Dexter 4 - Dexter by Design Read Online Free PDF

of it aimed at me.
    The only real break I got all day was at almost one o'clock, when Angel-no-relation offered to drive me back to my cubicle, and stop along the way at Calle Ocho for lunch at his favorite Cuban restaurant, Habanita. I had a very nice Cuban steak with all the trimmings, and two cafecitas with my flan dessert, and I felt a whole lot better about myself as I headed into the building, flashed my credentials, and stepped into the elevator.
    As the elevator doors slid shut I felt a small flutter of uncertainty from the Passenger, and I listened hard, wondering if this was a reaction to the morning's carnival of carnage, or perhaps the result of too many onions with my steak. But I could get nothing more from it beyond a certain tensing of invisible black wings, very often a sign that things were not what they should be.
    How this could happen in an elevator I did not know, and I considered the idea that the Passenger's recent sabbatical in the face of Moloch might have left it in a mildly dithering and unsettled state. It would not do, of course, to have a less than effective Passenger, and I was pondering what to do about that when the elevator doors opened and all questions were answered.
    As if he had known we would be aboard, Sergeant Doakes stood glaring and unblinking at the exact spot where we stood, and the shock was considerable. He had never liked me; had always had the unreasonable suspicion that I was some kind of monster, which of course I was, and he had been determined to prove it somehow. But an amateur surgeon had captured Doakes and removed his hands, feet, and tongue, and although I had endured considerable inconvenience in trying to save him —and really, I did help save most of him —he had decided his new, trimmed-down form was my fault, and he liked me even less.
    Even the fact that without his tongue he was now incapable of saying anything that was minimally coherent was no help; he said it anyway, and the rest of us were forced to endure what sounded like a strange new language made up of all “G” and “N” sounds, and spoken with an urgent and threatening delivery that made you look for an emergency exit even while you strained to understand.
    So I braced myself for some angry gibberish and he stood there looking at me with an expression that is usually reserved for grandmother-rapers, and I began to wonder if I could possibly just push past him, but then the elevator doors began to close automatically.
    Before I could escape back downstairs, Doakes shot out his right hand —actually a gleaming steel claw —and stopped the doors from closing.
    “Thank you,” I said, and took a tentative step forward. But he did not budge and he did not blink and without knocking him down, I did not see how I could get by.
    Doakes kept his unblinking loathing stare on me and brought up a small silver thing about the size of a hardcover book. He flipped it open to reveal that it was a small hand-held computer or PDA and, still without looking away from me, he jabbed at it with his claw.
    “Put it on my desk,” said a disjointed male voice from the PDA, and Doakes snarled a little more and jabbed again. “Black with two sugars,” the voice said, and he poked again. “Have a nice day,” it said in a very pleasant baritone that should have come from a happy, pudgy white American man, instead of this glowering dark cyborg so bent on revenge.
    But at least he finally had to look away, down to the keyboard of the thing he held in his claw, and after staring for a moment at what was clearly a cluster of pre-recorded sentences, he found the right button.
    “I am still watching you,” said the happy voice. Its cheerful, positive tone should have made me feel very good about myself, but the fact that it was Doakes saying it by proxy somehow spoiled the effect.
    “That's very reassuring,” I said. “Would you mind watching me get off the elevator?”
    For a moment I thought he did mind, and he