Gateways

“I say we do all three of them—old lady, father, and son—and have done with it.”

“No. I told you: The son ain’t to be touched.”

Luke grumbled. “All right. We’ll have another go at the old guy, but the lady…what’re you gonna do about her?”

“Don’t know yet. We can’t do her unless we can get to her. I’ll think of somethin’. But it’ll have to wait till the lights is done. I ain’t lettin’ nothin’ get between me and the lights.”

“Awright. But what do we do till the lights come? We goin’ panhandlin’ as usual?”

“Not durin’ the lights. We’ll just hang out. Besides, we don’t need to go beggin’ cause we’ll be gettin’ a hunk of cash from those dredgin’ guys when they finish at noon.”

“What if they try to stiff us?”

“They won’t. They ain’t gettin’ out of the lagoon less’n they pay up.”

But Semelee didn’t want to think about dredgin’ or money or nothin’ cept the lights. Anticipation thrummed through her like she was a plucked guitar string. The lights’d start tonight and run for three days. But this year would be like no other. This time they wouldn’t be underwater, which meant they’d be bigger and brighter and better than ever before.

Starting tonight, everything in her life would change. She sensed it, she knew it.

3

Tom had been watching the Weather Channel’s reports on Hurricane Elvis. It continued to move south off Florida’s west coast; although its winds had increased to 90 miles an hour, it was still a Category I. And no threat to Florida at this point.

He was just finishing his cup of coffee when Jack came through the door, dripping with sweat.

“I was wondering where you were.” He’d been a little anxious after awakening to finding the house empty and Jack’s car still parked outside. Obviously he’d been out jogging. “I don’t suppose you’d care for a cup of hot coffee right now.”

“After my shower I’d love one. Never turn down coffee.”

As Jack ducked into the bathroom, Tom rinsed out the French press and began to make another serving. He noticed his hand shaking a little as he spooned the ground coffee. He touched the fresh bandage on his head. The stitches were still a little tender under there. He’d been shocked at the sight of his bruised, black-eyed face in the mirror this morning. He felt so good he’d almost forgotten about the accident.

Now he couldn’t get it out of his head. Someone wanted him dead. Why?

Last week his life had been safe and sane, prosaic, maybe even a little dull. Now…

What was happening? He didn’t live the sort of life where he got on people’s wrong side. Was it a mistake? Had he been mistaken for somebody else? Who on earth would want to kill him?

He pondered those imponderables until Jack returned, in fresh shorts and T-shirt, his wet hair combed straight back.

“Hey, good coffee,” he said after sipping the cup Tom had made for him.

“Colombian. I was thinking of scrambling some eggs. Want some?”

“Sure. And some hash browns and toast, and maybe some grits with extra butter. Oh, and while you’re at it, a side of biscuits and gravy.”

Tom gave him a dour look.

Jack shrugged and smiled. “Hey, we’re in the south so I figured one of their traditional, artery-clogging breakfasts would be in order.”

“What do you know about southern cooking?”

“There’s a place called Down Home a few blocks from where I live. In New York you can eat any style you want.”

“Right now,” Tom said, “I don’t feel like eating at all. Hard to be hungry when there’s someone out to get you. If I knew who or why, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I’d still be scared, but…”

“Maybe I can help there,” Jack said softly.

“You? How?”

The phone rang. It was the front gate, wanting to know if he was expecting any packages.

“Not that I know of. Wait.” He turned to Jack. “Are you expecting a delivery of some sort?”

“Yeah!” He grinned. “It’s here already? Great. Good old Abe.”

Tom told the gate to send the truck through, then turned back to Jack.

“You were saying something…?”

Jack cleared his throat. “I checked out the medical records on Borger, Leo, and Neusner last night and—”

“How on earth did you do that?”

“I got in through one of the clinic’s windows.”

“What?”

“No biggee. I popped the lock on one and crawled through. Don’t worry. You’d have to look pretty close to the underside of the sash to even suspect someone was there.”

Tom couldn’t believe this. His own son breaking and entering—and the clinic of all places.

“Dear God, why?”

“Stay calm. I wanted to see if any of them had had physicals recently—the answer turned out to be yes to all three, by the way—and to see how they did.”

“What if it had an alarm, or what if you were caught on camera? You could go to jail for something like that!”

“Only if I got caught, which I didn’t. No alarm, no surveillance cameras. I checked that out first. But I found what I was looking for: Each one of them passed their physical with flying colors.”

“A lot of good it did them. They’re all dead.”

“I think they died because they passed with flying colors.”

“Oh, you’re not going back to that Gateways conspiracy thing you were talking about yesterday, are you?”

“Follow the money, Dad. Whenever you wonder if something funny might be going on, follow the money. And the money leads to Gateways.”

Had he gone completely paranoid?

“Jack—”

“Think about it: It’s only younger, healthy widows and widowers being attacked—the ones who stand the best chance for holding on to their houses the longest. Coincidence?”

“You’re talking about a billion-dollar corporation, Jack. This is penny-ante stuff. Imagine the impact of four extra resales in a year on a nine-digit bottom line. Meaningless!”

“It may be meaningless globally, but what about locally? What if someone in Gateways South needs to boost his bottom line and this is a way—just one of a number of ways, say—to do it?”

Tom didn’t know what to say. Breaking into offices, digging up “clues”…he had to admire Jack’s initiative, and was touched that he’d go to all that trouble for him, but…Jack seemed to think he was Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade. And he wasn’t. He was an appliance repairman, and he was going to get in over his head and in deep trouble if he kept this up.

“I suppose you can make a circumstantial case for it, but it just doesn’t add up. You’re implying that Ramsey Weldon or someone at his level of management went out and hired those men to smash up my car and then have me eaten by an alligator. It’s preposterous.”

Jack scratched his head. “I know it seems that way, but so far he and Gateways South are the only ones I can see benefiting from your passing. I’ll have to go with Weldon for the time being.”

Tom felt a surge of acid in his stomach. “‘Go with’? What does that mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said with a smile that did nothing to relieve Tom’s anxiety. “Have a little tête-à-tête or something like that.”

“Don’t. Please, don’t. You’re just going to get yourself in trouble.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be discreet. The very soul of discretion.”

Somehow Tom doubted that. But before he could say anything else, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Jack said.

A delivery man stood at the door holding a cardboard carton.

“I’ve got four packages for ‘Jack.’”

“That’s me.” Jack took the box and placed it on the floor. “I’ll help you with the others.”

As Jack followed the man outside to his truck, Tom stepped over and looked at the return address: Bammo Toy Co.

Toys?

He noticed too that the shipping label was addressed to “Jack” at this address. No last name, just “Jack.” Odd.

When all four cartons were inside the door, Jack tipped the driver, then lifted one of the boxes.

“I’m going to put these in the spare bedroom, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

As Jack headed for the bedroom, Tom lifted one of the packages to help. He hefted it…heavier than he’d expected.

Jack had already relocated the first box and almost ran into Tom in the bedroom doorway. He took the package from him—rather quickly, Tom thought.

“Hey, no, Dad. Thanks, but that’s okay. I don’t want you hurting your back.”

“Don’t be silly. They’re not that heavy.”

He returned to the living room and picked up another package. Jack was right behind him, hovering like a mother hen.

“Dad, really—”

Tom ignored him and carried the carton into the bedroom.

When all four were piled against the wall, he said, “It says they’re from a toy company. What kind of toys are we talking about? Toy robots? I mean, they’re heavy enough.”

“Just toys.” Jack seemed tense.

“Do you mind showing me one?”

A heartbeat’s hesitation, then Jack said, “I guess not. But we’ll need a knife to cut the tape.”

“I’ll get one.”

Tom found an old serrated steak knife in the kitchen drawer, but by the time he’d returned, Jack had the smallest box already open.

He held up a folder with a curved blade. “I forgot I had one in my pocket.”

Inside, Tom saw an odd-looking stuffed toy, some unidentifiable little animal a little bigger than a football. “What’s that?”

“It’s a Pokemon. This one’s Pikachu. They were all the rage with kids a few years ago.”

“But why are you buying them?”

“I’ll probably wind up giving them to a local kids’ charity.”

Tom shook his head. What an odd man his son had turned out to be.

4

Jack found Carl waiting on the street outside his trailer park in knee-high green rubber boots; a short wooden paddle protruded from his right sleeve.

“Where’s the boat?” Jack said as Carl slid into the passenger seat.

“It’s waitin’. A guy I know’s lettin’ me borrow it.” He stuck out his hand. “My money?”

Jack handed him an envelope. “As promised.”

He’d come down with about a thousand in cash. His deal with Carl was going to leave him short, so he’d stopped at an ATM for an advance on the John L. Tyleski Visa card. Another envelope with the balance of the fee was tucked into a back pocket.

Carl checked the contents. Didn’t take long to count five bills. The reverent way he touched them made Jack wonder if Carl had ever seen that much money at once.

“I hope I ain’t makin’ a big mistake,” he said, still staring into the envelope.

“Don’t worry. A few hours from now you’ll be sitting in front of your TV with another one of those in your pocket.”

He sighed and folded the envelope. “Okay. Let’s go.”

As they pulled away, Jack noticed high chain-link fencing disappearing into the foliage; a rusted length of chain with a beat-up NO TRESPASSING sign spanned a gap that looked like an entrance.

“That the quarry I’ve heard about?” Jack said.

Carl nodded. “Some company carved a mess of limestone blocks outta there, then went outta business.”

“What’s it like down there?”

Carl shrugged. “Just a big hole in the ground. Used to have a big pool of water in its bottom, but not this year.”

“Much security?”

“None I ever seen. You can’t steal a hole in the ground. Kids sneak in there at night to drink, smoke dope, and screw. Never seen anyone kick ’em out. Why you so interested?”

“Just curious.”

Jack hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but if worse came to worst, he might have use for the quarry.

He followed Carl’s directions, turning this way and that, heading in a generally northwest direction. Along the way he saw a black bird with a red head pecking at something on the side of the road.

“Christ, that’s an ugly bird.”

“That’s a turkey vulture—‘TV,’ for short. Right homely, aren’t they. Good thing about them is they clean up roadkill. They do such a good job that round here we call roadkill ‘TV dinners.’” He snickered. “‘TV dinners.’ Get it?”

“I get it, Carl.”

The vegetation became reedier as they rolled along. Finally Carl pointed to a small building with a big AIR BOATS sign. Another, smaller sign—not much more than a slim board with a handwritten message—had been tacked to the bottom.

CLOSED DO TO DROWT.

Jack wondered what the owners were doing with all this extra spare time. Playing Scrabble maybe?

“We’re going on an air boat?” He’d seen them whizzing across the Everglades in movies and nature shows and had always wanted to ride one. “Cool.”

“Can’t use no air boats when it’s this dry. There’s enough water in the big channels, but the little ones—forget it.”

Jack followed Carl around to the rear of the shack where a beached canoe waited on the mud.

“That’s our boat?”

“That’s her,” Carl said with a grin. “She ain’t too pan-o-ramic, but she’s got a motor.”

Jack looked at the tiny, odd-shaped hunk of steel clamped to the right rear stern.

“You call that a motor? I’ve seen bigger eggbeaters.”

“Don’t knock it. It’s better’n paddlin’ the whole way.”

Carl stepped into the water and pulled the canoe off the mud. He hopped into the stern seat and used the paddle jutting from his right sleeve to steady the boat. Jack had no choice but to wade in, sneakers and all, after him.

“Didn’t you bring no boots?”

“Ain’t got no boots.” There I go, talking like him again.

Jack was calf high in water before he reached the canoe and eased himself onto the forward bench. Carl primed the motor, then: a couple of quick pulls on the cord, a cloud of smoke, a bubbling clatter, and—hi-yo, Silver—they were off.

Jack looked down at the sodden legs of his jeans, and his once white sneakers, now tinted brown with mud. His feet squished and squeaked inside them.

Swell.

“This channel’s usually so much deeper and wider this time of year. And most of this saw grass is half underwater.” He shook his head. “Man, we really need us some rain.”

Jack looked up. A lid of clouds had moved in, hiding the sun and the sky, but none of them looked like rain clouds.

“What you need down here, Carl, is a big storm, a hurricane to dump a load of water. Maybe Elvis will take care of your drought.”

“I’d go for a tropical storm, okay. You know—thirty-five-or forty-milean-hour winds and a ton of rain. I could handle that. But no hurricane, thank you. I was here when Andrew came through and I don’t never want to see the likes of that again.”

As they slid along, Jack heard a call and response of throaty roars from either side.

“Those alligators?”

“Yep. Bulls callin’ from their gator holes.”

“What are those grunting sounds? The females?”

Carl laughed. “Naw. Them’s pig frogs. Got the name cause they grunt like pigs.”

Jack noticed lots of snails, with shells maybe an inch to an inch and a half across, floating near the surface. The tops of some of their shells broke the surface as they clung to underwater growths. He saw little pristine white beads lined up on blades of saw grass and asked Carl about them.

