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Dexter Morgan locks eyes with Jim Moriarty through the glare of the small T.V. in his Palm Terrace apartment. Moriarty’s wrists are cuffed behind his back. Firm hands grip his shoulder, his back, his head, pushing him into the back of a police car. By all accounts, the man is ordinary: short and pale, with neat, oil slicked black hair and a plain white muscle tee. But Dexter looks at the scene, and sees what no one else does: the way the hands of the officers shake, the way Moriarty moves gracefully into the vehicle, entirely of his own volition, the way he maintains complete control of everything around him, in spite of the situation. Dexter sees Moriarty's power because by all accounts, he, too, is a perfectly ordinary fellow.
Moriarty's dark, empty eyes bore into the camera, into Dexter, who meets the gaze steadily. The dark passenger rears up to meet its new playmate, tasting metal and coffee. Two reptilian minds meet and dance on the path through the airwaves, across an ocean, thousands of miles apart. The slightest smirk graces the edges of Moriarty’s lips, and Dexter smiles with him, glee in his heart.
Until now, ‘Moriarty’ has been naught but a single glossy thread of spider’s web hanging from the ceiling, getting caught in Dexter’s eyes and his hair, shimmering in the evening light coming in through the window, but slipping through his fingers when he reached for it. It was a name hiding in the shadows of dark alleyways, rank with piss and trash. It hung around street corners under street lamps, lurked underground in sewers. Elusive, untouchable, it was a wisp of smoke on the air, nothing more.
But now it—he—is everywhere. His face leers at Dexter from T.V. screens in malls and at the office, dressed now in sharp designer suits. Newspapers and magazines rage about the audacity and cunning of the man who single-handedly broke into three of London’s most secure centres at the same time.
Each time Dexter is confronted with those dark eyes, he rushes his work, sloppy, desperate to find a new victim, because he wants this, needs this, desires above all to see Moriarty on his table. He longs to slice that pale, baby soft skin, and watch the blood run, because he recognizes the look in Moriarty’s eyes (eyes that mirror Dexter’s own, eyes so deliciously empty that Dexter craves cutting them out to dissect them), and knows the Irish man is responsible for far more than just breaking and entering—that is the gaze of a fellow traveler. Greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever seen? On Dexter’s table, he’ll be the same size as every other low-life murdering scum Dexter has so graciously dispatched from the world: reduced to a rotting carcass in pieces at the bottom of the ocean and a single drop of blood on a glass slide in a wooden box.
But Dexter cannot prove anything, because the name is still intangible, slipping away whenever he attempts to dig beyond the massive triple heist. And it’s not as though Dexter can trapeze off to London at the drop of a hat… He is trapped in Miami, dreaming of Moriarty’s blood on his hands.
Moriarty is his greatest challenge, and will be his greatest trophy, if he can just prove that Moriarty meets the Code.
Moriarty is acquitted, and disappears. Dexter’s stomach churns at the prospect of such an immense monster prowling the streets of London, free as a bird, murdering and pillaging. He dreams of taking to the air, tracking Moriarty down and taking him out. He isn’t sure if his feelings are rage at the idea of a murderer not brought to justice, or the unquenchable desires of the dark passenger.
One evening, he finally makes a break for it. He tries to make the trip, sneaks off with Jamie’s help, but Deb heads him off the airport. “What the fuck, Dex?” she scolds, Harrison in her arms, fury stretched across her features. He takes Harrison from her, and furrows his brows and his lips in what he hopes is an apologetic look. He is unable to provide an explanation satisfactory enough to cool his sister’s rage. She’ll forgive him, eventually, when their current case load dies down. She always does.
Three months after the trial, Moriarty’s face fills headlines and news broadcasts once more; this time, the image is of a nondescript man, with wild hair and wide, fearful eyes. “Richard Brook,” he squeaks, rubbing his arms, “I’m an actor. Richard Brook. I couldn’t bear the guilt of the charade any more, and knowing what this Sherlock was getting away with… I’m afraid he’s going to really hurt someone if I don’t speak out.”
Brook buries his face in hands, his body shaking. “Oh gosh. I’m so sorry for any trouble I’ve caused.”
Dexter sees past the disguise. “Richard Brook’s” eyes, hidden as they are behind his fingers, tell him everything he needs to know.
The day after the interview airs, Sherlock Holmes jumps from the roof of St. Bart’s Hospital in London, and “Richard Brook” disappears. One day, thinks Dexter, unaware that his greatest trophy has slipped from his fingers once and for all.