Anyway, she said as she straightened out the wheel and accelerated again, Doakes wants us on the Miami side for backup. So Oscar can’t get too fancy. We’ll run parallel along Biscayne.

It made sense; as long as Oscar was on Miami Beach, he couldn’t escape in any other direction. If he tried to dash across a causeway or head north to the far side of Haulover Park and cross, we were there to pick him up. Unless he had a helicopter stashed, we had him cornered. I let Deborah drive, and she headed north rapidly without actually killing anyone.

At the airport we swung east on the 836. The traffic picked up a little here, and Deborah wove in and out, concentrating fiercely. I kept my thoughts to myself and she displayed her years of training with Miami traffic by winning what amounted to a nonstop free-for-all high-speed game of chicken. We made it safely through the interchange with I-95 and slid down onto Biscayne Boulevard. I took a deep breath and let it out carefully as Deborah eased back into street traffic and down to normal speed.

The radio crackled once and Doakes’s voice came over the speaker. Morgan, what’s your twenty?

Deborah lifted the microphone and told him. Biscayne at the MacArthur Causeway.

There was a short pause, and then Doakes said, He’s pulled over by the drawbridge at the Venetian Causeway. Cover it on your side.

Ten-four, Deborah said.

And I couldn’t help saying, I feel so official when you say that.

What does that mean? she said.

Nothing, really, I said.

She glanced at me, a serious cop look, but her face was still young and for just a moment it felt like we were kids again, sitting in Harry’s patrol car and playing cops and robbers—except that this time, I got to be a good guy, a very unsettling feeling.

This isn’t a game, Dexter, she said, because of course she shared that same memory. Kyle’s life is at stake here. And her features dropped back into her Serious Large-Fish Face as she went on. I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I care about that man. He makes me feel so— Shit. You’re getting married and you still won’t ever get it. We had come to the traffic light at N.E. 15th Street and she turned right. What was left of the Omni Mall loomed up on the left and ahead of us was the Venetian Causeway.

I’m not very good at feeling things, Debs, I said. And I really don’t know at all about this marriage thing. But I don’t much like it when you’re unhappy.