“Those’re snail eggs. Cormorants love the snails. Use the hook on the end of their beak to yank them from their shells.”

A goose-necked turtle with a smooth brown shell and an uncircumcised nose stuck its head above the water and looked at him.

“Hello,” Jack said.

The turtle ducked away.

“That’s a soft-shelled turtle. Gators just love to catch those. Gobble them up like crunchy tacos.”

Jack slapped at his neck. He didn’t have a long-sleeved shirt so he’d sprayed on lots of repellent, but it didn’t seem to be helping much.

“How can you stand all these mosquitoes?”

“All? You kidding? This is a good year, a great year for mosquitoes. The drought dried up most of their little breedin’ pools.”

If this is a good year, Jack thought, remind me to stay far away in a bad one.

He reached out a hand to grab a few of the long thin blades of grass brushing the side of the canoe. A sharp sting made him snatch it back. He looked and found long scratches across his palm.

Carl laughed. “Now you know why they call it saw grass.” He swept his paddle around in a wide arc. “Pa-hay-okee.”

Jack remembered Anya using that word.

“Indian, right? Means ‘river of grass’ or something?”

Carl grinned. “Hey, you been studyin’.”

A river of grass… sea of grass was more like it. An ocean of browned saw grass swept away in all directions, dotted here and there by islandlike hummocks of cypress, oak, and pine that looked like giant green mushrooms sprouting from a dead lawn. He hoped it wasn’t dead. Just sleeping.

So flat, so like he’d envisioned Kansas might be. Too open for Jack. He was used to living in steel-, concrete-, and glass-lined canyons. The horizon seemed so far away here. Who needed a horizon anyway? Horizons gave him the creeps. He could live very well without one. In fact, back home he did.

Why on earth would anyone want to live out here? No deli, no pizza delivery, no electricity to keep beer cold. Like living in the Dark Ages.

Carl said, “I got Miccosukee blood in me, you know. At least that’s what my momma told me. They’ve got a reservation north of here off Route 41, and even a casino, but I ain’t never been to neither. The Miccosukee’s on my momma’s side. Don’t know bout my dad. My momma met him at the lagoon. I hear he didn’t hang around after he seen me. Just took off and we never heard from him again.”

Jack flicked a glance at Carl’s covered right arm. Should he ask about it?

Maybe some other time.

Instead he said, “So there’s been people living around this lagoon for generations?”

“Yeah and no,” Carl said. “The only people livin’ there now are the kids of the ones who used to live there. Everybody moved away when we was itty-bitty babies because they thought the lagoon was makin’ us all strange. But we kids came back.”

“Why?”

“Cause I guess we didn’t seem to fit no other place.”

Jack tried to think of a delicate way to say this. “Because of the way you all looked?”

Carl shrugged. “Some of that, maybe. But mostly because the lagoon seemed right for us. It felt like…home.”

“You moved out, though.”

“Yeah. But not far. That’s why I wasn’t too excited bout goin’ back. I’m afraid I might get sucked in again.”

“So how many live there?”

“Bout twenty. We’re all bout the same age too, give or take a couple years.”

Jack ducked as a big bird with an enormous wingspan swooped above them.

“What the hell is that?”

“Just a big ol’ heron.”

“Oh.”

For a moment there Jack had thought it was a pterodactyl. Or maybe a pteranodon. Whatever. The one with the tail.

They began to pass alligators of various sizes sunning themselves on the banks, but none came even close in size to the monster from yesterday.

Jack heard a scraping sound from the bottom of the canoe.

“That’s all for the motor for a while,” Carl said.

They used their paddles until the channel grew too shallow even for that.

“What do we do now?”

Carl rose and stepped out of the boat. “We carry her till the water gets deeper.”

Easy for you to say, Jack thought. You’ve got boots.

The hauling itself wasn’t so bad—only about thirty yards before the water deepened again—but the knowledge that a gator might step out of the surrounding greenery at any second upped Jack’s pace until he was fairly dragging Carl behind him.

“Too bad they don’t do a Survivor down here,” Carl said. “Survivor: Everglades…they’d never let me on, but I know I could win that million.”

Another reality show. Carl did like his TV.

Jack looked over his shoulder. “If you did win, what’s the first thing you’d do?”

“Get me a new TV.” He grinned. “One of them big sixty-inch models. Oh, and a new easy chair, an electric one that massages your back while you’re sittin’ in it. And get my car fixed.”

“How about travel?”

“What for? I’ve already been all over the world watchin’ Survivor and Celebrity Mole and the Travel Channel.”

“But it’s not the same as being there.”

Listen to me, Jack thought. The guy who never leaves New York.

“Is for me,” Carl said. “Oh, yeah, and I’d probably give some money to Mrs. Hansen. She’s havin’ a hard time. Might lose her trailer.”

“That’s a nice thought, Carl.”

He shrugged. “Just bein’ neighborly.”

Back in the water and putt-putting along again, Jack saw larger plants starting to crowd the saw grass off the banks. Ferns and trees fought for space. Jack spotted a fruit-bearing tree.

“What’s that?”

“Pond apple. Don’t even think about eatin’ one less you’re partial to the taste of kerosene.”

He went on to point out willows that didn’t look like willows, live oaks that didn’t look like oaks, and trees with exotic names like cocoa plum and Brazilian pepper.

Jack pointed to the tall, scraggly, droopy-needled, cedarlike pines that loomed ahead.

“What are those?”

Carl looked at him as if he’d asked if the sun rose in the east or the west.

“Them’s cypresses.”

“They look like pines.”

“Yeah, I guess they do. But they drop their needles come winter. Pines don’t do that.”

Jack noticed that the leaves on some of the live oaks were turning red or orange, as if it were fall. The drought, he guessed.

As they glided nearer the cypresses, Jack saw long, gray-brown Merlin beards of moss hanging from the limbs and swaying in the breeze.

He spotted other trees. He knew a Nelson pine when he saw one; royal palms had that distinctive smooth sleeve of green at the upper end of the trunk, and of course coconut palms and banana palms were identifiable by their fruit. But the rest were mysteries.

Carl pointed to a couple of dragonflies, one riding on the back of another.

“Looky there. Makin’ baby dragonflies.”

“And in public,” Jack said. “Have they no shame?”

Carl laughed. “Hey, don’t knock it. Dragonflies eats up tons of mosquito babies.”

“Yeah?” Jack raised a fist in salute. “Go for it, you two!”

Carl shut off the motor.

“What’s up?” Jack said. “More shallows?”

Carl shook his head and pointed. “We’re getting close now. See that big hardwood hummock dead ahead?”

Jack saw a rise studded with trees of all different sizes and shapes that blocked most of the western horizon.

“The lagoon’s in there,” Carl said. “So we got to go real quiet now.”

“I thought the place was going to be deserted.”

“Y’never know. Sometimes somebody’s feelin’ poorly and they don’t go to town.”

Jack pulled the Glock from itsSOB holster, worked the slide to chamber a round, then tucked it away again.

They paddled ahead to where the channel ran into a dense green tunnel of vegetation. Speaking softly, Carl pointed out gumbo limbo trees, aerial plants, orchids, ferns, banyan trees with their dangling aerial roots, coffee plants, vines trailing from tree to tree, and every imaginable variety of palm.

“Looks like a rain forest,” Jack whispered.

Carl nodded. “Yeah. Even now, when there ain’t no rain. It stays wetter here cause the sun can’t get through.”

As they paddled around a few more bends in the channel Jack started noticing subtle changes in the greenery, most obvious in the royal palms. Every one Jack had seen till now had had a ramrod-straight trunk. These were bent here and there at odd intervals along their lengths.

Was this the first evidence of the mutation effects of Anya’s so-called nexus point?

Then Carl turned to him and put a finger to his lips. He nodded and made a hooking motion with his arm.

Jack got the message: almost there…around the next bend.

And then they rounded that bend and the right bank fell away, opening into a wide pond, 150, maybe 200 feet across. The surface lay smooth and placid, but the surrounding vegetation was anything but.

The willows, oaks, cypresses, and palms lining the banks had been twisted into grotesque, unnatural shapes, as if they’d been frozen mid-step in some epileptic ballet. And in one area they all appeared to be leaning away from an opening on the edge of the bank, as if trying to escape it.

That had to be it—the nexus point, where a little of the Otherness slipped through a couple of times a year. Anya hadn’t been exaggerating about the mutations. The vegetation looked like it had been designed by someone with PCP for blood.

All we need to make this scene complete, Jack thought, is the Creature from the Black Lagoon rearing its ugly head.

A large, skiff-style boat, Bull-ship across its stern, rocked gently against the far bank. Its crude, ramshackle superstructure looked like it had been built by someone with only rudimentary carpentry skills. Another smaller, equally rundown skiff, the Horse-ship —cute—lay directly to their right. They looked like floating tenements.

As he and Carl glided toward the center of the lagoon, Jack searched the banks for stray members of Carl’s clan. Just as predicted, the place was deserted.

Well, it looked deserted. Somehow it didn’t feel deserted.

“That’s funny,” Carl whispered, pointing to a small fleet of canoes beached on the far bank. “All the boats is here. If they went into town—”

“Well, well, well,” said a gruff voice from behind and to the right. “Look who’s here.”

Jack started at the sound and swiveled to see half a dozen men standing on the deck of the Horse-ship. As he watched, the snow-haired Semelee emerged from the superstructure and smiled at him.

“Hi, Jack,” she said.

Jack noticed the color draining from Carl’s face. “Oh, shit!”

Jack faced front again and saw another dozen or so men gathering on the deck of the bigger Bull-ship.

“Paddle!” Carl cried as he began yanking on the little motor’s starter cord. “We gotta get outta here!”

Jack thought that might not be a bad idea. He reversed his oar stroke to turn the canoe around, but then noticed that the men in the Horse-ship were poling it across the lagoon entrance, blocking their escape route.

He laid a hand on Carl’s shoulder. “Forget it, Carl. Looks like we’re staying awhile.”

“Long time, no see, Carl,” said the big guy Jack had run into in town. His grin was feral. “I knew you’d be back someday.”

“Hey, Luke,” Carl said in a faint voice. His shoulders slumped. He looked defeated.

Jack checked the comforting weight of the Glock at the small of his back. Not the right time to reveal what he was carrying, especially when they were such sitting ducks out here on the water. Better to wait and see what happened, wait till these guys got closer, or things got ugly.

Who knew? Maybe he wouldn’t need artillery. Maybe he’d even come away with some answers. Like, what do you have against my father? Or, who hired you to kill him?

“Knew I shouldn’ta come,” Carl muttered. His good eye veered right and left like a frightened rabbit on the run.

“Easy,” Jack whispered. “I promised I’d get you back to your trailer, and I will. Let’s just go with the flow here for a bit.”

“Don’t see’s we got much choice.”

Luke pointed to the row of canoes on the bank. “Why dontcha beach it over there with the others,” he called, “and we’ll all get real friendly like.”

Jack started paddling. “Let’s do like the man says.”

Carl hesitated a few heartbeats—he seemed frozen in place—then shook himself and joined in.

5

When they reached the far bank, some of the men from the Bull-ship helped pull its nose onto the dirt. Jack recognized the flat-bottomed motorboat he’d seen Semelee ride away in—the Chicken-ship. Next to it was a canoe labeled No-ship. Someone in the clan was a regular Shecky Green.

He managed to step ashore without resoaking his sneakers, but Carl got out and waded.

They all seemed to know Carl. A few acted genuinely glad to see him but most were standoffish, some even hostile.

As Jack and Carl stood together and waited for the Horse-ship to be poled over, Jack looked around. Close up, the vegetation looked even more demented. Back from the banks, maybe a hundred feet, stood half a dozen hutlike structures with open sides. Each seemed to be little more than half a dozen wobbly poles, three to a side, topped by a pitched roof of dried palm fronds. A small fire smoldered between two of the nearest. When they weren’t on the boats, Jack guessed they lived there.

Crooked men in crooked houses. He had little doubt that each contained at least one crooked mouse.

“Old Indian huts,” Carl said, following his gaze. “Been there forever.”

When the smaller boat arrived, Semelee was the first to step off, followed by Luke, bulge-browed Corley, and the rest. Soon the whole clan was assembled behind her, facing Jack and Carl in a semicircle.

Circe and her pigs.

A single woman with—Jack had made a quick count—eighteen men.

One scary looking bunch, Jack thought, eyeing their misshapen heads, mismatched limbs, and twisted bodies. Looked like they’d suffered an algae bloom in their gene pool. But he knew that, just like the trees, it must be due to the nexus point. The trees had no choice about where they grew, but these folks…why did they stay?

