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.