E WERE CLEANING UP AND FEELING THE SLOW AND tired contentment creeping into our bones as we always did, a smug and satisfied laziness at being done and done well with our very happy night of need. The clouds had rolled away and left a cheery afterglow of moonlight and we felt much better now; we always feel better afterward.

And it may be that we were not paying quite as much attention as we should have to the night around us, wrapped as we were in our satisfied cocoon—but we heard a noise, a soft and startled breath, and then the whispered rush of feet, and before we could do any more than turn toward it, the feet ran toward the back door of the darkened house, and we heard that door bump shut. And we could only follow and stare through the door’s glass jalousies in silent all-consuming dismay as a car parked at the curb leaped into life and sprinted away into the night. The taillights flare—the left one dangles at an odd angle—and we can only see that it is an old Honda, some uncertain dark color, with a large rust stain on the trunk that looks like a metallic birthmark. And then the car races out of sight and a cold and acid knot tightens in the pit of our stomach as the impossible, dreadful truth burns up inside us and pours out panic like the bright and awful blood from a newly opened wound.…!!!We have been seen.

For a long appalling minute we just stare out the door, rocked by the endless echoes of that unthinkable thought. We have been seen. Someone had come in, unheard, unnoticed, and they had seen us as we really were, standing drained and contented over the half-wrapped leftovers. And they had very clearly seen enough to recognize the odd-shaped pieces of Valentine for what they were, because whoever it was had left in a lightning-fast panicked gallop and vanished into the night before we could do more than take a breath. They had seen—they might even have seen our face; in any case they had seen enough to know what they were looking at, and they had raced away to safety—and probably to call the police. They would be calling right now, sending patrol cars to scoop us up and put us away—but here we stood, frozen into dumb astonished inaction, gaping and drooling at the place where the taillights had disappeared, stuck in stupid incomprehension like a child watching a familiar cartoon dubbed into a foreign language. Seen … And at long last, the thought gives us the jolt of fear we need to galvanize us into action, kick us into high gear, and send us racing through the last stages of cleanup and out the door with the still-warm bundles of all we have done this once-fine night.

Miraculously, we make it away from the house and off into the night and there are no sounds of pursuit. No sirens wail their warning; no squealing tires or crackling radios rip the darkness with their threats of Descending Doom for Dexter.

And as I finally, tensely, vigilantly made my way out of the area, the blather-headed numbness of that single shattering thought came back and roiled through me like the never-ending rattle of waves on a rocky beach.!!!We had been seen.

The thought stayed with me as I disposed of the leftovers—how could it not? I drove with one eye on the rearview mirror, waiting for the blinding burst of blue light to flare at my bumper and the brief harsh whoop! of a siren. But nothing came; not even after I ditched Valentine’s car, climbed into mine, and drove carefully home. Nothing. I was left entirely at liberty, all alone, pursued only by the demons of my imagination. It seemed impossible—someone had seen me at play, as plainly as it was possible to be seen. They had looked at the carefully carved pieces of Valentine, and the happy-weary carver standing above them, and it would not take a differential equation to arrive at a solution to this problem—A plus B equals a seat in Old Sparky for Dexter, and someone had fled with this conclusion in perfect comfort and safety—but they had not called the police?

It made no sense. It was crazy, unbelievable, impossible. I had been seen, and I had walked away from it consequence-free. I could not really believe it, but slowly, gradually, as I parked my own car in front of my house and just sat for a moment, Logic came back from its too-long vacation on the island of Adrenaline, and I sat hunched over the steering wheel, and communed once more with sweet reason.

All right, I had been seen in flagrante iugulo and had every right to expect that I would be instantly outed and arrested. But I hadn’t been, and now I was home, evidence disposed of, and nothing remained to tie me to the happy horror in the abandoned house. Someone caught a very quick glimpse, yes. But it had been dark in there—probably too dark to make out my face, especially in one brief, terrified glance, with me turned half away. There was no way to connect the shadowy figure holding the knife with any actual person, living or dead. Tracing the license plate of Valentine’s car would only turn up Valentine, and I was reasonably sure he would not answer any questions, unless somebody was willing to use a Ouija board.

And in the incredibly unlikely event that my face was recognized and a wild accusation was made against me, they would find no evidence at all, only a man with a sterling reputation as a member of the Law Enforcement Community who could certainly stand on his dignity and scoff at these absurd allegations. Absolutely no one in their right mind would believe that I could possibly have done anything of the kind—except, of course, for my very own personal nemesis, Sergeant Doakes, and he had nothing at all on me except suspicion, which he’d had for so long that it was almost comforting.

So what remained? Aside from a dubious dark and partial glimpse of my features, what could anyone possibly have seen that might prove awkward to my ambitions for remaining at liberty?

The wheels and levers in my mighty brain clicked, whirled, and spat out their answer: Absolutely Nothing.

