"You lying motherfucker, you think I came down with the last drop of rain? You got crack fiend written all over you."

"Nah, nah, brah." Leon shook his head. "I-I mean, sometimes, yeah-"

"I don't want to hear it. Get the fuck out of here and go eat-dinner's ready. You look like the goddamn Crypt Keeper."

Muttering under his breath, Leon climbed out of bed and shuffled out of the room, scratching at various parts of his body. Leon was an embarrassment to the family, always had been. It was a wonder that they were blood brothers.

Dexter sat on the bed and studied the wedding picture. Hitting his brother with it had shattered the frame. He shook the glass shards out onto the nightstand, pulled out the photograph.

Seven years, two months, seventeen days.

Dexter knew, to the precise day, how long he had been married. During his incarceration, he would mentally tally the days, just as most other inmates kept track of the number of days until their parole arrived.

The duration of his marriage was a sacred thing, not to be taken for granted. These days, few people understood the real meaning of commitment; most people paid lip service to the holy charge, till death do us part, filing for divorce whenever the marriage became a tad bit too inconvenient or difficult.

Not Dexter. He and his wife had exchanged vows before God, and he intended to honor them.

He folded the photograph and put it in his wallet.

Shutting the door, he grabbed the foot of the bed frame and pulled, dragging it away from the wall. He braced the bed against the door.

A threadbare area rug covered the floor. Kneeling, Dexter peeled away the corner of the rug, exposing the weathered hardwood underneath.

One of the floorboards was a lighter shade of brown than the others. He slid a penny into the top groove of the board, jiggled it. The plank popped free.

Although he and Leon had shared this bedroom for much of their youth, Leon didn't know about the hidey-hole. Dexter had created it to store valuable items-knives, mostly-and kept it secret from everyone.

He lifted the first plank, and removed four others, creating a cavity that was about two feet wide, and almost as long. Frosty air sifted from the crawlspace below, like freed spirits.

He stuck his hand inside. His fingers brushed against the cold handle of a molded aluminum briefcase. He pulled it out and set it on the floor beside the hole. The silver satin exterior finish shone in the lamplight.

He thumbed in the three-digit combination and raised the lid.

Ten thousand dollars lay inside, in rubber-banded denominations of twenties and fifties.

In his downtown apartment, he'd kept this money in a fireproof wall safe; his father had taught him that a black man always had to have some cash on reserve, because you never knew when you might need to make a quick move. When the police had begun searching for him to bring him into custody, he'd removed the money from the safe and hidden it here, in anticipation of his eventual release. Ten large was not an enormous sum, but it was sufficient for his purposes.

There were two black velvet, drawstring sacks stored beneath the cash, one large, one small. He opened the small one and dumped out the single item it contained.

It was his platinum wedding band. It glimmered in the light like a talisman with magical properties.

Seven years, two months, seventeen days.

He slid the band onto his ring finger. It fit snugly, as if he'd never taken it off.

He opened the other, larger sack.

It contained a strap of thick black leather, twenty inches long, with a dozen loops, like some warrior's utility belt. Each loop held a sheathed or folded knife: daggers, drop point knives, gut hook knives, Bowie knives, a Scimitar blade, switchblades . . . prized, mint-condition pieces from his beloved cutlery collection.

Some men were gun nuts. He'd always been partial to blades. There was a flesh-to-flesh intimacy about a knife that a firearm could never match.

He traced his fingers across the lethal instruments. Eyes closed, he imagined carving lovely lacerations in his wife's soft, smooth skin, releasing fat rivulets of bright, warm blood . . . .

A knock at the door shattered the fantasy.

"Dex, baby?" Mom asked. "You coming to eat? We 'bout to say grace."

"I'll be there in a minute," he said thickly, like a man awakened from a nap.

He started to move the bed away from the door. Then, remembering his crack-head brother and how a crack addict would rob his own mother blind to get cash for the next hit, he stopped and stored the briefcase in the hidey-hole again.

He would leave the items there until tomorrow morning, when he would go buy a car.

To track down his wife, he needed decent transportation.

Chapter 6.

That evening, Rachel cooked dinner. She was an excellent cook, and Joshua loved to observe her at work. As he sat at the dinette table, skimming the newspaper, he watched her.

Dressed in a flannel shirt, lounge pants, and slippers, she flitted around the kitchen like a hummingbird around a flower garden, adding a sprinkle of spices here, tasting the sauce there, all the while singing in a soft, soothing voice. Under normal circumstances, she derived great pleasure from cooking. Tonight, she seemed to be in an especially buoyant mood.

It puzzled him. That morning, he'd been convinced that she was keeping something important from him, and he'd planned to watch her closely at dinner, just to be sure nothing was amiss. At lunch, Eddie had advised him to let it go, and Joshua wanted to-but he couldn't. Not while the uneasiness still lingered in his stomach, like an undigested meal.

But Rachel wasn't acting like a woman who had anything to hide. Unless her apparent joy was a ruse to deceive him . . . .

No,I don't believe that. I can't believe she would scheme like that to mislead me.

"Dinner's ready," Rachel said, taking silverware out of the drawer. "Go wash up, baby."

Joshua pushed away from the table. He nearly knocked over the chair, and caught it before it hit the floor. Coco, who'd been resting nearby, scurried away and hid between Rachel's legs.

"Sorry, Coco," Joshua said. "Scared you half to death, didn't I?"

He glanced at Rachel, habitually expecting a rebuke for his clumsiness, but she only smiled-a smile of love and infinite patience. Not the smile of a woman who nursed deception in her heart.

He decided, once and for all, that his suspicions about her were totally off base. He was going to let them go.

When he returned to the kitchen after washing his hands, Rachel was setting dinner on the table: shrimp scampi over linguine, sauteed zucchini, and garlic bread. Coco followed at her heels, waiting for a morsel to drop.

