The Darkness to Come (8 page)

“I had a good talk with him,” Dexter said. “I think he went out looking for a job.”

Relief flooded her face. “Praise the Lord. I worry so about him. All he needs is a little guidance.”

“I think I was able to point him in the right direction.”

“Thank God for you, Dex, baby. You such a good son.”

Mom gave him two bulging, bacon-and-egg biscuit sandwiches wrapped in foil.

“Coffee?” he asked.

Dutifully, she filled a tall, aluminum thermos with coffee. He kissed her on the cheek, and left the house.

She hadn’t inquired about the nature of the business he intended to take care of that day. She assumed, correctly, that a man’s work didn’t concern her. Mom knew her place, and that was why he loved her.

More snow had fallen last night. It covered the neighborhood lawns in perfect white plates. The temperature remained in the low teens, and the infamous hawk—a blustery wind that blew off Lake Michigan and sliced like talons into your exposed flesh—was out with a vengeance.

Dexter was walking down the snow-covered sidewalk, eating the first of the sandwiches and sipping coffee, when someone pushed him from behind.

The sandwich popped out of his hands and dropped into the snow.

As Dexter turned, anger clenching his chest, his attacker pressed a blunt object against his ribcage.

“Don’t move, ma’fucka.”

Dexter found himself looking into the angry mug of one of the young brothers he’d seen yesterday while walking to his mom’s house. The tall, muscled kid with the big forehead who had glared at Dexter and finally backed down.

The kid was maybe nineteen, twenty. A child, really, though he snarled like a hardened killer.

Pride, Dexter understood, had driven the youth to rob him. Respect was the currency of the streets, more valuable than money. Dexter had wounded this kid’s pride yesterday, and to boost his standing in the shallow eyes of his crew and himself, the young buck felt compelled to take him down. Typical, dumb black male machismo bullshit that led to high homicide and incarceration rates.

The kid had jammed something metallic into Dexter’s ribs. A nine millimeter, from the looks of it, the piece of choice in the hood.

A round from a nine, at such close range, would turn Dexter’s internal organs to beef stew.

“I’m takin’ that bag,” the kid said.

“You don’t know what’s in it, young blood.”

“I know you got somethin’ in that ma’fucka, way you got it strapped over you.” He poked Dexter with the gun’s muzzle. “Go to the alley.”

Although they were in the midst of the neighborhood, there was no one around to intervene. It was early morning, and all of the vehicles parked on the street were huddled in snow.

No one would have helped, anyway. Growing up, Dexter had seen men get pistol-whipped to a bloody pulp in the middle of the street, with half the neighborhood sitting on their front porches and watching, as if viewing live theater. No one wanted to snitch and risk a violent reprisal from a local hoodlum.

The alley the kid spoke of was about ten paces ahead. Dexter walked toward it slowly as the boy kept the gun levered against his ribs. The kid planned to rob him for sure, but he mostly planned to shoot him, or else he wouldn’t have prodded Dexter toward the alley.

“Early in the morning to be out robbing,” Dexter said, as calmly as a man remarking on the weather. He took a sip of coffee, and stealthily twisted the lid loose.

“I been watchin’ ya crib, waitin’ for you to roll out,” the kid said. “You think you can step on
my
block and show no respect?”

“I grew up here, young blood. I was running these streets when you were nothing but a sperm swimming in your daddy’s nuts.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

In the alley, the kid shoved Dexter toward a brick wall marbled with ice.

“Get on your knees,” the kid said, “and open that ma’fuckin bag.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You heard me.” The boy aimed the gun at Dexter’s head, tilting it sideways in the hip hop gangsta fashion. “I said open the fuckin’ bag!”

“All right. You win, tough guy.” Holding the thermos in one hand, Dexter slid the duffel bag strap off his shoulder, lowered the bag to the ground, and knelt.

“That’s right,” the boy said. “Bow before me, ma’fucka.”

“How do you like your coffee?” Dexter asked.

“What?” The kid scowled in confusion.

Dexter thumbed the lid off the thermos and tossed a steaming wave of coffee into the kid’s face.

