THIRTY-TWO

Deborah drove up to dixie highway and turned south toward my house without speaking, but after a few minutes the angry glare faded from her face, and her hands on the wheel lost their white-knuckled grip. "Anyway," she said at last, "the important thing is that we got Samantha."

I admired my sister's ability to identify the "important thing," but I really felt I should point out that it was the wrong one, because it did not include me. "Samantha didn't want to be got," I said. "She wants to be eaten."

Deborah shook her head. "Nobody wants that," she said. "She said that because she's maybe a little fucked-up, and she started to identify with the assholes that grabbed her. But wants to be? I mean, eaten?" She made the sour-lemon face again and shook her head. "Come on, Dex."

I could have told her that I was quite convinced, and that she would be, too, if she talked to Samantha for five minutes. But when Deborah makes up her mind, it takes a written order from the police commissioner to change it, and I didn't think there was one in the works.

"And besides," she said, "she's back with her family now, and they can get her a shrink or whatever. The more important thing for us is to wrap this thing up, round up Bobby Acosta and the last of the group."

"The coven," I told her, and maybe I was being pedantic. "Samantha says it's called a coven."

Deborah frowned. "I thought that was witches," she said. "It's apparently cannibals, too," I said.

"I don't think you can call a group of guys a coven," she said stubbornly. "I think it has to be witches. You know, women."

It seemed like such a small point, especially after all I had just been through, and I was far too tired to argue it. Happily, my time with Samantha had prepared me to give exactly the right response. "Whatever," I said. Deborah seemed satisfied with that, and after a few more empty remarks we were at my street. Deborah let me out in front of my house and drove off, and I thought no more about it in the pleasure of being home.

Home was waiting for me, and for some reason I found that surprising and touching. Deborah had called Rita and told her I would be late, not to worry, everything was fine, which seemed very close to callous overconfidence on her part. Rita had seen the news, though, which had made the capture into the evening's lead story-and really, how could they possibly resist? Cannibals, missing teen, Everglades shootout-it was a perfect story. There had already been a phone call from a premium cable network, trying to get the rights to the story.

In spite of Deborah's reassurance, Rita had known somehow that I was right in the middle of things and in grave danger, and she responded like a true champion. She was waiting for me at the door in a state of ditherhood that was unmatched in my experience. "Oh, Dexter," she sniffled as she half-drowned me in hugs and kisses. "We were so-It was on the news, and I saw you there, but even after Deborah called," she said, and kissed me again. "The children were watching TV, and Cody said, 'It's Dexter,' and I looked-It was a newsbreak," she said, I suppose reassuring me that I had not made a surprise guest appearance on SpongeBob. "Oh, my God," she went on, pausing to shudder and then hug me, burying her head up to the shoulders in my neck. "You shouldn't have to do those things," she said, with a great deal of justice. "You're supposed to do forensics and-You don't even have a gun, and it isn't-How can they-But your sister said, and on TV they said it was the cannibals and they had you, and at least you found that girl, which I know was very important, but oh, my God, cannibals, I can't even think how-And they had you, and they could have-" And she finally broke off, possibly from oxygen deprivation, and concentrated on snuffling into my shirt for a minute.

I took advantage of the break to look around with satisfaction at my modest kingdom. Cody and Astor were sitting on the couch watching us with matching expressions of disgust at the emotional exhibition, and right next to them sat my brother, Brian, beaming a huge and dreadful smile at one and all. Lily Anne was in her basket beside the couch, and she waved her toes at me in a warm and heartfelt greeting. It was a perfect family picture, suitable for framing; The Hero Returns to His Home. And although I was not completely pleased to see Brian here I could think of no reason to wish him gone, either. Besides, all the good will was infectious, even the artificial stuff coming from my brother, and the air was filled with a wonderful, saliva-inducing aroma that I recognized as one of the great miracles of the modern world: Rita's roast pork.

Dorothy was right. There's no place like home.

It would have been terribly rude to tell Rita she had snuffled long enough, but I had been through an awful lot, including starvation, and the smell that filled the house was setting off a frenzy in my guts that made the overdose of ecstasy look tame. Rita's roast pork was a great work of art that could have made a statue lunge off its pedestal and cry, "Yummy!" So after I managed to disengage myself and dry my shoulder, I thanked her profusely and headed straight for the table, with only a brief pause to see Lily Anne and count her fingers and toes, just to make sure they were all still there.

And so we sat around the table, looking like a perfect family portrait, and it occurred to me how deceptive pictures can be. At the head of the table, of course, sat Dex-Daddy, a true monster trying to be a little more human. At his left was Brother Brian, a far worse monster and still completely unrepentant; and across from him sat two fresh-faced, innocent-seeming children, who wanted nothing more than to be just like their wicked uncle. And all of them wearing totally fake expressions of the deepest, most mundane humanity possible. It would have made a wonderful subject for Norman Rockwell, especially if he was feeling particularly sardonic.

Dinner went its tasty way, the silence broken mostly by lip smacking, moans of pleasure, and Lily Anne demanding to be fed, probably overcome by the smell and sound of the pork roast. Rita would occasionally shatter the silence with small non sequiturs of concern, rambling on until someone held out their plate for more-which we all did several times, except Lily Anne. And as the meal meandered on to its end and we proved again that "leftover roast pork" was an oxymoron in our house, I was very glad indeed to have returned in one piece to my little nest.

The feeling of bloated satisfaction continued, even after dinner, when Cody and Astor stampeded for the Wii and a game that involved killing awful-looking monsters, and I sat on the couch burping Lily Anne while Rita cleaned up. Brian sat next to me, and we watched the kids absentmindedly for a while before Brian finally spoke.

"Well," he said at last. "So you survived your run-in with the coven."

"Apparently," I said.

He nodded and, as Cody obliterated a very nasty-looking creature, Brian called out, "Good one, Cody!" After a moment he turned back to me and said, "And have they caught the head witch yet?"

"George Kukarov," I said. "He was shot and killed on the scene."

"The man who ran that club, Fang?" he said, with surprise in his voice.

"That's right," I said. "And I have to say it was a very good shot, and just in time."

Brian was silent for a minute, and then said, "I always thought the head of a coven had to be a woman."

This was the second time tonight someone had argued with me about this, and I was a little tired of hearing about it. "It really isn't my problem," I said. "Deborah and her task force will round up the rest of them."

"Not if she thinks that Kukarov guy is the leader," he said.

Lily Anne erupted with a small but explosive belch, and I felt it soak slowly through the towel and into my shirt as she settled her head down and nodded off to sleep. "Brian," I said. "I have spent a very bad day with these people, and I'm all done. I don't care if the real leader of the coven is a man, or a woman, or a two-headed lizard from the Planet Nardone. It's Deborah's problem, and I'm all done with it-and why do you care, anyway?"

"Oh, I don't care," he said. "But you're my little brother. Naturally I'm interested."

And I might have said something else, something really cutting, but Astor overwhelmed any possible response with an anguished wail of "Nooooooo!" and we both jerked around to look at the TV screen, just in time to see the little golden-haired figure that represented her on-screen being eaten by a monster. Cody said, "Ha," quietly but triumphantly, and raised his controller; the game went on, and I thought no more about witches, covens, and my brother's interest in them.

The evening wound relentlessly on to its conclusion. I found myself yawning, hugely and loudly, and even though it was a little bit embarrassing, I could not stop myself. Of course, the dreadful ordeal I had been through was taking its toll on my poor battered system, and I am sure that roast pork is loaded with tryptophan or something like it. Perhaps it was the combination, but whatever the case it soon became plain to all that Dex-Daddy was on the ropes and about to join Lily Anne in Dreamland.

And just as I was about to excuse myself from the delightful company-several of whom would not have noticed, judging from their concentration on the video game-the swelling notes of "Ride of the Valkyries" began to pour out of Brian's cell phone. He pulled it from its holster and glanced at it, frowning, and almost immediately stood up and said, "Oh, darn. I'm afraid I have to leave at once, as delightful as the company may be."

"It may be," Astor muttered, watching Cody rack up points on the screen, "but it isn't yet."

Brian gave her his large and phony smile. "It is for me, Astor," he said. "It's family. But," he said, and the smile got wider, "duty calls, and I have to go to work."

"It's night," Cody said without looking up.

"Yes, it is," Brian said. "But sometimes I have to work at night." And he looked at me happily, almost as if he was about to wink at me, and my curiosity overcame my sleepiness.

"What kind of work are you doing right now?" I asked him.

"Service industry," he said. "And I really do have to go." He patted me on the shoulder, the one that Lily Anne wasn't using, and said, "And I'm sure you need your sleep after all you've been through."

I yawned again, which made it pointless to deny that I really did need sleep. "I think you're right," I said, and I stood up. "I'll walk you out."

"No need," Brian said, and headed for the kitchen. "Rita? I thank you again for another wonderful meal and a delightful evening."

"Oh," Rita said, and she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "But it's still early, and-Did you want some coffee? Or maybe-"

"Alas," Brian said, "I really do have to leave posthaste."

"What does that mean?" Astor said. " 'Posthaste'?"

Brian winked at her. "It means, quick as a mailman," he said, and he turned back to Rita and gave her a clumsy hug. "Many thanks, dear lady, and good night."

"I'm just so sorry that-I mean, it is getting a bit late for work, and you-Maybe a new job? Because this isn't really-"

"I know," Brian said. "But this job actually matches my skill set perfectly." He looked at me, and I felt a cold nausea burble up in the pit of my stomach. He had only one skill that I knew of, and as far as I knew, nobody would pay him for it. "And," he went on to Rita, "it does have its compensations, and at the moment I do need to do it. And so, a fond farewell to one and all," he said, and he raised his hand, presumably in fond farewell, and headed for the door.

