The rest of the afternoon I try to think about how I can approach Lumen. The problem has many angles and I need some time to work this out. Luckily the office seems deserted; most of the team have been called to a meeting about missing paperwork. I hear Quinn and Deb bitching about it as they make for the meeting room downstairs where press conferences are usually held. It gives me some space to think.
The first real issue is how to make contact. Can I call her on her cell? I still have her number, I scroll past it quickly when I search though my contacts. I have an image of her, looking at her phone and seeing my name flash up. Would she even answer it? I don't know the answer to that and I rub my hands though my hair in frustration. No, I think I have to go and see her face to face. The idea fills me with more dread than I am happy to admit but it's the only way. Ok, so when? When can I find the time when she's not working and I don't have the kids? I've already used up my babysitting credits for this week unless I can talk Deb into taking them out for the afternoon on the weekend. Quinn likes kids and though I really don't like the idea of leaving my children with that man I suppose it's the best option I have. I can't just ask Deb to babysit and then say 'oh by the way, don't bring your boyfriend, I don't like him'. Even to me that sounds rude.
So, the weekend, if Deb will help me out. I think she will if I tell her why I need the time. I shake my head. All this reveal, all this openness is killing me. It's not who I am, not who Harry trained me to be.
"But you're evolving, Dex." Harry leans back in the swivel chair beside me and I nod. Am I? "Yes, you are." He answers my silent question. I look at him.
"Is this what it's like for everyone else Harry? This amount of confusion? People asking questions? Asking myself questions?" he frowns.
"You've always been good at asking yourself questions, Dex." He says, I scratch my eyebrow and think. I suppose he's right.
"But those questions were in my head, not out in the open." I wave my arm about as though to indicate the flock of toxic question marks in the air. He smiles; it's something he rarely does.
"This is what the world is like for other people, Dexter. This is the world you're embracing with Lumen." His face clouds, I know what he's thinking.
"What if she doesn't want me?" I whisper the question which has been tapping at the inside of my skull ever since I saw her outside Bryan Daniels' motel room. "What if she's a mess, not sure what she wants, and using me as a mask to hide behind to those people who get too close?" I try to imagine how she said my name to Peter, how she sounded when she talked about me to Mrs Chester. I can't conjure the tone of her voice because I have too much interest in what I want to hear.
"This is what life is about, Dex," Harry sounds like he used to when he told me how to pretend to be normal. He sounds earnest, serious, like this lesson really matters to him. "Life is about uncertainty, trust and just trying things out. I know this is hard for you, son but you have it in you. I see that now." I turn to look at him; astonished by this admittance that maybe he was wrong. The chair is empty.
So, ok, I'll ask Deb to babysit and then I'll go over and talk to Lumen. It sounds so simple and it makes me want to run the fuck away. Great, yep, just terrific. Maybe I should warn her I am coming? At least that way, if she's not there then it won't be as much of a blow. It gives us both an out, I reason with myself even though I am not fooled. It's me I'm worried about, how this rejection will feel a second time around. I don't do second chances; I don't do chances at all. Then I remember the kids and the chance they deserve and I grip the edge of my desk and push on through this plan.
I stare at my desk, the microscope, the pens, the test tubes, and my box of latex gloves... that's it. I'll drop the glove off at her apartment. I'll leave a note. Then she'll know it's me and she can decide what to do. This way she gets back her glove and I get to make first contact that doesn't scare me half to death with its vulnerability factor. I smile, this sounds more like a plan I am happy with. I might be able to cope with the rejection if it's more removed, less in my face.
I rub my finger across my lips. I'm not going to allow myself any crazy daydreams, not like that whole 'Dark Defender' scenario I had going on for a while, or the time I thought about just telling Deb that I was the Bay Harbour Butcher. No, no, keep it focused, Dex. You can't know anything beyond what you are going to do, what you're going to say.
What am I going to say? Fuck. I push away from my desk, letting the swivel wheels on my chair spin me around. It seems quite an appropriate movement for the way my mind feels this afternoon. Masuka catches the movement out of the corner of his eye through the slatted blinds on the door and grins.
"Wanna race?" he shouts to me, laughing. We used to race our chairs around the office when it was quiet. I didn't really see the point but he insisted it was what everyone did when no one was watching. So I accepted this as normal office behaviour and embraced the mad notion. Sometimes I scoot myself right over to Deb's chair, even though it's quite a way. It makes her laugh. It's part of my act. I shake my head.
"Not today, you'd win too easily! I am bushed!" he sniggers and waggles his eyebrows. He thinks I mean I have been up all night with a girl, he's right, but it's not that sort of penetration we were up to. I grin widely. "I'm going out for a couple of hours. Got some stuff to drop off across town. Need anything?"
