I don't wanna be on fucking television” she said. “Fucking Matthews has thrown me to the lions, because this is absolutely the biggest, most bad-ass godawful goddamn story in the whole fucking world right now, and we haven't even released any pictures of the bodies but somehow everybody knows there's something weird going on, and the mayor is having a shit-fit, and the fucking governor is having a shit-fit, and if I personally do not solve this thing by lunchtime the whole fucking state of Florida is going to fall into the ocean and I am going to be underneath it when it happens.” She slapped at the pile of newspapers again and this time at least half of them fell to the floor. That seemed to take all the fury out of her, because she slumped over and suddenly looked drained and exhausted. “I really need some help here, bro. I hate it like hell that I have to ask you, but —if you could ever really figure one of these out, this is the time.”

I wasn't really sure what to make of the fact that suddenly she “hated like hell” to ask me —after all, she had asked before, several times, apparently without hate. She seemed to be getting a little odd and even snarky lately on the subject of my special talents. But what the hell. While it is true that I am without emotion, I am not immune to being manipulated by it, and the sight of my sister so obviously at the end of her rope was more than I could comfortably side-step.

“Of course I'll help, Debs” I said. “I just don't know how much I can really do.”

“Well, fuck, you have to do something” she said. “We're going under here.”

It was nice that she said “we” and included me, although I had not been aware until right now that I, too, was going under. But the added sense of belonging did very little to jar my giant brain into action. In fact, the huge cranial complex that is Dexter's Cerebral Faculty was being abnormally quiet, just as it had been at the crime scenes. Nevertheless, it was clear that a display of good old team spirit was called for, so I closed my eyes and tried to look like I was thinking very hard.

All right then: if there were any real, physical clues, the tireless and dogged heroes of forensics would find them. So what I needed was some kind of hint from a source that my coworkers could not tap —the Dark Passenger. The Passenger, however, was being uncharacteristically silent, except for its mildly savage chuckling, and I wasn't sure what that meant. Normally, any display of predatory skill would evoke some kind of appreciation that quite often provided a small stab of insight into the killing. But this time, any such comment was absent. Why?

Perhaps the Passenger was not yet settled back in comfortably after its recent flight. Or perhaps it was still recovering from the trauma —although this didn't seem likely, judging by the growing power of my Need.