"Brian," I said to his back, and I had to stop as another real jaw-creaker of a yawn took control of my entire body.

Brian turned back with a raised eyebrow. "Dexter?" he said.

I tried to remember what I had been about to say, but another yawn hammered it out of my head. "Nothing," I said. "Good night."

Once again his terrible fake smile stretched across his face. "Good night, brother," he said. "Get some sleep." And he opened the front door and was gone into the night.

"Well," Rita said. "Brian really is getting to be one of the family."

I nodded, and I could feel myself sway slightly, as if nodding my head might overcome my balance and pitch me face-forward onto the floor. "Yes, he is," I said, and of course I punctuated it with a yawn.

"Oh, Dexter, you poor-You need to get to bed right now; you must be-Here, give me the baby," Rita said. She threw the dish towel into the kitchen and rushed over to grab Lily Anne. In my sadly depleted state it seemed barely short of amazing that she could move so fast. But in no time at all she had Lily Anne tucked into her basket and was propelling me down the hall to the bedroom. "Now," she said, "you take a nice hot shower and get into bed, and I think you should sleep late in the morning. They can't really expect-I mean, after all you've been through?"

I was far too tired to respond. I did manage to stumble through a shower before falling into bed, but even though I could feel the accumulated slime and grime of the dreadful day all over me, it was hard work to stay awake under the stream of hot water long enough to get thoroughly clean, and it was with a feeling of almost supernatural bliss that I finally collapsed onto the pillow, closed my eyes, and pulled the sheet up to my chin…

And naturally enough, once I was actually in bed, I couldn't sleep at all. I lay there with my eyes closed, and I could feel a deep sleep welling up just on the other side of the pillow, but it would not come to me. I listened to Cody and Astor down the hall, still playing the Wii, now a little more hushed at Rita's insistence, since I was, as she told them, trying to sleep-and I was trying, really I was, but I was having no success.

Thoughts trudged through my brain like a slow-motion parade. I thought about the four of them just down the hall: my little family. It still seemed faintly bizarre. Dex-Daddy, protector and provider, family man. Even more bizarre was that I liked it.

I thought about my brother. I still didn't know what he was up to, why he kept coming around. Was it really possible that he simply wanted to feel some kind of family connection? It was very hard to believe-but then, it would have been just as hard to believe it about me before Lily Anne, and here I was, forswearing all Dark Delights and wallowing in the bosom of a real family. Maybe Brian wanted the same simple, human connection. Maybe he wanted to change, too.

And maybe I could clap my hands three times and bring Tinker-bell back to life, too. It was just as likely; Brian had lived his whole life on the Dark Path and he couldn't possibly change, not that much. He had to have some other reason for shoehorning into my nest, and sooner or later it would come out. I didn't think he would hurt my family-but I would watch him until I knew for certain what he was doing.

And of course, I thought about Samantha and her threat to tell all. Was it just a threat, an acting out of her large frustration at being alive and well and uneaten? Or would she really talk, tell everyone a vindictive version of what had happened? The moment that awful word "rape" was out, everything changed forever, and not for the better. It would be Dexter in the Docket, ground to a pulp beneath the wheels of the injustice system. It was horrible beyond measure, and completely unfair. No one who knew me could possibly think of me as a leering sex-mad ogre. I had always been a very different kind of ogre. But people believe cliches, even when they're untrue, and the older man with the teen girl qualified as one. It truly wasn't my fault-but who would hear that without a wink and a smirk? I hadn't willingly taken the drugs-would she really punish me for a situation in which I had been the real victim? It was hard to say for sure, but I thought she might. And that would destroy every piece of my carefully constructed life.

But what could I do? I could not avoid the idea that killing her would solve everything-and I could even get her to cooperate by promising to nibble a few small pieces before I finished her off. I wouldn't, of course-yuck-but if a small lie makes somebody happy, where's the harm?

It would never come to that, anyway. It seemed like another great irony, but I couldn't kill Samantha, as much as we both wanted it. Not that I had grown a conscience yet; it was just that it would be totally contrary to the Harry Code, and far too dangerous, too, since she was very much in the spotlight right now, much too closely watched for me to get close. No, it was too risky. I would have to think of some other way to save my life.

But what? The solution would not come to me, and neither would slumber, and the thoughts kept up their leaden tumbling across the soggy floor of my sleep-starved brain. Covens-who cared if it was led by a woman or a man? Kukarov was dead, and the coven was over.

Except for Bobby Acosta. Maybe I could find him and feed him Samantha. And then give him to Deborah. It would cheer them both up.

Debs really needed cheering: She had been acting very weird lately. Did it mean something? Or was it just the emotional hangover from her knife wound?

Knives-could I really give up my Dark Delights forever? For Lily Anne?

Lily Anne: I thought about her for what seemed like a long time, and then suddenly it was morning.

THIRTY-FOUR

Like most people who live in miami, i knew a good deal about Joe Acosta from what I'd read in the newspapers. It seemed like he had been a county commissioner forever, and even before that little chunks of his life story had slipped into the media from time to time. It was the kind of story that makes for wonderful, heartwarming reading, a real boy-makes-good tale. Or in Acosta's case, perhaps it should be chico makes bueno.

Joe Acosta had come to Miami from Havana on one of the first Pedro Pan Freedom Flights. He had been young enough at the time to make an easy transition to America, but he stayed gusano enough over the years to keep a high standing in the Cuban community, and he had done very well for himself. He had gone into real estate in the boom time of the eighties and put all his profits into one of the first big developments south of South Miami. It had sold out in six months. And now Acosta's construction and development business was one of the largest in South Florida, and driving around town you saw a sign with his name on it at nearly every construction site. He was so successful that even the current financial meltdown apparently hadn't hurt him too badly. Of course, he didn't need to rely solely on his construction business. He could always fall back on the salary of six thousand dollars a year he made as a county commissioner.

Joe was about ten years into a second marriage, and it seemed like even the divorce had not wiped him out, because he still lived very well and publicly. He was often in the celebrity gossip section of the papers, pictured with his new wife. She was a British beauty who had been responsible for a number of truly terrible techno-pop dance hits in the nineties and then, when the public realized how awful her music was, she came to Miami, found Joe, and settled into a comfortable life as a trophy wife.

Acosta kept a business office on Brickell Avenue, and that's where we found him. He had the entire top floor of one of the newer skyscrapers that were remaking the Miami skyline into something that looked like a giant mirror had fallen from outer space and shattered into tall and jagged shards that were now jammed into the ground at random intervals. We got past the guard in the lobby and rode up to the top in a sleek elevator. Even Acosta's ultrachic steel-and-leather waiting room had a wonderful view of Biscayne Bay, though, and that turned out to be a good thing. We had plenty of opportunity to enjoy it, because Acosta kept us waiting for forty-five minutes; after all, there is no real point in having clout if you don't use it to make the police uncomfortable.

And it worked wonderfully well, at least on Deborah. I sat and flipped through a couple of very high-end sports-fishing magazines, but Deborah fidgeted, clenching and unclenching her hands and her jaw, crossing and recrossing her legs, and drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair. She looked like someone waiting for the methadone clinic to open.

After a while, I couldn't even concentrate on all the glossy pictures of ridiculously rich men with one arm around a bikinied model and the other around a big fish, and I put down the magazine. "Debs, for God's sake, stop fidgeting. You'll wear out the chair."

"That son of a bitch is keeping me waiting because he's up to something," she hissed.

"That son of a bitch is a busy man," I said. "As well as being rich and powerful. Besides, he knows you're after his son. And that means he can keep us waiting as long as he wants. So relax and enjoy the view." I picked up a magazine and offered it to her. "Have you seen this issue of Cigar Aficionado?"

Debs slapped the magazine away, making a thwack noise that sounded unnaturally loud in the hushed and clinical elegance of the waiting area. "I'm giving him five more minutes," she snarled.

"And then what?" I said. She didn't have an answer for that, at least not in words, but the look she gave me would almost certainly have curdled milk if I'd been holding any.

I never got to find out what she might have done after five minutes, because after only three and a half minutes more of watching my sister grind her teeth and jangle her legs like a teenager, the elevator door opened and an elegant woman strolled past us. She was tall, even without the spike heels, and her platinum-colored hair was short, possibly to keep it from hiding the gigantic diamond that hung around her neck on a thick gold chain. The jewel was set in the eye of what looked to be an ankh, but with a sharp, daggerlike point to it. The woman gave us one snooty glance and went right to the receptionist.

"Muriel," she said in an icy British accent. "Send in some coffee, won't you." And without pausing she went by the receptionist, opened the door to Acosta's office, and sauntered in, closing the door behind her.

"That's Alana Acosta," I whispered to Debs. "Joe's wife."

"I know who it is, goddamn it," she said, and went back to grinding her teeth.

It was clear that Deborah was beyond any of my paltry efforts at bringing her comfort and joy, so I grabbed another magazine. This one was devoted to showing the kind of clothing you have to wear on boats that cost enough to buy a small country. But I had not even looked at it long enough to discover why twelve-hundred-dollar shorts were better than the kind that cost fifteen dollars at Walmart when the receptionist called to us.

"Sergeant Morgan?" she said, and Deborah shot up out of her chair as if she were sitting on a big steel spring. "Mr. Acosta will see you now," the receptionist said, and waved us at the office door.

