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“Oh,” Jackie said, looking very deflated. “But that’s … I mean, do you think Anderson would, um, not tell anybody?”
Deborah looked away. “He’ll tell,” she said.
“He’ll probably call a press conference,” I said.
“Shit,” Jackie said. “Shit, shit, shit.” She sank into a chair, looking for all the world like a forlorn rag doll. “I can’t—I won’t ask you to risk your career,” she said, and she said it with such hopeless, noble resignation that I wanted to kill something for her—like Anderson, for instance. But as that happy thought flashed through my mind, it was instantly replaced by one of those wonderful moments of insight that come only once in a lifetime, and only to the Just. “Oh,” I said, and some of my gleeful surprise clearly showed in my voice, because Jackie looked up, and Deborah frowned at me.
“What?” Jackie said.
“Deborah has to tell Anderson,” I said happily, and I said it again for emphasis. “Anderson.”
“I know his fucking name,” Debs said.
“And you know his fucking character, too,” I said.
“For fuck’s sake, Dex, what the—”
“Deborah, think a minute,” I said. “It might not hurt very much.”
She glared at me for a moment longer, then blew out a vicious breath. “All right, fuck, I’m thinking,” she said, and her face took on the look of a mean-spirited, slightly constipated grouper.
“Wonderful,” I said. “Now, picture this in your thoughts: You, Sergeant Deborah Morgan, Defender of the Faith and Champion of Justice—”
“Cut to the fucking chase, huh?” she said.
“You go to Detective Anderson,” I said patiently. “You, a person he thinks very highly of.”
“He hates my fucking guts,” she snarled. “So what?”
“So that’s just the point,” I said, and I let the glee creep back into my voice. “He really does hate your fucking guts. And you take him your file on this stuff, and you tell him you have a very important lead—you tell him, Deborah. Not me or Jackie or Captain Matthews—you tell him. With witnesses.” I looked at her expectantly and, I have to admit, I smirked, too. “What does he do?”
Deborah opened her mouth to say something that looked like it would be rather venomous—and then her jaw snapped shut audibly, her eyes got very wide, and she took a very deep breath. “Holy shit,” she breathed, and she looked at me with something approaching awe. “He does nothing. He loses the fucking file. Because it’s me.”
“Bingo,” I said, which was something I’d always wanted to say. “He’s afraid you would get the credit, so he does nothing—but you have done everything, by the book, with witnesses. You’re in the clear; Jackie’s secret is safe; all’s right with the world.”
“Would that really work?” Jackie said softly.
Debs squinted, jutted her jaw, and then nodded once. “It might,” she said.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “It’s at least a probably.”
“All right, it will probably work,” she said.
“And if you maybe twist the knife a little?” I said. “You know, like how important this lead is, and he should drop everything he’s doing to work on what you found?”
Debs snorted. “Yeah,” she said. “That would do it.”
“Oh,” Jackie said, “that’s— Dexter, you’re so— Thank you, thank you both so much.”
“But even if it does,” Debs said, turning to a suddenly hopeful Jackie, “that doesn’t keep you safe.”
“Oh,” Jackie said, and she looked deflated again.
“We’ve got to find this guy before he finds you,” Deborah said. “And in the meantime, we have to put you where he can’t get to you.”
“I, um … I can just stay with you, here at headquarters, during the day?” Jackie said. “And then the hotel at night, with the door chained and bolted.”
It’s always nice to encounter innocence, but in this case I thought I should say something. “Hotels are not safe,” I said. “It’s much too easy to get into the room and grab somebody.” I tried to say it as if I was very sure, which I was, but without sounding too much like I knew it was true from personal experience, which I did. It must have worked, because Jackie looked like she believed me.
