Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

It took three full days for Deborah to come to see me, which is unusual for her to be out of touch with me for such a long time. It was after lunch on a Thursday, and she walked into my office with a displeased look on her face. "I found it," she said. I didn't understand at once. "Found what, Deborah?" "That truck," she said, "that refrigerated truck." "That's good news," I said, "then why are you upset like you're going to slap somebody?" "Look at this," she said, throwing a stack of four or five pages onto my desk. "Twenty-three, twenty-three refrigerated vans have been stolen in the past month. Most were found in the canal and set on fire so the owners could claim their insurance. Theft of refrigerated trucks is serious."

"Welcome to Miami," I said. Deborah sighed and sat listlessly in the other chair. "I can't do a full investigation. I can't do it alone," she said. "Dexter. Now what do we do?" I shook my head. "Deborah, I'm sorry," I said, "now we have to wait." "Just wait like this?" "That's it," I said. That's all.We waited like this for another two weeks. I woke up drenched in sweat and had no idea where I was.The only thing I'm sure of is that another murder is about to happen, and somewhere not far from here the killer is looking for his next prey, wandering like a shark circling a reef.That's where the murderer was feeding the night walker inside him, and his night walker was talking to my night walker.

I sat up in bed, and the clock beside the bed said fourteen past three.I only got four hours of sleep, and I was as exhausted as I was trudging through the jungle with a piano on my back.I was drenched in sweat, my body was stiff, and I couldn't think about it at all. I'm sure I won't be able to sleep again tonight.My hands were sticky and the sheets were damp.I stumbled into the bathroom to wash my hands. The warm water from the faucet made me feel very uncomfortable. For a moment, I even felt that I was washing my hands with blood, and the water turned red. I close my eyes. The world is on the move.

I try to wake my half-sleeping mind and wash the sweat off my face with water.But when I closed my eyes, it was like opening another pair of eyes, and what I saw was another world. I was dreaming again, floating like a blade on Biscayne, flying relentlessly swift, swooping down toward my goal, and— I open my eyes.Water is still just water. But what am I?I took a deep breath and glanced at myself in the mirror. Dexter was still the same, calm and composed, and there was no sign that something had just whizzed through my half-sleeping brain and pulled me from it. Woke up from a deep sleep.

I carefully closed my eyes again. Total darkness. Very ordinary, very simple darkness.No flying, no blood, no city lights. So what just happened?Why are those images appearing before my eyes? If in the past years I had slipped step by step towards the edge of insanity, then this new killer would finally push me into the abyss of insanity, but what did it matter?How can I measure the spirit of a man like myself? Those images look and feel so believable, but it can't be real.I was in bed just now, but I could almost smell the salt water, exhaust fumes, and cheap perfume on Biscayne Avenue.Absolutely true!Isn't that a sign of insanity?Doesn't this justify my inability to distinguish illusion from reality?Of course, it is impossible to talk to a psychiatrist about this problem, he will probably put me in a psychiatric hospital.If the sanity I had worked so hard to build got out of control, the problem was all on me, and part one of the problem was that there was no way of knowing with certainty that I was sanity.

However, if I really think about it, there is still a way: find everything in my dream.