Only Semelee and Luke looked reasonably normal…if you discounted her wild white Medusa hair. Storm from the X-Men had nothing on Semelee in the hair department. She wore the same Levi’s and tight black vest as yesterday, but her long-sleeved shirt was red this time, with the top two buttons left open.

“Who’s this one?” she said, pointing to Carl. “He’s one of us, ain’t he.”

Luke flashed his nasty grin at Carl. “He sure is. He just don’t act like it.”

“How come I ain’t never seen him before?”

“You probably did but just don’t remember. Carl decided to leave right after you showed up. I don’t think we’re good enough for him no more.” He stepped closer. “Ain’t that right, Carl? Ain’t that right? But that was okay. This ain’t no prison. You can come and go as you please.” He got into Carl’s face. “But that don’t mean you can bring outsiders. You know the rule about outsiders.”

He reached to grab the front of Carl’s shirt and Jack laid a hand on his arm—gently but firmly. He wasn’t looking for a fight, not against these impossible odds, but he was not about to let Carl be manhandled.

“Don’t,” Jack said.

Luke’s fingers stopped inches from Carl’s shirtfront. “What?”

Jack kept his voice low but gave Luke a hard look, hoping he’d think twice. He didn’t have a plan—he’d been expecting an empty lagoon—but he was willing to ad lib, maybe do something quick and very nasty to make a point and throw the crowd off balance.

“Just…don’t.”

Luke glared at him, then glanced toward the water. “Back off or you’ll be goin’ for a swim.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

“Yeah?” He grinned. “Look who you’ll be swimmin’ with.”

Jack turned and saw what appeared to be a giant turtle gliding toward shore. Its head was down but its mossy, four-foot long shell looked like a relief map of the Himalayas.

Then it raised its head—and then its other head. Christ, it had two—big, ugly, rough-hewn things—both of which were now angled up, their beaked, sharp-edged jaws agape, showing huge mouths that could fit a regulation NFL football with room to spare. Its four beady black eyes were fixed on Semelee as it reached the bank and waited with its long, snakelike tail thrashing back and forth in the water behind it.

Luke grabbed a fallen tree branch and shouted, “Show time!” He stepped closer and lowered the branch toward the waiting jaws. “This here’s a alligator snapper. When you take your swim—and we’ll see that you do—here’s what’s gonna happen to your arms and legs.”

The branch came to within a foot of the left head and in a flash the neck telescoped out and the jaws chomped, breaking it in half with a loud crunching crack, as easily as Jack might snap a toothpick. One of the halves tumbled into the right head’s strike zone and suffered a similar fate. Three pieces of branch floated on the water.

Jack’s tongue tasted dusty.

“‘When’?” Jack said, knowing this many guys would have no trouble tossing him into the water. But he couldn’t back down. “You mean ‘if,’ don’t you?”

Luke stepped toward him. “No, I mean—”

“Just hold on there,” Semelee said, wedging herself between them. “Ease up. This ain’t no way to treat company.” She turned to Jack. Her eyes locked on his, displaying none of the animosity radiating from Luke. “What’re you doing here?”

Jack had his reply ready. “You suggested we have a drink together. Well, here I am.”

“Bullshit!” Luke said.

This guy had one helluva chip on his shoulder.

Semelee ignored him and smiled. “Yeah. I can see you’re here. But I meant back in town.”

“I guess I misunderstood. I happened to mention you to Carl and—”

“You did?” Her face lit as her smile broadened. “You were talking about me?”

Jack realized with a start that she was infatuated with him. He couldn’t fathom why. She’d had a couple of glimpses of him and they’d exchanged a few sentences; she didn’t know anything about him.

Or did she?

Jack debated playing to her infatuation, then discarded the idea. It could backfire too easily, especially with the jealousy he sensed seething in Luke. It was plain that he wanted Semelee looking at him like she was looking at Jack.

“Yeah, sort of,” Jack said, keeping it neutral. “When Carl said he knew where you lived, I convinced him to take me there.”

“And here you are.”

“Right. But I wasn’t expecting such an unfriendly reception.”

“Oh, don’t take Luke too serious. He’s been right cranky lately.” She patted his arm. “Ain’t that right, Luke.”

The big guy only glowered at Jack.

“Hey,” said Carl, pointing along the bank with his oar. “Don’t tell me that’s the lights hole!”

“It sure is,” Semelee said. “Want to see?”

Lights hole? Jack wondered. What’s a lights hole?

Semelee led the way toward a patch of ground completely bare of vegetation. Jack followed Carl. The crowd parted to let them pass. The center of the bald area was pierced by a roughly oval opening, maybe eight feet across. It ran straight down into the limestone like a well. Jack even knew what it was called: a cenote.

He stopped next to Carl at the edge and peered down. Deep. Deeper than he’d expected. He could just barely make out the pool at the bottom.

Carl gasped. “It wasn’t never this deep. What happened to the sand?”

Luke grunted. “Semelee sold it. Some guys came here and sucked a whole lot of it out. You just missed them.”

“Got a pretty penny for it too,” she said.

Carl looked from Luke to Semelee. “Looks like I ain’t the first to break the no-outsiders rule.”

Score one for you, Carl, Jack thought.

“That was different,” Semelee said.

Carl didn’t seem to hear. His eyes were fixed on the hole.

“I was a-fearin’ this,” he said, “what with the drought’n all. The lights hole ain’t never been above water before. That’s bad enough. But then you went’n had sand sucked out.”

“Why’s that bad?” Semelee said. “I think that’s good.”

“Good? How can it be good? The light used to have to come up through the sand and the water, and even then, look what it did to us. Now there ain’t hardly nothin’ in the way.”

Semelee grinned. “Ain’t it cool?”

“Nuh-uh. That ain’t cool. That’s scary.”

Jack knelt at the edge and peered into the depths. He didn’t like deep holes, at least not since the spring when he’d had a bad experience with one out on Long Island. But that one hadn’t had a bottom. This one…

He found a thumb-size stone and dropped it. He heard a satisfying plop, saw ripples on the water far below.

…this one definitely had a bottom.

But for how long?

“What are these lights like?” he asked.

Semelee squatted close beside him. He glanced up briefly and noticed the others wandering off. The two of them had the hole to themselves.

“Like nothin’ you ever seen in your life.” Her voice was full of hushed wonder as she spoke. “I mean, whoever heard of lights comin’ outta the ground?”

Jack had seen light shooting up from a hole in the earth…just last spring.

“What color are these lights?”

“Sorta like pinkish orange, but that ain’t right. Every time you think you got the color pinned, it melts into somethin’ else just a teeny bit different. I can’t describe it. You gotta see it to believe it.”

Jack believed. He’d seen a light just like she described.

“How often do they come?” Jack asked, knowing the answer.

“Twice a year.”

“No kidding. When’s the next show?”

“Tonight.”

“But—” Jack caught himself. Anya had said the nexus points opened during the equinoxes, but that wasn’t until tomorrow night. He knew; he’d checked. But if he admitted that, Semelee would realize that he knew way more than he should.

She frowned at him. “But what?”

What to say? “But that’s too soon!” he blurted. “I won’t be able to get my cameras set up for—”

“Who said anything bout cameras?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I take some pictures of the lights and we sell them to the papers, to National Geographic, to—”

“Wait-wait-wait,” she said, waving her hands in front of his face. “What makes you think you’re gonna take pictures? Nobody takes no pictures of the lights.”

“No exceptions?”

“No way, no how. As a matter of fact, I can’t even let you see them, cause then you’d talk about them.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Jack had no desire to see these lights, but he didn’t want to appear anxious to leave. Maybe the way to get out of here was to pretend to want to stay.

Semelee shook her head. “Maybe you wouldn’t, but I can’t risk it. Not yet, anyways. But maybe when I get to know you better…”

Jack noted how she said “when” instead of “if.”

“What’s wrong with getting to know each other now? We could go back to town, have that drink, maybe two or three, and do some serious talking.”

“Not tonight, or tomorrow or the next night, for that matter.”

“Why not?”

“The lights run for three nights. I gotta be here for that. But after Sunday…” She leaned closer and he caught her pleasant, musky scent. “… We got all the time in the world.”

That’s what you think, sister.

But he had to be careful here…hell hath no fury and all that.

Then he noticed the black shell dangling from the thong around her neck. The same size and shape as the one he’d found in his father’s hospital room. Even had a hole drilled at the hinge end. Had to be the same.

He pointed to the shell. “How’d you get that back?”

Semelee started and clutched the shell. Jack figured from the sudden widening of her eyes that she hadn’t wanted him to see it. Because that meant she’d visited the room a second time—and he didn’t like that one bit.

But if that were the case, why had she worn it around her neck and left the collar loose?

“What do you mean?” she said.

“I found it by my father’s bed in the hospital, right after you were there. When did you go back for it?”

“I…I didn’t.” She kept the shell wrapped in her fist. “I had two.”

“Oh.” That made Jack feel a little better—if she was telling the truth. “I guess I saw the other one then.”

“Where?” She grabbed his wrist. “Where’d you see it last?”

Jack was about to shrug and say he’d left it on the bedside table and assumed the housekeeping staff had chucked it out, but her tight grip on his arm and the intensity in her eyes made him hold off.

“I’m not sure. Let me think…”

Why was a damn shell so important?

He glanced around and noticed Carl was missing.

“Carl?” Jack broke Semelee’s grip on his arm as he rose to his feet and scanned the lagoon banks. “Hey, Carl! Where are you?”

“Never mind him,” Semelee said, rising with him. “What about that shell?”

Jack left her behind. He skirted the edge of the cenote and headed in the direction of the huts where he saw a number of the men sitting around the little fire, smoking, drinking, but Carl wasn’t among them.

Shit! Where was he?

He called his name a few more times but got no response. He asked the group by the fire where he was but they ignored him.

Jack’s gut began a little crawl. If they’d done anything to Carl it would be Jack’s fault for inducing him to come back here.

Luke strolled up to the fire. The men around it looked up, their mismatched eyes questioning, and he nodded to them.

“Where is he, Luke?” Jack said.

Luke didn’t look up, didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge Jack’s existence.

Jack’s concern boiled over into anger. He pulled the Glock and sent a round into the fire. The mini-explosion of ash and flaming embers scattered the men, sending them rolling and tumbling. Luke ducked away and faced him.

Now he had their attention.

“I’m going to say it once more, and this time I’d better get an answer: Where…is…Carl?”

“Right where he belongs,” Luke said. “With us.”

“He doesn’t want to be with you. He left, remember?”

“Maybe. But he’s had a change of heart. He’s gonna stay.”

Jack sensed movement around him. His peripheral vision caught about a dozen clan members scurrying toward him, armed with rifles and shotguns. Should have figured they’d be armed—couldn’t live out here and not do some hunting.

The newcomers didn’t seem to give Luke much of a boost in confidence, especially when Jack pointed the Glock at the center of his chest. “I want to hear that from him.”

Luke’s eyes darted left and right. He seemed about to say something when Semelee spoke up.

“Don’t worry, Luke. He ain’t gonna kill you.”

Jack glanced left and saw her standing a few feet away, smiling at him.

“Right, mister,” Luke said, licking his lips. “That’s because you’ll be full of holes if you do.”

“That won’t make you any less dead.”

“You won’t,” Semelee said to Jack. “I know it, and you know it.”

She was right. This wasn’t a killing situation. He lowered the pistol a few inches.

“Maybe not. But one of these hollowpoints can mess up a knee like you wouldn’t believe.”

Luke was sweating now. Taking one in the knee seemed to bother him more than one in the chest.

“Semelee…?”

“You won’t do that neither. Because we ain’t hurt Carl and we ain’t keepin’ him here but for a few days.”

“You’ve got no right to keep him a minute.”

“Yeah, we do,” Luke said, emboldened by the fact that Jack hadn’t pulled the trigger again. “He’s kin. He’s blood.”

“I promised I’d get him back home. I intend to keep that promise.”

“It’s only gonna be three days,” Semelee said. “We want him to stay for the lights. But I tell you what: You find my other shell and we’ll do a trade…the shell for Carl.”

“Semelee,” Luke said. “You got no right. Carl belongs here.”

She turned on him, eyes flashing. “What’s more important—givin’ Carl a light show or gettin’ my eye-shell back?”

Luke looked away and said nothin’.

Semelee turned to Jack. “So that’s the deal. How’s it set with you?”

“Lady, I don’t know where this shell of yours is. If I’d known it was going to matter, I’d have kept track of it.”

She pointed to Carl’s borrowed canoe. “Maybe you’d better start lookin’.”

Keeping his pistol trained on Luke, Jack considered his options. He had a few, but didn’t like any of them.

He could do a little shooting, but he could see how that could turn counterproductive. He could do his own search for Carl, but he’d be a stranger looking for someone who’d been stashed away by folks who knew every nook and cranny of the terrain. He could head back and take one of these guys with him, then trade him back for Carl; but Jack had no place to stash him.

Or he could go back and find the shell, which was one tall order.

