I didn't smell anything except the standard loamy Everglades aroma, plus sweat and a faint trace of gunpowder that still hung in the air, but I was certainly not going to argue with my rescuer. Besides, I would have been arguing with his back, since he had already spun away and headed off toward the edge of the clearing. I watched him go, rubbing my wrists and taking my terrible vengeance on the mosquitoes.
There was really not a great deal more to see around the trailer. The regular cops were frog-marching the cannibals away to durance vile, and the viler the better, as far as I was concerned. The SRT guys were standing around one of their own, probably the one who had made the shot that took off Kukarov's face; his expression was a combination of ebbing adrenaline and shock, and his fellow shooters watched him protectively.
Altogether, the excitement was fading and it was clearly time for Dexter's Departure. The only problem, of course, was that I had no transportation, and depending on the kindness of strangers is always an iffy thing. Depending on the kindness of family is often much worse, of course, but it still seemed like the best bet, so I went to look for Deborah.
My sister was sitting in the front seat of her car trying to be sensitive, nurturing, and supportive of Samantha Aldovar. These were not things that came naturally to her, and it would have been tough sledding even if Samantha were willing to play along. She was not, of course, and the two of them were rapidly approaching an emotional impasse when I slid into the backseat.
"I'm not going to be all right," Samantha was saying. "Why do you keep saying that like I'm some kind of ree-tard?"
"You've had a really big shock, Samantha," Debs said, and in spite of the fact that she clearly meant to be soothing, I could almost hear quotation marks around her words, as if she was reading from The Rescued Hostage Handbook. "But it's over now."
"I don't want it over, goddamn it," she said. She looked back at me as I closed the car door. "You bastard," she said to me.
"I didn't do anything," I said.
"You brought them here," she said. "This was all a setup."
I shook my head. "Nope," I said. "I have no idea how they found us."
"Riiiiight," she sneered.
"Really," I said, and I turned to Debs. "How did you find us?"
Deborah shrugged. "Chutsky came out to wait with me. When the carpet van came, he slapped a tracer on it." It made sense: Her boyfriend, Chutsky, a semiretired intelligence operative, would certainly have the right sort of toys for that. "So they carried you out and drove away; we stayed back and followed. When we all got out here in the swamp, I called in for SRT. I really hoped we'd get Bobby Acosta, too, but we couldn't wait." She looked back at Samantha. "Saving you was the highest priority we had, Samantha."
"For fuck's sake, I didn't want to be saved," Samantha said. "When are you going to get that?" Deborah opened her mouth, and Samantha rode right over her with, "And if you say I'm going to be all right again, I swear to God I'll scream."
To be honest, it would have been a relief if she had screamed. I was so tired of Samantha's carping that I was ready to scream myself, and I could see that my sister was not far behind me. But apparently Debs still nurtured the delusion that she had rescued an unwilling victim from a terrible experience, and so even though I could see her knuckles turn white with the effort of refraining from strangling Samantha, Deborah kept her cool.
"Samantha," she said very deliberately. "It's perfectly natural for you to be a little confused right now about what you're feeling."
"I am so totally not confused," Samantha said. "I'm feeling pissed off, and I wish you hadn't found me. Is that perfectly natural, too?"
"Yes," Deborah said, although I could see a little doubt creeping into her face. "In a hostage situation, the victim often starts to feel an emotional bond with her captors."
"You sound like you're reading that," Samantha said, and I had to admire her insight, even though her tone still set my teeth on edge.
"I'm going to recommend that your parents get you some counseling-" Deborah said.
"Oh, great, a shrink," Samantha said. "That's all I need."
"It will help you if you can talk to somebody about all that's happened to you," Deborah said.
"Sure, I can't wait to talk about all that's happened to me," Samantha said, and she turned and looked right at me. "I want to talk about all of it, because some stuff happened that was, you know, totally against my will, and everybody is really going to want to hear about that."
I felt a sharp and very unwelcome shock-not so much at what she said, but at the fact that she was saying it to me. There was no way to mistake what she meant; but would she really tell everyone about our little ecstasy-inspired interlude, and claim it was against her will? It hadn't occurred to me that she would-after all, it was kind of a private thing, and it hadn't actually been my will, either. I hadn't put the drugs into the water bottle, and it certainly wasn't something I would ever brag about.
But an awful sinking feeling began to bloom in my stomach as her threat began to hit home. If she claimed it had been against her will-technically speaking, the word for that was "rape," and although it was really quite far outside my normal area of interest, I was pretty sure the law frowned on it, nearly as much as some other things I had done. If that word came up, I knew that none of my clever and wonderful excuses would count for anything. And I could not really blame anyone for believing it; older man about to die, penned up with young woman, no one would ever know-it was a picture that wrote its own caption. Perfectly believable-and totally unforgivable, even if I thought I'd been about to die. I had never heard a rape defense based on extenuating circumstances, and I was pretty sure it wouldn't work.
And no matter what I said, even if Dexter's eloquence overflowed the bounds of human speech and moved the marble statue of justice to tears-the very best outcome would be he-said/she-said, and I would still be a guy who'd taken advantage of a helpless captive girl, and I knew very well what everyone would think of me. After all, I had cheered aloud every time I heard about older married men losing their jobs and their families for having sex with younger women-and that was exactly what I had done. Even if I convinced everyone that the drugs made me do it and it really wasn't my fault, I would be finished. Drug-induced teen sex party sounded more like a tabloid headline than an explanation.
And not even the greatest lawyer who had ever lived could get me off the hook with Rita. There was still a lot I did not understand about human beings, but I had seen enough daytime drama to figure this one out. Rita might not believe I had committed rape, but that wouldn't matter. She would not care if I had been bound hand and foot, drugged, and then forced to have sex at gunpoint. She would divorce me when she found out, and she would raise Lily Anne without me. I would be all alone, out in the cold without roast pork, with no Cody and Astor, and no Lily Anne to brighten my days; Dex-Daddy Dumped.
No family, no job-nothing. She would probably even take custody of my fillet knives. It was terrible, hideous, unthinkable; everything I cared about yanked away, my entire life flung into the Dumpster-and all because I'd been drugged? It was far beyond unfair. And some of this must have shown on my face, because Samantha kept looking at me, and she began to nod her head.
"That's right," she said. "You just think about that."
I looked back at Samantha and I did think about it. And I wondered if just this once I could dispose of somebody because of something they hadn't done yet; proactive playtime.