The kid screamed, hands going to his eyes. Rising, Dexter batted away the gun. The kid squeezed off a shot before he lost his hold on the weapon, but the muzzle was aimed at the sky, and the bullet flew harmlessly to the heavens.

Defenseless and temporarily blinded, the kid scrambled to run, but slipped on a patch of ice and lost his balance. Dexter snagged him by the hood of his coat and gut punched him, his fist like a spear. The kid yelped, staggered backward, and slammed into a trash dumpster so hard the metal gonged like a bell, snow cascading from the dumpster to the pavement.

Weakened by the blow, the youngster had fallen to the ground. Dexter kicked him in the ribs with his steel-toed boot. Choking on his own screams, the kid curled into a tight ball, as if wishing he could turn in on himself and vanish.

A knife appeared in Dexter’s grip: a gleaming switchblade. He knelt over the punk.

The boy gawked at the knife. “Please, man. Please, don’t kill me.”

“You were going to try to kill me.”

“Nah, man, I was just gonna rob you, that’s all, I wasn’t gonna shoot nobody—”

“Bullshit. You were going to take my bag and then shoot me. I’m not stupid. You’ve got a rep to maintain on the block.”

“Swear to God, man, I wasn’t gonna shoot you. Swear to ma’fuckin’ God.”

Dexter smiled. It pleased him to see how he had reduced this swaggering punk to a sniveling, snotty-nosed child.

“You’re lying,” Dexter said. He waved the blade before the kid’s tearful gaze—

--and then caught a glimpse of something dark and quick, reflected on the knife’s edge. Something behind him.

He spun.

But there was nothing. Only the dank, snow-covered alley.

A sibilant, hissing assailed his ears, as if a feast of snakes were slithering behind his back. He looked down, and around him.

No snakes on the pavement; only ice and faded asphalt.

Where is that noise coming from?

While he was distracted, the kid got up, snatched his gun off the ground, and took off running. Dexter didn’t bother to chase him.

Again, something streaked in the corner of his vision. He turned.

And again, found nothing.

The hissing sound faded.

What the hell was that?

Dexter glanced at the knife. But it did not capture another of those mysterious reflections.

He folded the blade away and slung the bag over his shoulder. He left the alley.

The kid had run away, the impression of his footsteps in the snow trailing down the sidewalk.

Dexter gazed at the footsteps as if they would lead to answers about what was happening to him. This was the second time he’d experienced the strange phenomenon. Was he losing his mind?

Or was he gaining . . . something?

Now where had that idea come from?

As unusual as it was, the thought comforted him. He, Dexter Lee Bates, could not possibly be losing his sanity. He was well-educated, well-balanced, in full control of his faculties. No, he wasn’t going crazy.

The phenomenon was evidence of something good happening to him. What, he didn’t know yet.

But he was certain that, like all good things, it would soon become clear.

Chapter 9

When Joshua awoke at seven-thirty, Rachel had already left for work. He found a note on the nightstand, written in her elegant script:
Hey, sleepyhead. Will call with time for OB-GYN appt. Love, Rachel.

At the mention of the doctor, giddiness bubbled through Joshua all over again.
I’m going to be a father. I can’t believe it.

 But the memory of how Rachel had lied about her internet research put a damper on his excitement—and opened a Pandora’s Box of questions, too.

Why was she researching penitentiaries? Did it have anything to do with her nightmare? Why had she lied about it? What was she hiding from him?

On his way downstairs to brew coffee, Joshua paused at the threshold of Rachel’s study. He pushed open the door. Looked at the laptop.

The answers to his questions might reside on her computer. All he had to do was switch it on and take a look. Rachel would never know.

But he hesitated. He wasn’t one of those rude individuals who took malicious pleasure in digging through another’s belongings. His mother was nosy like that; he harbored bad memories of her rooting through his dresser drawers and closets, looking for anything she could use to make his life miserable. Once, when he was twenty-three years old and living at home after graduating from college, she discovered a pack of condoms during one of her search-and-seizure missions—and had thrown such a self-righteous fit that Joshua and his father had worried that they would need to admit her to the hospital for sedation.