"About fucking time," Debs muttered under her breath, but I think Muriel heard her, because she gave us a superior smile as my sister stormed by her with me in her wake.

Joe Acosta's office was big enough to host a convention. One whole wall was taken up by the largest flat-screen TV I had ever seen. Covering the entire wall opposite was a painting that really belonged in a museum under armed guard. There was a bar, complete with a kitchenette, a conversation area with a couple of couches, and a handful of chairs that looked like they had come from an old British Empire men's club and cost more than my house. Alana Acosta lounged in one of the chairs, sipping from a bone china coffee cup. She didn't offer us any.

Joe Acosta sat at a massive glass-and-steel-frame desk in front of a tinted glass wall that framed Biscayne Bay as if it was a photo of Joe's personal cottage in the woods. In spite of the tint, the late-afternoon light came up off the water and filled the room with a supernatural glow.

Acosta stood up as we entered, and the light from the window behind him surrounded him in a bright aura, making it hard to look at him without squinting. But I looked at him anyway, and even without the halo he was impressive.

Not physically; Acosta was a thin and aristocratic-looking man with dark hair and eyes, and he wore what looked like a very expensive suit. He was not tall, and I was sure his wife would tower over him in her spike heels. But perhaps he felt that the power of his personality was strong enough to overcome a little thing like being a foot shorter than her. Or maybe it was the power of his money. Whatever it was, he had it. He looked at us from behind his desk, and I felt a sudden urge to kneel, or at least knuckle my forehead.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Sergeant," he said. "My wife wanted to be here for this." He waved an arm at the conversation area. "Let's sit where we can talk," he said, and he walked around the desk and sat down in the big club chair opposite Alana.

Deborah hesitated for a moment, and I saw that she looked a little bit uncertain, as if it had really hit her for the first time that she was confronting somebody who was only a few steps down the chain of command from God. But she took a breath, squared her shoulders, and marched over to the couch. She sat down, and I sat beside her.

The couch was apparently built on the same principle as a Venus flytrap, because when I sat I was immediately sucked down into a deep plush cushion, and as I struggled to remain upright it occurred to me that this was on purpose, another silly little trick Acosta used to dominate people, like putting his desk in front of the bright window. Deborah apparently came to the same conclusion, because I saw her tighten her jaw, and pull herself forward with a jerk to perch awkwardly on the edge of the couch.

"Mr. Acosta," she said. "I need to talk to your son."

"What about?" Acosta said. He sat comfortably in his chair, his legs crossed, and an expression of polite interest on his face.

"Samantha Aldovar," Debs said. "And Tyler Spanos."

Acosta smiled. "Roberto has a lot of girlfriends," he said. "I don't even try to keep up."

Deborah looked angry, but happily for us all she managed to control herself. "As I am sure you are aware, Tyler Spanos was murdered, and Samantha Aldovar is missing. And I think your son knows something about both of them."

"Why do you think that?" Alana said from her chair opposite Joe. Another trick: We had to whip our heads back and forth to keep up, like watching a Ping-Pong match.

But Deborah looked at her anyway. "He knows Samantha," she said. "And I have witnesses that say he sold them Tyler's car. That's felony car theft and accessory to murder, and that's just the beginning."

"I am not aware that any charges have been filed," Acosta said, and we both swung our heads back to face him.

"Not yet," Deborah said. "But they will be."

"Then perhaps we should have a lawyer here," Alana said.

Deborah looked at her briefly, then back to Acosta. "I wanted to talk to you first," she said. "Before the lawyers get into it."

Acosta nodded, as if he expected a police officer to show that kind of consideration for his money. "Why?" he said.

"Bobby is in trouble," she said. "I think he knows that. But his best chance at this point is to walk into my office, with a lawyer, and surrender himself."

"That would save you some work, wouldn't it?" Alana said with a superior smile.

Deborah stared at her. "I don't mind the work," she said. "And I'll find him anyway. And when I do it's going to go very hard on him. If he resists arrest, he might even get hurt." She looked back at Acosta. "It's going to be a whole lot better for him if he comes in on his own."

"Why do you think I know where he is?" Acosta said.

Deborah stared at him, then looked away for a moment, out the bright window at the bay. "If it was my son," she said, "I would know where he was. Or how to find out."

"You have no children, do you?" Alana said.

"No," Debs said. She looked at Alana for a long and awkward moment, and then swung her head back to face Acosta. "He's your son, Mr. Acosta. If you know where he is and don't tell when I file charges, that's concealing a fugitive."

"You think I should turn in my own son?" he demanded. "You think that looks good?"

"Yeah, I do," she said.

" 'Commissioner upholds law, even when it hurts,' " I said in my best headline-news voice. He looked at me with an anger that was almost physical, and I shrugged. "You can come up with something better if you want," I said.

He didn't even try. He just stared at me for another long moment. There was nothing to hide under, so I just looked back, and finally he turned back to Deborah. "I won't rat out my own son, Sergeant," he said, in a voice that was almost a hiss. "No matter what you think he's done."

"What I think is that he's involved in drugs, murder, and worse," Deborah said. "And it's not the first time."

"That's all over," he said. "In the past. Alana straightened him out."

Debs glanced at Alana, who just gave her another superior smile. "It's not over," Deborah said. "It's getting worse."

"He's my son," Acosta said. "He's just a kid."

"He's a bug," Deborah said. "Not a kid. He kills people and he eats them." Alana snorted, but Acosta turned pale and tried to say something. Debs didn't let him. "He needs help, Mr. Acosta. Shrinks, counseling, all of that stuff. He needs you."

"Goddamn you," Acosta said.

"If you let this play out, he's going to get hurt," she said. "If he comes in on his own-"

"I won't turn in my own son," Acosta said again. He was clearly fighting for control, but he seemed to be winning.

"Why not?" Deborah said. "You know damned well you can get him off; you have before." She sounded very hard now, and it seemed to surprise Acosta. He looked back at her and moved his jaw, but no sound came out, and Debs went on in a deadly, factual voice. "With your connections, and your money, you can get the best lawyers in the state," she went on. "Bobby will walk away from this with a slap on the wrist. It's not right, but it's a fact, and we both know it. Your son will walk, just like the other times. But not unless he comes in voluntarily."

"So you say," Acosta said. "But life is uncertain. And however it goes, I have still sold out my son." And he glared at me again. "For a sound bite." He looked back at Deborah. "I won't do it."

"Mr. Acosta-" she said, but he raised a hand and cut her off.

"In any case," he said, "I don't know where he is."

They looked at each other for a moment, and it was plain to me that neither of them knew how to give in, and it quickly became obvious to them, too; Deborah just looked at him, and then shook her head slowly and struggled up out of the couch. She stood for a second looking down at Acosta, and then she just nodded.

"All right," she said. "If that's how you want to play it. Thank you for your time." She turned and headed for the door, and before I could break the grip of the carnivorous couch she had a hand on the doorknob. As I lurched up and onto my feet, Alana Acosta unfolded her long legs and rose up from her chair. The movement was so sudden and dramatic that I paused only halfway up and watched as she slid up to her great height and sauntered past me to Acosta.

"That was rather boring," she said.

"You're going home?" Acosta asked her.

She bent and pecked at his cheek. The huge diamond ankh swung forward and bumped his cheek, too. It didn't open a cut, and he didn't seem to mind. "Yes," she said. "I'll see you tonight." She sauntered for the door, and after a moment, realizing I was still staring, I shook myself and followed.

Deborah was standing by the elevator, arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently. And evidently unaware that there was any awkwardness in the situation at all, Alana strolled right up and stood next to her. Deborah looked at her; she had to crane her neck to see all the way up to Alana's face, but she did. Alana looked back with no expression, and then looked away as a chime sounded and the elevator doors slid open. Alana went right in and Deborah, gritting her teeth, marched in after, leaving me no choice at all but to jump in between them and hope I could stop the knife fight.

But there was no fight. The doors slid shut, the elevator lurched downward, and before Deborah could even recross her arms, Alana looked down at her and said, "I know where Bobby is."

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.

I stepped away from Roger and looked through the chain-link fence that surrounded the park. The sun was setting, and in the last light of the day there wasn't much to see from here; the same clutter of gaudy signs and rides I remembered, now battered and greatly faded after so many years of neglect in the cruel Florida sunlight. Looming over everything was the tall and extremely unpiratical tower they had named the Mainmast. It had a half dozen metal arms hanging off it, each with a caged car dangling from the end. I had never understood what it had to do with buccaneers, no matter how many signs and flags they'd draped on it, but Harry had just patted my head when I asked him and said they got a deal on it, and anyway it had been fun to ride up to the top. There was a great view from up there, and if you closed one eye and muttered, "Yo, ho, ho," you could almost forget that the thing was so modern-looking.

Now the whole tower seemed to lean slightly to one side, and all the cars but one were either missing or shattered. Still, I wasn't planning on riding to the top today, so it didn't seem important.

From the fence where I stood I couldn't see much more of the park, but since there was nothing else to do but wait for Chutsky, I let the nostalgia in. I wondered if there was still water in the artificial river that wound through the park. There had been a pirate ship ride on that river: Roger the Pirate's pride and joy, the wicked ship Vengeance. It had cannons that really fired sticking out of each side. And on one bank of the river, they had one of those rides where you sit inside a fake log and ride down a waterfall. Beyond it, on the far side of the park, there was the Steeplechase. Just like with the tower, the connection between a Steeplechase and pirates had always escaped me, but the ride had been Debs's favorite. I wondered if she was thinking about it.