Going back…there was another challenge. He wasn’t Woodsman Jack. The closest he ever wanted to get to outdoor life was a copy of Field & Stream.

“I don’t know the Everglades,” he said. “I’ll get lost out there.”

Semelee laughed, a musical sound, void of harshness or derision.

“No, you won’t. The drought ain’t left too many wet channels. Every time you come to a fork, just take the eastmost. It ain’t all that far.”

“And if I do find this shell, how will I let you know?”

“Easy. Just stand outside you daddy’s house and say, ‘I found the shell.’ I’ll hear you.”

Jack didn’t think she was lying, and that gave him the creeps.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go.” He hated to leave without Carl, but he’d be back. He also hated leaving without satisfying the reason he’d come here in the first place. “But I want to know something before I go: What have you got against my father?”

Semelee looked away, then back to him. “Nothin’.”

“Like hell. You folks tried to kill him the other night, and somehow sicced that freaky alligator on him yesterday. Let me ask you: What did he ever do to you?”

“We ain’t after him,” she said.

Jack caught Luke giving her a sharp look, but she didn’t see it.

“Why don’t I believe that?” Jack said.

She shrugged. “That’s up to you. But I tell you true, your daddy ain’t got nothin’ to fear from us.”

“How about me?” Jack said. “What happens when I turn my back on you and your clan?”

“Nothin’. You can’t find me my shell if you’re dead, now, can you.” She turned to the clan. “Ain’t that right, fellers.” They looked at one another but didn’t say much. Semelee’s expression turned fierce. “Ain’t that right ? Cause I hate to think what would happen to anybody who stopped this man from doin’ what I need him to do.”

Jack saw a lot of uneasy, fearful expressions as the men nodded and lowered their weapons.

What kind of hold did she have on them? What could that slim little woman threaten them with?

Taking a breath and hoping he wasn’t making a mistake, Jack holstered the Glock and walked back to the canoe. He stepped into the water, pushed off, and slid in. A couple of pulls got the engine going. He putted away, propelled by the weight of dozens of eyes on his back.

6

“Why’d you let him go?” Luke said.

Semelee stood on the bank and watched Jack’s retreating form as he turned the canoe left and disappeared around the bend.

“Told you why.”

“You believe him?”

She could hear lots of anger in his voice. She knew he was jealous, but she figgered his pride had got hurt bein’ on the wrong end of Jack’s gun.

“Yeah, I do.”

She wasn’t sure why, but she had the feeling that he’d thought there was only one shell until she told him otherwise.

“You’re actin’ like a fool, Semelee. We coulda gone lookin’ for that eye-shell ourselfs.”

“Yeah? Like where? Like how? We can’t go to the hospital and ask about it when I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. We can’t search his daddy’s place like he can.”

“We coulda tried. Way it stands now we ain’t never gonna see him or your other eye-shell again.”

“Oh, we’ll see him again…one way or the other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Didn’t you hear him? He said he promised Carl he’d get him back home. If he finds the shell he’ll be back to make the trade. But even if he don’t find it he’ll be comin’ for Carl. He’ll take him home again or spread a whole lotta hurt tryin’.”

Luke snorted. “What makes you think you know so much about him? You ain’t spoke to him but twice.”

She turned to him. “Let me tell you somethin’, Luke. That’s a man who keeps his promises.”

She’d seen that in his eyes. Not a lick of fear, just stubborn as all get out. And that made him all the more special. Brave and loyal, two traits any woman wanted in a man. But Jack wasn’t just any woman’s man. He was destined to be hers.

The way things was fallin’ into place…it was like it was all part of a plan. His daddy gets chosen to die, but he don’t. He lives and that brings Jack down here where he and Semelee can meet and be together. She lost an eye-shell, but now Jack was gonna find it, and that was gonna bring them even closer together.

“What do you need that other eye-shell so bad for anyway?” Luke said. “You been doin’ all right with just the one.”

“No, I ain’t. Ain’t the same. Much harder to keep control and see where I’m goin’. I need the two of them.”

“Awright awright. But you was kiddin’ bout layin’ off his daddy, right?”

“Wrong. We ain’t interested in his daddy no more.”

“But Se me—”

“We got us a new target.”

She didn’t know how, but Jack had somehow connected her and the clan to what had happened to his daddy. If his daddy got killed, he’d blame her, and that might keep them apart and wreck their destiny. No, she had a better victim, someone who needed killin’.

Luke was starin’ at her. “Who?”

“The old lady. She’ll be takin’ daddy’s place.”

7

How was he going to find that damn shell?

The question plagued Jack as he drove toward Novaton.

Semelee had been right: It hadn’t been all that hard to find his way back to the real world. He’d left the canoe beached by the air-boat dock and headed toward town. The clouds persisted but hadn’t dumped drop one of rain.

Where to start? The hospital was the obvious place, but Dad had checked himself out almost twenty-four hours ago. Jack was sure the room had been stripped and scrubbed by now. Probably even had a new occupant. That meant he might have to go pawing through the hospital’s Dumpsters.

He shook his head. Maybe if he had half a dozen people helping him they might—just might —come up with that shell. He doubted it.

He decided that before he gave the hospital another thought, he’d check out his dad’s place. Maybe by some freaky turn of good luck the shell had wound up there. But again, the chances—

If nothing else, he could get out of these sodden sneakers.

He’d stopped at a red light. A dump truck was turning in front of him, going the opposite way. He wouldn’t have given it a second thought except for the insignia on the door of the cab. It looked like a black sun…a shape that might be mistaken for the head of a black flower.

Jack would have hung a U right there if he’d been in the left lane. Instead he had to cut through two parking lots to turn himself around. By the time he was heading north, the truck was out of sight. Racing along as best he could in the Friday afternoon traffic, trying to catch up, he almost missed the truck parked in a Burger King lot.

Jack pulled in next to it and got out. It had been backed diagonally across two spaces at the rear of the lot where it was out of the way. The cab was empty but the big diesel engine was running. He checked out the logo—definitely a black sun. And beneath it: Wm. Blagden & Sons, Inc.

He walked around it. It sure as hell looked big enough to inflict heavy damage on any car, even a Grand Marquis. He wondered what the left end of the front bumper looked like.

Jack stopped and stared at the dent in the fender…and the streaks of silver paint ground into its black surface.

“Can I help you with something?” said a voice behind him.

Jack turned to find a prototypical truck driver—big cowboy hat, big gut, big belt buckle, big boots—walking his way with a bag of burgers in one hand and a travel mug of coffee in the other.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Just admiring the ding in your fender here.” A euphemism; the “ding” was a deep dent. “Looks pretty fresh.”

“It is. Best I can figure it must’ve happened Monday night when the truck was stolen.”

“Stolen? No kidding? By who?”

The driver unlocked the door to the cab, put the burgers and coffee inside, then shrugged.

“Damned if I know.” He rubbed his weather-beaten face. “Never happened to me before. After she got the first part of her load Monday evening, I locked her up and hit the hay. I got up the next morning and she was gone. Couple hours after I reported her missing the cops found her in a liquor store parking lot. I was so glad to get her back—I mean, you don’t know what kind of shit was gonna come down on me if she was gone for good—that I didn’t notice the ding till later.”

“You report it to the cops?”

“No. Why?”

“Because your rig might have been involved in a hit and run.”

His eyes narrowed. “You a cop or something?”

“Nope. Just an interested party.” He saw the questioning look on the trucker’s face. “My dad’s car took a wallop early Tuesday morning.”

“He okay?”

“Luckily, yeah.”

“Good.” He hauled himself into the cab. “Because I can’t hang around for no investigation. I ain’t running or nothing, but I got a schedule to keep.”

“I hear you,” Jack said.

He thought about stopping him but decided against it. If his story was true—and Jack sensed it was—what good would it do? If he hadn’t reported his truck stolen, Jack could call Hernandez and the Novaton cops would pick him up.

Of course, the reported theft could have been a cover, but Jack doubted that.

As the cab door slammed shut, Jack said, “What’re you hauling?”

“Sand.”

“Where to?”

“North Jersey.”

Jersey? Jersey was loaded with sand.

“What the hell for?”

The driver shrugged. “I don’t set up the jobs or choose the loads; I just get it where it wants to go.”

Then Jack remembered Luke saying something about Semelee sucking all the sand out of the cenote and selling it. Could this be…?

“Where’d you get the sand?”

Another shrug. “It got boated in from somewheres in the swamp. That’s all I know.”

With that he threw the truck into first and headed for the exit.

Jack watched him go. He made a mental note of the company name. Wm. Blagden & Sons. He might look them up when he got back north, maybe find out who’d hired them. Shipping sand from a Florida nexus point to New Jersey…he couldn’t imagine the reason, but it couldn’t be good.

He started back toward his car. At least now he knew what had hit his father’s Marquis. And he had a pretty good idea who had been driving it.

But he still didn’t know why. Had a pretty good idea about that too, and hoped to nail that down this afternoon.

8

By the time Jack reached Gateways South he’d stopped at a local hardware store for a roll of duct tape, then called the Novaton Police where he reached Anita Nesbitt. After a quick check she told him that, yes, on Tuesday morning a dump truck had been reported stolen during the night and was found shortly thereafter.

Okay. So Wm. Blagden & Sons, Inc., was covered.

Jack parked in the cul-de-sac and hurried into his father’s place.

His father was watching TV. Classic ESPN was running the 1980 Wimbledon slugfest between Borg and McEnroe. McEnroe was screaming at himself for missing a bullet passing shot.

He looked up at Jack and grinned. “Right about now I bet McEnroe wishes Borg had never been Bjorn.”

Normally Jack would have groaned, but a bad pun was a good sign. His father loved puns. He was getting back to normal.

He looked down at Jack’s muddy sneakers and still-wet jeans. “What happened to you?”

“Took a little boat trip.”

“You went boating? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have—”

“It wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip. Look, Dad, do you remember seeing a little black shell in your hospital room?”

He frowned. “No. When would this have been?”

“I found it the day before you woke up. It was black, oblong, had a little hole drilled in the hinge.”

Please remember. Please…

Dad was shaking his head. “Sorry. Never saw anything like that.”

Jack suppressed a groan. He’d have to try the hospital next.

Hospital…Jack remembered the plastic bag of sundries that Anya had thrown together as his father was signing himself out. He knew it wasn’t in his car. Had he brought it in?

“Did you see a bag of goodies from the hospital? You know, toothpaste, mouthwash—”

“Oh, that. I threw it out.”

“You didn’t see a shell in there?”

“I didn’t really look. I mean, I glanced inside but I don’t use any of those brands so I tossed it out.”

Maybe…maybe…Jack didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“Where? In the kitchen?”

“Well, yes, at first. But this morning I tossed the kitchen bag into the can out back. Look, what’s so important—?”

Jack didn’t wait for him to finish. He dashed outside and around to the back porch. The green plastic garbage can sat to the left on a small concrete slab. Just his luck, Friday would be garbage pickup day and the shell—if it was in there—was on its way to the county dump.

But no. The can was empty except for one white plastic bag. Jack untied the top and poked around until he found the bag from the hospital. He yanked it out and pawed through the sample-size toiletries. He sent out a silent prayer to the patron saint of garbage that he’d find the shell within, but it wasn’t looking good…

And then he reached the bottom and felt something hard and rough edged. He pulled it out—

“Yes!”

He had it. Now Carl could come home. But first Jack had to arrange an exchange. He shook his head. A shell for a human being…what kind of a deal was that?

What had Semelee told him to do? Stand outside his father’s house and announce that he’d found it. Riiiight. But she’d said she’d hear him, and she probably could. Jack’s Doubting Thomas days were over. Anything goes.

“Okay,” he said aloud, feeling foolish but forcing himself to go on. “I’ve found the shell. Did you catch that? I’ve found it. Tell me how we make the trade.”

Now what? He supposed he’d have to wait until Semelee got in touch with him.

Pocketing the shell, he turned and found Dad staring at him through the back porch jalousies. He wore the same perplexed expression as when Jack had unpacked those stuffed animals from Abe. Maybe more perplexed this time.

Probably thinks I’m doing drugs.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Are you okay, Jack?”

No, he thought. I’m not. Someday I’d like to be, but at the moment…

“I’m fine.”

His father pushed open the porch door. “Come back in this way. It’s shorter.”

Jack took a step toward the porch, then remembered again that it was Anya who’d packed up the bag. Had she known…?

He glanced toward her place and noticed a figure stretched out on a lounge in the front yard.

“Be with you in a minute,” he said. “I want to say hello to Anya.”

As Jack crossed onto the green grass, Oyv trotted up to meet him, wagging his tail in welcome. The dog escorted him toward Anya, but Jack slowed, letting Oyv pull ahead as he noticed that Anya was topless.

