particularly loud snore from Chutsky brought me back to the present. It was loud enough that one of the nurses stuck her head in the door, and then checked all the dials and gauges and whirling machinery before going away again, with a suspicious backward glance at the two of us, as if we had deliberately made terrible noises in order to upset her machines.

Deborah moved one leg slightly, just enough to prove she was still alive, and I pulled myself all the way back from meandering down memory lane. Somewhere, there was somebody who actually was guilty of putting the knife into my sister. That was all that mattered. Someone had actually done this thing. It was a large and untidy loose end wandering around and I needed to grab hold and snip it back into neatness. Because the thought of such a large piece of unfinished and unpunished business gave me the urge to clean the kitchen and make the bed. It was messy, plain and simple, and Dexter doesn’t like disorder.

Another thought poked its nose into the room. I tried to shoo it away, but it kept coming back, wagging its tail and demanding that I pet it. And when I did, it seemed to me to be a good thought. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the scene one more time. The door swings open—and it stays open as Deborah shows her badge and then falls. And it is still open when I get to her side...... which means that someone else could very well have been inside and looking out. And that meant that somewhere, there just might be somebody who knew what I looked like. A second person, just like Detective Coulter had suggested. It was a little insulting to admit that a drooling dolt like Coulter might be right about something, but after all, Isaac Newton didn’t reject gravity just because the apple had a low IQ.

And happily for my self-esteem, I was one step ahead of Coulter, because I might know this hypothetical second person’s name. We had been going to ask someone named Brandon Weiss about his threats to the Tourist Board, and somehow ended up with Doncevic instead. So there might well have been two of them, living together—

Another small train chugged into the station: Arabelle, the cleaning woman at Joe’s, had seen two gay tourists, with cameras. And I had seen two men who fit that description at Fairchild Gardens, also with cameras, filming the crowd. A film of the crime scene arriving at the Tourist Board had started all this. It was not conclusive, but it was certainly a nice start, and I was pleased, since it proved that a certain amount of mental function might well be returning to Cyber-Dex.

As if to prove it, I had one more thought. Taking it a step further, if this hypothetical Weiss had followed the story in the media, which seemed very likely, he would know who I was, and quite possibly consider me a person worth talking to, in the strictly Dexter-ian sense of the word. Dexter-ose? Probably not—this was not a sweet thought, and it did not fill me with sociable good cheer. It meant that either I would have to defend myself successfully when he came, or let him do unto me. Either way there would be a mess, and a body, and a great deal of publicity, and all of them attached to my secret identity, Daytime Dexter, which was something I very much wanted to avoid if possible.

All that meant one simple thing: I had to find him first.

This was not a daunting task. I have spent my adult life getting very good at finding things, and people, on the computer. In fact, it was this particular talent that had gotten Debs and me into our current mess, so there was a certain symmetry to the idea that this same skill would get me out of it now.

All right then: to work. Time to heed the clarion call and strap myself into my trusty computer.

And as always seems to happen when I have reached the point where I am ready to take decisive action, everything began to happen at once.

As I took a breath in preparation for standing up, Chutsky suddenly opened his eyes and said, “Oh, hey, buddy, the doctor said—” and was interrupted by the sound of my cell phone ringing, and as I reached to answer it, a doctor stepped into the room and said, “All right,” to two interns following close behind him.

And then in rapid-fire confusion I heard, from the doctor, the phone, and Chutsky, “Hey, buddy, it’s the doc—Cub Scouts, and Astor’s friend has the mumps—the higher nerve center seems to be responding to...”

Once again I was very pleased to be abnormal, because a normal human being would certainly have flung his chair at the doctor and run screaming from the room. Instead, I waved at Chutsky, turned away from the doctors, and concentrated on the phone.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you,” I said. “Can you say it again?”

“I said, it would be a big help if you could come home,” Rita said. “If you’re not too busy? Because Cody has his first Cub Scout meeting tonight, and Astor’s friend Lucy has the mumps? Which means she can’t go over there, so one of us should stay with her at home? And I thought, you know. Unless you’re stuck at work again?”

“I’m at the hospital,” I said.

“Oh,” Rita said. “Well then, that’s—Is she any better?”

I looked over at the small clot of doctors. They were examining a small heap of documents apparently relating to Deborah. “I think we’re about to find out,” I said. “The doctors are here now.”

“Well, if it’s—I guess I could just—I mean, Astor could go along to Cub Scouts if—”

“I’ll take Cody to Scouts,” I said. “Let me just talk to the doctor first.”

“If you’re sure,” she said. “Because if it’s, you know...”

“I know,” I said, although I actually didn’t. “I’ll be right home.”

“All right,” she said. “Love you.”

I hung up and turned back to the doctors. One of the interns had peeled back Deborah’s eyelid and was glaring at her eyeball with the aid of a small flashlight. The real doctor was watching him, holding the clipboard.

“Excuse me,” I said, and he glanced up at me.

“Yes,” he said, with what I recognized as a fake smile. It was not nearly as good as mine.

“She’s my sister,” I said.

The doctor nodded. “Next of kin, all right,” he said.

“Is there any sign of improvement?”

“Well,” he said. “The higher nerve functions seem to be coming back online, and the autonomic responses are good. And there’s no fever or infection, so the prognosis seems favorable for a slight upgrade in condition within the next twenty-four hours.”

“That’s good,” I said hopefully.

“However, I do have to warn you,” he said, with an equally phony frown of importance and seriousness. “She lost an awful lot of blood, which can sometimes lead to permanent impairment of brain functions.”

“But it’s too soon to tell?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, nodding vigorously. “Exactly.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said, and stepped around him to where Chutsky was now standing, wedged into a corner, so the doctors could have full access to Debs.

“She’ll be fine,” he told me. “Don’t let these guys scare you, she’s gonna be absolutely fine. Remember, I had Doc Teidel here.” He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “No offense to these guys, but Teidel’s a hell of a lot better. He put me back together, and I was a whole lot worse than this,” he said, nodding at Deborah. “And I didn’t have any brain damage, either.”

Considering the Pollyanna optimism he was showing, I wasn’t sure about that, but it didn’t seem worth arguing about. “All right,” I said. “Then I’ll check back with you later. I have a crisis at home.”

“Oh,” he said, with a frown. “Everybody okay?”

“All fine,” I said. “It’s the Cub Scouts I’m worried about.”

And although I meant that as a lighthearted exit line, isn’t it funny how often these little jokes come true?