I looked at my sister. She was pacing back and forth in front of the gate, glancing up the road and then into the park, then standing still and folding her arms, and then snapping back into a walk, back and forth again. She was clearly about to pop from the nervous anticipation, and I thought this might be a good time to calm her down a little and share a family memory, so as she paced by me I spoke to her back.

"Deborah," I said, and she whipped around to look at me.

"What?" she said.

"Remember the Steeplechase?" I asked her. "You used to love that ride."

She stared at me as if I had asked her to jump off the tower. "Jesus Christ," she said. "We're not here to walk down memory fucking lane." And she spun back around and stalked away to the far side of the gate.

Obviously, my sister was not quite as overwhelmed by fond recollection as I was. I wondered if she was becoming less human while I became more so. But of course, there was the strange and very human moodiness that had been afflicting her lately, so it didn't seem likely.

In any case, Debs clearly thought that pacing and grinding her teeth was more fun than sharing happy memories of our youthful frolics in Buccaneer Land. So I let her stomp around while I looked through the fence for five more long minutes until Chutsky arrived.

And he finally did arrive, steering his car up behind Deborah's and climbing out holding a metallic briefcase, which he put down on the hood of his car. Deborah stormed over and gave him a typically warm and loving greeting.

"Where the fuck have you been?" she said.

"Hey," Chutsky said. He reached to give her a kiss, but she pushed past him and grabbed for the briefcase. He shrugged and nodded at me. "Hey, buddy," he said.

"What have you got?" she said, and he took the case from her and popped it open.

"You said hardware," he said. "I didn't know what you were expecting, so I brought a selection." He lifted out a small assault rifle with a folding stock. "Heckler and Koch's finest," he said, holding it up, then laid it on the hood and reached back into the case and came out with a pair of much smaller weapons. "Nice little Uzi here," he said. He patted one affectionately with the steel hook he had nowadays instead of a left hand, and then put it down and took out two automatic pistols. "Couple of standard service models, nine-millimeter, nineteen shots in the mag." He looked at Deborah fondly. "Any one of 'em a whole lot better than that piece of shit you carry around," he said.

"It was Daddy's," Deborah said, lifting up one of the pistols.

Chutsky shrugged. "It's a forty-year-old wheel gun," he said. "Almost as old as me, and that ain't good."

Deborah dropped the magazine out of the pistol, worked the action, and looked in the chamber. "This isn't the siege of Khe fucking Sanh," she said, and she slammed the magazine back into the pistol. "I'll take this one."

Chutsky nodded. "Uh-huh, good," he said. He reached past her into the case. "Extra magazine," he said, but she shook her head.

"If I need more than one, I'm dead and fucked," she said.

"Maybe," Chutsky said. "What are we expecting in there, anyway?"

Debs shoved the pistol into the waistband of her pants. "I don't know," she said. "We were told he's in there alone." Chutsky raised an eyebrow at her. "Twenty-two-year-old white male," she explained. "Five-foot-ten, a hundred fifty pounds, dark hair-but honest to God, Chutsky, we don't have a clue if he's really there, or if he's alone, and I sure as shit don't trust the bitch that gave us the tip."

"Okay, good, I'm glad you called me," he said, nodding happily. "Old days, you would have gone in there alone with your daddy's popgun." He looked over at me. "Dex?" he said. "I know you don't like guns and violence." He smiled and shrugged. "But hey-you don't wanna go in there naked, buddy." He tilted his head at his little armory, spread out on the hood of the car. "How 'bout joo say hello to my little fren?" It was the worst Scarface impression I'd ever heard, but I stepped forward for a look anyway. I really don't like guns-they're so loud and messy, and they take all the skill and pleasure out of things. Still, I was not here for the fun of it.

"If it's okay with you," I said, "I'll take the other pistol. And the extra magazine." After all, if I needed the thing at all, I would probably really need it, and nineteen extra bullets don't weigh that much.

"Yeah, great," he said happily. "You sure you know how to use it?"

It was a small joke between us-small mostly because only Chutsky thought it was funny. He knew very well I could handle a pistol. But I played along anyway and held it up by the barrel. "I think I hold this end and point it like that," I said.

"Perfect," Chutsky said. "Don't shoot off your balls, okay?" He picked up the assault rifle. It had a strap that he slid over his shoulder. "I'll take this little beauty. And if it turns into Khe Sanh after all, I'm ready for Charlie." He looked at the weapon for a moment with the same fondness as I had looked at Roger the Pirate-clearly there were some happy memories there.

"Chutsky," Deborah said.

He jerked his head up to Debs as if he had been caught looking at porn. "Okay," he said. "So how you wanna do this?"

"Through the gate," she said. "Fan out and head for the far side of the park. That's where the employees' area used to be." She looked at me, and I nodded.

"I remember," I said.

"So that's where the caretaker's place is," she said. "Where Bobby Acosta ought to be." She pointed at Chutsky. "You come in from the right and cover me. Dexter from the left."

"What," Chutsky said. "You're not gonna just kick down the door and charge in there. That's nuts."

"I'm going to tell him to come out," Deborah said. "I want him to think I'm alone. Then we see what happens. If it's some kind of trap, you guys got my back."

"Sure," Chutsky said dubiously. "But you're still out there in the open."

She shook it off, irritated. "I'll be fine," she said. "I think the girl is in there, too, Samantha Aldovar," she said. "So be careful. None of your Rambo shit."

"Uh-huh," he said. "But this kid, Bobby, you want him alive, right?"

Deborah looked at him for just a moment too long. "Of course," she said at last. It wasn't very convincing. "Let's go." She turned away and marched for the gate. Chutsky watched her for a second, then took two extra clips from the case and slipped them into his pocket. He closed the case and tossed it into the car.

"Okay, buddy," he said. And then he turned and looked at me, a long and surprisingly damp look. "Don't let anything happen to her," he said, and for the first time since I had known him, I saw what seemed like real emotion on his face.

"I won't," I said, slightly embarrassed.

He squeezed my shoulder. "Good," he said. He looked at me a moment longer, and then turned away and lurched after Deborah.

She was at the chain-link gate, reaching through the mesh for a padlock. "Shouldn't somebody point out that you're about to illegally enter the property?" I said. And even though that was true, I was really more worried about finding Samantha again and turning her loose on a world that was far too eager to listen to her lurid tales.

But Debs pulled at the lock, and it fell open in her hand. She looked at me. "This lock has been opened," she said in a voice meant for the witness stand. "Somebody has gone into the park, possibly illegally, and possibly to commit a felony. It is my clear duty to investigate."

"Yeah, hey, just a second," Chutsky said. "If this kid is hiding out in there, why would it be unlocked?"

I managed to stop myself from hugging him and instead merely added, "He's right, Debs. It's a setup."

She shook her head impatiently. "We knew it might be," she said. "That's why I brought you two."

Chutsky frowned, but he didn't move forward. "I don't like this," he said.

"You don't have to like it," Deborah said. "You don't even have to do it."

"I'm not letting you go in there alone," he said. "Dexter won't, either."

Normally I suppose I would have felt like kicking Chutsky for offering up Dexter's tender skin on the altar of unnecessary danger. But as it happened, I agreed-just this once. It was clear to me that someone with a little bit of common sense should tag along, and looking around our gathering, counting everyone, that left me. "That's right," I said. "Besides, we can always call in for backup if it gets sticky."

Apparently, that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Deborah glared at me, and then marched over to me and stood one quarter of an inch away from my face. "Give me your phone," she said.

"What?"

"Now!" she barked, and she held out her hand.

"It's a brand-new BlackBerry," I protested, but it was very clear that I was either going to hand it over or lose the use of my arms under a barrage of her arm punches, so I gave it to her.

"Yours, too, Chutsky," she said, stepping over to him. He just shrugged and handed over his phone.

"Bad idea, babe," he said.

"I'm not having one of you clowns panic and fuck it up," she said. She trotted back to her car and threw the phones into the front seat-hers, too-and came back to us.

"Listen, Debbie, about the phones-" Chutsky said, but she cut him off immediately.

"Goddamn it, Chutsky, I have to do this, and I have to do this now, my way, without worrying about Miranda or any of that shit, and if you don't like it shut up and go home." She yanked at the chain and it fell open. "But I'm going in and I'm going to find Samantha, and I'm going to take down Bobby Acosta," she said, and she yanked the lock off its chain and kicked at the gate. It bounced open with a tortured squeal and my sister glared at Chutsky and then at me. "See you later," she said, and she whipped away through the gate.

"Debs. Hey, Debbie, come on," Chutsky said. She ignored him and marched on into the park. Chutsky sighed and looked at me. "Okay, buddy," he said. "I got the right flank; you got the left. Let's move out." And he followed Deborah through the gate.

Have you ever noticed that no matter how often we all talk about freedom we never seem to have any? There were few things in the world I wanted to do less than follow my sister into the park, where a very obvious trap was set for us and, if everything went really well, the best I could hope for was having Samantha Aldovar ruin my life. If I truly had any freedom at all I would have taken Deborah's car and gone down to Calle Ocho for a palomilla steak and an Ironbeer.

But like everything else in the world that sounds good, freedom is an illusion. And in this case, I had no more choice than a man strapped into Old Sparky who is told he's free to stay alive as long as he can when they throw the switch.

I looked up at Roger the Pirate. His smile looked kind of mean all of a sudden. "Quit smirking," I told him. He didn't answer.

