I DID EVENTUALLY GET THE DUCT TAPE OFF MY WRISTS. AFTER all, I was surrounded by cops, and it would have been terribly wrong for so many sworn officers of the law to keep me tied up as if I was some kind of—well, to be honest, I actually was some kind of, but I was trying really hard not to be one anymore. And since they did not know what I had been, it made sense that sooner or later one of them wo
uld take pity on me and cut me loose. And one of them finally did: It was Weems, the gigantic man from the tribal police. He came over and looked at me, a very large smile growing on his very large face, and shook his head. “Why you standing there with your hands all taped up?” he said. “Nobody love you no more?”
“I guess I’m just a low priority,” I said. “Except to the mosquitoes.”
He laughed, a high-pitched and overly joyful sound that went on for several seconds—much too long, in my still-taped opinion, and just when I was thinking of saying something rather sharp he pulled out a huge pocketknife and flipped the blade open. “Let’s get you slapping flies again,” he said, and motioned with the blade for me to turn around.
I was happy to oblige, and very quickly he laid the edge of the knife onto the tape binding my wrists. The knife was apparently very sharp; there was almost no pressure at all, and the tape burst open. I brought my hands in front of me and peeled off the tape. It also peeled off most of the hair on my wrists, but since my first swat at the back of my neck squashed at least six mosquitoes, it seemed like a good trade-off.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“No problem,” he told me in that soft, high voice. “Nobody oughta be all bound up like that.” He laughed at his own great wit and I, thinking it was the least I could do in return for his kindness, gave him a small sample of my very best fake smile.
“Bound up,” I said. “That’s very good.” I might have been laying it on a bit thick, but I was grateful, and in any case my head still hurt too much for any really good comeback to blossom in it.
It wouldn’t have mattered in any case, because Weems was no longer paying attention. He had gone very still, tilted his nose up into the air, and half closed his eyes as if he were hearing something calling his name in the far distance.
“What is it?” I said.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Smoke,” he said. “Somebody got an illegal fire going out there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the heart of the Everglades. “This time of year, that’s not good.”
I didn’t smell anything except the standard loamy Everglades aroma, plus sweat and a faint trace of gunpowder that still hung in the air, but I was certainly not going to argue with my rescuer. Besides, I would have been arguing with his back, since he had already spun away and headed off toward the edge of the clearing. I watched him go, rubbing my wrists and taking my terrible vengeance on the mosquitoes.
There was really not a great deal more to see around the trailer. The regular cops were frog-marching the cannibals away to durance vile, and the viler the better, as far as I was concerned. The SRT guys were standing around one of their own, probably the one who had made the shot that took off Kukarov’s face; his expression was a combination of ebbing adrenaline and shock, and his fellow shooters watched him protectively.
Altogether, the excitement was fading and it was clearly time for Dexter’s Departure. The only problem, of course, was that I had no transportation, and depending on the kindness of strangers is always an iffy thing. Depending on the kindness of family is often much worse, of course, but it still seemed like the best bet, so I went to look for Deborah.
My sister was sitting in the front seat of her car trying to be sensitive, nurturing, and supportive of Samantha Aldovar. These were not things that came naturally to her, and it would have been tough sledding even if Samantha were willing to play along. She was not, of course, and the two of them were rapidly approaching an emotional impasse when I slid into the backseat.
“I’m not going to be all right,” Samantha was saying. “Why do you keep saying that like I’m some kind of ree-tard?”
“You’ve had a really big shock, Samantha,” Debs said, and in spite of the fact that she clearly meant to be soothing, I could almost hear quotation marks around her words, as if she was reading from The Rescued Hostage Handbook. “But it’s over now.”
“I don’t want it over, goddamn it,” she said. She looked back at me as I closed the car door. “You bastard,” she said to me.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You brought them here,” she said. “This was all a setup.”
I shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “I have no idea how they found us.”
“Riiiiight,” she sneered.
“Really,” I said, and I turned to Debs. “How did you find us?”
Deborah shrugged. “Chutsky came out to wait with me. When the carpet van came, he slapped a tracer on it.” It made sense: Her boyfriend, Chutsky, a semiretired intelligence operative, would certainly have the right sort of toys for that. “So they carried you out and drove away; we stayed back and followed. When we all got out here in the swamp, I called in for SRT. I really hoped we’d get Bobby Acosta, too, but we couldn’t wait.” She looked back at Samantha. “Saving you was the highest priority we had, Samantha.”
“For fuck’s sake, I didn’t want to be saved,” Samantha said. “When are you going to get that?” Deborah opened her mouth, and Samantha rode right over her with, “And if you say I’m going to be all right again, I swear to God I’ll scream.”
To be honest, it would have been a relief if she had screamed. I was so tired of Samantha’s carping that I was ready to scream myself, and I could see that my sister was not far behind me. But apparently Debs still nurtured the delusion that she had rescued an unwilling victim from a terrible experience, and so even though I could see her knuckles turn white with the effort of refraining from strangling Samantha, Deborah kept her cool.
“Samantha,” she said very deliberately. “It’s perfectly natural for you to be a little confused right now about what you’re feeling.”
“I am so totally not confused,” Samantha said. “I’m feeling pissed off, and I wish you hadn’t found me. Is that perfectly natural, too?”
“Yes,” Deborah said, although I could see a little doubt creeping into her face. “In a hostage situation, the victim often starts to feel an emotional bond with her captors.”
“You sound like you’re reading that,” Samantha said, and I had to admire her insight, even though her tone still set my teeth on edge.