He had to work fast. After draining a sample of Travis' blood for a hoax, he cut up the body and set up the series of garbage bags at record pace so he could stage Debra's disappearance. Her vomit would actually work in his favor to establish a link between her disappearance and the Doomsday Killer, who would have returned to the scene of the crime. He just needed to be long gone by the time anyone showed up.
"Oh God, what the fuck…?" Debra groaned as she woke. Realizing her predicament, she started to thrash around, but her bonds held. "Uh…? What…?"
"Sorry, Debra, can't talk," he told her, covering her mouth with a piece of tape. "Things to do."
She grunted unintelligibly through the gag, though he caught a series of grunts with the beats of "Motherfucker!"
He picked her up in his arms, something she did not like one bit, and carried her out to his car. He placed her in the trunk and lined the space around her with trash bags for efficiency. "I'll be right back," he assured her and closed the trunk.
"MMMPH!" she protested, but he judged her as secure enough to ignore.
He drove the car away from the church by about a mile and parked it just off of a disused side road. He got out, walked to the back and gave the trunk door a short knock to let Debra know he hadn't forgotten about her. He then jogged back to the church to stage her disappearance.
Debra left her car just outside. Good. Its windshield would make a decent canvas. He took a paintbrush from the church and retrieved the sample of blood. Dipping the brush in the blood, he painted out a choice selection of words quoted from First Corinthians: Women should remain silent in churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission.
Maybe not worthy of a tableau, but it was good enough to pass for a hateful message from the religious nut. Leaving the paintbrush on the hood of the car, he placed Travis' phone—video of the false prophet neatly erased—off to the side of the church where Travis could have dropped it accidentally. He gave his former kill room one last pass before sneaking off for good.
Returning to his car, he gave the trunk another knock so she would know he came back. He drove to the docks. As usual, it was dead quiet and perfect for dumping bodies.
He opened the trunk. Debra lay there whimpering, tears soaking her face. When she looked up, though, the sobs stopped, and she boldly glared defiance at him.
"I understand you don't like me right now," he spoke quietly, "but I honestly don't want to hurt you. If you promise to behave, I'll take you on my boat and we can talk."
Two sharp grunts, easy to translate. "Fuck you!"
"Or if you want to be a miserable bitch, you can stay here by yourself." He pulled the bags out and shut Debra in the trunk. She couldn't speak, her grunts were muffled by the trunk door, there was no one around to hear her, and with her restraints she was unlikely to attempt an escape. Still, he would feel more comfortable once he got her in a more permanent enclosure.
In exactly what enclosure he could keep her, he wasn't sure. When Doakes learned his secret, Dexter kept him in the drug runners' cabin. That wouldn't work anymore, for what felt like divine intervention had reduced the place to ashes along with Doakes.
Perhaps it would be easier to kill Debra, but the Code was clear. Besides, she was too familiar a presence for him to dispose of so quickly. He would keep her as a captive indefinitely. That meant a lot of planning for her well-being, like having another child. Unlike with Harrison, though, Dexter's dependent Debra would stay utterly secret, so he could expect no help with her.
Taking the Slice of Life out to the gulfstream, he dumped the trash bags and thought about where to keep her. A hotel room might have to do in the short run, though that wasn't very secure. Dear Debra could make enough noise to alert the staff. He could look for an apartment in a shady area where people wouldn't be so nosy as to investigate a woman's cries, but that would put her in danger of being assaulted by any prowlers. What he really needed was a building out of the way where he could put her and trust her to remain safe and secure. Perhaps it was time for him to pursue purchasing his own little cabin in the woods.
When he got back to the car and opened the trunk once more, he found his sister turned around. The tape around her ankles was damaged. He guessed she had been rubbing it against the lock.
"Nice try, Sis." He applied another piece of tape and flipped her around.
She grunted what he was sure was a string of curses.
"I love you too," he snarked, shutting the door.