"Only a slice of that lady pie you were all over last night, Dextrous!" He uses that awful nickname and I nod. I take this as a no, he doesn't want me to get him anything. He just wants me to tell him what I was up to last night. Ok, are you ready for this, Vince Masuka? I grin.
"Hey, I already shared her with another guy last night, Vince, three I can handle, but four? I'm pondering the logistics here, dude." Vince's eyes go so wide he nearly falls off his chair. I smile and pat him on the shoulder as I leave. As the elevator doors close I can still seeing him sitting there, stunned into uncharacteristic silence.
I smile to myself as I get into the SUV. In the space of the last twelve hours I have intimated to my kid sister that I am into bondage and told Vince Masuka I have had a threesome. I am branching out in the lies department. Soon we'll get to the point where, even if I told them what I'm really doing on my nights off, none of them would believe me anyway. This is great. I close my eyes and feel the hot Miami sunshine on my eyelids, making everything seem red as it filters though the blood vessels. I open my eyes, grab the glove from the dash and check the glove box for paper. I have everything I need to leave Lumen a note. Everything except the words. I start the engine and pull out of the parking lot.
I weave through traffic until a jack knifed truck holds me up. While I sit there, samba music blaring from the radio, the sounds of my fellow citizens losing their tempers all around me I try to find the way to tell Lumen I know where she is. I grab the paper and take a pen from my bag on the passenger seat.
'Lumen,' I write, 'it's Dexter. Hi. I wanted to return your glove. You dropped it when...' No, no. I scrawl over what I have written. What was I going to say? You dropped it when you disposed of Daniels' body? Jesus. Way to get a person convicted, Dexter. I purse my lips.
'Lumen, I wanted to return your glove. I found it. If you want to get in touch, you know my number. Dexter.' I look at the paper. My message seems cold. I sound angry. In it is none of the emotion I am feeling, the fear and the love. It might as well be a note to tell the garbage men to take the plastic bottles this time around. I sigh. Traffic starts to crawl so I put down my paper and pen and try to think.
By the time I am across town and near her apartment block I am no nearer to the answer and it's driving me crazy. What the fuck do you say to the woman who might be the only person you will ever really love and who left you when you'd helped her kill the men who raped her? There's not a Hallmark card for that. There's a market they've not tapped. Fuck.
I park over the street from her building and buy a coffee, I take it back to the car and sit once again with the pad and pen. Every few minutes, although I am not writing a thing I am staring at the paper wishing for magic, I look up the street. I half dread, half hope that I will see her. When does she get off work? I go back to the paper.
Half an hour later I am still looking at the small blank square. I wonder if there's an internet site for this? How to get back in touch with your serial killer girlfriend dot com. I doubt it, another niche in the market. I'm on a roll here.
The coffee's done and I've had a Danish too. I get out of the car to brush the crumbs from my pants and I see her coming down the street. I get back into the car and realise too late that she might recognise the SUV. Shit. But there's no time to drive away without her noticing.
She walks along, frowning to herself and seems to pass my car without glancing over the street. I watch her skip up the steps of her building and through the double doors which flash in the reflected light as they swing closed behind her. Fuck it. I'll have to just write something and go. This isn't part of the plan, Dexter. She needs to read the message before she sees you. A movement in one of the windows catches my attention, she is closing the blinds in one of the rooms. I see her arms lifted as she reaches for the cord, glimpse the swathe of tanned skin as her t shirt rides up over her belly. A shock of electricity goes through me. I am frozen, looking up at the window.
For a moment she looks down onto the street. Surely she can't recognise the SUV from up there, its roof must look like any other vehicle from above? Then she closes the blinds and I can't see her anymore. My heart is pounding in my chest and I wonder idly if people can hear it outside, like you can sometimes hear the beat from the music of the Cuban boys when they drive past, their speakers thudding.
I don't give myself time to think. I get out of the car and lock it, carrying the paper and pen in my hand, down at my side like I carry a knife or a syringe. The parallel hits me. The syringe is my first stopping point for my victim. It robs them of warning, the opportunity to act on what I am going to do. This is just the opposite. This is a warning to Lumen, a chance for her to decide how she wants to act before I can do anything. It puts the power firmly in her hands. The thought almost makes me stop and turn back. Do I want to give her that power over me? Who am I fucking kidding? She already has it, she had it from the start.
In the underground parking lot there is no sound but my soft footsteps. Her car is still where she left it this morning and the wet marks on the concrete floor have dried now, the heat from the sun has permeated even this subterranean lair. My mind is focussed on getting me to the car undetected, even though it seems there is no one about at this time.