I followed my sister and Chutsky into the park.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Samantha did not look like the kind of passenger I had seen on board the Vengeance in my youth. Aside from having no cotton candy or souvenir pirate hat, she was slumped over, perhaps unconscious, maybe even dead, her weight hanging against the ropes. From my hiding spot on the small bluff, I had a decent view of most of the things on the deck. Next to Samantha stood a large black barbecue grill, with a thin column of smoke wafting up from under the cover. Beside it was a big five-gallon cooking pot on a stand, and a small table where several indistinct but familiar-looking objects gleamed sharply as they caught the light.

For a moment, nothing moved but the shredded half of the Jolly Roger flag on top of the mast. The deck was deserted, except for Samantha. But someone else had to be on board. In spite of a large fake wheel at the stern, I knew the boat was controlled from inside the cabin. There had also been a lounge in there, with a refreshment stand. Somebody must be down there, working the controls. But how many? Just Bobby Acosta? Or enough of his fellow cannibals to make things dicey for the good guys, who oddly enough included me tonight?

The flag flopped. A jet flew overhead, wheels down, coming in to land at Fort Lauderdale Airport. The boat rocked gently. And then Samantha rolled her head to one side, another anemic broadside puffed out from the cannons, and the cabin door thumped open. Bobby Acosta came out on deck with a scarf tied around his head and a very unpirate-ish Glock pistol held up high. "Whoo-hoo!" he yelled, and he fired two shots into the air as a small gaggle of happy-looking partygoers about his age, male and female, followed him out on deck. They were all dressed in pirate gear, and they all headed directly to the big cooking pot beside Samantha and began filling cups from it and chugging the contents.

And as they settled into their lighthearted and carefree amusement, I actually felt a tiny glimmer of hope blossom in my heart. There were five of them and only three of us, true, but they were clearly lightweights, and they were guzzling something I was quite sure was the intoxicating punch they liked so much. In a few moments they would be high, goofy, and no threat at all. Wherever the rest of the party might have gone, this bunch would be easy. The three of us could step out of cover and round them up. Deborah would have what she came for, we could sneak away and call for help, and Dexter could get back to reinventing normal life.

And then the cabin door opened again, and Alana Acosta slithered out on deck.

She was followed by the ponytailed bouncer from Fang, and three nasty-looking men carrying shotguns, and the world turned dim and dangerous once more.

I had known Alana was a predator from what the Dark Passenger had whispered as we stood beside her Ferrari. And now, seeing her here so clearly in command, I knew that my brother, Brian, had been right: The head of the coven was a woman, and it was Alana Acosta. And this was not merely her trap; it was also her invitation to dinner. And if I could not come up with something really clever, I was going to be on the menu.

Alana strode right to the rail, looked out into the park more or less between me and where I thought Deborah should be, and she called out, "Olly olly oxen free!" She turned and nodded at her posse, and they obligingly put the shotguns to Samantha's head. "Or else!" Alana yelled happily.

Clearly her bizarre yodel about oxen was some sort of British children's ritual, meant to summon everyone to come in: Game over, come to home base. But she must have thought we actually were children, and very dull children at that, if she supposed we would come obediently out of our hard-earned cover and trudge into her clutches. Only the rankest ninny would fall into that kind of stupidity.

And as I hunkered down for what I assumed would be a long game of cat and mouse, I heard a shout to my right, and a moment later, to my very great horror, Deborah came into view. She was apparently so obsessed with saving Samantha-again!-that she had not even spent two seconds thinking about the consequences of what she was doing. She simply sprang out of hiding, ran over to the ship, and raced up beside the pier to surrender. She stood there below me looking defiant, and then very deliberately she drew her pistol and dropped it to the ground.

Alana clearly enjoyed the performance. She went to stand closer, where she could gloat at Debs properly, and then turned and said something to the bouncer. A moment later he wrestled the decrepit boarding ramp over the side and thumped it down onto the dock.

"Come on up, dearie," Alana said to Deborah. "Use the ramp."

Deborah stood still and looked up at Alana. "Don't hurt that girl," she said.

Alana's smile grew huge. "But she wants us to hurt her; don't you see?" she said.

Deborah shook her head. "Don't hurt her," she repeated.

"Let's talk about that, shall we?" Alana said. "Come on aboard."

Deborah looked up at her and saw nothing but happy reptile. She dropped her head and trudged up the ramp, and a moment later two of the shotgun-toting lackeys grabbed her, jerked her arms behind her, and duct-taped them in place. A mean little voice in the back of my head suggested that this was only fair, since very recently she'd merely watched them as they did the same thing to me. But kinder thoughts emerged and shouted that one down, and I began to fret and scheme on how to get my sister loose.

Alana, of course, had no intention of allowing any such thing. She waited for a moment, looking out across the park, and then cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, "I'm quite sure your charming companion is out there somewhere!" She looked at Deborah, who stood with her head down, saying nothing. "We saw him at the carousel, dearie. Where is the bugger?" she said. Deborah didn't move. Alana waited for a moment with a smile of pleasant anticipation on her face, and then called out loudly, "Don't be bashful! We can't start without you!" I stayed where I was, frozen motionless among the thorns.

"Well, then," she called out cheerily. She turned and held out a hand, and one of the lackeys put a shotgun into it. For a moment I was torn by anxiety, and it was worse than the thorns. If she threatened to shoot Debs… But she was going to kill her anyway… and why should I let her kill me, too? But I couldn't let her hurt Debs Unconsciously I raised up my pistol. It was a very good pistol, extremely accurate, and from this distance I had about a twenty percent chance of hitting Alana. The odds of hitting Debs were just as good-or hitting Samantha, and as I thought that the pistol rose higher, all by itself.

Of course, such things would never happen in a just world, but we don't live in one, and this small movement must have caught a glimmer from one of the few battered lights still working in the park, and it gleamed just enough to attract Alana's eye. She pumped the shotgun, briskly enough to leave no doubt about whether she knew how to use it, and she raised it to her shoulder, pointed it almost directly at me, and fired.

I had only a second to react, and I just barely managed to dive down behind the nearest palm tree. Even so, I felt the wind from the pellets as they slashed into the foliage where I had so recently been hiding.

"That's better!" Alana said, and there was another blast from the shotgun. A chunk of my protective tree trunk vanished. "Peekaboo!"

A moment ago I had been unable to choose between leaving my sister in danger and placing my own head into the noose. Suddenly my decision was a whole lot easier. If Alana was going to stand there and remove the trees one shot at a time, my future was bleak either way, and since the more immediate danger was from buckshot, it seemed like a much better idea to give myself up and count on my superior intellect to find a way out of captivity again. Besides, Chutsky was still out there with his assault rifle, more than a match for a couple of amateurs with shotguns.

All things considered, it was not much of a choice, but it was all I had. So I stood up, staying behind the tree, and called out, "Don't shoot!"

"And spoil the meat?" Alana called. "Of course not. But let's see your smiling face, with hands in the air." And she waved her shotgun, just in case I was a little slow in getting her point.

As I've said, freedom is really an illusion. Anytime we think we have a real choice, it just means we haven't seen the shotgun aimed at our navel.

I put down my pistol, raised my hands as high as dignity would permit, and stepped out from behind the tree.

"Lovely!" Alana called. "Now over the river and through the woods, little piglet."

It stung a little more than it should have; I mean, on top of everything else, being called "piglet" was not much. It was just a minor indignity tossed lightly on top of some rather major calamities, and it may be that my new-grown semihuman sensibilities encouraged me to take it harder than necessary, but really: piglet? I, Dexter? Clean-limbed, physically fit, and tempered to a fine edge in the furnace of life's many fires? I resented it, and I beamed a mental message to Chutsky to shoot Alana carefully, so she would linger and suffer a little.

But of course, I also moved slowly down to the bank of the river with my hands in the air.

On the bank, I stood for a moment, looking up at Alana and her shotgun. She waved it encouragingly. "Come along, then," she said. "Walk the plank, old sod."

There was no arguing with the weapon, not at this range. I stepped onto the ramp. My brain whirled with impossible ideas: Dive under the boat, away from the aim of Alana's weapon, and then-what? Hold my breath for a few hours? Swim downstream and get help? Send more mental messages and hope for rescue by a gang of paramilitary telepaths? There was really nothing else to do except climb up the ramp to the deck of the Vengeance. And so I did. It was old and wobbly aluminum, and I had to hold on to the frayed guide rope that ran up the left side. I slipped once, and held tightly to the rope as the whole rickety thing pitched and yawed. But in far too short a time I was on the deck, looking at three shotguns pointed my way-and even darker and deader than the weapons' barrels, Alana Acosta's blue and empty eyes. She stood much too close, as the others duct-taped my hands behind me, looking at me with an affection I found very unsettling.

"Brilliant," she said. "This is going to be fun. I can't wait to get started." She turned away and looked off toward the park's gate. "Where is that man?"

"He'll be here," Bobby said. "I got his money."

"He'd better be here," Alana said, and looked back at me. "I don't like to be kept waiting."

"I don't mind," I said.

"I really would like to get started," Alana said. "There's rather a press of time this evening."

"Don't hurt that girl," Deborah said again, through her teeth this time.

Alana turned her gaze on Debs, which was nice for me, but I had the feeling that it was going to prove very unpleasant for my sister. "We really are rather mother hen-ish about this little girl piglet, aren't we?" Alana said, stepping toward Deborah. "Why is that, Sergeant?"

"She's just a girl," Debs said. "A child."

