He put on his glasses. The clock read a quarter past three.

He got out of bed, shuffled into the hallway. It was dark. No light filtered up there from downstairs, which it would have if she were in the kitchen.

He was about to call her name, when he heard a clicking sound coming from the room at the end of the hallway. Rachel's office.

Quietly, he went down the hall. The door was cracked open about an inch, giving him a narrow view.

Rachel sat before her desk, typing on her laptop. The silvery glow from the display was the only light source in the study, imbuing her face with a ghostly pallor.

What was she doing in here at a quarter past three o'clock in the morning?

He looked at the screen. He could make out a few words. He frowned, leaned forward- --and unintentionally bumped against the door. Rachel twisted around, startled.

"Hey, it's only me," he said.

"You scared me." She put her hand to her chest, sighed.

He stepped inside the room. "Sorry. I saw you'd gotten out of bed. What are you doing up?"

"Reading about pregnancy." She hit a button on the keyboard, closing the programs she had opened. "I'm so excited I can hardly sleep. I figured as long as I was awake, I'd do some research."

Joshua wished there was sufficient light in the room to reveal her eyes, because he was positive that she was lying to him. The text he'd read on the screen was proof of her duplicity.

"When are you coming back to bed?" he asked.

"Right now, actually." She switched off the computer. Within seconds, the display went black, and darkness fell over the room.

She came to him, slid her arms around his waist. One of her hands crawled inside his boxer shorts.

"Coming with me?" she asked in a whisper.

Although Joshua was usually as pliable as clay in Rachel's erotically adept fingers, he wasn't in the mood for sex. But if he turned her down, she would think something was wrong. Something was wrong, but he wasn't prepared to talk about it yet.

"I'll be there in a minute," he said. "I'm going downstairs to get some water. Want anything?"

"Only you." She pulled her t-shirt over her head, dangled it from her finger.

Joshua's vision had mostly adjusted to the darkness. Rachel was wearing only her panties, and the sight of her could have resurrected the pulse of a dead man. In spite of his troubled mood, the promise of being with her sent a wave of warmth through his veins.

"Be right back," he said.

"Don't keep me waiting long." Hips swaying prettily, she sashayed to their bedroom.

He watched her go, his mouth dry; he really could use some water. Before heading downstairs, he glanced at the laptop again, and felt an uncomfortable twinge.

He hadn't seen the word "pregnancy" on the screen when he'd been spying over Rachel's shoulder. He'd seen a different word altogether.

Penitentiary.

Chapter 8.

Dexter awoke from a turbulent night full of vivid dreams about laboratories and white-jacketed men bearing hypodermic syringes.

Although he awoke in his childhood bedroom, sheets swaddling his body, he could not remember actually sleeping. All he remembered was laying awake thinking about his wife, hearing the shrill wind gusting around the house, and the weird images-which, in retrospect, seemed less like dreams and more like visions of some hidden past.

He could not make sense of them; he was sure he'd never been in a lab of any kind. Yet the face of one of the dream doctors in particular was so sharp in his mind it was as if Dexter had once met him in the flesh: a black man in his fifties with skin so fair he looked biracial, curly brown hair, wire-rim glasses, and probing eyes. He'd bore a syringe so huge it looked as if it would leave a puncture wound that would never heal.

Dexter shivered, and the chill had nothing to do with the poorly insulated house. He hated doctors and needles.

The bedside clock read half-past seven. He had a busy day ahead of him, and he needed to get moving. He would put the dreams out of mind. As disturbing as they were, they were only dreams, and meant nothing.

When he crossed the hallway to the bathroom, he smelled coffee, bacon, grits, eggs, biscuits. Mom believed in keeping her men fed. She'd been trained well.

He showered and dressed. He grabbed his duffel bag-he had packed it last night with the knives and money-and headed to the kitchen.

Dressed in a bathrobe, a scarf wrapped around her head, Mom was placing several slices of crispy bacon on paper towels, to drain the grease. She grinned at him.

"Morning, Dex, baby. I was just about to come see if you wanted some breakfast."

"I've got to go handle some business, Mom. Can you throw together a couple sandwiches for me?"

"Of course, baby." She reached for the platter of fresh biscuits, paused. "You seen your baby brother? He ain't come back last night."

After dinner last night, Dexter had pulled Leon aside, given him a thousand dollars, and told him to stay away from the house. Leon had been all too happy to leave. With a pocketful of cash, he'd stay zooted out of his mind for at least a week or so. Or, if they were lucky, he would OD.

"I had a good talk with him," Dexter said. "I think he went out looking for a job."

Relief flooded her face. "Praise the Lord. I worry so about him. All he needs is a little guidance."

"I think I was able to point him in the right direction."

"Thank God for you, Dex, baby. You such a good son."

Mom gave him two bulging, bacon-and-egg biscuit sandwiches wrapped in foil.

"Coffee?" he asked.

Dutifully, she filled a tall, aluminum thermos with coffee. He kissed her on the cheek, and left the house.

She hadn't inquired about the nature of the business he intended to take care of that day. She assumed, correctly, that a man's work didn't concern her. Mom knew her place, and that was why he loved her.

More snow had fallen last night. It covered the neighborhood lawns in perfect white plates. The temperature remained in the low teens, and the infamous hawk-a blustery wind that blew off Lake Michigan and sliced like talons into your exposed flesh-was out with a vengeance.

