The ski-masked shooter bounded out of the trunk. The blonde took the ring of keys from Cade’s belt, and unlocked the van’s side door.
“Morning, Dex.” She smiled brightly.
“Hey, Christy.”
Moving fast, Dexter and the ski-masked man lifted the guard’s corpse off the ground and laid it across the floor of the van. In front, the guy dressed like a guard had gotten behind the wheel and was propping up the wounded guard in the seat to look like a passenger if one gave him a casual glance.
The dying guard was moaning entreaties to God in a blood-choked gurgle.
“Someone shut him up.” Dexter slammed the side panel door. “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.”
Opening the passenger door, Dexter shot the guard twice in the chest, permanently dousing the struggling light in the man’s eyes. Except for the splash of blood on his coat, he appeared to be sleeping off a hangover.
“Good to see you, man,” the new driver said.
“Same here.” Dexter nodded, closed the door. “Let’s roll out.”
The ski-masked gunner scrambled behind the wheel of the Dodge, the blonde got in on the passenger side, and Dexter hustled in the back.
Beside them, the Tahoe backed up and executed a swift U-turn, maneuvering behind the prison van, which had begun to rumble forward.
Both the SUV and the van were driven by longtime colleagues, upstanding members of the Windy City’s finest.
“How long?” Dexter asked.
“Two minutes and fourteen seconds,” Javier, his former partner said. He had peeled away his ski mask. A native of the Dominican Republic who had moved to the States when he was five, Javier was a lean, bronze-skinned man with dark, wavy hair and a pencil-thin mustache.
Javier flashed a lopsided grin that reminded Dexter of their wild days working together.
“We kicked ass, Dex.”
“Like old times,” Dexter said.
“How’s it feel to be out?” Christy asked. Unlike every other member of the operation, she wasn’t a cop—she was Javier’s wife, and as trustworthy as any brother of the badge.
“Like being born again,” Dexter said. “Hallelujah.”
Christy passed him a brown paper bag that contained a bottle of iced tea and two roast beef-and-cheddar sandwiches wrapped in plastic. Dexter ate greedily. After four years of bland prison food, the simple meal was like a spread at a four-star restaurant.
A bag from Target lay on the seat beside him. He opened it, found a pair of overalls and a plaid shirt.
“The rest of the stuff?” Dexter asked.
“The duffel with all your things is in the trunk,” Javier said. “But you need to get out of that ape suit pronto, man. Who would I look like giving a prisoner a taxi ride?”
Dexter peeled out of the prison jumpsuit and dressed in the civilian clothes.
When they reached the main artery that ran through town, Javier made a turn that would take them to the highway. The prison van, followed by the Tahoe, went in the opposite direction.
They would drive the van over a hundred miles away and abandon it, and its cargo of dead guards, in a pond. With luck, it would be at least several days before the cops would discover it.
Dexter settled back in the seat and dozed. He dreamed, as usual, of her. She was weeping, screaming, and pleading for her life.
It was a good dream.
When he awoke over two hours later, they were bumping across a long, narrow lane, freshly plowed of snow. Tall pines and oaks lined the road, ice clinging to their boughs.
Javier turned into a long driveway that led to a small A-frame house surrounded by dense forest.
“My mother’s crib,” Javier said, and Christy laughed.
Dexter laughed, too. The house was no more inhabited by Javier’s mother than it was by the Queen of England. Javier had bought it in his mother’s name to conceal his ownership, a ploy that many of them had used at one time or another to hide their connection to various properties and valuables they purchased—things decidedly not paid for with their regular cop salaries.
A car, covered by a gray tarp, sat beside the house.
“What’s that?” Dexter asked.
“Something special for you,” Javier said.
They parked. Dexter got out of the car and walked to the covered vehicle, snow and ice crunching under his shoes. He peeked under the tarp.
It was a ten-year-old black Chevy Caprice, a model that was once the ubiquitous police cruiser.
Dexter laughed. “You kill me.”
“Glad the joint hasn’t taken away your sense of humor,” Javier said. He opened the Dodge’s trunk and handed a big, olive green duffel bag to Dexter. “Feliz Navidad, amigo.”
Dexter placed the bag on the ground and unzipped it. It contained a Glock 9mm, five magazines of ammo, a switchblade, a concealable body armor vest, a prepaid cell phone, clothing, keys to the Chevy and the house, a manila envelope, and five thick, bundled packets of cash in denominations of twenties, fifties and hundreds, totaling approximately ten thousand dollars.
It wasn’t a lot of money, but more waited in Chicago. Substantially more.
“Santa brought you everything on your wish list,” Javier said. “In spite of how naughty you’ve been.”
Dexter grinned. In the manila envelope, he found an Illinois driver’s license, U.S. passport, and a Social Security card, all listed under the alias of Alonzo Washington.
“Alonzo Washington?” Dexter asked.
Javier smiled. “Sound familiar?”
“The flick about the narc—Training Day, right? Denzel’s character was named Alonzo something.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“You’re a regular fucking comedian, aren’t you?” Dexter tapped the IDs. “These solid?”
“As a rock,” Javier said. “The finest money could buy.”
In the ID snapshots, Dexter’s face had been digitally altered to depict him as clean shaven. Dexter rubbed the thick, woolen beard he had grown in prison.
“We threw some Magic Shave and a couple razors in the bag, too,” Javier said.
“I’ve had hair on my chin since I was fifteen. I’ll hardly recognize myself.”
He turned to the house. Although it offered perhaps fifteen hundred square feet, a decent amount of space but nothing spectacular, to a man who had lived in a seven-by-twelve cell it would be like having the run of the Biltmore Estate all to himself.
“Utilities are on,” Javier said. “Christy went grocery shopping this morning, packed the refrigerator with everything a growing boy needs.”
“Your loyalty,” Dexter said. “That means more to me than anything. Thanks.”
“Speaking of loyalty, we tried to track down your ex-wife,” Christy said.
“Wife,” Dexter said.
“Right. Anyway, she’s dropped off the grid, like you thought. We got nothing.”
“That’s good,” Dexter said.
“How the hell is that good, after how she screwed you?” Javier