I could not possibly be connected to anything that some shadowy, frightened someone had seen in a dark abandoned house. It was an inescapable conclusion, pure deductive logic, and there was no way around it. I was home free, and I would almost certainly remain that way. I took a very deep breath, wiped my hands on my pants, and went into my house.

It was quiet inside, of course, since it was so very late. The sound of Rita’s gentle snoring drifted down the hall to me as I peeked in at Cody and Astor; they were asleep, unmoving, dreaming their small and savage dreams. Farther down the hall, into my bedroom, where Rita lay fast asleep and Lily Anne was curled up in her crib—wonderful, improbable Lily Anne, the one-year-old center of my new life. I stood looking down at her and marveling, as always, at the soft perfection of her face, the miniature beauty of her tiny fingers. Lily Anne, the beginning of all that is good about Dexter Mark II.

I had risked all that tonight. I had been stupid, wildly thoughtless, and almost paid the price—capture, imprisonment, never again to cradle Lily Anne in my arms, never to hold her hand as she tottered through her first steps—and, of course, never again to find some well-deserving friend like Valentine and take him out to the Dark Playground. It was far too much to risk. I would have to lie low and be very well behaved until I was absolutely sure I was in the clear. I had been seen; I had brushed up against the flowing skirts of that old whore Justice, and I could not take that chance again. I must drop Dark Dexter’s Delights and let my Dex Daddy disguise morph into the real me. Perhaps this time it would be a permanent hiatus; did I really need to take such awful risks just to do these dreadful-wonderful things? I heard a soft and sated chuckle of mockery rise from the Dark Passenger as it slithered down into rest. Yessss, you do, it hissed with sleepy satisfaction.

But not for a while; tonight would last, would have to last; I had been seen. I climbed into bed and closed my eyes, but the brainless worries of capture scurried back into my mind. I batted at them, swept them away with the broom of logic; I was perfectly safe. I could not be identified, and I had left no evidence anywhere that could ever be found, and reason insisted that I had gotten away with it. All was good—and even though I still did not quite believe it, I finally drifted off into anxious, dreamless sleep.

Nothing that happened at work the next day gave any indication that there was anything at all to worry about. Things were quiet in the forensics lab of the Miami-Dade Police Department when I arrived at my job, and I took advantage of the morning stupor to fire up my computer. A careful check of last night’s duty logs revealed that no frantic call for help had come in with reference to a maniac and a knife in an abandoned house. No alarm had sounded, no one was looking for me, and if it had not happened by now it was not going to happen at all. I was in the clear—so far.

Logic agreed with the official record; I was perfectly safe. In fact, Logic said this to me countless times over the next few days, but for some reason my lizard brain would not listen. I found myself hunched over at work, raising my shoulders against a blow that never fell—that I knew would never fall, but I anticipated it anyway. I woke up at night and listened for the sounds of the Special Response Team scuffling into place around the house.…

And nothing happened; no sirens came in the night. No knock on the door, squeal of bullhorn, demands that I come out with my hands up—nothing at all. Life steamed along on its well-oiled tracks, with no one calling for Dexter’s head, and it began to seem like some cruel invisible god was taunting me, mocking my watchfulness, sneering at my pointless apprehension. It was as if the whole thing had never happened, or my Witness had been consumed by spontaneous combustion. But I could not shake the thought that something was coming to get me.

And so I waited, and my jitters grew. Work became a painful test of endurance, sitting at home each night with my family was an annoying chore, and in short, all the zing and zest had fled from Dexter’s life.

When the pressure builds too high, even volcanoes boil over, and they are made of stone. I am made of slightly softer stuff, and so it should have been no surprise when I finally erupted after three days of waiting for a blow that never fell.

My day at work had been particularly stressful for no real reason. The main corpse of the day was a floater, a badly decomposed thing that had probably been young and male and had apparently been standing on the wrong end of a large-caliber pistol when it fired. A retired couple from Ohio had found it when their rented pontoon boat ran over it. The floater’s silk shirt had gotten tangled in the boat’s propeller, and the man from Akron had suffered a small, nonfatal heart attack when he leaned over to clear the prop and saw the rotting face staring back up at him from the end of the motor’s shaft. Peekaboo: Welcome to Miami.

There was a great deal of jollity among the cops and forensics geeks as this scenario became known, but the warm glow of camaraderie failed to penetrate Dexter’s bosom. The gruesome jokes that would ordinarily bring forth my best fake chuckle seemed like fingernails on a chalkboard, and it was a miracle of self-control that I simmered silently through the moronic hilarity for ninety minutes without setting anyone on fire. But even the most trying experiences must end, and since there was no blood left on the body after so much time in the water, there was really no call for my particular expertise, and I was finally released to return to my desk.

I spent the rest of the workday on routine paperwork, snarling at misplaced files and seething at the stupidity of everyone else’s report writing—when did Grammar die? And when it was finally time to go home I was out the door and in my car before the last stroke of the hour rang out.

