Weird.

A small shape shifted at the foot of the bed, reining Joshua back into his present place in the darkened bedroom. Coco was sleeping with him on the king-size bed, and was having a dream of her own.

He'd tried to put the little dog in her kennel, where she slept at their house, but she had whined incessantly. Mom had banged on the door and yelled at Joshua to make the dog shut up, or she was going to throw her outside and chain her to a tree in the backyard. When Joshua brought Coco out of the kennel and put her in the bed with him, she had fallen into a restful slumber.

He was available to comfort the dog. But who could comfort him? The dream had left him with an almost paralyzing sense of loss-because it would never come true.

He wasn't convinced that he would ever see Rachel again. If she did return some day, he would never be able to trust her. How could he trust someone who would leave him? How could he trust someone who had concealed so much from him?

Their marriage was irreparably damaged. He and Rachel would never experience the happiness they had shared in his dream. At one time, they'd had a chance at claiming such joy. But that possibility was gone forever, whether she was carrying his child or not.

He'd hoped that spending the night at his parents' house would grant him a reprieve from the sickening emotions that tormented him at home. But nausea was beginning to seep through his stomach. He got out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom across the hallway, not bothering to put on his glasses.

With his weakened vision, he bumped against the wall, swore softly. The last thing he wanted to do was to awaken his mother and hear another tirade. In his present mood, he felt as if he might collapse to the floor and weep like a child.

In the mirror, he saw that tears had crusted underneath his eyes. He dampened a towel with warm water and used it to mop his skin clean.

He'd been through a couple of heartbreaking relationships before, and while those had been awful, they didn't compare to this. He and Rachel had built a life together-their own world founded on their love, shared hopes, and dreams. He felt, literally, as if his world had imploded. It was impossible to imagine what his life would be like without Rachel-as impossible as it might be for someone born with sight to imagine life as a blind person.

Almost angrily, he balled the towel in his large fist, squeezed out the water. He washed his face again, and then turned off the faucet and hung the towel on a rack.

Back in the bedroom, he picked up his Blackberry off the nightstand. There were no messages. He called the landline at his house and checked the voice mail system. No messages there, either.

He'd hoped that Rachel would have called and told him that she was okay, and that she missed him. Or, better, that she was on her way home.

But she wasn't coming home. Not while she believed she was in danger.

He remembered a passage from her letter as clearly as if the words had been burned in the core of his brain.

As terrible as it will be for us to be apart, this is the best decision for our family. You must trust me on this. It is for our protection.

His mother, as usual, had it all wrong. Rachel wasn't cheating on him. There was much he didn't know about his wife, much she might have lied to him about, but he knew in his heart that infidelity was not in her nature, and that faithlessness had nothing whatsoever to do with her disappearance.

He thought about his dream of being with Rachel and their child. It was a dream that could come true only if he hoped that it would. A dream that could become reality only if he believed that he and Rachel had a future together.

Joshua looked at Coco. Lying on the bed, the dog regarded him with sleepy eyes.

"I'm going to learn what this is all about," Joshua said quietly, yet with an iron resolve that he'd never felt about anything else before. "I'm going to find Rachel . . . and get to the truth."

Chapter 25.

Dexter had been driving for most of the night. He'd put St. Louis behind him and was making his way southeast on Interstate 24, traveling to Atlanta.

He'd stopped only once since leaving St. Louis, to grab food, and refuel. At an all-night convenience store/gas station, he stuffed his pockets with junk food: Slim Jims, corn chips, beef jerky, Honey buns, cheese-flavored popcorn, Snickers candy bars, Reese's peanut butter cups . . . he'd never been a big fan of junk food, but everything looked delicious. He only wished he had a coat with larger pockets.

He also picked up a jug of orange juice, and a gallon of water, to wash it all down.

Invoking the cloak of invisibility, he left the store without tendering payment. He did return to pay for the gas, though.

Steering with one hand, he used his teeth and his free hand to tear into the packages. He crammed food in his mouth like a graceless glutton, chewing hard, grunting and moaning with pleasure, licking his lips and his crumb-and-oil-smeared fingers. He was starving, starving. Although he'd eaten a thick block of cheddar cheese and a pound of smoked sausage at Thad's house, his body had already burned through the energy that meal had supplied.

