Dearly Devoted Dexter

Sgt. Albert Doakes, a Homicide detective, has grown suspicious of Dexter & is obsessively tailing him in his free time. This makes it impossible for Dexter to investigate (& perhaps kill) someone that he suspects of complicity in the sexual abuse & murder of young boys. When an unknown man is found bizarrely mutilated, Doakes recognizes the work of "Doctor Danco", a torturer who served with Doakes in the Special Forces during the Salvadoran Civil War & has come to Miami to take revenge on his former comrades. Danco drugs his victims with painkillers & psychotropics &, over episodes lasting several days or even weeks, surgically removes various body parts.

Dexter is drawn into the case when Danco abducts his sister Debra's new boyfriend, Detective Kyle Chutsky. Amidst all the chaos, Dexter finds himself accidentally engaged to his girlfriend Rita Bennett. While trying to bond with Rita's children, Astor & Cody, he discovers that they're showing the same signs of sociopathy that he did at their age. Dexter looks forward to teaching them to control their "Dark Passengers" as his foster father, Harry, had taught Dexter to control his.

Dexter learns that Danco's murder ritual includes a word game resembling hangman. Each victim is asked to guess a word chosen for them by Danco, a description of a grievous offense against Danco, for which the victim is to atone. Each wrong or unintelligible answer results in the amputation of a body part. The maximum number of pieces removed corresponds to the number of letters in the mystery word that has been carefully chosen for that particular victim. The torture is conducted patiently & methodically to allow the victim enough time to recuperate & begin healing before the next atrocity is perpetrated. This devious process is designed to maximize the psychological, as well as physical devastation without ever actually killing the subject.