She lay face down on a towel on the lounge cushion, dressed only in lime-colored Bermuda shorts, baking her bare back in the afternoon sun. He was about to turn away when he noticed a pattern of red marks on her exposed skin. He took a step closer and…

Jack bit his upper lip. They looked like burn marks…and crisscrossing her skin between them were thin, angry red lines, as if someone had been stubbing out cigarettes on her back and then whipping her with a fine lash.

Jack wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. He had to stay and stare, horrified, yet fascinated.

Anya’s voice startled him.

“A map of my pain,” she said without looking up. “See what he does to me?”

“Who?”

“You know. The Adversary. The One.”

Oh, yeah. The One…whose True Name Jack wasn’t supposed to know.

“But how? Why?”

“I’ve told you the why: Because I hinder his path. As to the how…he has many ways, and they are all written here, on my back.”

“But how do those burns, those cuts get there?”

“They simply appear. They map his efforts to destroy me.”

Jack shook his head to clear it. “I’m not following. What is he doing to destroy you?”

“Help me with this towel,” she said. “Fold the ends over my back.”

Jack did as she asked, allowing her to wrap the towel around her upper torso as she rose to a sitting position.

“Talk to me,” Jack said.

Anya shook her gray head. “You have your own concerns. Those you should be worrying about. And besides, what can you do to help? Nothing. This I must face on my own.”

“Try me.”

He liked this old lady. He wanted to help her, do something to lighten her load.

“It’s all right, Jack. The sun makes it feel better. The rays don’t heal me, but they lessen the pain.” She rose to her feet. “I’m going in to lie down.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m better than I was this morning and I’ll be even better by tonight.”

“Will you be up for drinks later? We’ll do it at my father’s place this time.”

She shook her head. “Not tonight. But tomorrow definitely.”

Jack watched her and Oyv enter the leafy interior of her house, then, feeling sad and angry and helpless, he turned away.

9

Jack had lounged around with his father, dodging questions about the toys and the shell until his father nodded off in his recliner. An afternoon nap—one of the great pleasures in life. But Jack couldn’t indulge today. He had to wait for word from Semelee.

But that wasn’t the only matter on his afternoon schedule.

He stepped into his father’s bedroom and dialed Ramsey Weldon’s office. He learned from the receptionist that Mr. Weldon was on another line. Would he care to leave a message?

“No. When can I call back?”

“Well, he’ll probably be leaving in a half hour or so.”

Jack thanked her, hung up, then went out to his car.

The duct tape he’d bought earlier sat on the front seat in a flimsy white plastic bag emblazoned with the Novaton Hardware logo. He snatched it up, bag and all. As he was closing the door he spotted an envelope on the floor by the passenger seat. He picked it up and checked the contents.

Carl’s five hundred dollars.

He’d trusted Jack enough to leave it in the car for safekeeping. He’d also trusted Jack to bring him back.

“I’ve got your damn shell,” Jack said aloud. “I’m ready to trade.”

He glanced at his watch. Couldn’t wait around here any longer. He set off on a stroll toward the administration building.

This time he could walk in the open and say hello to passers-by instead of ducking into the bushes every time someone approached. When he reached the parking lot, his heart gave a kick when he didn’t see Weldon’s Crown Imperial, but eased back when he spotted a ’57 DeSoto in Weldon’s space. This guy had some neat cars.

Jack strolled over to it. A four-door Firedome with a glossy turquoise body, white roof and side panels, big chrome bumpers, whitewall tires, and those fins—humongous wedge-shaped projections, each fitted with a vertical row of three rocketlike red lights that made the car look like a spaceship. Jack peered inside. White-and-turquoise upholstery and a dash-mounted rearview mirror.

What was wrong with Detroit—or Japan or Germany, for that matter? Why the hell didn’t they make cars like this anymore?

He hung around the DeSoto, studying it from every angle for what seemed like forever before Weldon showed up. He wore a pale beige silk suit today, so pale it was almost white.

“Another beauty, Mr. Weldon,” he said.

Weldon grinned. “Tom’s son, right? Jack?”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

“And you’ve got excellent taste in cars. How’s your father?”

“Doing great. He came home yesterday.”

Weldon’s cheek twitched. “Really? I had no idea. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“I don’t think anyone else knows.” Jack ran his fingers lightly along the DeSoto’s right front fender. “Say, would you mind giving me a little ride in this baby?”

Weldon shook his head. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to get straight home.”

Jack opened the door and slipped into the passenger seat. “That’s okay. Just drive me to the front gate and I’ll walk back. I need the exercise.”

Weldon didn’t look happy about it, but Jack hadn’t left him much choice.

The interior was like a furnace. Jack cranked down his window as Weldon fired her up and backed out of his space.

“Smooth ride,” Jack said once they were rolling.

“Torsion-Air suspension.”

Jack watched him closely as he asked the next question. “You ever hear of a woman named Semelee?”

Weldon’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, whitening the knuckles. His right cheek twitched as it had before.

“No, can’t say as I have. Is she one of our residents?”

“Nope. Too young for Gateways. Lives out in the Glades with a bunch of funny looking guys. She’s got this snow white hair. You’d remember her if you ever met her. You sure you don’t know her?”

Weldon looked ready to jump out of his skin and his forehead was beaded with sweat. It was hot in the car, but not that hot.

“Quite sure,” he said.

“You’re sure you’re sure?”

“Yes! How many times do I have to tell you that?” He began to brake. “Well, here’s the gate. I hope you enjoyed—”

“Keep driving.”

“I told you. I have to—”

Jack pulled out the Glock and held it in his lap, pointed in the general direction of Weldon’s gut.

“You’ll be in a world of gut-shot hurt if this happens to go off. Think Reservoir Dogs. So keep driving. We haven’t finished our chat. Smile and wave to the nice guard. That’s right. Now…let’s head out to where my father had his accident.”

“Where’s that?” Now Weldon was really sweating.

“You don’t know? Pemberton and South Road.”

“But there’s nothing out there.”

“I know.”

“This is illegal, this is carjacking, it’s kidnapping, it’s—”

“It’s happening. Relax. Don’t fight it and we’ll have a nice ride.”

“If you want the car, take it.”

“I don’t want the car.”

“Then…then why are you doing this?”

Jack let him stew in his juices for a while before responding.

“Just wanted to ask you what you know about people who’ve been dying at Gateways South.” Weldon opened his mouth to reply but Jack held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t want to hear any bullshit about them being elderly and what can you expect. I’m talking about three spouseless people in excellent health—your own doctor said so—who’ve suffered death by mishap over the past nine months. At a rate of one every three months. I’m sure you know their names: Adele Borger, Joseph Leo, and Edward Neusner.”

Weldon had turned pale. He looked as if he might be getting sick.

“Of course I know their names. Those were terrible tragedies.”

“My father would have made number four, and right on schedule. Know anything about that, Mr. Weldon?”

“No, of course not. How could I?”

That did it. Jack looked around, saw no other cars in sight. This was as good a place as any.

He made Weldon pull over, then he got out and made him slide to the passenger side—easy with the bench seat.

“Now, put your hands behind your back.”

“W-w-what are you going to do?”

“I’m g-g-gonna tape your wrists together.”

“No!”

Jack grabbed a handful of Weldon’s longish dark hair. “Look. We can do this the easy way—which is you doing what I tell you—or the hard way, which means I have to shoot you in the hip or through the thigh or something equally messy and bloody and keep on doing that until you cooperate. Me, I don’t like getting splattered with blood. The stains are almost impossible to get out. So I prefer neat and easy to messy and bloody. How about you?”

Weldon sobbed and put his hands behind his back.

Jack duct taped his wrists together, then his knees, then his ankles. That done, he took over the driver seat and put the DeSoto back in motion. He pointed it toward town and kept hammering at Weldon about the three dead folks, his father, and Semelee. Weldon kept stonewalling him. Finally Jack pulled up before the locked gates to the limestone quarry.

“So,” he said. “You don’t know nuttin’ ’bout nuttin’, is that it?”

“Please. I don’t. Really. You’ve got to believe me.”

Jack didn’t.

“This is going to hurt me almost as much as it hurts you.”

With that he gunned the DeSoto and rammed it against the gates. Weldon cried out as the chain snapped and the gates flew back.

“The bumpers! The chrome!”

Jack turned the car left onto the steep grade of the narrow road that ran down into the pit. A rough limestone wall loomed to his left. He didn’t want to do it—he hated himself for doing it—but forced his hands to turn the steering wheel and drag the left side of the car against the stone.

“My God, no!” Weldon cried.

“Sorry.” And he was.

As they reached the bottom of the quarry Jack didn’t quite make the turn, ramming the front end into an outcropping of stone. The impact stopped the car short, hurling Weldon off the seat and into the dashboard. Without a seat belt or his hands to protect him, he hit hard, then flopped back against the seat.

“Whoa,” Jack said. “That must have hurt. But probably just a fraction of what my father felt when that truck clocked his car out on South Road.” He looked around. “Let’s see. We’ve remodeled the left side, let’s see what we can do with the right.”

Between getting a taste of what his dad had gone through that night and realizing what he was doing to this beautiful, classic, innocent car, Jack was having trouble keeping his tone light.

“No, please!” Weldon screamed.

Jack accelerated and rammed the right front end against another outcropping. Once again Weldon went flying forward, this time hard enough to catch his chest on the dashboard and his head against the windshield. He wound up on the floor instead of the seat.

Weldon was sobbing now. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you about it, but you’re not going to believe it.”

“Try me.” Jack threw the on-the-column automatic shift into neutral and set the emergency brake. “You’d be amazed at what I can believe.”

Weldon struggled back into his seat. A blue-black goose egg was swelling under the hair that hung over on his forehead. He held his back-tied hands toward Jack.

“Please?”

Jack pulled out his Spyderco folder and slit the tape. He left the knife open and in hand.

“Don’t get any ideas. Now talk.”

Weldon sagged back. His neck bowed against the top of the backrest as he looked at the ceiling.

“It was just about this time last year that the white-haired woman you mentioned, Semelee, called me with this crazy story, a demand that Gateways make sacrifices to the Everglades. Figuring this was some clumsy sort of local shakedown I asked her what kind of sacrifices. She said…human.”

He glanced at Jack. If he was expecting to see shock or incredulity, he was disappointed. Jack had half expected something like this.

“And you laughed her off.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t you? It was ridiculous. Or so I thought then. But she wouldn’t quit. She kept calling me, at the office, at home, on my cell phone, going on about how Gateways South had encroached too near the ‘lagoon’—I still don’t know what lagoon she was talking about—and that the Everglades was angry and demanded sacrificial victims. Four a year. Ridiculous, right? But she kept after me, saying that I, as head of Gateways, must make the offering. By that she meant, choose the victim. All I had to do was point out a resident and the lagoon would do the rest. If I didn’t, the lagoon would choose one for me—from my own family.”

“And so you caved.”

“No. At least not yet. As soon as she threatened my family, I went to the police. Since I had only a voice on the phone, and couldn’t tell them what she looked like or where she lived, all they could do was keep an eye out for her and do regular patrols past my house.”

“And I take it that didn’t work.”

Weldon shook his head. “That same night, my son was bitten by a brown recluse spider and had to be rushed to the hospital—he was only three and almost lost his arm. And right there, in Kevin’s hospital room, the woman calls me on my cell phone and says this was just a warning. Had I changed my mind? I hung up but she called right back and asked me if my daughter was afraid of snakes. And if not, she should be.” Weldon rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve got to tell you, that spooked me. I don’t know how she knew about the spider bite, I don’t know how she got a brown recluse close enough to my son to bite him, but I was really spooked.”

Jack couldn’t blame him. He knew how he’d felt when Vicky had been threatened.

“Did you go back to the cops?”

“What for? I couldn’t tell them any more then than before. So I took matters into my own hands. I packed up my wife and both kids and sent them to stay with my in-laws in Woodstock, right outside Atlanta. I figured putting them hundreds of miles away in a different town, a different state, would keep them safe.” He shook his head. “The very first day there Laurie was bitten by a copperhead and almost died. After spending a week up north, waiting for Laurie to be released from the hospital, I finally returned home—alone, because I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing them back here until I’d dealt with this woman.”

“Obviously you didn’t succeed.”

“Not for lack of trying. When I got home I found this young woman with white hair waiting in my backyard. She was sitting with her back to me, holding her hands up to her face, and in an instant I knew who she was. I grabbed the revolver I keep in the top of our bedroom closet and went out to her. I was going to shoot her, so help me, I was, but as soon as I raised the pistol I was attacked by a swarm of bees and—”

“Killer bees?”

Weldon nodded. “Only they didn’t sting me enough to kill me. They concentrated on my face and my gun hand and didn’t let up until I’d dropped it. Then she turned and I saw her face for the first time. I was surprised that she was so young. From her white hair I’d assumed she’d be some old witch, but she was young and—”

“Not bad looking. I know.”

“You’ve met her then. How did you—?”

