HUTSKY REALLY WAS GONE—DEBORAH WAS RIGHT ABOUT that. After a few weeks it became clear that he wasn’t coming back, and there was nothing she could do to find him. She tried, of course, with all the single-minded skill of a very stubborn woman who was also a very good cop. But Chutsky had spent a career in black operations, and he swam at a deeper level. We didn’t really even know if Chutsky was his real name. After a lifetime of espionage, he probably didn’t know either, and he vanished as completely as if he had never existed.

Deborah was right about the other thing, too. It soon became very obvious to everyone that all of her pants were suddenly too tight, and her usually bland shirts had changed into loose-fitting, Hawaiian-patterned things, the kind that she would normally never willingly accompany even to the drunk tank. Deborah was pregnant, and she was determined to have the baby, with Chutsky or without him.

I worried at first that her new status as an unmarried mother would hurt her standing at work; cops are generally very conservative people. But I had apparently not kept up with the New Conservatism. Nowadays, Family Values meant that getting pregnant when you were single was fine, as long as you stayed that way, and Deborah’s prestige at work actually went up as her belly got bigger.

You would have thought that a pregnant detective would have been sympathetic enough to convince anyone of a person’s wickedness, but at the bail hearing for Bobby Acosta, the lawyers played up the fact that Joe had just lost his wife—Bobby’s stepmother, who had raised him and meant so much to him, now tragically departed, and they somehow forgot to mention that she had died in the act of torturing and murdering a few sundry people, like wonderful precious me. The judge set bail at five hundred thousand dollars, which was chump change for the Acosta family, and Bobby skipped happily out of the courtroom and into the arms of his ever-loving father, as we had known all along he would do.

Deborah took it better than I thought she would. She did say a bad word or two, but after all, she was Deborah, and all she really said was, “Well, fuck, so the little shit walks,” and then she looked at me.

“Well, yes,” I said, and that was pretty much that. Bobby was free until his trial, which could be years away, considering the caliber of lawyer his father brought to bear. By the time Bobby actually went before a jury, all the lovely headlines about “Cannibal Carnival” and “Buccaneer Bloodbath” would be forgotten, and Joe’s money would get the charges reduced to hunting out of season, with a sentence of twenty hours’ community service. A bitter pill to swallow, perhaps, but that’s life in the service of that old whore Miami Justice, and we had certainly expected it.

And so life settled back into its normal rhythms, measured now by the growth of Deborah’s waist, the fullness of Lily Anne’s diaper pail, and the Friday-night dinners with Uncle Brian, now a highlight of our week. Friday was an ideal night, among other reasons, because that was when Debs had a birthing class, reducing the chance that she would drop in unexpectedly and embarrass my brother; after all, he had, speaking from a purely technical point of view, tried to kill her a few years back, and I knew very well she was not the kind to forgive and forget. But Brian planned to hang around for a while; apparently he truly enjoyed playing uncle and big brother. And, of course, Miami was his home, too, and he was quite certain that even in this economy it was the best place to find a new job that suited his unique skill set, and in any case he had enough money to tide him over for quite a while. Whatever her other faults, Alana had rewarded talent quite generously.

And to my very great surprise and growing unease, one more rhythm had begun to assert itself, even over the slow and steady blooming of my new human self. Gradually, at first so subtly I did not even notice it, I began to feel a tiny tugging at the back of my neck—but not my physical neck, not really my physical anything, just … something slightly behind and …?

And I would turn and look, puzzled, and see nothing, and shrug it off as imagination, no more than a delayed case of nerves from all I had suffered. After all, poor battered Dexter had truly been through the mill. It was perfectly natural that I should be uneasy, even jumpy, for a while after so much physical and mental trauma. Completely understandable, normal in every way, nothing to worry about, don’t think twice. And I would go about my ordinary human business of work time–playtime–TV time–bedtime in its endless unchanging cycle without a care until the next time it happened and I would once again suddenly stop what I was doing and turn around at the call of an unheard voice.

So it went for several months as life got duller and Debs got larger, until she was big enough to set a date for her baby shower. And the night I held that invitation in my hand and wondered what perfect gift I could get her for her Blessed Event I felt the tug of that unvoiced sound again and turned around behind me and this time, framed in the window at my back, I saw it.

Moon.

Full, bright, saucy, lovely moon.

Calling, compelling, shining and beaming, wonderful bright loudmouth moon, whispering sweet nothings in its reptile tones of steel and stealth, saying the two soft syllables of my name in its same old shadow-loving dark-eyed voice, so very well known from so very many times before, so familiar and so comfortable and now so oddly welcome once again.

Hello, old friend.

One more time I feel the leathery wings rustle and unfold in the dark basement, hear once again the joyful whisper of a Passenger brushing off neglect and calling for happy reunion.

It’s time, it says, with a small cold thrill of seeing just how things must be this one more time like always. It is very much time.

And it is.

And so although I thought I had gone beyond all this, away from the rattle and slash of the Passenger, I was wrong. I still feel it, feel it now stronger than ever, pulling at me from that great fat blood-red moon hanging in the window with its leering, mocking grin, daring me to do what must be done and do it now.

Now.

And in the tiny still-wet corners of my new human soul I know that I cannot, dare not, must not—I have family obligations—I am holding one in my hand, the invitation to Deborah’s baby shower. Soon there will be a new Morgan, a new life to care for, an obligation not to be taken lightly, not in this wicked and dangerous world. And that molten brassy moon-voice, ever louder, whispers slyly that this is true; of course it is. The world is wickedness and danger, very true; no one would ever deny it. And so it is a very good thing to make the world a better and safer place, one small slice at a time, and especially when we can do this thing and meet our family obligations at the same time.

And yes, the thought comes slowly and uncoils with a sharp and perfect logic. It is true, very true, oh, so true and oh, so very neat as well, making perfect sense of so many messy little pieces that need to be nudged into line and made to behave and after all there are those family obligations and in any case there is that voice, that beautiful wailing siren-song voice, and it is calling far too strongly in its fat happy brassy voice for me to say no to it now.

And so we go to my dusty office closet and put a few small things into a gym bag.

And so we go into the living room where Rita and the children are watching TV and on Rita’s lap is Lily Anne—

And for just a moment I stop dead, looking at her, face snuggled down into the warmth of her mother, and for several long heartbeats the sight of her is louder than any song the moon could sing. Lily Anne …

But eventually we breathe, and the deep melody of this perfect night rushes back into me with the air and I remember: It is for her sake that we do this tonight. For Lily Anne, for all the Lily Annes, to make a better place of the world they will grow into, and the wild happiness comes back, and then the cold control, and we bend down to kiss my wife on the cheek. “I need to go out for a little while,” we say in a very good imitation of Dexter’s human voice. Cody and Astor sit up straight when they hear our voice and they stare wide-eyed at the gym bag, but we stare them down and they are silent.

“What? Oh—but it’s … All right, if you’re—Could you get milk on the way …?” Rita says.

“Milk,” we say. “Bye.” And as Cody and Astor goggle in awe at what they know will happen now we are out the door and into the warm blanket of metallic moonlight that has clamped over the Miami night and holds it now in taut readiness for us, for our Night of Need and Necessity, for the thing we will do, must do; we slip once again into the welcome darkness for that one perfect present for a baby shower, the wonderful gift for a special sister, the one thing that only her brother knows she wants, the one thing only he can get for her.

Bobby Acosta.