I press the paper on the hood of her station wagon and lean over to write. Behind me a car sweeps into the lot and parks way over the other side of the concrete space. Hurriedly I write something and I tuck the note and the glove under her windshield wiper. I straighten up as a voice calls out to me.
"Hey! Dude! What are you doin'?" It's Peter, I know before I turn around. I fix a smile to my face and face him.
"Oh, hi. Sorry this must look odd. I'm just leaving a note on my..." I pause and then plunge on, desperate to get out of here before I am seen by anyone else. "My girlfriend's car." I watch his young, handsome face frown and then he looks behind me. He sees the note and grins. He puts out his hand.
"Then you must be Dexter! Hello Dexter!" I smile and shake his hand, there's something slightly challenging about his tone, though on the surface, he seems friendly enough.
"Yes, yes, I am. And you are?" I incline my head and he grins.
"Peter, I live upstairs from Elle, she's talked about you to me before. You two must be quite an item. She's a great girl." He sighs wistfully, I remember his words from this morning and nod.
"Yes, yes she is Peter. I'm a lucky, lucky guy and I know it." Somehow, lying to this guy, pretending it's all ok with Lumen, makes me feel warm inside. He nods to the note.
"Very romantic." He says, eyebrows raised. I shrug.
"She left her glove at my apartment, I wanted to return it and thought I could use the opportunity to write something personal." I look at him, take the note and give it another fold as I tuck it back under the wiper. I make it quite clear that this is private. He nods, then frowns.
"Gloves in this heat? Man, what were you doing that she needed gloves?" I freeze. He's right, why on earth would anyone need gloves in a Miami summer, my brain works so fast that I see the image of those 60s TV spy show computers, whizzing discs and flashing lights.
"We were unpacking the old chest freezer. You know, cleaning out and restocking. Just chores." I level my gaze and he seems to buy the lie. I study his expression, is it a mask like my own? He nods and smiles.
"Cool. Sure you don't want to take it up to the apartment?" he nods towards the elevator. I look in that direction and shake my head.
"No, more romantic this way," I smile, borrowing his word from earlier. He grins back.
"Chicks love that shit," he agrees and I smile. "Weird how it's romantic if they like the guy but stalking if they don't, huh?" He turns to the elevator. I nod. He's right but I don't like his tone. I watch him 'til he gets inside and I see the flashing numbers rising. I give the note another little tuck and leave.
I drive back to the station thinking hard. Thinking about Peter and the strange vibe I got from him. Is he just interested in Lumen and jealous of me? Or is there something else? Something more sinister that my inner monster is picking up on? I really don't know. Genuine feelings have a disturbing way of clouding up everything else. Things used to be so neat, so tidy.
And what about my note? In the end all my thinking was useless anyway because I just had to time to scribble something as Peter showed up. I frown, remembering what I wrote.
'L, I found your glove. I miss you. Call me if you want to, D x.' Was that the right thing to say? It doesn't seem like much, but now I think it over maybe I managed to convey what I was feeling in those brief words. I raise my eyebrows as I realise that, for the first time in my life, I wrote a kiss on a note without thinking about it. Wow.
Deb bangs on the window and scares me half to death and then laughs when she see me jump.
"Hey douche! Take me to lunch!" she demands, getting into the passenger seat, throwing my bag and other belongings on the floor of the foot well. I frown.
"Afternoon Debra, how was the meeting?" I ask, starting the engine again. She sighs.
"We all got a total ass fucking for missing paperwork! It wasn't even my paperwork! Jesus! The Chief is a ball busting motherfucker!" I nod, she really does have a way with expression. "And then Masuka was babbling on about you and some guy? In a threesome? Fuck me, Dex, what have you been telling him?" I laugh and begin to reverse the car.
"Nothing, he was just getting on my nerves, so I shut him up." She belly laughs at this.
"Fuckin' A!" she exclaims slapping my knee. "He has a whole new realm of respect and fear for you now, bro!" We laugh and then she squirms in her seat. She reaches behind her and pulls out something from behind her butt.
"What's this? Yours?" she passes me a small folded piece of paper. I frown and take it, opening it as I get to the exit of the parking lot. The writing is small, neat.
'Dexter, I recognised your car. Can I talk to you sometime? Call me? L'. No kiss, she must have pushed it through my open window as I delivered her note. The symmetry is startling. But no kiss.
I'm really glad you guys are enjoying this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it. It's so nice to get your feedback and hear that you think I have the characters right. I am writing this as though it's season 6 so it isn't over when they finally meet up. Let me know what you think about this one. Dex's joke on Masuka, the note, the chair racing? Thanks VB for betaing even when it's the festive season. Cx