“Let’s stick to you. What did you do then?”

“What could I do? She told me I already had two strikes against me. I still remember her words: ‘Strike three and your wife is out.’ What else could I do? Tell me you would have done any different.”

“My approach to settling problems differs a bit from the average.”

“I don’t know how, but this woman somehow controls snakes, insects, birds, and who knows what else? Don’t you see the position I was in?”

Jack stared at Weldon. No question, the guy had been thrust into an appalling situation: Finger a relative stranger for death or lose a family member. A no-brainer, but also a no-win.

“I see that a man has to put his family before strangers, which is regrettably acceptable. But when one of those strangers is my father, we have a problem.” Jack jabbed the knife blade at Weldon’s face, stopping the point an inch from his nose. “We have even more of a problem when it becomes clear that you took an awful predicament and used it to turn a quick buck.”

“I did no such thing!”

Weldon cowered back, pressing himself against the door as the knife point touched the tip of his nose.

“Now’s not the time for lies, bozo.” Jack was doing his best to check his flaring rage. “I could go along with you doing what you had to if you’d picked out the sickest Gateways folks, the ones with the shortest life expectancy. But you didn’t do that. Instead you picked ones who were not only the healthiest, but were unattached, guaranteeing that their homes would go back on the market years, maybe even a decade or two before their natural time.”

“No!”

“Yes!” The word hissed through Jack’s teeth. “Yes, you son of a bitch! You fingered people whose deaths would turn you a profit! And one of them was my father!”

Weldon’s face crumpled. His eyes squeezed shut and he began to sob.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Three innocent people are dead and my father was put in a coma, and that’s all you can say?” He wanted to drop the knife and throttle him. “Get out!”

Weldon looked at him. “What?”

“Get out, you pathetic bastard. Out before I cut you.”

Weldon fumbled behind him for the latch. As the door swung open, Jack raised his right leg and kicked him. Hard.

“Out!”

Weldon fell out the door and landed on his back in the limestone powder and rubble. Without bothering to close the door, Jack threw the DeSoto into gear and hit the gas. He gunned the car into a tire-spinning turn, then raced back toward where Weldon was staggering to his feet. He let him scramble out of the way. Despite Jack’s dark urge to maim, maybe even kill the man, Weldon wasn’t worth the hassle.

He tore up the steep roadway out of the pit and onto the street. He knew Weldon wouldn’t be going to the police about this; he’d fear it would draw a loot of unwanted attention to the deaths at Gateways. Let him find his own way home.

As he passed the trailer park he pulled in. An impulse. He spotted Carl’s junker parked by a mildewed trailer. He got out and checked the door. Locked. He lifted the lid of a garbage can by the steps and found take out containers—KFC, Chinese, Domino’s. He pulled out his wallet as he scoped the area. No one about so he slipped the door latch with his MasterCard. Inside he closed the door behind him and looked around. He wasn’t sure why he was here. Just an urge to know a little more about Carl.

The air conditioner was off and the trailer smelled faintly of old food and sweat. The kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom lay to the left, the main room to the right. He noticed the disassembled remnants of Big Mouth Billy Bass, the singing fish, on the kitchen counter, neatly stored in a little box. Jack was struck by how clean the place was. Carl had said he loved his little trailer, and it showed.

In the main room sat a good-size TV. It looked like at least a twenty-seven-incher—pan-o-ramic, one might say. A battered Naugahyde recliner sat before it. The thick Direct TV program guide for September lay open on the seat, marked up with a yellow pen. Jack picked it up and saw that Carl had highlighted Survivor, Fear Factor, Boot Camp, Big Brother…secondhand living.

But that seemed good enough for Carl.

Jack shrugged. Whatever gets you through the night…

But nowhere in the trailer was there a sign of who Carl was. No family pictures, no sign that he had a past. Maybe his past wasn’t anything he wanted to remember.

Jack stepped out, locked the door, and drove back toward Gateways. He turned off the road and parked in the trees next to the security fence. He noticed other tire tracks nearby. After wiping down the steering wheel, gearshift, door and window handles, he stepped up on the hood and went over the fence.

Easy. Too easy. Semelee’s clan could do the same with their pickup.

Semelee…As he walked back to his father’s house he ran the Semelee situation back and forth and sideways through his head, looking for a solution.

He agreed with Weldon on one point: Semelee seemed to be able to control the swamp creatures. How, Jack didn’t know, but he’d bet it had something to do with the nexus point at the lagoon. She’d used that power to commit perfect murders—“sacrifices,” as she’d put it to Weldon—in plain view without anyone suspecting that a human agent lay behind the attacks. No question in Jack’s mind that she was behind the palmetto swarm and the alligator attack as well.

She had to be stopped, that much was clear. He had no idea how, but he’d worry about that later. The first thing he had to do was put Carl back in his trailer…his home.

10

“There you are,” Dad said as Jack stepped through the door. He’d obviously awakened from his nap. Looked like he’d showered and shaved too. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there. Did anyone call or come by while I was out?”

He shook his head. “No. All quiet. You’re expecting someone?”

Jack hid his frustration. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“Well, I need to do some grocery shopping. How about driving me down to the Publix so I can stock up?”

“How about I give you the keys and stay here? In case that call comes, or someone shows up.”

“Are you in some sort of trouble, Jack? Because if you are, maybe I can help.”

Jack laughed and hoped it didn’t sound as forced as it felt. “Trouble? No, not me. But someone I know might be in a little.”

“What kind?”

Jack knew he’d been acting strange—at least in his father’s eyes—but he wasn’t used to all these questions, or having his comings and goings noted and commented on.

This is why I live alone.

“You might say it’s a kind of family thing.”

“Do those toys have anything to do with it?”

“It might come down to that.”

Dad sighed and dropped into his recliner. “You are the hardest person to talk to, Jack. You were a great kid, but now you’re a stranger. It’s like you don’t want to know me or me to know you. You’ve got this wall around you. Is that my fault? Did I do something…?”

This was painful. Jack could see the hurt in his father’s troubled eyes.

“Absolutely not. It’s me. It’s just the way I am.”

“But it’s not the way you were.”

Jack shrugged. “People change. You must know that.”

“No. I don’t. Most people don’t change. Kate didn’t change. And Tom didn’t—although it might not be such a bad thing if he had. But you—you’re a completely different person.”

Jack could only shrug again. He wanted off this uncomfortable topic.

“Enough about me. How about you, Dad? How are you getting on down here?”

His father gave him a long, baffled stare, then shook his head.

“Me? I guess I’m doing pretty well. I like the climate enough, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I made a mistake moving down here. Sometimes I wonder why I ever left Jersey.”

“I’d wondered the same thing. So did Kate.”

“I’ve never been the impulsive sort, but this was an impulse. A Gateways South brochure came in the mail one day and that was it. I took one look and had to be here. The graduated care aspect and the idea of never being a burden appealed to me…appealed to me so much it became an obsession that took hold and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t get it out of my head that this was the place for me. I sold the old house and reinvested some of the money in this place and…” He spread his hands. “Here I am.”

“From what Anya told me while you were in your coma, it sounds as if you’ve gotten into the swing of things down here.”

“I have. I’ve had to. I had it in my head that Kate and Tom would jump at the chance to gather up the grandkids and come down to Florida to visit. But only Kate did that. And only once. Everyone’s so busy these days. So I made a choice: I can sit before the TV and ossify, or get up and about and do things while I still can. I figure I’d rather be a moving target than a stationary one.”

Target, Jack thought. Helluva word choice, Dad. If you only knew…

Dad was shaking his head. “But as nice as it is, I still can’t believe I sold the family home and left my kids and grandkids up north to move down here. I know not being a burden was a big part of it, but really…what was I thinking?”

Something in the words sent a chill through Jack. His father had done something he didn’t quite understand…developed a compulsion to move down here, to this particular development, right outside the Everglades, close to the lagoon where Semelee and her clan lived…

…close to a nexus point.

Hadn’t Carl told him that he’d developed a yearning—an “ache,” as he put it—to get back to the place where he’d been born, back to the lagoon…?

Back to that same nexus point.

Coincidence?

He’d been told there’d be no more coincidences in his life.

Was someone or some thing moving pieces around the board—Jack’s board?

But wait…Anya had said she’d done part time work addressing brochures. Had she sent one to his father? Had she influenced him to come down here? So she could—what?—protect him?

Jack’s head spun. One thing he knew was he wanted his father out of here, out of Gateways, out of the whole damn state.

“Nothing says you can’t go back. In fact, I think you should. I’m sure Jersey’s got a load of graduated care places, if that’s what you want.”

Dad stood silent a moment, then, “I don’t know. I’d feel like an old fool.”

“Which is more foolish: admitting you made a mistake and rectifying it, or hanging around a place you don’t like?”

“When you put it that way…” He shook his head. “I’ll have to think about it.” He clapped his hands. “But no matter what I decide, we have to eat tonight. I’ll run out and get eggs and cheese and some ham. I make a mean omelet. How’s that sound for dinner?”

“Perfect.”

With a pang of reluctance, Jack gave him the keys to his rental. He had an urge to go with him, to not let him out on his own unprotected, but Semelee had said he wasn’t a target, and he believed her. She’d had Jack at her mercy—outnumbered and outgunned—when she’d said it, so she’d had no reason to lie.

11

As soon as he was alone, Jack pulled out the toys. He inspected them for repaired seams, found one on each, and slit it open. He removed the sundry weapons Abe had sent him and, armed with a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench, hid them around the house.

Then he called Gia. She and Vicky and the baby were doing fine.

“When are you coming home, Jack?” Vicky asked. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Vicks, and I’ll be home as soon as I can. As soon as I know my dad’s okay.”

He seemed okay now, but it would take a little doing to make sure he stayed that way.

Still no word from the clan. Jack stepped outside and looked around. The sun lay low over the Everglades, brushing the fringe of the far-off hardwood hummock. He wondered if that was the same hummock that housed the lagoon and his nexus point. If so, he might see these mysterious lights tonight.

“I’ve got your damn shell!” he shouted into the fading light. “Let’s do this!”

Then he waited, not really expecting anything, but hoping. After a moment of listening to frogs and crickets, he turned to go back inside. He noticed a light on at Anya’s. Maybe she’d like to come over for dinner.

His knocks went unanswered, even by Oyv, so Jack stepped around to the side window. There he saw her and Oyv sleeping in front of the TV, in the same positions they’d been in Wednesday night. Again, they looked dead. But he kept watching until he caught Anya taking a breath.

He was halfway back to the house when he saw his rental car pull into the parking area. He angled that way and arrived in time to carry a couple of the grocery sacks.

“I picked up some scallions,” Dad said as they were unpacking. “I figured that would add a little extra flavor.”

“You’ve become a regular Chef Boyardee.”

“Had to learn some cooking. When you live alone, you can get awful tired of frozen dinners and fast food. And it gives me something to do at night.” He looked at Jack. “Nights are always the hardest.”

Jack wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to tell him he was sorry about that but sensed his father wasn’t looking for pity. He’d merely been stating a fact.

So Jack ducked it. “Hey, want me to slice those scallions?”

“Sure,” Dad said with a grin. “Think you can slice them nice and fine?”

He washed them off, then handed Jack a slim knife and a cutting board. Jack positioned himself on the other side of the counter and began slicing.

“Hey,” Dad said. “You’re pretty handy with that blade.”

“I’m a super sous chef.” He’d picked up a lot from helping Gia cook.

“While you’re doing that, I’ll open this bottle of Chardonnay I’ve had in the fridge. Been saving it for a special occasion.”

“Omelets are a special occasion?”

“Company is a special occasion, especially when it’s one of my sons.”

Jack realized then with a pang how lonely his father was.

“Can I ask you something, Dad?”

“Sure.” He’d pulled a pale bottle from the refrigerator and was twisting a corkscrew into its top. “Go ahead.”

“Why didn’t you ever remarry?”

“Good question. Kate always asked me that, always encouraged me to get into a new relationship. But…” He grabbed two glasses and half filled them. “There’s more where this came from, by the way.”

Jack got the feeling he was trying to stall, or maybe even evade an answer. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

“You were saying about not remarrying?”

He sighed. “Having your mother taken away like that—one moment she’s sitting next to me in the car, next moment there’s blood all over her and no one can save her. She’s…gone. You were there. You knew what it was like.”

Jack nodded. His knife picked up speed, slicing the scallions faster, harder, thinner.

Dad shook his head. “I never got over it. Your mother was special, Jack. We were a team. We did everything together. The bond was more than love, it was…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how to describe it. ‘Soul mate’ is such a hackneyed term, but that pretty well describes what she was to me.”

He pulled a carving knife from a drawer and started dicing the thick slice of cured ham he’d bought.

