I turn and look to the right, down to where the hallway ends in a "T" that goes one way to a row of rooms and the other way to the elevators. And there it is, as plain as a blip on any radar screen, or what is left of the blip, because someone is going around the corner toward the elevators, and all I can see is half his back as he scuttles away. Tan pants, a greenish plaid shirt, and the bottom of one athletic shoe, and he is gone, and he does not leave any explanation at all of why he was watching me, but I know that he was, and this is confirmed by the cheesy smirk I feel oozing from the Passenger, as if to say, Oh, really, we're leaving what behind?

I know of no reason in this world, or any other, why anyone would be interested in little old me. My conscience is as clean and empty as it can possibly be-which means, of course, that I have always tidied up carefully, and in any case, my conscience has the same hard reality as a unicorn.

But someone very definitely was watching me and this is oh-so-more-than-slightly bothersome, because I can think of no wholesome and happy reason why anyone would want to watch Dull-as-Dishwater Dexter, and I must now think that whatever threatens Dexter might also be a danger to Lily Anne-and this is not a thing that I can allow.

And of course the Passenger finds this highly amusing: that moments ago I was sniffing the bright buds of spring and forswearing the way of all flesh, and now I am once again up on point and eager to slay-but this is different. This is not recreational homicide. This is protecting Lily Anne, and even after these very first moments of life, I will quite happily rip the veins out of anything that comes near her, and it is with this comforting thought that I stroll to the corner of the hall and glance toward the elevator.

But there is nothing there. The hallway is empty.

I have only a few seconds to stare, barely enough time to enjoy my own slack-jawed silence, and my cell phone begins to vibrate on my hip. I draw it from its holster and glance at the number; it is Sergeant Deborah, my own adopted flesh and blood, my cop sister, no doubt calling to coo over the arrival of Lily Anne and offer me sibling best wishes. So I answer the phone.

"Hi," I say.

"Dexter," she says. "We got a shit-storm and I need you. Get down here right away."

"I'm not on duty right now," I say. "I'm on paternity leave." But before I can reassure her that Lily Anne is fine and beautiful and Rita is in a deep sleep down the hall, she gives me an address and hangs up.

I went back and said good-bye to Lily Anne. She waved her toes, rather fondly, I thought, but she didn't say anything.

The address Deborah gave me was in an old part of Coconut Grove, which meant there were no high-rises or guard booths. The houses were small and eccentric, and all the trees and bushes spread up and out into an overgrown riot of green that hid almost everything except the actual road. The street itself was small and darkened by the canopy of overhanging banyans, and there was barely room for me to steer my car through the dozen or so official vehicles that had already arrived and claimed all the parking spots. I managed to find a crevice beside a sprawling bamboo plant about a block away; I wedged my car in and took the long hike back, lugging my blood-spatter kit. It seemed much heavier than usual, but perhaps it was just that being so far from Lily Anne sapped my strength.

The house was modest and mostly hidden by plant life. It had a flat, tilted roof of the kind that had been "modern" forty years ago, and there was a strange and twisted chunk of metal out front that was probably supposed to be a sculpture of some kind. It stood in a pool of water, and a fountain squirted up next to it. Altogether it was the very picture of Old Coconut Grove.

I noticed that several of the cars parked in front looked rather federal motor pool-ish, and sure enough, when I got inside there were a couple of gray suits in among the blue uniforms and pastel guayaberas of the home team. They were all milling about in clusters, a kind of colloidal motion made up of groups-some doing question and answer, some forensics, and others just staring around for something important to do to justify the expense of driving over here and standing at a crime scene.

Deborah was in a group that could best be described as confrontational, which was no surprise to those who know her and love her. She was facing two of the suits, one of them a female FBI agent I knew, Special Agent Brenda Recht. My nemesis, Sergeant Doakes, had sicced her on me when an attempted kidnapping of my step-kids, Cody and Astor, had gone down. Even filled with the good sergeant's helpful paranoia she had not managed to prove anything against me, but she had been deeply suspicious, and I was not looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with her.

Standing beside her was a man I can only describe as a generic fed, with a gray suit and white shirt and shiny black shoes. They were both facing my sister, Sergeant Deborah, and another man I didn't know. He was blond, about six feet tall, muscular, and absurdly good-looking in a rugged, masculine way, as if God had taken Brad Pitt and decided to make him really handsome. He was staring off to the side at a floor lamp while Deborah snarled something forceful at Special Agent Recht. As I approached, Deborah glanced up and caught my eye, turned back to Special Agent Recht, and said, "Now keep your goddamned wingtips out of my crime scene! I have real work to do," and she turned away and took my arm, saying, "Over here. Take a look at this."

Deborah dragged me toward the back of the house, muttering "Fucking feds" to herself, and because I was so very much filled with love and understanding from my time in the maternity ward I said, "Why are they here?"

"Why are they ever here?" Debs snarled. "They think it's kidnapping, which makes it federal. Which also makes it impossible for me to do my fucking job and find out if it's kidnapping, with all those assholes in their goddamned Florsheims clomping around. Here," she said, switching gears very smoothly and propelling me into a room at the end of a hall. Camilla Figg was already there, crawling across the floor very slowly on all fours on the right side of the room and avoiding the left side altogether. That was a very good idea, because the left side of the room was so spattered with blood that it looked like a large animal had exploded. The blood glistened, still moist, and I felt a twitch of unhappiness that there could be so much of the awful stuff.

"Does that look like a fucking kidnapping to you?" Deborah demanded.

"Not a very efficient one," I said, looking at the huge smear of blood. "They left almost half of their victim behind."

"What can you tell me?" Deborah said.

I looked at her, feeling mildly annoyed at her assumption that I would know what had happened instantly, on first look, by some kind of instinct. "At least let me read the tarot cards," I said. "The spirits have to come a long way to talk to me."

"Tell them to hurry," she said. "I got the whole fucking department breathing down my neck, never mind the feds. Come on, Dex; there must be something you can tell me. Unofficially?"

I glanced at the largest splotch of blood, the one that started in the middle of the wall over the bed and went in all directions. "Well," I said, "unofficially, it looks more like a game of paintball than a kidnapping."

"I knew it," she said, and then frowned. "What do you mean?"

I pointed at the red splat on the wall. "It would be very difficult for a kidnapper to inflict a wound that did that," I said. "Unless he picked up his victim and threw him at the wall at about forty miles an hour."