Free Dexter's Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay Page A

money. Which we will need for the new pool cage, because they are very pricey.”
    “All right,” I said, not completely sure what I was agreeing to do.
    Rita sighed and smiled happily. “Anyway,” she said again, and I had to agree.
    It was five thirty when we decided we’d had enough. We cleaned our paintbrushes, and ourselves, as much as possible, and climbed into the car. I turned the air-conditioning to high for the drive home; we’d all been without for the whole day, since the power was not on yet in the new house, and even though it was a pleasant fall day, we were all sweaty.
    The next day was a repeat of Saturday, except that we started an hour later, since it was, after all, Sunday. The only difference was that I got our lunch from a nearby Burger King. I found that I didn’t really mind the work. In fact, I slipped into a kind of Zen state of not-painting, letting the paint apply itself without any conscious effort on my part, and it was a great shock to me to see how much I’d done when we all knocked off for the day. I stood and looked at the vast expanse of newly painted house, and for the first time I began to feel a real sense of ownership. I walked around the whole house one time, letting it sink in that soon I would be living here. It was not at all a bad feeling.
    And so Monday morning I arrived at work slightly stiff from all the physical labor, but remarkably cheerful in spite of it. I had gotten almost all of the paint out of my hair, off my hands, and out from under my fingernails, and I still had a sense of smug satisfaction with things that lasted all the way up to my desk, where I found Robert Chase sitting in my chair and eating a guava
pastelito
and slurpingcoffee from my personal mug. A large white pastry box sat on the desk in front of him. There were two big Styrofoam cups with lids beside the box, which made me realize with a bright flash of irritation that he’d used my mug merely because it was
mine
and he was starting out the new week by being Me.
    “Hey, Dexter,” he said with a jolly smirk. “How was the weekend?”
    “Very nice,” I said, sliding into the ratty folding chair I keep for visitors.
    “Great, super,” he said. “Hung out with the kids? Playground and so on? Push ’em on the swings …?”
    I looked at him sitting there at my desk, in my chair, drinking from my mug, and I discovered that I did not want to have a pleasant chat with someone who was working so hard to become me. But what I really wanted to do with him required a little more privacy than we had here in the heart of police headquarters, as well as a long stretch of uninterrupted time and a few rolls of duct tape. But of course, someone at the network might miss Robert sooner or later, and so the realities of civilized discourse left me no choice except to play the game properly. So I reached across the desk
—my
desk—and grabbed a
pastelito
from the box.
    “All work and no play,” I said, taking a bite of the pastry. “I’m afraid it was very dull.”
    “No, no, not at all,” Robert said. “I mean, spending time with your kids, that’s … You know. It’s important.”
    “I guess it is,” I said, and I took another bite. It was pretty good. “And you?” I said, out of mere politeness. “How was your weekend?”
    “Oh,” he said, and shrugged. “I flew down to Mexico.”
    “Really,” I said. “And you lived?”
    He sipped coffee—from my mug!—and looked away. “It’s, uh,” he said. “I go there all the time. There’s a place where, you know.” He sipped again. “It’s a, um. Kind of a private resort. They know me there, and I can just, um. Relax. No biggie. So,” he said, slapping the desk and turning back to me with a bright smile. “What’d you do with your kids? You said there’s three of ’em?”
    I looked at him sitting there at my desk, and clearly trying very hard to pretend he was interested in my little life—at the same timeunderplaying the whole