He drove to a disreputable motel. It was the kind of place where one would be surprised not to encounter drug dealing or prostitution. He paid for two nights for a room on the ground floor and quickly carried her inside. Setting her on the bed, he closed the curtains and locked the door.
"Okay, Debra," he said, sitting on the bed beside her. "We can talk. If you try screaming for help, I'll just gag you again. Understand?"
Blinking away tears, she nodded.
He removed the tape covering her mouth, and she gasped.
"Fucker!" she spat, though quietly. "Motherfucking bastard!"
"Okay," he accepted her opinion, though he thought he had been very polite under the circumstances. "Well, that's not very constructive, so let's talk about the things I'm sure you've been wondering about."
She took in a ragged breath. "The… Bay Harbor Butcher?" she got out.
"I never liked that name, but yes," he said. "Doakes was innocent. I framed him."
"Oh, cocksuck!" she exclaimed, her voice squeaking. "Did you, um, kill him?"
He shook his head. "No, that was…" An act of God? "Lila. She thought she was helping."
"That pale bitch?" She craned her head upward, her face twisted in scorn. "She's in on this too?"
"She was," he responded, pausing to let the implications of that sink in. "She's just a trophy now."
She looked disgusted. "You take trophies, you sick fuck?"
"Nothing messy, just a drop of blood," he said. "You remember, don't you? The box of blood slides?"
"The ones you framed Doakes with, you mean?" she said. "Yeah, I remember. Jesus fuck, Dex, what the hell? How could you be the fucking Butcher?"
This was it. This was when the entire web of lies Harry and he constructed would be torn down in an instant.
"I need to kill," he said. He swallowed, trying to find the words. Something that was so familiar to him was strangely hard to describe when he spoke to her. "An urge… This Dark Passenger compels me."
"Fuck me," she said, her anger fading away to be replaced by fear. "You're a fucking psychopath? Fuck, Dexter, how could you be a fucking psychopath?"
"Sociopath," he corrected. "Psychopaths aren't nearly as diligent. If I were a psychopath, you probably would have known. Sociopaths—we're smart enough to hide. I can't take all of the credit, though. Harry helped hide the horrific hostility of his deadly destructive Dexter from his wife and daughter."
"Harry?" She relaxed her neck, laying her head down on the blanket. "You're lying. He would never…"
"Harry saw my true potential," he said. He shifted position so that he lay down facing her. "He knew I had to kill, so he made me his own personal serial killer. I perform a crucial community service killing those killers the police let slip free. Harry made the Bay Harbor Butcher."
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She only gasped and stared at him.
"Harry helped," he said, "and then when he died, I was experienced enough to fool you and everyone else on my own."
"No," she muttered. "No, no, no, no, no…"
He tried not to roll his eyes. She was a weak human, so limited, and he needed to be patient. "Deb, it's okay," he said to try to get her to snap out of it. "I'm not going to kill you. You're safe."
"I'm safe, huh?" she said, tears beginning again. "I don't feel real fucking safe!"
"Well, I can't have you going off and telling everyone I'm the Butcher," he explained. He gave her bonds a tug. "These are just for my security."
She whimpered. "What if I promise not to tell anyone, huh, Dex?"
He raised an eyebrow. "And I believe you because…?"
"I love you," she offered softly. "And you can k-kill me if I talk."
"I could try, but you know the odds wouldn't be in my favor," he said. "No, I'll keep you myself where I know you won't be able to end my freedom… my life."
"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, Dex…"
Author's note: What's the different between a sociopath and a psychopath? Good question! No one seems to agree. Some use them interchangeably, while others agree that there are two sets of traits that go along with the lack of a conscience and try to match those to sociopath and psychopath. Problem is, no one agrees which is which. As Dexter talks about not wanting to become a psychopath when he thinks he's losing control in Darkly Dreaming Dexter, I presume in the book he considers himself a sociopath and that Lyndsey considers sociopaths the intelligent ones that can fool closest friends and family. In the show, Dexter once calls himself a psychopath, but that's in a flashback with him as a kid, and you could say he changed his mind later after doing more research.