What would I do? I needed to decide now, before I got too helpful for Deborah. I could help her solve this, absolutely, no one better. Nobody else was even moving in the right direction. But did I want to help? Did I want this killer arrested? Or did I want to find him and stop him myself? Beyond this—oh, nagging little thought—did I even want him to stop?

What would I do?

To my right I could just see Elliott Key in the last light of the day. And as always, I remembered my camping trip there with Harry Morgan. My foster father. The Good Cop.

You're different, Dexter.

Yes, Harry, I certainly am.

But you can learn to control that difference and use it constructively.

All right, Harry. If you think I should. How?

And he told me.

There is no starry sky anywhere like the starry sky in South Florida when you are fourteen and camping out with Dad. Even if he's only your foster dad. And even if the sight of all those stars merely fills you with a kind of satisfaction, emotion being out of the question. You don't feel it. That's part of the reason you're here.
The fire has died down and the stars are exceedingly bright and foster dear old dad has been quiet for some time, taking small sips on the old-fashioned hip flask he has pulled from the outside flap of his pack. And he's not very good at this, not like so many other cops, not really a drinker. But it's empty now, and it's time for him to say his piece if he's ever going to say it.

“You're different, Dexter,” he says.

I look away from the brightness of the stars. Around the small and sandy clearing the last glow of the fire is making shadows. Some of them trickle across Harry's face. He looks strange to me, like I've never seen him before. Determined, unhappy, a little dazed. “What do you mean, Dad?”

He won't look at me. “The Billups say Buddy has disappeared,” he says.

“Noisy little creep. He was barking all night. Mom couldn't sleep.”

Mom needed her sleep, of course. Dying of cancer requires plenty of rest, and she wasn't getting it with that awful little dog across the street yapping at every leaf that blew down the sidewalk.

“I found the grave,” Harry says. “There were a lot of bones in there, Dexter. Not just Buddy's.”

There's very little to say here. I carefully pull at a handful of pine needles and wait for Harry.

“How long have you been doing this?”

I search Harry's face, then look out across the clearing to the beach. Our boat is there, moving gently with the surge of the water. The lights of Miami are off to the right, a soft white glow. I can't figure out where Harry is going, what he wants to hear. But he is my straight-arrow foster dad; the truth is usually a good idea with Harry. He always knows, or he finds out.