Read Online Dexter 3 - Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay - Free Book Online

disapproval.
    “I what? Who did I-”
    “Those two people they found at the college,” she said.
“We don't want to learn that,” she added emphatically, and Cody
nodded again.
    “At the-you mean at the university? I
didn't-”
    “A university is a college,” Astor said with the underlined
certainty of a ten-year-old girl. “And we think burning is just
gross.”
    It began to dawn on me what they had seen on the
news-a report from the scene where I had spent my morning collecting
dry-roasted blood samples from two charred bodies. And somehow, merely because
they knew I had been out to play the other night, they had decided that this
was how I had spent my time. Even without the Dark Passenger's strange retreat,
I agreed that it was completely gross, and I found it highly annoying that they
thought I was capable of something like that. “Listen,” I said
sternly, “that was not-”
    “Dexter? Is that you?” Rita yodeled from the
kitchen.
    “I'm not sure,” I called back. “Let me
check my wallet.”
    Rita bustled in beaming and before I could protect myself she wrapped
herself around me, apparently intent on squeezing hard enough to interfere with
my breathing. “Hi, handsome,” she said. “How was your day?”
    “Gross,” muttered
Astor.
     
    “Absolutely wonderful,” I said, fighting for breath. “Plenty
of corpses for everybody today. And I got to use my cotton swabs, too.”
    Rita made a face. “Ugh. That's-I don't know if you should talk
like that around the children. What if they get bad dreams?”
    If I had been a completely honest person, I would have told her that
her children were far more likely to cause someone else bad dreams than to get
them, but since I am not hampered by any need to tell the truth, I just patted
her and said, “They hear worse than that on the cartoons every day. Isn't
that right, kids?”
    “No,” said Cody softly, and I looked at him with surprise. He
rarely said anything, and to have him not only speak but actually contradict me
was disturbing. In fact, the whole day was turning out to be wildly askew, from
the panicked flight of the Dark Passenger this morning and continuing on
through Vince's catering tirade-and now this. What in the name of all that is
dark and dreadful was going on? Was my aura out of balance? Had the moons of
Jupiter aligned against me in Sagittarius?
    “Cody,” I said. And I do hope some hurt showed in my voice.
“You're not going to have bad dreams about this, are you?”
    “He doesn't have bad dreams,” Astor said, as
if everyone who was not severely mentally challenged ought to know that.
“He doesn't have any dreams at all.”
    “Good to know,” I said, since I almost never dream myself,
either, and for some reason it seemed important to have as much as possible in
common with Cody. But Rita was having none of it.
    “Really, Astor, don't be silly,” she said.
“Of course Cody has dreams. Everybody has dreams.”
    “I don't,” Cody insisted. Now he was not only standing up to
both of us, he was practically breaking his own record for chattiness at the
same time. And even though I didn't have a heart, except for circulatory
purposes, I felt an affection for him and wanted to come down on his side.
    “Good for you,” I said. “Stick with it. Dreams are very
overrated. Interfere with getting a good night's sleep.”
    “Dexter, really,” Rita said. “I don't
think we should encourage this.”
    “Of course we should,” I said, winking at
Cody. “He's showing fire, spunk, and imagination.”
    “Am not,” he said, and I absolutely marveled
at his verbal outpouring.
    “Of course you're not,” I said to him,
lowering my voice. “But we have to say stuff like that to your mom, or she
gets worried.”
    “For Pete's sake,” Rita said. “I give
up with you two. Run outside and play, kids.”
    “We wanna play with Dexter,” Astor pouted.
    “I'll be along in a few
minutes,” I said.
     
    “You better,” she said