Although Joshua would be looking through Rachel’s computer not with ill intent, but with a sincere desire to learn why she was deceiving him, he felt uneasy with the idea.

He turned away from the study and went downstairs. He brewed a pot of coffee. In his office, he tried to work on some initial ideas for the restaurant’s corporate identity package, but he was unable to concentrate.

He looked at the ceiling. His office was located directly beneath Rachel’s study. Although it was surely his artist’s imagination at work, he thought he could sense her computer up there, tempting him to uncover its secrets.

Finally, he pushed out of the chair and strode upstairs, walking so fast that Coco, sleeping on the sofa in the family room, awoke and chased after him, curious about his urgent mission.

Before he lost his nerve, he rushed into Rachel’s study and punched the laptop’s power button.

The machine whirred, proceeding through the boot-up cycle. He sat in the desk chair, started to adjust the height to accommodate his long legs, and stopped himself. If he neglected to re-adjust the chair, Rachel would know that he’d been in there.

Sweat coated his forehead. Snooping was a breach of confidence. By doing this, he was crossing a line in their marriage, admitting to himself that he no longer trusted her, was suspicious of her motives, and there would be consequences to pay for his actions, if not to Rachel, then to his own conscience.

Coco had not entered the room. The little dog sat on her haunches on the threshold, and he swore that her bubble-eyed gaze was accusatory.

“I don’t have any choice,” he said to the dog, as if the animal would tattle on him to Rachel. “I have to know what’s going on.”

The computer reached the Welcome screen. In a log-on box, the username field was populated by his wife’s first name, but the cursor blinked in the password field—which was empty.

He clicked the OK button, hoping that the system would grant him access without a password.

Please enter a password.

“Shit,” he said.

He drummed a tattoo on the desk. He had no idea what her password might be.

He glanced at Coco, typed the dog’s name, and hit Enter.

Incorrect password.

He typed his own name.

Incorrect password.

Rachel’s salon.

Incorrect password.

“Dammit, what is it then?”

He leaned backward, his weight making the chair springs squeak. He looked around the study. Gazed at her collection of dog figurines sitting on a shelf, the novels and business texts that packed the bookcase, the photograph of a sun-splashed beach standing on the corner of the desk.

Hunched forward, he began to type in anything that came to mind, combinations of numbers and letters, her birth date, their anniversary, his own birth date, the name of her favorite restaurant . . .

None of them worked.

Sighing, he spun away from the computer. His knee bumped against the desk and set a ballpoint pen rolling across the desktop. It dropped into a small trashcan.

He reached inside the can to retrieve the pen. His fingers brushed across a crumpled piece of paper.

He pulled out the pen, and the paper. He unfurled the paper on his lap.

It appeared to be a print-out of a web page. Unfortunately, the ink cartridge had run dry while printing the document; the text was so faint it was virtually unreadable.

Joshua raised the page to the overhead light, squinted.

He could make out four words:
Illinois Department of Corrections.

There was other text, but it was too pale for him to decipher.

He checked the trashcan again. It contained only a discarded wrapper from a black ink cartridge. Nothing else.

Apparently, Rachel had printed this document, seen the low-quality of the text, and had then replaced the cartridge. After which, she presumably reprinted the page.

There was a two-drawer filing cabinet on the other side of the room. He opened the drawers, found the expected files: documents for their home, insurance, tax returns, marriage certificate, financial investments. Nothing suspicious.

He examined the page again. He’d at least learned why he’d glimpsed the word “penitentiary” on her laptop last night—she was researching the Illinois prison system.

But why?

He needed more information, and he could get it only from her computer.

On the screen, the pulsing cursor mocked him.

A painful idea occurred to him: if he knew his wife better, he would know her password. If they were truly soul mates, as he believed, he would understand how her mind worked, would be able to figure out the secret pass code she would create.

And the realization brought a more painful truth: if their marriage was stronger, she wouldn’t be hiding anything like this from him in the first place.