Dexter 4 - Dexter by Design Read Online Free PDF Page B

moved his claw to the keyboard again. But then he remembered that it hadn't worked out too well before to poke it without looking, so he glanced down, punched a button, and looked up at me as the cheerful voice said, “Motherfucker,” in a tone that made it sound like, “Jelly doughnut.” But at least he moved aside slightly so I could get by.
    “Thank you,” I said, and because I am sometimes not a very kind person, I added, “And I will put it on your desk. Black with two sugars. Have a nice day.” I stepped past him and headed down the hall, but I could feel his eyes on me all the way down to my cubicle.

Sin determinar
    FIVE
    THE ORDEAL OF THE WORKING DAY HAD BEEN nightmarish enough, from being stranded without doughnuts in the morning all the way through to the terrifying encounter with what was left of Sergeant Doakes, the vocally enhanced version. Even so, none of this prepared me for the shock of arriving home.
    I'd been hoping for the warm and fuzzy glow of a good meal and some down time with Cody and Astor my adopted children perhaps a game of Kick the Can out in the yard before dinner. But as I pulled up and parked at Rita's house —now my house, too, which took some getting used to —I was surprised to see the two small tousled heads sitting in the front yard, apparently waiting for me. Since I knew full well that SpongeBob was on TV right now, I could not imagine what would make them do this. So it was with a growing sense of alarm that I climbed out of my car and approached them.
    “Greetings, citizens,” I said. They stared at me with a matched set of mournful looks, but said nothing. That was to be expected from Cody, who never spoke more than four words at a time. But for Astor, it was alarming, since she had inherited her mother's talent for circular breathing, which allowed them both to talk without pausing for air. To see her sit there without speaking was almost unprecedented. So I switched languages and tried again.
    “What up, yo?” I asked them.
    “Poop van,” said Cody. Or at any rate, that's what I thought I heard. But since none of my training had prepared me to respond to anything remotely like that, I looked over at Astor, hoping for some hint about how I should react.
    “Mom said we get to have pizza but it's the poop van for you, and we didn't want you to go away, so we came out here to warn you. You're not going away, are you, Dexter?” It was a small relief to know that I had heard Cody right, even though that now meant that I had to make sense of “poop van'. Had Rita really said that? Did it mean that I had done something very bad that I didn't know about? That didn't seem fair —I liked to remember and enjoy it when I do something bad. And one day after the honeymoon —wasn't that just a little abrupt?
    “As far as I know, I'm not going anywhere,” I said. “Are you sure that's what your mom said?” They nodded in unison and Astor said, “Uh-huh. She said you'd be surprised.”
    “She was right,” I said, and it really didn't seem fair. I was totally at a loss. “Come on,” I said. “We'll go tell her I'm not going.” They each took one of my hands and we went inside.
    The air inside the house was filled with a tantalizing aroma, strangely familiar and yet exotic, as if you sniffed a rose and instead smelled pumpkin pie. It was coming from the kitchen, so I led my small troop in that direction.
    “Rita?” I called out, and the clatter of a pan answered me.
    “It's not ready,” she said. “It's a surprise.” As we all know, surprise is usually ominous, unless it is your birthday —and even then, there are no guarantees. But I pushed bravely into the kitchen anyway, and found Rita wearing an apron and fussing over the stove, a lock of blonde hair falling unnoticed down across her forehead.
    “Am I in trouble?” I asked.
    “What? No, of course not. Why would— damn it!” she said, sticking a singed finger into her mouth, and then stirring the contents