"What will you do if Joe finds out you've told us?" I asked Alana.

She looked at me, and then I knew what was wrong, because I saw something very dark and leather-winged at the back of her eyes, just for a moment, before the cover of icy amusement slid back into place on her face. "I shall make him forgive me," she said, and her lips turned up higher in a wonderful fake smile. "Besides, he won't find out, will he?" And she turned to Deborah. "This will be our little secret, all right?" she said.

"I can't keep this a secret," Deborah said. "If I take the task force into Buccaneer Land, people are going to know."

"Then you must go alone," Alana said. " 'Acting on an anonymous tip'-isn't that how they say it? You go alone, without telling anyone. And when you show up with Bobby, who will care how you knew where he was?"

Deborah stared at Alana, and I was quite sure she would tell her the idea was ridiculous, out of the question, an unacceptable deviation from police procedure, and far too dangerous. But Alana curved her lips and raised an eyebrow, and there was no question now that it was a challenge. And just to be sure a dullard like Debs couldn't miss that, Alana said, "Surely you can't be afraid of one young man? You have a lovely pistol, after all, and he's quite alone and unarmed."

"That's not the point," Debs said.

All the amusement left Alana's face. "No, it's not," she said. "The point is that you must go alone or there will be a huge fuss and Joe will find out I told you, and in truth I really don't wish to risk that. And if you insist on taking a team out there and making a great bloody riot of it, I shall go warn Bobby that you're coming and he'll be in Costa Rica before you can do a thing about it." The dark wings fluttered in her eyes one more brief time, and then she forced a smile back onto her face, but it still wasn't very pleasant. "What's the expression? 'My way or the highway.' All right?"

I could see a lot of other options besides taking the on-ramp to Alana's particular road, and I certainly didn't like the idea of going into a deserted and hostile environment and trying to catch Bobby Acosta without considerable backup, merely because Alana said he was alone and unarmed. But apparently Deborah was made of sterner stuff, because she just looked back, and after a moment she nodded.

"All right," Debs said. "I'll do it your way. And if Bobby's there, I don't have to let Joe know how we found out."

"Brilliant," Alana said. She opened the Ferrari's door, slid onto the seat, and fired up the engine. She revved it twice for effect, and the thick concrete walls of the parking garage trembled. She gave us one last cold and terrible smile-and once again, just for a second, I saw the shadow flutter behind her eyes. Then she closed the door, put the car in gear, and was gone in a wail of rubber.

Deborah watched her go, which gave me a little time to recover from my encounter with the inner Alana. It surprised me that I was shocked to find a predator in such a cool and beautiful package. After all, it made a great deal of sense. From what I knew about Alana, her biography told a ruthless story, and as I knew very well, it takes a special kind of person to slip the knife in so many times, and apparently so well.

And at least it made sense of her betrayal of Bobby Acosta. It was precisely the right sort of move for a dragon trying to protect her hard-won golden nest; in one clever stroke she safeguarded the treasure and eliminated a rival. Very sound gamesmanship, and the dark part of me admired her thinking.

Debs abruptly turned away from the sound of the vanishing Ferrari and headed for the door back into the lobby. "Let's get it done," she said over her shoulder.

We hurried back through the building and out the front door to Brickell Avenue without conversation. Deborah had angled her car in at an illegal spot by the curb in a perfect job of Cop Parking, and we climbed in. But in spite of her haste coming to the car, she didn't start the engine right away. Instead, she put her forearms on the steering wheel and leaned forward with a frown.

"What?" I said at last.

She shook her head. "Something just isn't right here," she said.

"You don't think Bobby is there?" I said.

She made a face and didn't look at me. "I just don't trust that bitch," she said.

I thought that was very sensible. I knew quite well from my glimpse into Alana's real self that she could only be trusted to do what was best for Alana, no matter what the consequences might be for everyone else. But secretly helping us put Bobby in jail seemed to fit her agenda nicely. "You don't need to trust her," I said. "But she is acting in her own self-interest."

"Shut up, okay?" she said, and I shut. I watched Deborah drum her fingers on the wheel, purse her lips, rub her forehead. I wished I could find some similar twitch to fill the time, but nothing occurred to me. I did not like the whole idea of the two of us trying to corner Bobby Acosta. He didn't seem particularly dangerous-but of course, most people thought the same thing about me, and look where that got them.

Bobby might not be deadly-but there was too much about the situation that was unknown and gravely random. And to be perfectly honest, which is sometimes necessary, I thought that any small chance of Samantha remaining silent would be gone forever if I showed up again with another rescue party.

On the other hand, I knew very well that I could not let Deborah go alone. That would break every rule I had carefully learned over the course of a studiously wicked life. And to my surprise, I found that New Dexter, Lily Anne's dad, who was working so hard to be human, actually had a feeling on the subject. I felt protective of Deborah, unwilling to see harm come to her, and if she was going to put herself in harm's way I wanted to be there to keep her safe.

It was a very strange sensation, to be torn by the conflicting emotions of concern for Deborah and at the same time a very real desire to see Samantha out of the way somehow-polar opposites, both pulling at me strongly. I wondered if that meant that I was exactly halfway on my journey between Dark Dexter and Dex-Daddy. Dark-Daddy? It had possibilities.

Deborah snapped me out of my pathetic fugue by slapping her hands on the steering wheel. "Goddamn it," she said. "I just don't fucking trust her."

I felt better: Common sense was winning. "So you're not going?" I said.

Deborah shook her head and started the engine. "No," she said. "Of course I'm going." And she put it in gear and pulled out into traffic. "But I don't have to go alone."

I suppose I should have pointed out that since I was right there beside her, she was not technically alone. But she was already accelerating to a speed at which I began to fear for my life, so I simply grabbed for my seat belt and buckled it on extra tight.