Dexter was frozen in place, following Larry's instructions while his thoughts raced back and forth.
I watched him in silence. The way he spoke, the precision of his movements, how he prepared each word as if it were part of a perfectly rehearsed choreography...
That wasn't the Larry who used to come to my barbecues or make awkward jokes at the station. No. That was the real Larry: the hunter. The criminal profiler who could enter a killer's mind and dismantle it like an old clock. And now… he was sitting across from one. Or rather, two.
What does he plan to do with me?
I could see in his eyes that he no longer trusted me. Or maybe he never really did. Maybe he had been waiting for this moment. Maybe, from day one, he saw me for what I am and not what I pretended to be.
The tone of his voice, the confidence with which he poisoned Brian without hesitation, the way he pointed his weapon at me without flinching… This wasn't an improvised threat. It was a calmly delivered sentence. Will you help me or should I do it alone? he said. As if he were testing something. As if he wanted to know whether I was the monster he thought I was… or a different one.
What if I say yes? What if we kill Brian together? Would that make me his ally or just his next subject of study?
Larry doesn't want justice. He wants answers. And men who seek answers are dangerous, because they never stop. Not when they're this close. Not when they can smell the truth. And I... I wasn't trained by my father to kill this way.
I don't know what Larry will do after this. I don't know if he'll arrest me, kill me… or set me free to see what kind of creature I truly am.
But what I do know… is that he's already crossed a line.
And those who cross that line don't always come back the same.
…
Larry glanced in the rearview mirror to check if they were being followed. After all, during his days investigating Dexter, he had discovered that Sergeant Doakes had been tailing him just as much as he had been following Dexter.
This led him to believe that maybe the sergeant had discovered things about Dexter that told him he was a killer. And he wasn't wrong—he was.
"Larry, we should talk," Dexter tried to reason with a heavily armed Larry, determined to kill the Ice Truck Killer.
Larry, however, wasn't thinking of changing his mind and asked, "If I want to kill the Ice Truck Killer now, what's the difference?"
"You're not a killer…"
"He used my family to get inside my head!! I'll beat the information out of him if I have to—then I'll kill him." Larry's voice was full of fury. The memories of his murdered family came rushing back, reinforcing his resolve to kill the Ice Truck Killer.
"There'll be no turning back…"
"I don't care, Dexter. I've killed more people than you... Every case I solve is because I understand how the killer thinks. It's easy when you have a killer's mindset. But unlike you, I'll make them suffer in life just a little of what they've done to others."
Larry looked at Dexter's rigid figure in the driver's seat.
"Ever since my family was murdered, I made it my mission to hunt down the religious killer… You would've been my target if you killed innocent people. But since all your victims are serial killers or people who deserved it, you have my respect."
"Are you serious?" Dexter looked at Larry, trying to find lies in his words, but was surprised to see honesty in his eyes. Maybe Larry was telling the truth—or maybe Dexter was just seeing what he wanted to see in that moment.
Larry nodded and said, "Of course. Once I take care of the idiot in the back, we could be much closer friends."
"You mean…"
"Hunting killers." Larry removed all his belongings and put them in an evidence bag. Then he said, "I know you tend to kill minorities, but I'm talking about working together to take down real predators."
"High-level predators…"
Larry checked the time and said, "As a criminal profiler, I have access to an enormous database of serial killers who haven't been caught yet. We could take them down together—using my mind and your hunting skills. Together we'd be unstoppable, and we'd wipe out those loose predators without anyone ever knowing."
Larry's proposal tempted Dexter, who had always felt misunderstood. Now, with the possibility of having an ally, all the difficulties he had experienced while trying to kill might disappear overnight.
With this, Dexter wouldn't have to hide from Larry anymore. They would be accomplices. All that remained was to see how Larry killed the Ice Truck Killer for their bond to become unbreakable.
Sensing the silence, Larry told Dexter how he had discovered the truth:
"When I stopped working cases after the church disaster, I started searching the police database for crimes similar to those committed by the Ice Truck Killer."
"It took me a long time to find one, and from there I tracked down a man about our age. As I followed his steps, I realized he was using the identity of someone he had killed. So I built a criminal profile of the suspect, and everything pointed to him being the Ice Truck Killer."
"What was he doing with my sister?" Dexter asked, not understanding how they were connected to that killer.
"Your father was on the case of that killer. They never caught him, so I think he was looking for revenge," Larry said, with no intention of revealing the full truth.
Larry knew that if he wanted to use Dexter for his own goals, he had to lie. He didn't know if Dexter's emotional attachment would explode if he found out the truth, but for now, he didn't want him to know.
Besides, he could use his influence to classify the information and completely block Dexter's access to finding out whether he had a brother or not.
Because if Dexter became a problem and tried to hunt him… then he would kill him too. That would be unfortunate, since Larry considered Dexter a friend.
Now, more like a brother...
And starting tonight, their bond would be the closest Larry had had since arriving in Florida.
Before long, they arrived at an abandoned factory where Dexter parked. Then, helping Larry, they both carried Brian—better known as the Ice Truck Killer—together.
Once inside, Larry turned on the lights, then looked at Dexter and said, "This place is abandoned. No one will come."
"I hope so…"
Larry said nothing, placing Brian on a wooden table and waiting for him to wake up. According to his estimates, he could already be conscious—or about to be.
"Let's play, idiot."