Alana smiled, a wide smile filled with hundreds of perfect white teeth. "She seems to know what she wants," she said. "And since it's the same thing we want-where's the harm?"

"She can't possibly want that," Deborah hissed.

"But she does, dear," Alana said. "Some of them do. They want to be eaten-just as much as I want to eat them." Her smile was very large, and almost real this time. "Almost makes one believe in a benevolent God, doesn't it?" she said.

"She's just a fucked-up kid," Deborah said. "She'll get over this-she has a family that loves her, and she has a life ahead of her."

"And so, overcome by remorse and the beauty of all that, I should let her go," Alana purred. "Family and church and puppies and flowers-how lovely your world must be, Sergeant. But it's somewhat darker than that for the rest of us." She looked at Samantha. "Of course, it does have its moments."

"Please," Deborah said, and she looked both desperate and vulnerable in a way I had never seen before, "just let her go."

"I don't think so," Alana said crisply. "In fact, with all this excitement, I find that I'm getting a bit peckish." She picked up a very sharp knife from the table.

"No!" Deborah said in a violent, hissing voice. "Goddamn you, no!"

"Yes, I'm afraid," Alana said, looking at her with cold amusement. Two of the guards held Debs in place and Alana watched them struggle, clearly enjoying it. And with one eye still on Deborah, Alana stepped over to Samantha and held the knife up indecisively.

"I could never really do the butchering part properly," she said. Bobby and his posse gathered around, jiggling with barely suppressed excitement like kids sneaking into a movie. "This is the whole reason I put up with tardiness from that saucy bastard," Alana said. "He's very, very good at this. Wake up, piggy." She slapped Samantha's face, and Samantha rolled her head upright and opened her eyes.

" 'S it time?" she said dopily.

"Just a snack," Alana told her, but Samantha smiled. It was very clear from her drowsy happiness that she had been drugged again, but at least it wasn't ecstasy this time.

"Great, okay," she said. Alana looked at her, and then at us.

"Come on, go for it," Bobby said.

Alana smiled at him, and then snaked out her hand and grabbed at Samantha's arm so quickly I saw almost nothing but a blurred gleam from the blade, and before I could blink she had sliced off most of the girl's triceps.

Samantha made a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a grunt, and it was neither pleasure nor pain but somewhere in between, a cry of agonized fulfillment. It set my teeth on edge and made all the hair on my neck rise straight up and then Deborah exploded into an insane fury that sent one of her guards spinning to the deck, and the other one dropped his shotgun and held on until the huge ponytailed bouncer stepped in and clubbed Debs to the floor with one gigantic hand. She went down like a rag doll and lay there unmoving.

"Take the good sergeant below," Alana said. "Make sure she's very well secured." The two lackeys grabbed Deborah and dragged her into the cabin. I did not at all like the way she hung between them, so completely limp and lifeless, and without thinking I took a step toward her. But before I could do much more than wiggle my toes in her direction, the enormous bouncer picked up the dropped shotgun and pushed it into my chest, and I was forced to do no more than watch helplessly as they took my sister through the doorway and into the cabin.

And as the bouncer prodded me back around to face Alana, she lifted the lid from the barbecue and placed the slice of Samantha-flesh on the grill. It hissed, and a tendril of steam rose up from it.

"Oh," Samantha said in a muted, faraway voice. "Oh. Oh." She rocked slowly against her bonds.

"Turn it in two minutes," Alana said to Bobby, and then she came back to me. "Well, piglet," she said to me, and she reached over and pinched my cheek; not as a doting grandmother might, but more like a shrewd shopper checking the cutlets. I tried to pull away, but it wasn't quite as easy as it sounds, with a very large man pushing a shotgun into my back.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" I said. It sounded more petulant than it should have, but I really didn't have a terribly strong position at the moment, unless you count the moral high ground.

My question seemed to amuse Alana. She reached forward again, both hands this time, and she grabbed my cheeks and shook my head fondly from side to side. "Because you are my piglet!" she said. "And I am going to absolutely devour you, darling!" And a small and very real gleam showed in her eyes this time, and the Passenger rattled its wings in alarm.

I would like to say that I had been in much tighter spots, and I had always found a way out. But the truth was that I could not think of any time I had ever felt quite so uncomfortably vulnerable. I was once again taped and helpless, with a gun in my back and an even more lethal predator in front. As for my companions, Deborah was unconscious or worse, and Samantha was truly being put over the coals. Still, I had one small hole card left: I knew that Chutsky was out there, armed and dangerous, and as long as he was alive he would never let any harm come to Debs or, by extension, to me. If I could keep Alana talking long enough, Chutsky would be here to save us.

"You have Samantha," I said as reasonably as I could. "There's more than enough of her to go around."

"Yes, but she wants to be eaten," Alana said. "The meat always tastes better if it's reluctant." She glanced at Samantha, who said, "Oh," again. Her eyes were wide now, wild with something I could not name, and focused on the grill.

Alana smiled and patted my cheek. "You owe us, darling. For escaping and causing all this trouble. And in any case, we need a male piggy." She frowned at me. "You look a bit stringy. We really should marinate you for a few days. Still, there's no time left, and I do love a nice man chop."

I will admit that it was a strange time and place for curiosity, but after all, I was trying to stall. "What do you mean, there's no time left?" I said.

She looked at me without expression, and somehow, the complete absence of emotion was more unsettling than her fake smile. "One last party," she said. "Then I'm afraid I must flee once again. Just as I had to flee England when the authorities decided that too many undocumented immigrants had gone missing there, as they now have here." She shook her head sadly. "I was just getting to like the taste of migrant worker, too."

Samantha grunted, and I looked. Bobby stood in front of her, slowly working the point of a knife across her partially exposed chest, as if he were carving his initials on a tree. His face was very close to hers, and he wore a smile that would wilt roses.

Alana sighed and shook her head fondly. "Don't play with your food, Bobby," she said. "You're supposed to be cooking. Turn it now, dear," she said, and he looked at Alana. Then he reluctantly put down the knife and reached onto the grill with a long-handled fork and flipped the flesh. Samantha moaned again. "And put something under that cut," Alana said, nodding at the growing pool of dreadful red blood dripping from Samantha's arm and spreading across the deck. "She's turning the deck into an abattoir."

"I'm not fucking Cinderella," Bobby said happily. "Stop the wicked-stepmother shit."

"Yes, but let's try to keep things a bit neater, shall we?" she said. He shrugged, and it was very clear that they were as fond of each other as two monsters could ever be. Bobby took a pot from the rack under the grill and placed it underneath Samantha's arm.

"I actually did straighten Bobby out," Alana said with just a trace of something that might have been pride. "He hadn't a clue how to do anything, and it was costing his father a small fortune to cover things up. Joe just couldn't understand, poor lamb. He thought he had given Bobby everything-but he hadn't given him the one thing he really wanted." She looked right at me with all her very bright teeth showing. "This," she said, waving at Samantha, the knives, the blood on the deck. "Once he had a small taste of long pig, and the power that goes with it, he learned to be careful. That dreary little club, Fang, that was Bobby's idea, actually. A lovely way to recruit for the coven, separating cannibals from vampires. And the kitchen help provided a wonderful source of meat."

She frowned. "We really should have stayed with eating immigrants," Alana said. "But I've grown so fond of Bobby, and he begged so prettily. Both girls did, too, actually." She shook her head. "Stupid of me. I do know better." She turned back to me, her bright smile back in place. "But, on the positive side, I have a good deal more cash this time for a new start, and a smattering of Spanish, too, which I shan't waste. Costa Rica? Uruguay? Someplace where all questions can be answered with dollars."

Alana's cell phone chirped, and it startled her for just a second. "Listen to me prattling on," she said, looking at the phone's screen. "Ah. About fucking time." She turned away and spoke a few words into the phone, listened for a moment, spoke again, and put the phone away. "Cesar, Antoine," she said, beckoning to two of the shotgun flunkies. They hurried over to her and she said, "He's here. But…" And she bent her head down next to theirs and added something I could not hear. Whatever it was, Cesar smiled and nodded and Alana looked up at the revelers by the grill. "Bobby," she said. "Go with Cesar and lend him a hand."

Bobby smirked and lifted up Samantha's hand. He took a knife from the table and raised it up, looking expectantly at Alana. Samantha moaned.

"Don't be a buffoon, love," Alana said to Bobby. "Run along and help Cesar."

Bobby dropped Samantha's arm, and she grunted, and then said, "Oh," several times as Cesar and Antoine led Bobby and his friends down the wobbly ramp and away into the park.

Alana watched them go. "We shall be getting started with you shortly," she said, and she turned away from me and walked over to Samantha. "How are we doing, little piggy?" she said.

"Please," Samantha said weakly, "oh, please…"

"Please?" Alana said. "Please what? You want me to let you go? Hm?"

"No," Samantha said, "oh, no."

"Not let you go, all right. Then what, dear?" Alana said. "I just can't think what." She picked up one of the oh-so-very-sharp-looking knives. "Perhaps I can help you speak up a bit, little piglet," she said, and she jabbed the point into Samantha's midsection, not terribly deep, but repeatedly, deliberately, which seemed more terrible, and Samantha cried out and tried to squirm away-quite impossible, of course, lashed to the mast as she was.

"Nothing at all to tell me, darling? Really?" she said, as Samantha at last collapsed, with terrible red blood seeping out in far too many places. "Very well, then, we'll give you some time to think." And she put the knife down on the table, and lifted the lid of the barbecue. "Oh, bother, I'm afraid this has burned," she said, and with a quick glance to be sure that Samantha was watching, she took the long-handled fork and flipped the piece of flesh over the rail and into the water.

