It's another sunny, yet cold day in Miami and Dexter is on his way to the doughnut shop to get his order. Apparently all of Miami decided to start the day early – or was finishing it, however you see it – which meant there were no parking spots left. Half a mile away he finally found a spot and walked towards the shop.
As he's walking he tries not to look around him too much, too many things he wouldn't care about anyway. But then this little girl draws his attention, she reminds him of Astor, the same emotion on her face when she confronted him with her mother's death.
He feels the need to walk to her, hold her hand and tell her he tried his very best to save her mother but he just couldn't do anything for her. And without knowing, this was what he was actually doing.
She looked at him with care and understanding, such a mature response she was giving him.
Only after looking right into her eyes, he noticed what he had been saying and to whom: a stranger. Human Dex left the building immediately and he just walked away.
When he gets back with his doughnuts and enters his car, he notices something's wrong. He looks into his rear view mirror and sees the little girl sitting behind him.
"Explain to me what you just said, please" she asked with her young voice.
"I don't see any reason in explaining anything to you, little girl. Now better get out of my car before I'll throw you out" was his response, sounding harsher than he wanted.
Because, even though he had a Dark Passenger and not that many emotions, kids always had a place in his heart and the last thing he wanted to do, was to hurt her.
"Ok, fine" she muttered "but please, when you are willing to tell me, come and find me around here."
She stepped out of the car and walked away, placing herself back in the middle of nowhere, where she had no roof on top of her head. She felt Dexter's eyes poking in her back, but she just kept looking at the ground, not wanting to let him know how much she cared. Because, what would be the point if she'd never see him again?
The last thing she said made Dexter think. To come and find her around here, at the centre of the city, not giving any dates when she'd be there. She was either that crazy about him, or homeless. But he didn't want to think it was the latter. So going back to his cold self, he just drives off towards work.
Dexter arrives at his work going through his daily routine with the doughnuts and sometimes says a sentence to someone grabbing one. Nicely as always, Masuka is the last one taking a doughnut and together they walk into Dex's office.
"Dex, you gotta take a look at these" Masuka says while giving the files. "The first is a daughter killing her mother." Masuka does his little giggle. "The mother slept with her boyfriend."
While Vince is still giggling, Dexter has no idea what's so funny about it and it's written all over his face. Masuka notices and quickly starts about the next file.
"A man murdering his wife after she bullied him for years. He finally snapped. The next one contained a lot of blood after a family got in touch with the wrong drug dealer. We still have no clue about the motives. You need to take a look at the crime scene and tell us how it happened."
Dexter put away the files and –as asked – takes a look at the last one. "I'll see you there then" Masuka says while leaving the room, Dexter already reading through the file. Not that it's really clear, but he found a few things he'll need to look for at the crime scene.
As he walks out of his office to go to the crime scene, Debra catches up with him.
"Dex, you read that file about the murdered family?"
"I did actually, why?" he asks.
"Well, the crime scene is still full of blood. And I mean really fucking full of blood. I just thought you'd like to know after the last time we had so much of it" she tells him in her caring, but still Debra way.
"Don't worry Deb, I need to do my job so you can continue having yours. I'll be fine" and the elevator closes.
Dex parked his car near the crime scene and walks high headed inside with his kit. The first step he takes inside the living room, he can see what Deb was talking about. Four family members lying on the ground next to each other, in a huge puddle of blood. Only a few drops had crossed the room, but Dexter found them, making it a lot easier for him to picture what had happened.
"You okay?" Masuka asks while putting his hand on Dexter's shoulder, looking at the big puddle of blood.
"Why does everyone keep asking? Don't you people see I'm fine?" he snapped.
Vince looked at Dexter one last time, knowing it wouldn't help if he'd be there or not and walks away. "Just do your job."
And that's exactly what Dexter starts doing. He takes his threads and places them facing the unnoticed blood spatters. Well, unnoticed by normal human beings of course.
After a little while he's finished and Batista walks into the room.
"Dexter! Good to see you're coping well" Batista says while looking at the threads. "So this is where the killer was standing. Can you show me how he did it?"
Dex obeys and shows him exactly how it happened. The killer was about 6 feet tall and apparently in a rush. How he got the family members so close together in that one spot, while he was by himself and able to kill all four of them, that was the question. But, that was not Dexter's question to ask and Batista leaves the room with a satisfied feeling.
Just some pictures of the crime scene including the red threads and he was ready to get away from it all. Well, all meaning the huge amounts of blood around him. Sometimes while changing position for some new pictures he had a bit of a difficult time. But he grabbed himself together and continued his work.
The last picture had been made and Dex was ready to leave, carrying all his stuff with him. He walks to his car and opens the trunk to put everything into it. When he closes the trunk he has this feeling someone's watching at him. He looks around but sees nothing or nobody.
He steps into his car and drives away into a small street leading to the main road. But then he sees a head full of long hair just around the corner in his rear view mirror. It's the girl he met a little earlier today.
What was she doing? Did she happen to be there? Does she have something to do with the crime scene? Was she actually stalking Dex? Dexter couldn't cope with all these questions and he needed answers, right now.
He parks the car in the street and rushes towards the corner he saw her walk around. She was sitting on a tiny brick wall which still needed to be finished. He joined her, but never looked at her face or anything else of her for that matter.
"Why did you come to me?" the little girls asks him, he laughs shortly.
"First of all, you wanted me to come to you. Second of all, I actually only came because I saw you and, maybe you don't know because you're so young, but you are close to a crime scene, walking around suspiciously. It's Miami Metro Police Department you're up against, they would even see you as a suspect. Now tell me what you are doing here."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to stick my nose in others' business" she sighs. "But I have this feeling around you and… Well… For some kind of reason I wanted to talk to you. I want to know what the hell you were talking about this morning."
"I see no reason in telling a little girl about my problems. I guess I'm sorry for involving you this much, but I'd rather have you leaving me alone" he answers while standing up, ready to leave. His guilt for dragging this girl with him in his problems was bigger at the moment than the curiosity of his Dark Passenger.
But she won't let this happen and grabs his arm, making him face her. "Let's start with introducing ourselves. My name is Rachel, what's yours?"
Dex hesitates for a while if he should give his real name, but then remembers his ID is still hanging around his neck and notices she still wanted to hear it from him. "My name is Dexter, but you could've read that from my ID around my neck" he says while extremely looking at her face how she'd respond to that last bit. All she does is blink and smile. Silence.
He turns around and leaves to his car, leaving Rachel sitting on the brick wall.