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it, but I admit I sounded a little hopeful.
Deborah shook her head. His wallet and keys were still on the dresser. The
guy has him,Dex . Wegotta find him before She bit her lip and looked away.
I was not at all sure what I could do to find Kyle. As I said, this was not
the kind of thing I generally had any insight into, and I had already given it
my best shot tracking down the real estate. But since Deborah was already
saying we it seemed that I didn t have a lot of choice in the matter. Family
ties and all that. Still, I tried to make a little bit of wiggle room. I m
sorry if this sounds stupid, Debs, but did you report this?
She looked up with a half snarl. Yeah, I did. I called Captain Matthews. He
sounded relieved. He told me not to get hysterical, like I m some kind of old
lady with the vapors. She shook her head. I asked him to put out an APB, and
he said, For what? She hissed out her breath. For what . . . Goddamn it,
Dexter, I wanted to strangle him, but . . . She shrugged.
But he was right, I said.
Yeah.Kyle is the only one who knows what the guy looks like, she said. We
don t know what he s driving or what his real name is or Shit, Dexter. All I
know is he s got Kyle. She took a ragged breath. Anyway, Matthews called
Kyle s people inWashington . Said that was all he could do. She shook her
head and looked very bleak. They re sending somebody Tuesday morning.
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Well then, I said hopefully. I mean, we know that this guy works very
slowly.
Tuesday morning, she said. Almost two days. Where do you think he
starts,Dex ? Does he take a leg off first?Or an arm? Will he do them both at
the same time?
No, I said. One at a time. She looked at me hard. Well, it just makes
sense, doesn t it?
Not to me, she said. Nothing about this makes sense.
Deborah, cutting off the arms and legs is notwhat this guy wants to do. It s
justhow he does it.
Goddamn it, Dexter, talk English.
What hewants to do is totally destroy his victims. Break them inside and
out, way beyond repair. Turn them into musical beanbags that will never again
have a moment of anything except total endless insane horror. Cutting off
limbs and lips is just the way he What ?
Oh, Jesus, Dexter, Deborah said. Her face had screwed up into something I
hadn t seen since our mom died. She turned away, and her shoulders began to
shake. It made me just a little uneasy. I mean, I do not feel emotions, and I
know Deborah quite often does. But she was not the kind of person who showed
them, unless irritation is an emotion. And now she was making wetsnuffly
sounds, and I knew that I should probably pat her shoulder and say,
Therethere , or something equally profound and human, but I couldn t quite
make myself do it. This was Deb, my sister. She would know I was faking it
and
And what?Cut off my arms and legs? The worst she would do would be to tell me
to stop it, and go back to being Sergeant Sourpuss again. Even that would be a
great improvement over her wilting-lily act. In any case, this was clearly one
of those times where some human response was called for, and since I knew from
long study what a human would do, I did it. I stood up and stepped over to
her. I put my arm on her shoulder, patted her, and said, All right, Deb.
Therethere . It sounded even stupider than I had feared, but she leaned
against me and snuffled, so I suppose it was the right thing to do after all.
Can you really fall inlove with somebody in a week? she asked me.
I don t think I can do it at all, I said.
I can t take this, Dexter, she said. If Kyle gets killed, or turned into
Oh, God, I don t know what I ll do. And she collapsed against me again and
cried.
Therethere , I said.
She gave a long hard snuffle, and then blew her nose on a paper towel from
the table beside her. I wish you d stop saying that, she said.
I m sorry, I said. I don t know what else to tell you.
Tell me what this guy is up to. Tell me how to find him.
I sat back down in the wobbly little chair. I don t think I can, Debs. I
don t really have much of a feel for what he s doing.
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Bullshit, she said.
Seriously.I mean, technically speaking, he hasn t actually killed anybody,
you know.
Dexter, she said, you already understand more about this guy than Kyle
did, and he knows who it is. We ve got to find him. We ve GOT to. She bit her
lower lip, and I was afraid she would start blubbering again, which would have
left me totally helpless since she had already told me I couldn t say
Therethere again. But she pulled it together like the tough sergeant sister
she was and merely blew her nose again.
I ll try, Deb. Can I assume that you and Kyle have done all the basic work?
Talked to witnesses and so on?
She shook her head. We didn t need to. Kyle knew She paused at that past
tense, and then went on, very determined. Kyle KNOWS who did it, and he KNOWS
who should be next.
Excuse me. He knowswho s next?
Deborah frowned. Don t sound like that. Kyle said there are four guys
inMiami who are on the list. One of them is missing, Kyle figured he was
already taken, but that gave us a little time to set up surveillance on the
other three.
Who are these four guys, Deborah? And how does Kyle know them?
She sighed. Kyle didn t tell me their names. But they were all part of a
team of some kind.InEl Salvador . Along with this . . . Dr.Danco guy. So She
spread her hands and looked helpless, a new look for her. And although it gave
her a certain little-girl charm, the only thing it did for me was to make me
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