Samantha gave a weak wail of despair and slumped over; Alana watched her happily, and then looked at me with her serpent's smile and said, "Your turn next, old boy," and went to the rail.

In truth, I was quite happy to see her go, as I had found her performance very hard to watch. Aside from the fact that I did not actually enjoy watching other people inflict pain and suffering on the innocent, I knew full well that it was at least partially intended for my benefit. I did not want to be next, and I did not want to be food-which I would be, apparently, if Chutsky didn't get here soon. I was sure he was out there in the dark, circling around to come at us at an unexpected angle, trying to find some way to improve his odds, performing some strange and deadly maneuver known only to hardened warriors, before he burst upon us with gun blazing. Still, I really wished he would hurry up.

Alana kept looking off toward the gate. She seemed to be a bit distracted, which was fine with me. It gave me a chance to reflect on my misspent life. It seemed terribly sad that it was ending now, so soon, long before I did anything really important, like taking Lily Anne to ballet lessons. How would she manage in life without me there to guide her? Who would teach her to ride a bicycle; who would read her fairy tales?

Samantha moaned weakly again, and I looked at her. She was rolling against her bonds in a kind of slow and spastic rhythm, as if her batteries were slowly running down. Her father had read to her, too. Read her fairy tales, she had said. Perhaps I shouldn't read Lily Anne fairy tales-it hadn't worked out very well for Samantha. Of course, as things stood now, I wouldn't be reading anything to anyone. I hoped Deborah was all right. In spite of her odd moodiness lately, she was tough-but she had taken a hard shot to the head, and she had looked very limp when they dragged her below.

And then I heard Alana say, "Aha," and I turned to look.

A group of figures was just now stepping into one of the pools of light cast from a working lamp. This new clump of young partiers in pirate costumes had come into the park and joined up with Bobby, and I had time to wonder: How many cannibals could there be in Miami? The group circled excitedly like a flock of gulls, waving pistols, machetes, and knives. At the center of their circle, five more figures came on. One of them was Cesar, the man Alana had sent off into the park. With him was Antoine, the other guard, as well as Bobby. Between them they were dragging another man. He was slumped over, apparently unconscious. Behind them stalked a man dressed in a black, hooded robe that hid his face.

And as the partiers circled and cawed, the unconscious man in the middle rolled back his head and the light caught his face so I could see his features.

It was Chutsky.

FORTY

As every cliche-loving human being knows, no cloud dumps its load upon us unless it is hiding its very own silver lining. In this case, the one small perk of being held captive by cannibals is that there are always plenty of nice sharp knives lying around, and Brian had me cut free very quickly. Pulling the duct tape off my wrists didn't hurt quite as much the second time either, since there wasn't much arm hair left to rip out by the roots, but it still wasn't a great deal of fun, and I took a moment to rub my wrists. Apparently it was a moment too long.

"Perhaps you could massage yourself later, brother?" Brian said. "We really can't linger." He nodded at the gangway.

"I need to get Deborah," I said.

He sighed theatrically. "What is it with you and that girl?" he said.

"She's my sister."

Brian shook his head. "I suppose," he said. "But do let's hurry, all right? The place is crawling with these people, and we would really rather avoid them, I think."

We had to pass the mainmast to get to the cabin door and, in spite of Brian's urgency, I paused by Samantha, taking very great care to avoid the puddle of blood that spread out to her right. I stood on her left side and looked at her carefully. Her face was incredibly pale and she was no longer swaying or moaning and for a moment I thought she was already dead. I put a hand on her neck to feel for a pulse; it was there, but very faint, and as I touched her neck her eyes fluttered open. The eyeballs themselves twitched and did not quite focus and she clearly didn't recognize me. She half closed her eyes again and said something I could not hear and I leaned closer. "What did you say?" I said.

"Was I… good…?" she whispered hoarsely. It took me a moment, but I finally did realize what she meant.

They like to tell us that it is important to speak the truth, but it has been my experience that real happiness lies in having people tell you what you want to believe, usually not the same thing at all, and if you have to stub your toe on the truth later, so be it. For Samantha, there was not going to be any later, and that being the case, I could not really find it in myself to hold a grudge and be mean enough to speak the truth now.

So I leaned down close to her ear and told her what she wanted to hear.

"You were delicious," I said.

She smiled and closed her eyes.

"I really don't think we have time for sentimental scenes," Brian said. "Not if you want to save that darn sister of yours."

"Right," I said. "Sorry." I left Samantha with no real reluctance, pausing only to pick up one of Alana's very nice knives from the table beside the barbecue.

We found Deborah behind the counter in what had once been the concession stand down in the main cabin of the old pirate ship. She and Chutsky had both been tied to a couple of large pipes that ran from a missing sink into the deck. Their hands and feet were duct-taped. Chutsky, to his credit, had almost freed one hand-his only hand, of course, but give kudos where it's due.

"Dexter!" he said. "Christ, I'm glad to see you. She's still breathing; we gotta get her outta here." He saw Brian lurking behind me for the first time and frowned. "Hey-that's the guy with the Taser."

"It's all right," I said unconvincingly. "Um, actually, he's-"

"It was an accident," Brian said quickly, as if afraid I would actually introduce him by name. He had flipped the hood back up to mask his face. "Anyway, I rescued you, so let's just get out of here quickly, before anybody else shows up, all right?"

Chutsky shrugged. "Yeah, sure, okay, you got a knife?"

"Of course," I said. I leaned over him, and he shook his head impatiently.

"No, fuck, come on, Dex, get Deborah first," he said.

It seemed to me that a man with only one hand and one foot who is bound hand and foot, as well as tied to a pipe, is in no place to give orders in a cranky tone of voice. But I let it pass, and I knelt beside Deborah. I cut the tape off her wrists and picked up one hand. The pulse felt strong and regular. I hoped that meant she was just unconscious; she was very healthy, and very tough, and unless she had caught a really bad break I thought she would probably be all right, but I did wish she would wake up and tell me so in person.

"Come on, quit fucking around, buddy," Chutsky said in the same petulant tone, and I cut the rope that secured Deborah to the pipe, and the tape that held her ankles together.

"We do need to hurry," Brian said softly. "Do we have to bring him?"

"Very fucking funny," Chutsky said, but I knew that my brother was serious.

"I'm afraid so," I said. "Deborah would be upset if we left him behind."

"Then for goodness' sake, cut him loose and let's go," Brian said, and he went to the door of the cabin and looked out, holding the shotgun at the ready. I cut Chutsky loose and he lurched to his feet-or to be accurate, to his foot, since one of them was a prosthetic replacement, like his hand. He looked down at Deborah for a second and Brian cleared his throat impatiently.

"All right," Chutsky said. "I'll carry her. Help me out, Dex." And he nodded at Debs. Together we lifted her up and got her onto Chutsky's shoulder. He didn't seem to mind the weight; he shifted once to get her settled more comfortably, and then he moved toward the door as if he were off on a hike with a small day pack.

On deck, Chutsky paused briefly by Samantha, which made Brian hiss with impatience. "Is this the girl Debbie wanted to rescue so bad?" Chutsky said.

I looked at my brother, who was practically hopping on one foot in his eagerness to be gone. I looked back at my sister, draped across Chutsky's shoulder, and I sighed. "That's her," I said.

Chutsky shifted Deborah's weight slightly so he could reach over with his one real hand. He put it on Samantha's throat and held his fingers there for a few seconds. Then he shook his head. "Too late," he said. "She's dead. Debbie's going to be very upset."

"I'm awfully sorry," Brian said. "Can we go now?"

Chutsky looked at him and shrugged, which made Deborah slip a little bit. He caught her-fortunately not with his steel hook-readjusted her weight, and said, "Yeah, sure, let's go," and we scurried for the ramp off the boat.

Getting down the wobbly gangway was a bit tricky, especially since Chutsky was using his hand to hold on to Deborah, leaving only his hook to hold the guide rope. But we did manage, and once we were on terra firma we headed quickly for the gate.

I wondered if I should feel bad about Samantha. I didn't really think there was anything I could have done to save her-I hadn't even done a very good job of saving myself, which had a far higher priority-but it made me uncomfortable just to leave her body there. Perhaps it was because of all the blood, which always unsettles me. Or maybe it was just that I was always so tidy with my own leftovers. Certainly it was not because I thought her death was tragic or unnecessary-far from it. It was actually a small relief to have her out of the way without having to take any of the responsibility for it myself. It meant that I was in the clear; there was no piper to be paid, and my life could slip back onto its well-oiled and comfortable rails without any more worry about frivolous court proceedings. No, on the whole, it was a very good thing that Samantha got her wish, or most of it. The only thing gnawing at me was that it made me want to whistle, and that didn't seem right.

And then it hit me-I was feeling guilt! Me, Deeply Dead Dexter, King of the Unfeeling! I was wallowing in that soul-crushing, time-wasting, ultimate human self-indulgence-guilt! And all because I felt secret happiness from thinking that the untimely end of a young woman was a good thing for my selfish self-interests.

Had I finally grown a soul?

Was Pinocchio a real boy at last?