In no time, he was done. Shredded wrappers covered his lap, the seats, and the floor. A few of the ripped packages had smears of juices left; he pressed them to his mouth and licked them dry.

Finally satiated, he gave himself over to driving. Sometime past two o'clock in the morning, when he was winding through Kentucky, he wondered if he should pull off the highway and catch some sleep. He could not remember the last time he had truly slept; last night at his mom's place, he'd lain in bed, the weird visions trotting through his mind, but he hadn't slumbered.

He felt fine, however. Eating again had energized him. Yet, perhaps out of habit, he believed that he should take a respite.

At the next exit, he got off the highway. He made a left off the ramp, and found himself on a twisty, snow-mantled country road. There was an abandoned gas station on his left, slats of plywood covering the windows. He veered into the parking lot, rolled behind the building.

There was a stack of plywood near the building, half-covered with an iced-over tarp. An old, rusted dumpster. A nearby streetlamp was broken, gazing down on him like a slashed eye.

The surroundings were a far cry from the luxurious lodgings he'd enjoyed in his pre-prison life. But he couldn't risk checking into a motel. By now, law enforcement might be prowling for him, and he had no intentions of getting caught.

He switched off the ignition. The vents ceased blowing warm air, and the coldness of the night seeped inside the car. Wind shrieked around the Chevy like a tormented soul crying for mercy.

He could handle the cold, for a while. He'd endured worse conditions.

He dug into his jacket pocket and removed the wedding photo he'd taken from his mom's house. He pressed his gloved thumb against his wife's face.

Her big, shining eyes in the photo were smug. Mocking. She thought it was funny, what she'd done to him, the misery she'd forced him to suffer. She thought it was all a big motherfuckin' joke.

I'll teach you, bitch.

He flipped out his switchblade. He pinned the photo on the seat cushions next to him, and used the tip of the blade to tear out her eyes, puncturing the upholstery underneath in the process.

There. That was better. Teach her to mock him. Bitch.

He folded the photo and placed it back into his pocket. He reclined the seat. Closed his eyes.

Within a couple minutes, a face materialized in the darkness of his mind's eye, like a full moon in a night sky: the middle-aged biracial man with the wire-rim glasses, probing eyes. Wearing a white lab coat. Bearing a gigantic syringe glistening with silvery fluid.

Dexter's eyes snapped open. His heart was racing.

Someone's been messing with my brain. I'm willing to bet that it's that mulatto motherfucker I keep seeing. What the hell did he do to me?

He decided to forget about sleeping, and get back on the road. He wasn't tired anyway . . . and if he saw that needle-wielding asshole every time he closed his eyes, he would be unable to ever sleep soundly again.

Chapter 26.

Early the next morning, Joshua prepared to leave his parents' house. He had a lot of work ahead of him, and he could only do it in his own home.

"Leavin' already?" Mom asked. She sat at the kitchen table in her house robe, hair curlers, and slippers, drinking coffee and reading Scripture. "Sit down and I'll fix you some breakfast." She started to rise out of her chair.

"Thanks, Mom, but I've gotta go." He had his overnight bag in one hand, and Coco's pet carrier in the other. Coco peered nervously from the kennel at his mother.

Mom waved away his words. "You ain't gotta go nowhere this early in the mornin'. Sit your big tail down."

"But I have a meeting." It was a lie, and he wondered why he lied to her in these situations. He was a grown man. If he said he was leaving, he didn't have to give her an explanation for why. He hadn't been accountable to her for his whereabouts or choices in well over a decade.

But old habits died hard. Standing up to his mother was unthinkable. It was easier to get away from her with a lie than it was to tell her the truth and risk incurring her wrath.

She eased back into her chair. "Go on to your meetin', then. Shoot, it betta be a meetin' with a divorce lawyer. You'll divorce that heifer if you smart, boy. She ain't worth all your heartache."

Didn't she ever let up? "I'll call you later."

It was an overcast morning, with a knife-sharp wind that reminded Joshua that it was the middle of December. Christmas was less than a week away. This would have been his and Rachel's first Christmas together as a married couple.

