She knows.
I watched her over my computer monitor as she moved among the detectives. They dwarfed her, everyone usually does. Her neck must hurt from looking up all the time.
I feel slightly foolish. Her diminutive size and frilly pink dress said she's anything but a danger, but she was. At least to me. She was the single most threatening thing in my life, which if you knew me, really says something. The hinge that held my world together was under her meticulously manicured hand and I had to remove it before she pulled it out.
I would have never imagined seeing her in a place like that. She would have looked out of place in an S&M leather bar with her always neatly pressed lien dress suit, sensible heels and sable coloured hair pulled into a shiny tight chignon.
ATF agent Callianne Harper was the picture of Southern gentility. The Louisianan Belle was a pseudo-relic from a day gone by when men bowed and stepped off sidewalks as ladies, always in delicate skirts, passed with giggling, their red lipstick smiles hidden behind lacy gloved hands.
Her accent, not at all abrasive or overpowering, sweetened her naturally sultry voice. It made words like please and thank you, of which she used often, sound like a pleasant chime. It was a welcome change from the usual never ending stream of profanities and shouts in the department.
She was, for a lack of a better phrase, a breath of fresh air. A product of cotillions, violin and French lessons, she was a cultured woman and the picture of serenity. So imagine my surprise when I heard that sweet bell ring in the dark of Hot T's Leather Club, in the thick of its black and purple whipping rooms.
"Dexter?"
My name, whispered so faint and breathlessly, never sounded so ominous.
I turned slowly, my hands still wound in the cord wrapped around Granger's neck. I wouldn't have known who she was save that voice. The body she hid under her tailored vintage suits curved wickedly in the slick patent leather cat suit she wore. From the tips of her fingers and to the top of her neck she was dipped in it and it squeaked as her sculpted arm pushed open the door.
Usually at this point, the man would be unconscious, tucked away somewhere hidden by now but Frank Granger, career rapist, was a very strong man. He broke my syringe of tranquiliser and nearly broke me next. I managed to pull the bit of electrical cord from my pocket during the tussle and wrap it around his thick neck. It wasn't my preferred method, I actually favoured pushing a knife to the centre of the chest, but for Granger it would do. I figured that amid the pleasured moaning and groaning from nearby rooms no one would hear his choked screams, but she did.
Callianne, through the eyes of her mask, looked at the man at my feet. Granger groaned pitifully, his skin turning purple, tongue wagging obscenely between his bloodied lips. He reached for her and I instinctively tightened on his neck, silencing his murmuring, ending what had been fifteen years of terror on the Hialeah community. His hand fell with a thud and her honey coloured eyes settled on me. The real me. Not the Dexter I pretended to be, the one I created and shaped through years of meticulous planning and doing, but the Dexter I really was.
This was not good.
I set Frank on the ground, rolling him into the plastic and moved to stand, maybe to explain, maybe to have her join him. But by the time I turned, she was already gone, ghosting from the door without so much as sound. I ran into the corridor after her, shouting her name over the chorus of cracking whips and grateful moans but she was truly gone.
Dammit.
I finished up with Granger rather quickly after that. Dumping him in the usual fashion and then cleaning up with extra care before I went back to the police department. I found Harper's address there and sat on her house the rest of the evening, patiently waiting for the sleek BMW to pull into park but she never came home.
On the second day and fortunately a day off, I realised it wouldn't be wise for me to be captured while stalking what I was now sure was my first and only living eyewitness. So I went home, waiting to be detained in the comfort of my own living room. Thoughtfully awaiting that knock on my door and a stern voice that would call me to go with the dapper officers on the other side, but it never came.
It was then I started to think then she had come into some accident in her haste to leave me that night. Callianne Harper, ever prim and proper, strictly adherent to the rules, wouldn't willingly let a transgression like that slide. She had witnessed a murder with her own two eyes, something like that would compel her to raise her voice. So knowing that, I began to imagine her as she left Hot T's.
It was a rainy south Florida night, the roads slick, barely visible in the unrelenting down pour but still not enough motivation for our level-headed motorists to too cautiously. I could see her distraught and tearful, agonising over what kind of monster I was, careening down Dixie Highway, not at all seeing the car that turned abruptly in front of her without blinker or warning. Amid the high pitched scream of the tires, she'd swerve off the road and tumble into a canal. Trapped by her seatbelt and dazed by the impact, she'd drown in the murkiness there and her body, bloated and distended, would flake away in the foul smelling water until it was discovered by some unsuspecting pedestrian.
I had so convinced myself she was gone I walked into the department building the next morning with confidence my secret was safe.
And now here she sat, chatting with the other detectives, letting that sweet bell of her voice torture me, remind me of how careless and naïve I had been and also, that I had no idea what would be her next move.
I sulked behind my computer, pretending to work, furiously flipping through case images, while I tried to gather what I should do next. I had a few near misses in my time, so this anxiety I felt was nothing new, but it wasn't welcome either. I had to know what she was planning and it seemed as if I would get an opportunity.
Lieutenant LaGuerta strode out of her office. She spared me a wink before stopping at the table and directing them to a conference in her office. I waited until the door shut tightly behind them and the curtains were drawn before I hurried to Harper's desk. I was immediately drawn to the thick manila folder that bulged in her leather messenger bag. I undid the elastic wrap round it and frowned at the contents.
Harper had not spoken up yet because she was building a solid case against me. Thumbing through report after report, I could see she had been investigating my doings, carefully correlating cases that came by my desk with people I made disappear. Not everyone in my collection was there, but there was enough to put me away several life sentences and then some.
Doakes thundered in and quickly I shoved the file back into her purse, walking away as casually as I entered. He glared at me, but it was the usual hate filled scowl he gave me everyday. Settling back behind my desk, I gathered my thoughts. I didn't have a clue what I was going to do with her before then, but now I was certain. I had to kill Agent Callianne Harper.
A/N: I've only been privy to the first season of the show so don't crucify me for mistakes and discrepancies that come about as consequence. I just love the show and couldn't help but write a spur of the moment tribute.