Looking at the two of them and thinking of all the trouble they might represent, I actually considered leaving the door bolted and pretending we weren't home. But it was an idle thought; I have found that the faster you run from trouble, the quicker it catches you, and I was quite sure that if I did not let in Doakes and his new friend they would be right back with a warrant, and probably Coulter and Salguero as well. So, thinking unhappy thoughts and trying to settle my face into the right mixture of surprise and weary shock, I opened the door.

“Move. It. Motherfucker!” Doakes's cheerful artificial baritone voice called out as he stabbed his claw three times at the keyboard of his little silver box.

The fed put a restraining hand on him, and then glanced back at me. “Mr Morgan?” she said. “Can we come in?” She held up her credentials patiently while I looked at them; apparently, she was Special Agent Brenda Recht of the FBI. “Sergeant Doakes offered to bring me down here to talk to you” she said, and I thought about what a nice thing that was for Doakes to do.

“Of course you can come in” I said, and then I had one of those happy inspirations that sometimes come at just the right time and I added, “But the children have had such a shock —and Sergeant Doakes kind of scares them. Can he wait out here?”

“Motherfucker!” Doakes said, sounding like he was happily calling out, “Howdy, neighbor!”

“Also, his language is a bit rough for the kids” I added.

Special Agent Recht glanced at Doakes. As an FBI agent, she could not admit that anything scared her, even Doakes the cyborg, but she looked like she thought that was a very good idea. “Sure” she said. “Why don't you wait out here, Sergeant?” Doakes glared at me for a very long moment, and in the dark distance I could almost hear the angry scream of his Passenger. But all he did was raise one silver claw, glance at his keyboard, and punch one of his pre-recorded sentences. I am still watching you, motherfucker” the cheerful voice assured me.

“That's fine” I said. “But watch me through the door, all right?” I motioned Recht inside, and as she brushed past Doakes and came in I closed the door behind her, leaving an unblinking Doakes to glare at the outside of the door.

“He doesn't seem to like you” Special Agent Recht observed, and I was impressed with her keen eye for detail.

“No” I said. “I think he blames me for what happened to him” which was at least partly true, even though he had disliked me well before he lost his hands, feet and tongue.

“Uh-huh” she said, and although I could see she was thinking about that, she didn't say anything more on the subject. Instead, she moved on over to the couch, where Rita still sat clutching Cody and Astor. “Mrs Morgan?” she said, holding up her credentials again.

“Special Agent Recht, FBI. Can I ask you a few questions about what happened this afternoon?”

“FBI?” Rita said, as guiltily as if she was sitting on stolen bearer bonds. “But that's —why would —yes, of course.”

“Do you have a gun?” Astor said.

Recht looked at her with a sort of wary fondness. “Yes, I do” she said.

“Do you get to shoot people with it?”

“Only if I have to” Recht said. She glanced around and found the nearby easy chair. “Can I sit down and ask you a few questions?”

“Oh” Rita said. “I'm so sorry. I was only —yes, please sit down.”

Recht settled herself onto the edge of the chair and looked at me before addressing Rita. “Tell me what happened” she said, and when Rita hesitated she went on, “You had the kids in the car, you pulled out onto US-1 ...”

“He just, he came out of nowhere” Rita said.

“Boom” Cody added softly, and I looked at him with surprise.

He was smiling just a little, which was equally alarming. Rita looked at him with dismay, and then went on.

“He hit us” she said. “And while I was still —before I could —he just, he was there at the door, grabbing at the children.” I punched him in the crotch” Astor said. “And Cody stabbed him with a pencil.”

Cody frowned at her. I stabbed first,” he said.

“Whatever” Astor said.

Recht looked at the two of them with mild astonishment. “Good for you both” she said.

“And then the policeman came over and he ran away” Astor said, and Rita nodded.

“And how did you come to be there, Mr Morgan?” she said, swinging her head toward me with no warning.

I had known that she would ask this, of course, but I had still not come up with any really socko answer. My claim to Coulter that I had wanted to surprise Rita had fallen very, very flat, and Special Agent Recht seemed to be considerably sharper —and she was looking at me expectantly as the seconds ticked by, waiting for a sane and logical reply that I did not have. I had to say something, and soon; but what?

“Um” I mumbled, I don't know if you heard I had a concussion ...?”

The interview with Special Agent Brenda Recht of the FBI will never appear on any highlight reel that wants my endorsement. She did not seem to believe that I had gone home early because I felt bad, stopping at the school because it was that time of day —and I can't really say I blamed her. It sounded remarkably feeble, but since it was all I could come up with, I had to stick with it.

She also seemed to have trouble accepting my statement that whoever had attacked Rita and the children was a random maniac, the product of road rage, Miami traffic, and too much Cuban coffee.

She did, however, finally accept that she was not going to get any other answer. She stood up at last, looking at me with an expression that might best be called thoughtful. “All right, Mr Morgan” she said. “Something doesn't quite add up here, but I guess you're not going to tell me what it is.”

“There's really nothing to tell” I said, perhaps too modestly.

“These things happen all the time in Miami.”

“Uh-huh” she said. “The problem is, they seem to be happening around you an awful lot.” Somehow, I stopped myself from saying, “If you only knew ...” and I ushered her to the front door.

“We'll keep a cop posted here for a couple of days, for safety's sake” she said, which was not really welcome news, and with unfortunate timing, as she said it I swung open the door to reveal Sergeant Doakes in almost the exact position we had left him, staring malevolently at the door. I said my fond goodbyes to them both, and as I closed the door the last thing I saw was Doakes's unblinking glare, for all the world like the Cheshire Cat's evil twin.

The FBI's interest had done very little to make Rita feel better, however. She still clutched at the children and spoke in jangled half sentences. So I reassured her the best I could, and for a while we all sat there together on the couch, until finally the squirming of Cody and Astor made it too difficult to sit all together like that. Rita gave up and put on a DVD for them to watch and went into the kitchen, where she began her alternative comfort therapy by rattling pots and pans, and I went down the hall to the small extra room she called “Dexter's Office” to look at Weiss's sketch book again and think dark thoughts.

The list of people who could not be considered friendly was certainly growing: Doakes, Coulter, Salguero, and now the FBI.

And of course, Weiss himself. He was still out there, and he still wanted to get at me to get his revenge. Would he come after the children again, limping out of the shadows to grab them, perhaps wearing Kevlar pants and a groin protector this time? If so, I would have to stay with the kids until it was over, which was not the best way to catch him —especially not if he tried something different.

And if he wanted to kill me, staying with Cody and Astor endangered them; judging by his exploding house trick, he clearly didn't worry about collateral damage.

But I did —I had to. I was worried about the children, and protecting them was a top priority. It was a very strange epiphany, to realize that I was concerned with their safety as much as with protecting my secret identity. It did not fit with how I thought of myself, how I had built up my careful self-image. Of course, I had always taken special delight in tracking down predators who preyed on children, but I had never really thought about why that was. And certainly I planned to do my duty to Cody and Astor, both as their stepfather and, far more importantly, as their guide onto the Harry Path. But to see myself spinning in mother-hen circles at the thought of someone trying to hurt them was new and somewhat unsettling.