I found no cheer in the casual bloodlust of the evening traffic. For the first time I found myself honking my horn, returning the upraised middle fingers, and raging at delay along with all the other frustrated drivers. It had always been obvious that everyone else in the world is painfully stupid; but tonight that truly grated on my nerves, and when I finally arrived home I was in no mood to pretend I was glad to be back with my little family. Cody and Astor were playing Wii, Rita was giving Lily Anne a bath, all of them performing their empty, oblivious dumb show, and as I stood inside the front door and looked at the profoundly annoying idiocy of what my life had become, I felt something snap, and rather than smashing furniture and laying about me with my fist, I flung my keys on the table and stalked out the back door.

The sun was just starting to set, but the evening was still hot and very humid, and after three steps into the yard I already felt beads of sweat blooming on my face. They felt cool as they rolled down my cheeks, which meant that my face was hot—I had flushed with an alien rage, a feeling that almost never took me over, and I wondered: What was going on in the Land of Dexter? Of course I was on edge, waiting for an inevitable apocalypse, but why should that suddenly blossom into anger, and why should it be directed at my family? The dull and anxious interior muck I’d been mired in had suddenly erupted into rage, a new and dangerous thing, and I still did not know why. Why did I feel this steaming wrath growing out of what was no more than a few small and harmless examples of human stupidity?

I crossed the patchy brownish grass of our yard and sat at the picnic table, for no real reason except that I had come out here and so I thought I should do something. Sitting wasn’t much as an activity and it didn’t make me feel any better. I clenched and unclenched my fists and then my face, and I pulled in another hot, damp breath. It didn’t calm me down, either.

Dull, petty, pointless frustrations, the very stuff of life, but they had built to a point where I was falling apart. Now more than ever I needed to stay icy calm and in complete control; someone had seen me. Even now he might be on my trail, pitter-pattering closer and bringing with him Dexter’s Destruction, and I needed to be at my absolute Mr. Spock–logical best—anything less would be fatal. And so I needed to know whether this flight of angry passion was some final unraveling of the carefully woven artistic tapestry that is Dexter, or merely a temporary tear in the fabric. I took one more large hot breath and closed my eyes to listen as it steamed through my lungs.

And as I did, I heard a soft and reassuring voice over my shoulder, telling me that there was an answer, and really and truly it was very simple, just this one more time, if only I would listen for a single moment to the voice of clear and thrilling reason. I felt the breath inside me chill into a frosty blue mist and I opened my eyes and looked behind me, through a gap in the tree above me, over the top of the neighbor’s hedge and off into the darkening horizon, where these silky words were floating down from a giant yellow-orange burbling happy moon, just now drifting up over the rim of the world and sliding into the sky to hover like the fat and happy friend from a childhood holiday.…

Why wait for him to find you? it said. Why not find him first?

And it was a lovely, seductive truth, because I was good at two simple things: hunting my prey and then disposing of it. So why not do those things? Why couldn’t I be proactive? Jump into the databases with both feet, find a list of every old, dark-colored Honda in the Miami area with a dangling taillight, and track them down one at a time until I found the right one, and then settle the whole thing once and for all by doing what Dexter does best—clean, simple, and fun. If there was no Witness, there was no threat, and all my problems would melt away like ice cubes on a summer sidewalk.

And as I thought about that and breathed in again, I could feel the dim red tide recede completely, and my fists unclenched, and the flush drained out of my face as the cool and happy light of the moon blew its gentle feather breath across me, and from the shadowy corners of my inner fortress a silken purr uncoiled, agreed, chuckled encouragement, and told me oh-so-clearly, Yes, indeed. It really is just that simple.…

And it was; all I had to do was spend some time on the computer, find a few names, and then slip away into the night, casually stroll off into darkness with a few harmless props—no more than a roll of duct tape, a good blade, and some fishing line. Find my Shadow, and then lead him gently away to share with me the small pleasures of a fine summer evening. Nothing could be more natural and therapeutic: a simple unwinding, a carefree interval to untie all the unreasonable knots, and the end of an unjust threat to all I held dear. It made such good sense, on so many levels. Why should I let anything stand in the way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of vivisection?

I breathed in again. Slowly, soothingly, the seductive purr of this simple solution whispered through me, stropping its fur on my interior legs and promising me utter contentment. I looked up into the sky; the bloated moon gave me one more beguiling simper, an invitation to the dance tinged with the promise of endless regret if I should be stupid enough to say no. Everything will be fine, it hummed to me with a rising tempo and a delightful blend of major chords. Better than fine—blissful. And all I had to do was be myself.

I had wanted something simple—here it was. Seek and slice, and an end to all strife. I looked up at the moon, and it looked back fondly, beaming at its favorite student, who had at last worked through the problem and seen the light.

“Thank you,” I said. It didn’t answer, except with one more sly wink. I took another cool breath, stood up, and went back into the house.