His words and the knowing way he said them cut right through me and turned my insides to jelly. Why choose those words? What did he mean by “in there with me”? Could he possibly know about the Dark Passenger? Impossible! Unless . . .

Doakes knew me for what I was. Just as I had known Last Nurse.

The Thing Inside calls out across the emptiness when it sees its own kind. Was Sergeant Doakes carrying a Dark Passenger, too? How could it be possible? A homicide sergeant, a Dexter-dark predator? Unthinkable. But how else to explain? I could think of nothing and for much too long I just stared at him. He stared back.

Finally he shook his head, without looking away from me. “One of these days,” he said. “You and me.” “I'll take a rain check,” I told him with all the good cheer I could muster. “In the meantime, if you'll excuse me . . . ?” He stood there taking up the entire stairwell and just staring. But finally he nodded slightly and moved to one side. “One of these days,” he said again as I pushed past him and onto the stairs.

The shock of this encounter had snapped me instantly out of my sniveling little self-involved funk. Of course I wasn't committing unconscious murders. Aside from the pure ridiculousness of the idea, it would be an unthinkable waste to do these things and not remember. There would be some other explanation, something simple and cold. Surely I was not the only one within the sound of my voice capable of this kind of creativity. After all, I was in Miami, surrounded by dangerous creatures like Sergeant Doakes.

I went quickly up the stairs, feeling the adrenaline rushing through me, almost myself again. There was a healthy spring in my step that was only partly because I was escaping the good sergeant. Even more, I was eager to see this most recent assault on the public welfare—natural curiosity, nothing more. I certainly wasn't going to find any of my own fingerprints.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor. Some of the framing had been knocked into place, but most of the floor was still without walls. As I stepped off the landing and onto the main area of the floor, I saw Angel-no-relation squatting in the center of the floor, unmoving. His elbows were planted on his knees, his hands cupped his face, and he was just staring. I stopped and looked at him, startled. It was one of the most remarkable things I had ever seen, a Miami homicide technician swatted into immobility by what he had found at a crime scene.

And what he had found was even more interesting.

It was a scene out of some dark melodrama, a vaudeville for vampires. Just as there had been at the site where I had taken Jaworski, there was a stack of shrink-wrapped drywall. It had been pushed over against a wall and was now flooded with light from the construction lights and a few more the investigating team had set up.