“And let me tell you, Jack, the grief over losing someone that close to you, it doesn’t just go away, you know. At least it didn’t for me. Something like that happens and people pepper you with all sorts of platitudes—it got to the point where I wanted to punch out the next person who said, ‘She’s in a better place.’ I almost committed murder on that one. Then there was, ‘At least you had her for a little while.’ I didn’t want her for a little while. I wanted her forever.”

Jack was moved by the depth of his feeling. This was a side his father kept hidden.

“If I can use an equally hackneyed phrase: She wouldn’t have wanted you to spend the rest of your life alone.”

“I haven’t been completely alone. I’ve allowed myself short-term relationships, and I’ve taken comfort in them. But a long-term relationship…that would be like telling your mother she can be replaced. And she can’t.”

Heavy going here. Jack tossed off the rest of his wine and poured them both some more, all the while trying to think of an adequate response.

His Dad saved him by pointing the carving knife at Jack’s chest.

“Your mother,” he said. “That’s it, isn’t it. I’ve always suspected that it made you a little crazy, but now I want to hear it from you. I remember you at the wake and the funeral. Like a zombie, hardly speaking to anyone. You were never a momma’s boy. Far from it. You were closest to Kate. But to see your mother killed by violence, to have her bleeding and dying in your arms…there’s no shame in having a breakdown after what happened. No one should have to go through that. No one.”

Jack gulped more of his wine. He could feel it hitting him. He’d had nothing to eat since breakfast and the alcohol was jumping directly into his bloodstream. So what? And why not?

“I agree that no one should have to go through that. But it wasn’t Mom’s death that put me on the road.”

“What then? It’s driven me crazy for the past fifteen years. What made you disappear?”

“Not her death. Another death.”

“Whose?”

“I was pissed at everyone back then for not finding the guy who’d dropped that cinder block. The state cops were going on about keeping an eye on the overpasses, but it takes a lot of effort to track down someone who commits a random act of violence. And they had better things to do—like ticketing speeders on the Turnpike. God forbid we drive above the limit. And you, you weren’t doing anything but talking about what should happen to the murdering bastard when they caught him. Only it wasn’t a ‘when,’ it was an ‘if’—an ‘if’ that was never going to happen.”

Jack finished the glass and poured himself some more, killing the bottle.

Dad looked up from the ham. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Something. Anything.”

“Like what? Go out and track him down myself?”

“Why not?” Jack said. “I did.”

Oh, shit, he thought. Did I just say that?

“You what ?”

Jack raced through his options here. Say never mind and stonewall it? Or go ahead and tell all. Abe was the only other person on earth who knew.

But now the wine and a cranky, don’t-give-a-shit mood pushed him to let it roll. He sucked in a deep breath.

Here goes.

“I tracked him down and took care of him.”

Jack thought he saw Dad’s hand tremble as he put down the carving knife. His expression was tight, his eyes bright and wide behind his glasses.

“Just how…I’m not sure I want to hear this but…just how did you take care of him?”

“I saw to it that he never did anything like that again.”

Dad closed his eyes. “Tell me you broke his arms, or smashed his elbows.”

Jack said nothing.

Dad opened his eyes and stared at him. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Jack…Jack, you didn’t…”

Jack nodded.

Dad sidled left to one of the counter stools and slumped on it. He cradled his head in his hands, staring down at the pile of sliced scallions.

“Oh, my God.” His voice was a moan. “Oh, my God.”

Here it comes, Jack thought. The shock, the outrage, the revulsion, the moral repugnance. He wished now he could take it back, but he couldn’t, so…

He walked around the counter, past his father’s bent back, opened the refrigerator, and took out another bottle of wine.

“How did you know it was him?” Dad said. “I mean, how could you be sure?”

Without bothering to remove the black lead foil, Jack wound the screw through it and into the cork.

“He told me. Name was Ed, and he bragged about it.”

“Ed…so, the shit had a name.”

Jack blinked. Other than hell and damn, his father had always been scrupulous about four-letter words. At least when Jack was a kid.

He lifted his head but didn’t look at Jack. “How?” He licked his lips. “How did you do it?”

“Tied him up and dangled him by his feet off the same overpass. Made him a human piñata for the big trucks going by below.”

The cork popped from the bottle as Jack remembered seeing Ed swinging over the road, the meaty thunk! as the first truck hit him, then the second.

Music. Heavy metal.

Dad was finally looking at him. “That’s why you left, isn’t it. Because you’d committed murder. You should have stayed, Jack. You should have come to me. I would have helped you. You didn’t have to spend all those years dealing with that guilt alone.”

“Guilt?” Jack said, pouring more wine for both of them. “No guilt. What did I have to feel guilty about? No guilt, no remorse. Send me back in time to relive that night and I’d do the same thing.”

“Then why on earth did you just take off like that?”

Jack shrugged. “You want an eloquent, thoughtful, soul-searching answer? I don’t have one. It seemed to make sense at the time. From that moment on the world looked different, seemed like another place, and I didn’t belong. Plus I was disgusted with just about everything. I wanted out. So I got out. End of story.”

“And this creep, this Ed…why didn’t you call the police?”

“That’s not the way I work.”

Dad squinted at him. “Work? What does that mean?”

Jack didn’t want to go there.

“Because they’d have carted him off and then let him out on bail, and then let him plead down to a malicious mischief charge.”

“You’re exaggerating. He’d have done hard time.”

“Hard time wouldn’t cut it. He needed killing.”

“So you killed him.”

Jack nodded and sipped his wine.

Dad started waving his arms. “Jack, do you have any idea what could have happened to you? The chance you took? What if somebody saw you? What if you’d been caught?”

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but something in his father’s words and tone stopped him. He was going on about…he seemed more concerned about the possible consequences of the killing rather than the killing itself. Where was the outrage, the middle-class repugnance for deliberate murder?

“Dad? Tell me you wish I hadn’t killed him.”

His father pressed a hand over his eyes. Jack saw his lips tremble and thought he was going to sob.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “I never should have told you.”

Dad looked at him with wet eyes. “Never? I wish you’d told me back then! I’ve spent the last fifteen years thinking he was still out there, unnamed, unknown, some kind of wraith I’d never get my hands on. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake and imagined my hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.”

Jack couldn’t hide his shock. “I thought you’d be horrified if you knew what I’d done.”

“No, Jack. The real horror was losing you all those years. Even if you’d been caught, you could have pled temporary insanity or something like that and got off with a short sentence. At least then I’d have known where you were and could have visited you.”

“Better for you, maybe.”

A jolt in the joint, even a short one…unthinkable.

“I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight.”

Jack still couldn’t believe it. “I killed a man and you’re okay with that?”

“With killing that man, yes, I’m okay. I’m more than okay, I’m—” He threw his arms around Jack. “I’m proud of you.”

Whoa.

Jack wasn’t into hugs, but he did manage to give his dad a squeeze, all the while thinking, Proud? Proud? Christ, how could I have read him so wrong?

Once again Anya’s words from that first day came back to him.

Trust me, kiddo, there’s more to your father than you ever dreamed.

They broke the clinch and backed off a couple of feet.

Jack said, “If I’d have known you felt that way, I might have asked you for help. I could have used some. And you would have been doing something instead of waiting for the police to do it for you.”

Dad looked offended. “How do you know I wasn’t doing something? How do you know I didn’t take a rifle and sit in the bushes, watching that overpass, waiting to see if someone would try again.”

Jack managed to suppress a laugh but not a smile. “Dad, you don’t own a rifle. Not even a pistol.”

“Maybe not now, but I could have back then.”

“Yeah, right.”

They stood facing each other, his father staring at him as if seeing a new person. Finally he thrust out his hand. Jack shook it.

Dad looked around and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s get going on these omelets.”

“You start the eggs,” Jack said, “and I’ll finish dicing the ham.”

A good night. A surprising, shocking, revelatory night. Like nothing he could have anticipated.

He might have enjoyed it even more if he’d managed to bring Carl home. He wondered how the poor guy was doing.

12

Carl looked up at the starry sky, at the misshapen shadows of the surround in trees, at the water in the lagoon, anywhere but at the lights. Leastways he tried not to look. But as much as he wanted to stop it, his gaze kept driftin’ back to the sinkhole…and the lights.

They’d set him here on the ground, his back against one of the Indian hut support posts. They’d been ready to tie his hands behind him when they remembered that he only had one, so they lashed him to the post with coils of thick rope around his arms and body.

He’d overheard Semelee mention that Jack had found her shell but how’s it would have to wait till tomorrow. Tonight was too important.

The air was warm and wet and thick enough to choke a frog—maybe that was why they weren’t peepin’. Even the crickets had shut up. The lagoon and its surroundins was quiet as a grave.

The lights had started flashin’ a little after dark, strange colors and mixes of colors he never seen nowheres else. That was when it really got crowded around the hole. But there’d been lots goin’ on before that. Luke and Corley and Udall and Erik had been settin’ up some sort of steel tripod over the mouth. It had a pulley danglin’ from the top center where the three legs came together. They threaded a good, long length of half-inch rope through it, then tied that to some sorta chair.

He kept telling himself, Naw, she ain’t really gonna do that. She ain’t that crazy.

But come full dark, when the crazy flashin’ colors was lightin’ up the trees and the water, sure enough, Semelee put herself into the chair. She was danglin’ over the hole, with the lights reflectin’ even stranger colors off that silver hair of hers, and then Luke and a couple other guys Carl couldn’t recognize cause their pan-o-ramic backs was to him started lowerin’ her down into the hole.

After she disappeared he could hear her voice echoin’ up from below.

“What’re you stoppin’ for? Keep me goin’!”

Luke called out, “You’re deeper’n you should be already. How much to go till you hit the water?”

“Can’t see no water. Looks like it all dried up.”

“Then where’s the bottom?”

“Can’t see no bottom, just the lights.”

“That’s it,” Luke said. “I’m haulin’ you up now.”

“Luke, you do that and I ain’t never gonna speak to you again! You hear that? Never! It’s like nothin’ I could ever dream down here. The lights…so bright…all around me…feels like they’re goin’ through me. This is so cool. You keep on lettin’ out that rope. I want to see where they come from.”

Carl wasn’t sure of a whole lotta things in life, but he was damn sure that was a real bad idea. He was glad he was back here, away from the lights. He would’ve liked to be even farther, like in his trailer watchin’ TV. He was missin’ all his Friday night shows. But he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get outta here.

He’d been us in his hand, workin’ at the knot behind his back, but this was one good knot. When you lived out here in the wilds, specially on the water, you learned how to tie a good knot. But that didn’t keep him from tryin’ to loosen it up.

“Keep a-goin’!” he heard Semelee call up from the hole, her voice faint and all echoey like.

Luke shouted, “We’re almost outta rope!”

“Take me down to the end! As much as you got!”

Good, Carl thought. They’s all concentrated on her.

If he could just get this knot loose, he could sneak down to the water and steal a canoe and slip away real quiet like. He could be long gone before anyone noticed. Then he’d—

He jumped at the sound of a scream, a long tortured sound like someone havin’ their skin tore off—not just a piece, but the whole thing.

Everbody around the hole started shoutin’ and callin’ and movin’ this way and that. Four-five guys was haulin’ on that rope as fast as they could. Finally they got to the end. Carl caught a peek between the shufflin’ bodies and saw Semelee still in the chair. But she was all slumped over like a piece of fish bait and not movin’ a muscle.

She looked dead.

Saturday

1

Semelee heard herself scream and woke up all sweaty and thrashin’.

Where am I?

“Semelee! Semelee, are you okay?”

Luke’s voice…and then his face appeared, hovering over her.

She sat up, recognized her corner of the Bull-ship, then flopped back.

“Here,” Luke told her. “Drink this.”

He tipped a bottle over her mouth and she gulped. Water. Lord, that tasted good.

She looked around again. “How’d I get here? I don’t remember going to bed. I—”

“You was down in the lights,” he said.

The lights! Of course.

She remembered now. She’d been down in the hole, baskin’ in them strange weird lights like a sun worshipper. But she hadn’t felt strange. She’d felt welcome, more welcome than she’d ever felt in her own home. She remembered wantin’ to tear off her clothes so the rays could go straight to her skin. But she didn’t get the chance…

Because that was when the voices began.

Whispers at first, so soft she could barely make them out. Not sounds, really. More like voices in her head, like she was a mental case or somethin’. She wasn’t even sure they was talkin’ to her. Maybe they was jawin’ at each other and their words was passin’ through her head, but she had a feelin’ they was talkin’ to her. She wanted them to be talkin’ to her.

“What happened to you down there?” Luke said. “You screamed like I ain’t never heard nobody scream, and when we pulled you up you was out cold. I thought you was a goner.”

Out cold…she jammed her hands against her temples. Damn, she wished she could remember what had happened, and remember more of what them voices had said. She did know she kept hearin’ about ‘the One.’ All sorts of yammerin’ about the One, repeatin’ it over and over again. The One what?