Dexter was walking down the snow-covered sidewalk, eating the first of the sandwiches and sipping coffee, when someone pushed him from behind.

The sandwich popped out of his hands and dropped into the snow.

As Dexter turned, anger clenching his chest, his attacker pressed a blunt object against his ribcage.

"Don't move, ma'fucka."

Dexter found himself looking into the angry mug of one of the young brothers he'd seen yesterday while walking to his mom's house. The tall, muscled kid with the big forehead who had glared at Dexter and finally backed down.

The kid was maybe nineteen, twenty. A child, really, though he snarled like a hardened killer.

Pride, Dexter understood, had driven the youth to rob him. Respect was the currency of the streets, more valuable than money. Dexter had wounded this kid's pride yesterday, and to boost his standing in the shallow eyes of his crew and himself, the young buck felt compelled to take him down. Typical, dumb black male machismo bullshit that led to high homicide and incarceration rates.

The kid had jammed something metallic into Dexter's ribs. A nine millimeter, from the looks of it, the piece of choice in the hood.

A round from a nine, at such close range, would turn Dexter's internal organs to beef stew.

"I'm takin' that bag," the kid said.

"You don't know what's in it, young blood."

"I know you got somethin' in that ma'fucka, way you got it strapped over you." He poked Dexter with the gun's muzzle. "Go to the alley."

Although they were in the midst of the neighborhood, there was no one around to intervene. It was early morning, and all of the vehicles parked on the street were huddled in snow.

No one would have helped, anyway. Growing up, Dexter had seen men get pistol-whipped to a bloody pulp in the middle of the street, with half the neighborhood sitting on their front porches and watching, as if viewing live theater. No one wanted to snitch and risk a violent reprisal from a local hoodlum.

The alley the kid spoke of was about ten paces ahead. Dexter walked toward it slowly as the boy kept the gun levered against his ribs. The kid planned to rob him for sure, but he mostly planned to shoot him, or else he wouldn't have prodded Dexter toward the alley.

"Early in the morning to be out robbing," Dexter said, as calmly as a man remarking on the weather. He took a sip of coffee, and stealthily twisted the lid loose.

"I been watchin' ya crib, waitin' for you to roll out," the kid said. "You think you can step on my block and show no respect?"

"I grew up here, young blood. I was running these streets when you were nothing but a sperm swimming in your daddy's nuts."

"Shut the fuck up."

In the alley, the kid shoved Dexter toward a brick wall marbled with ice.

"Get on your knees," the kid said, "and open that ma'fuckin bag."

"I don't think so."

"You heard me." The boy aimed the gun at Dexter's head, tilting it sideways in the hip hop gangsta fashion. "I said open the fuckin' bag!"

"All right. You win, tough guy." Holding the thermos in one hand, Dexter slid the duffel bag strap off his shoulder, lowered the bag to the ground, and knelt.

"That's right," the boy said. "Bow before me, ma'fucka."

"How do you like your coffee?" Dexter asked.

"What?" The kid scowled in confusion.

Dexter thumbed the lid off the thermos and tossed a steaming wave of coffee into the kid's face.

The kid screamed, hands going to his eyes. Rising, Dexter batted away the gun. The kid squeezed off a shot before he lost his hold on the weapon, but the muzzle was aimed at the sky, and the bullet flew harmlessly to the heavens.

Defenseless and temporarily blinded, the kid scrambled to run, but slipped on a patch of ice and lost his balance. Dexter snagged him by the hood of his coat and gut punched him, his fist like a spear. The kid yelped, staggered backward, and slammed into a trash dumpster so hard the metal gonged like a bell, snow cascading from the dumpster to the pavement.

Weakened by the blow, the youngster had fallen to the ground. Dexter kicked him in the ribs with his steel-toed boot. Choking on his own screams, the kid curled into a tight ball, as if wishing he could turn in on himself and vanish.

A knife appeared in Dexter's grip: a gleaming switchblade. He knelt over the punk.

The boy gawked at the knife. "Please, man. Please, don't kill me."

"You were going to try to kill me."

"Nah, man, I was just gonna rob you, that's all, I wasn't gonna shoot nobody-"

"Bullshit. You were going to take my bag and then shoot me. I'm not stupid. You've got a rep to maintain on the block."

"Swear to God, man, I wasn't gonna shoot you. Swear to ma'fuckin' God."

Dexter smiled. It pleased him to see how he had reduced this swaggering punk to a sniveling, snotty-nosed child.

"You're lying," Dexter said. He waved the blade before the kid's tearful gaze- --and then caught a glimpse of something dark and quick, reflected on the knife's edge. Something behind him.

He spun.

But there was nothing. Only the dank, snow-covered alley.

A sibilant, hissing assailed his ears, as if a feast of snakes were slithering behind his back. He looked down, and around him.

No snakes on the pavement; only ice and faded asphalt.

Where is that noise coming from?

While he was distracted, the kid got up, snatched his gun off the ground, and took off running. Dexter didn't bother to chase him.

Again, something streaked in the corner of his vision. He turned.

And again, found nothing.

The hissing sound faded.

What the hell was that?

Dexter glanced at the knife. But it did not capture another of those mysterious reflections.