachers and savage children. All he had to do was wait outside in the traffic, like a shark swimming the edge of the reef and waiting for Nemo to swim out. Of course.

I ran hard. The field seemed a little uneven, but it was all short and well-kept grass and I was able to hit a very good pace. I was just congratulating myself on being in good enough shape to stay at top speed when I raised my eyes for a moment to see what was going on. It was not a good idea; my foot caught on something almost instantly and I pitched face forward at a really wonderful velocity. I tucked into a ball and rolled through a somersault and a half before I flopped out flat on my back on top of something lumpy. I jumped up and took off running again, with a slight limp from a twisted ankle, and a vague picture of a fire-ant mound, now flattened by my human cannonball act.

Closer now; voices raised in alarm and panic from the street—and then a scream of pain. I could see nothing but a jumble of cars and a clot of people straining forward to look at something in the middle of the road. I went through the small gate in the fence, onto the sidewalk, and around to the front of the school. I had to slow down to work my way through the crowd of kids, teachers, and parents, clustered at the pickup spot at the front door, but I pushed through as quickly as I could and on out into the street. I moved back up to a run to cover the last hundred and fifty feet or so, to where traffic had stopped and coalesced around two cars that had come together in an untidy clump. One of them was Weiss’s bronze-colored Honda. The other car was Rita’s.

There was no sign of Weiss. But Rita herself leaned against the front bumper of her car with a look of numb shock on her face, holding Cody by one hand and Astor by the other. Seeing them all together, safe and sound, I slowed to a walk for the last few paces. She looked at me with no change in expression. “Dexter,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just in the neighborhood,” I said. “Ouch.” And the ouch was not mere random cleverness: all across my back, dozens of fire ants I had apparently picked up when I fell bit me at the same time as if by some telepathic signal. “Is everyone all right?” I said, pulling frantically to get my shirt off.

I pulled the shirt over my head to see the three of them staring at me with a look of mildly annoyed concern. “Are you okay?” Astor said. “Because you just took your shirt off in the middle of the street.”

“Fire ants,” I said. “All over my back.” I slapped at my back with the shirt, which did no good at all.