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Who was it? What did they want with me? Was it possible that Starzak knew that it was me who had taped him up, and now he was coming after me in a different car, determined to revenge himself on me? Or was it someone else this time—and if so, who? Why? I could not bring myself to believe that Moloch was driving the car behind me. How could an ancient god even get a learner’s permit? But somebody was back there, clearly planning to stay with me for a while, and I had no idea who. I found myself flailing for an answer, reaching for something that was no longer there, and the sense of loss and emptiness amplified my uncertainty and anger and uneasiness, and I realized my breath was hissing in and out between clenched teeth and my hands were clenched on the wheel and covered with a chilly sheen of sweat, and I thought, that’s enough.
And as I mentally prepared myself to slam on the brakes and leap out of the car to smash this other driver’s face into a red pulp, the red Geo sud
denly slid off my bumper and turned right, vanishing down a side street into the Miami night.
It had been nothing after all, just a perfectly normal rush-hour psychosis. Another average crazed Miami driver, killing the boredom of the long drive home by playing tag with the car in front.
And I was nothing more than a dazed, battered, paranoid former monster with his hands clenched and his teeth grinding together.
I went home.
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The Watcher dropped away and then circled back. He moved through the traffic invisible to the other now, and turned down the street to the house well behind the other. He had enjoyed tailing him so closely, forcing a display of mild panic. He had provoked the other in order to gauge his readiness, and what he found was very satisfying. It was a finely balanced process, to push the other precisely into the right frame of mind. He had done it many times before, and he knew the signs. Jumpy, but not quite on the ragged edge where he needed to be, not yet.
It was clearly time to accelerate things.
Tonight would be very special.
T W E N T Y - S E V E N
Dinner was ready when I got to Rita’s house. Considering what I had gone through and what I was thinking about it, you might have thought that I would never eat again. But as I walked in the front door I was assaulted by the aroma; Rita had made roast pork, broccoli, and rice and beans, and there are very few things in this world that compare to Rita’s roast pork. And so it was a somewhat mollified Dexter who finally pushed the plate away and rose from the table. And in truth, the rest of the evening was mildly soothing as well. I played kick the can with Cody and Astor and the other neighborhood children until it was bedtime, and then Rita and I sat on the couch and watched a show about a grumpy doctor before turning in for the night.
Normality wasn’t all bad, not with Rita’s roast pork in it, and Cody and Astor to keep me interested. Perhaps I could live vicari-ously through them, like an old baseball player who becomes a coach when his playing days are over. They had so much to learn, and in teaching them I could relive my fading days of glory. Sad, yes, but it was at least a small compensation.
And as I drifted off to sleep, in spite of the fact that I really do DEXTER IN THE DARK
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know better, I caught myself thinking that maybe things weren’t that bad after all.
That foolish notion lasted until midnight, when I woke up to see Cody standing at the foot of the bed. “Somebody’s outside,” he said.
“All right,” I said, feeling half asleep and not at all curious about why he needed to tell me that.
“They want in,” he said.
I sat up. “Where?” I said.
Cody turned and headed into the hallway and I followed. I was half convinced that he had simply had a bad dream, but after all, this was Miami and these things have been known to happen, although certainly seldom more than five or six hundred times on any given night.
Cody led me to the door to the backyard. About ten feet from the door he stopped dead, and I stopped with him.
“There,” Cody said softly.
There indeed. It was not a bad dream, or at least not the kind you need to be asleep to have.
The doorknob was moving, wiggling as someone on the outside tried to turn it.
“Wake up your mom,” I whispered to Cody. “Tell her to call 9-1-1.” He looked up at me as if he was disappointed that I wasn’t going to charge out the door with a hand grenade and take care of things myself, but then he turned and walked back down the hall toward the bedroom.
I approached the door, quietly and cautiously. On the wall beside it was a switch that turned on a floodlight which illuminated the backyard. As I reached for the switch, the doorknob stopped turning. I turned the light on anyway.
Immediately, as if the switch had caused it to happen, something began to thump on the front door.
I turned and ran for the front of the house—and halfway there Rita stepped into the hall and crashed into me. “Dexter,” she said.