Anguish pierced his heart. He had to put the thoughts out of his mind.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled into his garage. Rachel's spot was vacant. He'd imagined that her Acura would be sitting there, that everything would be back to normal and yesterday would prove to have been only a bad dream.

He walked Coco around the yard for a couple of minutes to let her potty, and then he went inside.

The house was as he had left it last night. Although everything looked the same, it all seemed vacant and cold to him, as if it were a museum displaying relics of a life that he had once lived.

He checked voice mail on the landline, and email on his computer. There were no messages from anyone, not even potential or current clients. Business was probably beginning to wind down as people geared up for the holidays.

He was in no shape to work, anyway. Graphic design demanded concentration and imagination, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rachel's face and felt a nauseating fluttering in his stomach.

In Rachel's study, he sat in the spring-backed chair, adjusting the height to keep his knees from bumping against the edge of the desk. He sat still, breathed deeply. The room smelled of her: sweet, clean, feminine.

He looked around, to view the room as if he were seeing it for the first time, in the hope that a clue would jump out at him. Looked at the colorful wall hanging that read, Too Anointed to be Disappointed. Her collection of novels shelved in the bookcase: Alice Walker was a favorite author of hers. Her assortment of ceramic dog figurines. Photos from their wedding. A picture of an unnamed, white-sand beach.

The beach photograph brought to mind last night's dream. He felt a new flood of yearning, and a sense of determination that tightened his lips and turned him around in the chair.

Back to square one: the computer. Nothing in the room had sparked any inspiration.

He raised the lid of the laptop and powered up the machine.

An inch-long strand of hair lay on the keyboard, atop the space bar. He plucked it off the key, held it between his thumb and forefinger.

Ever since he'd known her, Rachel had had dark hair. This strand was lighter, closer to auburn.

In his dream, Rachel's hair had been auburn, too.

Did she dye her hair? He'd never seen her color it. But she owned a hair salon, and it would have been easy for her to dye her hair at work, and keep her true hair color a secret.

Weird. He didn't know what to make of it. He pulled a Kleenex from a box on the desk, and set the strand of hair on the tissue.

The laptop had progressed through its boot-up cycle and brought him to the sign-on screen, where he'd been flummoxed yesterday. He stared at the screen, big hands resting on the keyboard.

Combing through the files on Rachel's computer seemed a logical step to learning more about what she'd hidden from him. But again, a password eluded him.

Thinking of what he knew about her background, he typed in a few Chicago-related words-Chicago, the windy city, the sears tower-and all of them proved fruitless.

There had to be a better way to gain access. He could spend days doing this.

He leaned back in the chair, hands laced behind his head. He looked around the study again. He found his attention drawn to the wedding photos. Eddie, Joshua's best man, was in a couple of the shots.

Eddie. Why didn't I think about him earlier?

Joshua unclipped his Blackberry from his belt holster and sent Eddie a text message. Text, or cell, was the most reliable way to reach Eddie-the guy was always connected.

NEED 2 C U. U BUSY?.

Joshua waited, tapping his fingers on the desk and staring out the window at the woods beyond their house. Two squirrels were racing across the boughs and trunk of a leafless elm tree, one of them in pursuit of the other.

Joshua felt like the squirrel doing the chasing-but the object of his pursuit was truth. The pursued squirrel leapt into the skeletal arms of another elm, and the other squirrel followed, doggedly.

Joshua's Blackberry beeped, signaling a reply. He turned away from the drama unfolding outside and read the small display.

CAN MEET U 4 LUNCH. EATS. 12. C U.

OK, Joshua responded.

He turned off the computer, unplugged it, and wrapped the power cord around the plastic casing. He carried the machine downstairs and slid it inside a canvas satchel.

He remembered Rachel's cell phone. Her address book or call history might also yield some valuable information. He took the phone out of its charger on the kitchen counter, and pressed the ON button.

The first screen on the tiny LCD display requested a pass code to proceed.

The security precautions seemed extreme. This was her personal cell, and she only used the laptop at home, for the most part.

What have you been hiding from me, Rachel?

He switched off the phone, and dropped it into his bag, too.

Chapter 27.

Going all night without any sleep, Dexter arrived in Atlanta shortly after sunrise on Wednesday morning.