"Need any help?" he asked.

"You could turn on some music, light a few candles."

"Special occasion?"

"Maybe." She smiled.

He turned on the satellite radio system and tuned it to one of their favorite R&B channels. Then he got two candles out of a cabinet, placed them inside the frosted glass hurricane lamps on the table, and carefully lit them.

They often drank wine with dinner, for the health benefits. But after Rachel dimmed the recessed lights, she took a bottle of sparkling white grape juice out of the refrigerator.

"You mind doing the honors?" She handed the bottle to him. "I would've gotten champagne, but..."

"We are celebrating something." Sitting, he twisted off the cap and filled the two wine goblets on the table.

"Don't you have some good news to tell me?"

He scratched his chin, thinking. "Wait a minute, that's right! The proposal I sent to the restaurant group-I called them, when you said I should. They want me to do the project!"

"Of course they do." She settled into her chair. "Congratulations, love. I knew you would get the work. Here's to many more lucrative deals."

He tapped his glass against hers, and they sipped.

"How did you know I'd get the project?" he asked.

"I had a good feeling about it. You know how I get hunches sometimes."

"But you knew exactly when I should call them. Even the guy I spoke to there said my timing was amazing."

She shrugged. "What can I say? Call me psychic. I get a spark of intuition, and I listen to it."

"Well, you don't have to worry about us getting divorced. You're my good luck charm, for real. I'm not ever letting you go."

"Good, 'cause I'd like to stay around for a while." She laughed.

They bowed their heads and said grace. Then they heaped their plates with food and began to eat.

"This looks delicious." Joshua spun linguine around his fork and speared a plump shrimp. "My mom's a good cook, but she can't touch you."

"Lord, please don't ever say that around her," Rachel said. "She hates me enough as it is."

Joshua cringed. But Rachel was speaking the truth. His mom had been distrustful and cool toward Rachel from the beginning, considered Rachel a corrupting influence on him. He had never understood why his mother felt that way toward Rachel, but there was much that he would never understand about his mom. At their wedding in his family church, he'd been half-convinced that his mother was going to raise her hand when the pastor asked if anyone present opposed the union, but she had thankfully remained silent-while directing a hot glare at Rachel that made her true feelings clear.

"My mom doesn't hate you," Joshua said. "Hate is a strong word."

"How about 'intense dislike'?" Rachel asked. "She has an intense dislike for me. She thinks I stole her precious little baby away from her, to corrupt him."

"Mom is just . . . a little overly protective, that's all."

"A little?"

Joshua laughed. "Okay, she gets out of control, sometimes, I admit. But she means well. She'll grow to love you in time. You'll see."

"I'm not holding my breath." Rachel chewed a piece of garlic toast, swallowed, smiled. "But maybe she was right about the corrupting part. If she only knew what we did in the bedroom . . ."

He felt her foot slide under the cuff of his jeans and tease his calf.

"Hey." Joshua blushed. "You must not want me to finish dinner."

"Sorry, I'm a bad girl." She stroked his calf again with her foot, and then pulled it away. She winked. "That's how we messed around and got the first one."

Joshua was bringing the fork to his lips, but her remark made him pause.

"The first one?" he asked.

"You had some good news to share, and so do I," she said. She set down her fork, drew in a deep breath, and looked at him. Her eyes glistened. He realized it was because she was starting to cry.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

"Did you say, pregnant?" His lips trembled.

"Yes, pregnant." She was nodding, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I took an early pregnancy test this morning, and it was positive. I'm pregnant with our baby, Josh. You're going to be a daddy."

Joshua shot out of his chair so quickly that it tipped backward and clattered to the floor, but he didn't notice, didn't care. Rachel came out of her chair, knocking over hers, too, made some comment about how clumsy both of them were, and Joshua picked her up and swept her into an embrace, crying for the first time since he'd attended his granddad's funeral ten years ago, and the best thing now about his tears was that they were tears of joy.

Chapter 7.

Rachel's announcement left Joshua buzzing for the rest of the evening. She was pregnant. Pregnant. He was going to be a father. A father.

They had not exactly been trying to conceive, but they hadn't been trying to prevent it, either. Their attitude was that when the time was right, the baby would come. A child was a gift from God. No one could ever strictly control the granting of a blessing.

He had an almost irrepressible urge to call everyone he knew and share the good news. But Rachel promised him to silence. She wanted to visit her OB-GYN and confirm the pregnancy with another test, to be absolutely sure. She also advised him that until she passed the first trimester, it would be unwise to tell the whole world about the baby, because in the early stages there was always the possibility of a miscarriage. In the meantime, she wanted him to keep the news under wraps.

He reluctantly agreed to her request, though walking around with such a wonderful secret was going to drive him nuts. There was so much to think about, so much to plan . . . he felt as if he were going to pop like a balloon.

I'm going to be a dad. I can't believe it.

He had assumed he would be awake all night, riding high on excitement, but he wound up falling asleep shortly before midnight, exhausted, like a kid who'd eaten too much candy crashing after the sugar rush faded. Rachel climbed in bed, found a comfortable spot in his arms, and drifted asleep, too.

When he awoke sometime later that night, she was gone.

He glanced toward the bathroom. The door was shut, but blackness framed the doorway. She wasn't in there.

He thought about the nightmare she'd had last night, and anxiety wrenched his stomach. What if she was sleepwalking this time, fleeing her mysterious dream villain?

It was a melodramatic idea-Rachel might have padded downstairs only to get a glass of water-but he couldn't discount it. With her announcement of her pregnancy, he felt an instinctual drive to protect her from harm. That included Rachel accidentally hurting herself in the throes of a bad dream.