The Universe's Mixer

It hadn't taken long at all for the word to reach Dexter of the girl who had been arrested and taken to await trial in the cells below the courts. She had sounded suspiciously familiar to him, and he'd looked up the name he'd gotten and verified with the fingerprints he'd taken from her. The computer spat out information about the criminal and it matched up perfectly with the one he'd let go. It was something he'd regretted doing, and now he was kicking himself extra hard for doing it.

At first she'd been stuck in the system with no way for him to get to her. Then she'd been allowed visitors, but only those that were required. Police, psychiatrists, her lawyer. Those kinds of things. Dexter hadn't had a good enough reason to go. The system already had her fingerprints on file, she hadn't been caught doing anything so there were no scrapings to get under her nails.

But he watched. And waited.

He gathered all the facts that he could surrounding her arrest and the crimes she'd been accused of. He snuck through certain restrictions that had been placed and saw things that a lab tech shouldn't have access to. When he'd let her go, he'd thought to do these things and know everything that he could know about her. He hadn't done it though, because he'd gotten swamped with other things, and there was a part of him that really wanted to believe that she was going to try to turn herself around. It wasn't hope, really, Dexter didn't know if he truly understood hope. It was akin to hope, hope adjacent, maybe.

After she was visited by a psychiatrist working up a profile on her to present to the courts on her fitness to stand trial, the restrictions were lifted on what visitors she could have, and Dexter made his plans to pay a visit.

Very carefully, he picked a time when no others were scheduled to be there. He didn't want to run into a family member or a friend who might question his presence. He didn't know how well her social circle might know one another, and knew just how odd it would look for somebody they'd never heard about to be visiting her in jail instead of placing a phone call or writing a letter. Even in the City, where nothing was further away than a couple of miles, it was all a little more effort than a casual acquaintance would put in.

The guards did recognize him because of his police work. That was unavoidable. So he made polite chitchat with them, hoping that they'd not think it too odd that he was there. He didn't lie and try to say that he was a part of the investigation. There was no reason for blood spatter to be involved with theft. He told them that she was a friend and he was worried about her. He just wanted to make sure that she was doing okay. He said that he'd been at the building anyway, waiting to testify on a case and that he'd been told he wasn't needed. Which would explain, if the guards happened to ask, why nobody had seen him.

He made his way slowly to her cell, unsure of what exactly he thought he was going to do. Obviously he couldn't kill her. Not here, and not now. There were too many records of his visit for him to get away with anything. Was he there to talk? He supposed he'd figure it out sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Dexter smiled at the guard who unlocked her door for him even though he felt nothing inside that should have produced any kind of happy facial expression.

Once in the room, he opted to stand in the corner instead of sit in the chair.