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Except…
Curiosity, as the saying goes, killed the cat. And it has frequently proved lethal to nonfelines as well. And yet a tiny but powerful tendril of curiosity was tugging relentlessly at my concentration, demanding all my attention. On top of that, it may even be that some small shred of family loyalty as instilled by Harry might still be lodged in a crack somewhere. Whatever the reason, I did the unthinkable, the unwise, the unresistible.
I answered.
“Yes?” I said smoothly, so she could see that her call—and, by extension, she herself—meant nothing.
“I need your help,” Deborah said between her teeth.
“Reeealllllyyy,” I said, and I think I sounded as surprised as I felt. The possibility that she would even dare to ask such a thing had never occurred to me. “What on earth could you believe I would ever help you with?” And I put as much dry scorn into it as I could, knowing there was absolutely no possible satisfactory answer she could make.
“The children are gone,” she said. “They’ve been kidnapped.”
Except that, of course.
TWENTY
Brian very agreeably drove me north on U.S. 1 and then turned left into the Gables, over to Deborah’s little house. He said nothing, except to ask for directions, and I was grateful. Nearly anyone else in the world would have chattered away the entire time, filling the silence with sentimental expressions of sympathy and compassion—or worse, declarations of total support for me in my hour of need.
Brian did no such thing, proving once again that he knew me better than anyone else in the world. He understood that the very first dewy-eyed gasp of empathetic blather from him, the very first manly compassionate I’m here for you, buddy, would result in my leaning over and clawing his eyes out. Of course, it could also be that he knew I was aware that any such thing he might utter was completely artificial and meaningless, since he could not feel sympathy any more than he could feel anything else.
And I was supposed to be just the same—vacant, unoccupied, null and void in terms of inner content. No emotions, no feelings, no compassion or empathy or any of the other gooey human shortcomings. So it must have been hunger, caused by missing breakfast, that made my stomach churn and roil and my pulse thump at my temples like two small pointy fists.
Kidnapped.
My kids.
The more I thought about it, the less I could actually think about. A powerful rising tide of anger mixed with anxiety flooded through me and I could only grit my teeth, clench my fists, and fantasize about what I would do to whoever had taken them. It was counterproductive, even debilitating, since the only result was a return of this morning’s headache, and a couple of new cuts in the palms of my hands, where I had unconsciously shoved a fingernail in too far while clenching my fists.
Stupid, useless, sickening anger—and yet it did pass the time, and before I knew it Brian was pulling up on the street outside Deborah’s house. “If you don’t mind,” he said with great polite reserve, “I don’t think I’ll go in.”
“No, of course not,” I said. It was obviously unthinkable for him to go in, or to go anywhere near Deborah, and he was wasting my time even mentioning it. I reached for the door handle and his voice stopped me.
“Dexter,” he said.
I turned and looked at him, angry at the delay.
“I will help all I can,” he said, without artifice of any kind, just a clean simplicity that said he really would. It meant more to me than all the crocodile tears in the world, and I unclenched my jaw for the first time since Deborah’s call.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll call you when I know more. When I can.”
He just nodded, and I opened the door and climbed out of his car.
Brian’s car was well out of sight before I even got to Deborah’s front door. That was just as well, because she opened it when I was still on the front walk, ten feet away. She stood there, framed by the doorway, her fists clenched tightly at her sides, and as I looked at her face I saw with utter astonishment that she had been crying. Deborah did not cry. Ever. The last time I had seen her tears was when she was eight years old and fell from a tree, breaking her wrist. Since then she had been icy control, tougher than nails, practically bionic. I knew she felt things—she just never, ever showed them. I had often thought it was funny; she felt everything and showed nothing, and I was just the opposite. The Legacy of Harry.
I stopped on the stoop, several feet away, unsure what happened next. Clearly she was just as unsure, because she looked at me, looked away, looked at me again, and then simply turned away and went inside, leaving the door open as an unspoken invitation to follow. I did, locking the door behind me.
Deborah was already seated at her rickety kitchen table when I joined her. She slumped over a cup half-filled with coffee, staring down into the mug like she thought she could find an answer in it. I stood watching her for a moment, but she didn’t look up, so I pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. Some paperwork sat in the middle of the table, and I recognized it—the custody agreement I had signed.
Yesterday’s news—what mattered now was the kids. “How did it happen,” I said. Even to me, it sounded like, How could you let it happen.
But Debs just nodded like she deserved it. “I dropped them at day care, like always,” she said. “I went to work. Half hour later they came. Three men with guns. They said, ‘Bring us the Morgan kids.’ And nobody did anything, so they shot one of the teachers.” She looked up quickly, and then down again. “They got the kids. All four of them. Threw them into a car and drove away.” She slumped down even farther. “They have our kids.”
She sounded half-dead, nearly empty, like she’d already surrendered. I’d never heard her like this, and it made me very uncomfortable. “Who were they?” I said. She frowned, but kept staring down. “The men with the guns,” I said. “Who were they? Any hint at all?”
She shrugged. “Hispanic,” she said. “Thick accent. Two of ’em short and dark, one taller, lighter hair. That’s all I got.”
“