It was ludicrous, impossible, unthinkable-and yet, I was thinking it. Maybe it was true-maybe the birth of Lily Anne and my becoming Dex-Daddy and all the other impossible events of the last few weeks had finally and fatally killed the Dark Dancer I had always been. Maybe even the last few hours of mind-numbing terror under the reptile glare of Alana's dead blue eyes had helped, stirring the ashes until a seed sprouted. Maybe I was a new being now, ready to blossom into a happy, feeling human, one who could laugh and cry without pretending, and watch a TV show without secretly wondering what the actors would look like taped to a table-was it possible? Was I newborn Dexter, ready to take his place in a world of real people at last?

It was all fantastically interesting speculation, and like all such navel-gazing, it almost got me killed. As I blindly marveled at myself, we came through the park all the way to the go-cart track, and I had wandered slightly ahead of the others, unseeing because of my ridiculous self-absorption. I slid around the shed at the edge of the track and very nearly stepped on two party-hearty pirates who were kneeling on the ground trying to start a thirty-year-old go-cart. They looked up at me and blinked stupidly. Two large cups of punch stood on the ground beside them.

"Hey," one of them said. "It's the meat." He reached into his bright red pirate sash, and we will never know whether he was trying to get a weapon or a stick of chewing gum because, happily for me, Brian stepped around the shed just in time and shot him, and Chutsky came around and kicked the other one in the throat, so hard I could hear it crack, and he went over backward making gacking noises and clutching at his windpipe.

"Well," said Brian, looking at Chutsky with something like affection. "I see you're not just eye candy."

"Yeah, I'm terrific, huh?" Chutsky said. "Really useful." He sounded a little bit down for somebody escaping unharmed from a cannibal orgy, but perhaps getting Tasered left an emotional afterglow.

"Really, Dexter," Brian said. "You need to watch where you put your feet."

We made it to the main gate without further incident, which was a relief, since sooner or later our luck was bound to run out and we would stumble onto a large number of pirates, or enough who were sober, and we would have a very hard time. I had no idea how many shots Brian had left in his borrowed shotgun, but I didn't think it could be many. Of course, there were presumably plenty of kicks left in Chutsky's foot, but we couldn't count on being attacked by any more bad guys thoughtful enough to charge us from a kneeling position. Altogether, I was very glad to get through the gate and back to Debs's car.

"Open the door," Chutsky said to me in a demanding tone of voice, and I reached for the car's door handle. "The back door, Dexter," he snapped. "Jesus Christ." I made no attempt to correct his manners; he was too old and grumpy to learn, and after all, the strain of his failure this evening must have been taking some toll on his always basic etiquette. Instead I simply shifted to the car's back door and pulled on the handle. Naturally enough, it was locked.

"For fuck's sake," Chutsky said as I turned around, and I saw Brian raise an eyebrow.

"Such language," my brother said.

"I need the key," I said.

"Back pocket," Chutsky said. It gave me just a moment's hesitation, which was silly. After all, I was quite well aware that he had been living with my sister for several years. But still, I was surprised at the thought that he knew her this well, that he automatically knew where she kept her car keys. And it occurred to me that he knew her in other ways that I never would, too, knew other small domestic details of her life, and for some reason the thought made me hesitate for just a second, which was not, of course, a very popular choice.

"Come on, buddy, for Christ's sake, get your head out of your ass," Chutsky said.

"Dexter, please," Brian added. "We need to get out of here."

Clearly, I was going to be everybody's whipping boy tonight, a complete waste of protoplasm. But raising any objection would just take more time. Besides, anything that could get the two of them to agree was almost certainly inarguable. I stepped over to Deborah, where she lay across Chutsky's shoulder, and slid the keys out of the back pocket of her pants. I opened the back door of the car and held it wide as Chutsky put my sister down on the seat.

He began to go through a quick paramedic's exam of Deborah, which was harder than it should have been with his one hand. "Flashlight?" he said over his shoulder, and I got Debs's big police Maglite from the front seat and held it as Chutsky thumbed up her eyelids and watched her eyes react to the light.

"Ahem," Brian said behind us, and I turned to look at him. "If you don't mind," he said, "I would like to disappear?" He smiled, his old fake smile again, and nodded toward the north. "My car is a half mile away in a strip mall," he said. "I'll just ditch the gun and this corny robe, and I'll see you later-tomorrow for dinner, perhaps?"

"Absolutely," I said, and believe it or not I had to fight down a very real urge to give him a hug. "Thank you, Brian," I said instead. "Thank you very much."

"You're very welcome," he said. He smiled again, and then he turned away and walked off into darkness.

"She's gonna be okay, buddy," Chutsky said, and I looked back to where he still squatted beside the open back door of the car. He held her hand, and he looked overwhelmingly weary. "She's gonna be all right."

"Are you sure?" I said, and he nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said. "You should still take her to the ER, get her checked out, but she's okay, no thanks to me and-" He looked away from me and for a very long moment he didn't say anything, long enough that I began to feel uncomfortable; after all, we were agreed that we needed to get out of here. Was this really the time and place for quiet contemplation?

"Aren't you coming along to the hospital?" I said, more to move things along than because I wanted his company.

Chutsky didn't move or speak. He just kept looking away, off into the park, where there were still scattered sounds of revelry and the mindless thump of the music wafting toward us on the night breeze.

"Chutsky," I said, and I felt real anxiety growing.

"I fucked up," he said at last, and to my very great horror, a tear rolled down his cheek. "I fucked up big-time. I let her down when she needed me the most. She could have been killed, and I couldn't stop them, and…"

He took a deep and very ragged breath. He still didn't look at me. "I've been kidding myself, buddy. I'm too old for her, and I'm no fucking good to her or anybody else. Not with…" He held up his hook, and thumped his forehead against it, resting his head there and looking down at his fake foot. "She wants a family, which is stupid for a guy like me. Old. A mess, and a cripple-and I can't protect her, or even-It's not me she needs. I'm just a useless, old fuckup-"

There was a shriek of female laughter from inside the park, and the sound brought Chutsky back to the here and now. He snapped his head around to the front, took another deep breath, a little steadier, and looked down at Deborah's face. Then he kissed her hand, a long kiss with his eyes closed, and stood up. "Get her to the ER, Dexter," he said. "And tell her I love her." And then he marched to his car.

"Hey," I said. "Aren't you going to…"

Apparently, he wasn't going to. He ignored me, got into his car, and drove away.

I did not linger to watch his taillights flicker off into the night. I secured Debs in the backseat the best I could with a seat belt around her middle, and got in. I drove two miles or so, far enough to be safe, and then pulled over. I reached for my phone, then thought better of it and instead picked up Chutsky's phone from the seat where Debs had thrown it. His phone would be shielded from little things like caller ID. I dialed.

"Nine-one-one," the operator said.

"You all better get a whole lotta boys over to that ol' Buccaneer Land right fast," I said in my best Bubba voice.

"Sir, what is the nature of this emergency?" the operator asked.

"I'm a veteran," I said. "I done two tours in Eye-rack and I know gunfire when I hear it and that's sure as shit gunfire in Buccaneer Land."

"Sir, are you saying you heard gunshots?"

"More than jes' heard it. Went and took a look in there, and they's dead bodies everywhere," I said. "Ten, twenty dead bodies, and folks dancin' 'round 'em like a party," I said.

"You saw ten dead bodies, sir? You're sure?"

"And then somebody took a bite outta one and started to eat it an' Ah run. Never seen nothin' so groo-sum in mah life, an' Ah wuz in Baghdad."

"They-ate the body, sir?"

"You all best get all them SWAT boys over there pronto," I said, and I hung up and put the car in gear. They might not round up everybody in the park, but they would get most of them, enough to get a picture of what had happened, and that would be enough to get Bobby Acosta, one way or another. I hoped that it would make Deborah feel a little better about Samantha.

I nosed the car up onto I-95 and began the drive to Jackson. There were several closer hospitals, but if you are a Miami cop, you tend to home in on Jackson, which has one of the best trauma units in the country. And since Chutsky had assured me that the visit was precautionary only, I thought it best to go with the experts.

So I drove south as fast as I dared, quietly for the first ten minutes, and then just before the turnoff for the Dolphin Expressway, I heard sirens, and then more sirens, and a column of emergency vehicles long enough to deal with a major invasion went by in the opposite direction. They were followed closely by a matching column of satellite trucks from the local news departments-all headed north, presumably to Buccaneer Land. Moments after the noise had faded, I heard movement in the backseat and a few seconds later Deborah spoke. "Fuck," she said, not really a surprising first word, considering the source. "Oh, fuck."

"You're all right, Deborah," I said, craning my neck to see her in the mirror. She lay there with her hands clasped over her middle and a look of numb panic on her face. "We're on our way to Jackson, but just to check. Nothing to worry about; you're okay."

"Samantha Aldovar?" she said.

"Um," I said. "She didn't make it." I glanced again in the mirror; Debs closed her eyes and rubbed her stomach.

"Where's Chutsky?" she said.

"Well, ah, I don't really know," I said. "I mean, he's okay, you know, not hurt. He said, 'Tell Deborah I love her,' and then he drove away, but…" A large truck jerked in front of me, even though I was in the HOV lane, and I had to swerve and brake. When I looked back in the mirror again, her eyes were still closed.

"He's gone," she said. "He thinks he let me down, and so he got all noble and left me. Just when I need him most."

The idea of needing Chutsky at all, letting alone "most," seemed like stretching credibility to me, but I played along.

"Sis, you're going to be all right," I said, searching for the right reassuring words. "We'll get you checked out at Jackson, but I'm sure you're fine, and you'll be back at work tomorrow and everything will seem all right, and-"

"I'm pregnant," she said, which really left me nothing at all to say.