Suddenly she realized they was talkin’ about a person. The One was preparing the way, everything depended on the One because the One was special.

Wait, she thought, stiffening as a thrill ran through her. I’m special. I got a power like no one else. And then there’s my name…

She levered up to a sittin’ position and crossed her legs, Indian style. “Yes!”

“What is it?”

“Luke, do you know what my name means?”

“Y’mean Semelee? It means…it means ‘Semelee.’ Just like Luke means ‘Luke.’”

“All names mean somethin’. I ain’t got no idea what Luke means, but my momma told me that Semelee means ‘one and only.’ She said she named me that because I was her first and I was a real hard birth, and she wasn’t goin’ through that again. She said I was her first and last kid, her one and only.”

Luke frowned. “Okay. So?”

“I heard voices down in that hole and they was talkin’ about ‘the One.’ That has to be me. They was talking about me.” She closed her eyes. Excitement flashed like lectric shocks through her body. “And they kept on sayin’ somethin’ else too.”

What was it? It was right there, just out of reach…started with an R…but what was the rest?

And then she had it! The name popped into her head like she’d known it all along.

A strange name. She’d never heard nothin’ like it before. But then she’d never heard nothin’ like those voices before neither. Was that strange word their name for her, their name for the One? Had to be.

But who were the voices and what did they mean about “preparing the way”? What was the “everything” that depended on her, the One?

She had to find out. Maybe she’d learn tonight. But she had to do a couple of things before then. One of them was gettin’ her other eye-shell back. But first…

“I’m changin’ my name, Luke.”

He laughed. “That’s crazy! You can’t just change your name anytime you feel like it.”

“No. I got to. That’s why I was called back here. I thought the lagoon was talking to me when it said it wanted sacrifices, but it wasn’t. It was the lights—or at least the things that live in the lights.”

“Lay back down, Semelee. You’re talkin’ outta your head.”

“No.” She pushed him away. “Don’t you see? It was all to bring me here, to this place, at this time—to teach me my True Name. And now that I know it, I’m gonna use it.” She rose to her feet and looked out at the lights still flickering up from the hole into the early morning darkness. “Big changes comin’, Luke, and I’m gonna be part of them, I’m gonna be right at their heart. And if you and the rest of the clan stick by me, we’ll have our day. Oh, yes, Luke, we’ll have our day.”

“Semelee—”

“Told you: I ain’t Semelee no more. From this moment on you call me—”

The name died on her lips. She realized that she mustn’t tell no one her True Name. It was only for her and those closest to her. Luke was close, but not close enough. The man called Jack, the special one…she could tell him maybe, but not right away. He’d have to prove himself worthy first.

“Call you what?” Luke said.

“Semelee.”

Luke stared at her. “Wasn’t you just tellin’ me—?”

“Changed my mind. I’m goin’ to change my name inside, but outside you can keep callin’ me Semelee.” She rubbed her stomach. “We got anything to eat round here?”

Luke straightened. “I’ll go check by the fire.”

As soon as he was gone, Semelee stepped out onto the deck and looked up at the stars wheelin’ above her.

“Rasalom,” she whispered, lovin’ the way it rolled off her tongue. That was her new name. “Rasalom.”

2

The man who was something more than a man opened his eyes in the darkness.

His name…someone had spoken his name. Not one of the many he used in the varied identities he assumed for various purposes. No, this had been his True Name.

He’d been reveling in the continued corporal mutilation of a teenage girl named Suzanne and the spiritual ruination of the family that tortured her.

Poor Suzanne had been chained to the other side of the wall of this Connecticut home for eleven days now. She had been raped and defiled and tortured and mutilated beyond the point of her endurance. Her mind had snapped. She had no more to give. She was dying. Her brain had shut down all but the most basic functions. She barely felt the corkscrew being wound into the flesh of her thigh.

But what was so delicious here was the nature of the one twisting the corkscrew: an eight-year-old boy. For it was not simply the pains of the tortured that nourished this man who was something more than a man; the depravity and self-degradation of the torturers were equally delicious.

He’d returned to this house to bask in the dying embers of a young life’s untimely end.

But now that was ruined, the delicious glow fading, cooled by a growing anger and—he admitted it—concern.

Someone had spoken his True Name.

But who? Only two beings in this sphere knew that name: one was listening for it, and the other dared not speak it. They—

There! There it was again!

Why? Was someone calling him? No. This time he sensed that the speaker was not merely saying his True Name, but trying to usurp it.

Rage bloomed in his brain like a blood-red rose. This was intolerable!

Where was it coming from? He rose to his feet and turned in a slow circle—once, twice—then stopped. The source of the outrage…it came from there…to the south. He would find the misbegotten pretender there.

All his plans were progressing smoothly now. After all these centuries, millennia, epochs, he was close, closer than he’d ever been. Less than two years from now—barring interference from those who knew he was the One—his hour, his moment, his time would be at hand.

But now this. Someone usurping his True Name…

Never!

The man who was something more than a man strode away from the house through the dissipating darkness. He had no time to waste. He must head south immediately, trace his True Name to the lips that were speaking it, and silence them.

He paused at the curb. But what if that was just what someone wanted him to do?

This could be a trap, set by the one man he feared in this sphere, the only man he must hide from until the Time of Change.

Back in the days of his first life, when he was closer to the source, he had enormous power; he could move clouds, call down lightning. Even in his second life he could control disease, make the dead walk. But here in this third life his powers were attenuated. Yet he wasn’t helpless. Oh, no. Far from that. And he could not allow anyone to use his True Name.

He must proceed with caution. But he must proceed. This could not go on.

3

Jack stepped into the front room and found his father fiddling with the French press.

“Don’t bother, Dad,” Jack told him. “I’ll pick up some coffee and donuts in town.”

He’d seen a Dunkin’ Donuts the other day and had awakened with a yen for some of their glazed crullers.

“Donuts? That sounds good. But I don’t mind making coffee. After all, the job has its perks.”

Jack groaned. “What kind do you like?”

“A couple of chocolate glazed would be great.”

Jack headed outside, trying to concentrate on donuts in the hope that would help take his mind off Carl and how he was going to bring him back. The air seemed less humid. Felt like a cool front had come through.

About time. The relentless heat day after day had been wearing him out. Maybe this was Elvis’s doing. If so, thank you, Big E.

A mist lay over the saw grass sea stretching away to the distant hummock. The egret was back in the pond, black legs shin deep in the water by the edge, waiting like a snowy statue for breakfast to move and give itself away.

He headed around the side of his house toward the car. He stopped when he rounded the corner. A woman was seated on the hood of his car. She wore cutoffs and a green tank top. Her white hair had been wound into a single braid. The companion to the shell Jack had found hung at her throat.

Semelee.

“About time you showed up,” he said, moving toward her, wary, eyes scanning the surroundings. Had she come alone? “I’ve been standing out here like some kind of nut announcing to the air that I’ve found your shell. I thought you said you’d know.”

She smiled. “I did know. That’s why I’m here.”

Jack couldn’t pin it down but she looked different. Her hair was just as white as ever, but her eyes held a strange look, as if she’d peeked through someone’s window and seen something she wasn’t supposed to know.

That was it. She looked like she’d discovered some sort of secret no one else knew. Or thought she had.

“Took you long enough.”

Her smile remained. “I had other things to do.”

Jack tensed. “Like what? You better not have hurt Carl.”

“Carl’s fine.” She held out her hand, palm up. “My shell, please.”

Now it was Jack’s turn to smile. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. You give me the shell and I’ll send Carl back.”

“Not likely.”

The smile vanished. “You don’t trust me?”

“Tell you what: You send Carl back, and I’ll give you the shell.”

“No way.”

“What? You don’t trust me?”

Semelee glared at him. “The One don’t lie.”

Jack stiffened. The One? She’d just mentioned the One.

“What did you say?”

“Nothin’.”

“You called yourself the One. What did you mean by that?”

“Told you: nothing. Now leave it be.”

Anya had talked about the One, but she’d indicated that Sal Roma was the One. Was he involved in what was going down here?

“Do you know a guy named Roma?”

She shook her head. “Ain’t never heard of him.”

“Is he the one who got you started on this sacrifice-to-the-swamp kick?”

Semelee’s eyes widened. She slid off the hood and stepped toward him. “How do you know about that?”

“Not important. Just tell me: Was it Roma?”

“Told you: Don’t know no Roma.”

Jack believed her. “Then who? Who gave you such a crazy idea?”

“Wasn’t no ‘who.’ It came from the lagoon its own self. If you listen, the lagoon’ll talk to you. Leastways, it talks to me. Told me in a dream that it was pissed off and that Gateways had to pay. Said it would exact a price of four Gateways lives a year and—”

“Wait-wait. That’s what it said? ‘Exact’?”

That didn’t sound like it belonged in Semelee’s vocabulary—at least not as a verb.

“Yeah. ‘Exact.’ Pretty weird kind of talk, doncha think?”

Jack wondered if it had been a dream at all. It sounded as if someone or something had been influencing her, and he doubted very much it was her lagoon. Much more likely it was an influence from that nexus point within the cenote.

He said, “You ever hear of something called the Otherness?”

“Don’t reckon I have,” she said, shaking her head. “Should I?”

“Never mind.” Just because she hadn’t heard of the Otherness didn’t mean she wasn’t working for it, knowingly or unknowingly. “But why Gateways people? There must be other folks living even closer to your lagoon.”

“There is, but the lagoon wants Gateways folks. Don’t ask me why, it just does.”

Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s one Gateways folk in there it’s not going to get. We clear on that?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. The lagoon’s already done what it set out to do with the sacrifices. There’s still maybe a score to settle, but the sacrifice thing is over.”

“What score?”

“That’s between me and the lagoon, but don’t you worry. Your daddy ain’t a part of it.”

Jack believed her this time, and found relief in the fact that his father was no longer in the clan’s crosshairs. But that was tempered by the knowledge that he’d been replaced by someone else.

“He’d better not be. And I’d better see Carl pretty soon or I might just lose that shell. Or it might slip out of my pocket as I’m crossing a street downtown. Wouldn’t take long for the traffic to reduce it to powder.”

Semelee went pale beneath her tan. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“What’s so important about that shell?”

Her hand went to the one around her neck. “I’ve had ’em since I was a kid, is all. I just want it back.”

“And I want Carl back.”

She sighed. “Looks like we’ll have to put together a swap meet. Bring the shell to the lagoon and—”

Jack shook his head. “Uh-uh. Bring Carl here.”

Jack watched Semelee’s hands open wide, then close into tight fists.

“You’re makin’ this awful hard.” She looked up at the hazy sky, then back to him. “Guess we’ll have to meet somewheres in the middle. You got any ideas?”

Jack reviewed his trip with Carl and remembered the dry stretch where they’d had to carry their canoe. He mentioned it to Semelee and she knew where it was.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll meet there in an hour.”

Jack looked out at the Everglades and the clinging haze. Semelee seemed on the level but he didn’t know about the rest of the clan. And because of that, he wanted maximum visibility.

“What say we make it noonish?” he said.

“Why’re you makin’ me wait so long?”

“I need the time.”

“All right. See you then. And don’t be late.”

She turned and walked off. Jack watched the sway of her hips as she moved away. He missed Gia.

He was still watching her, wondering how she was going to get out of Gateways, when his father’s voice interrupted him.

“I hope you’re not really thinking of going through with this.”

Jack turned to find Dad standing on the porch, staring at him through the jalousies.

“You heard the whole thing?”

“Just the end. Enough to know that she’s connected to what happened to me, and probably to the others who’ve been killed. But what was that about Carl? Carl the gardener?”

“One and the same.”

Jack gave him a quick overview of what had happened—about the trip to the lagoon, and Semelee and her clan.

Dad was shaking his head. “You’ve only just got here, Jack. How did you manage to get involved in something like this in just a couple of days?”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“I’m serious, Jack. You’ve got to take this to the police and the Park Service.”

“That’s not the way I do things.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? This is the second time you’ve said something like that.”

“It’s plain and simple, Dad: I promised Carl I’d get him back safely. Me. Not the cops, not the park rangers. Me. So that’s how it’s going down.”

“But you didn’t know the odds against you when you made that promise. He can’t hold you to it.”

“He’s not,” Jack said. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Dad rubbed his jaw. “I understand perfectly. And you know, Jack…the better I know you, the more I like you. Carl’s not holding you to your promise…you are. I can respect that. It’s damn foolish, but I have to respect that.”

“Thanks.”

How about that? Dad did understand.

“But you can’t go out there alone. You’re going to need backup.”

“Tell me about it. Know where I can find any?”

“You’re looking at him.”

Jack laughed. Dad didn’t.

“I’m not kidding, Jack.”

“Dad, you’re not cut out for that.”

“Don’t be so sure.” He pushed open the porch door. “Come inside. I need to tell you some things you don’t know.”

“About what?”

No matter what he was told, Jack wasn’t taking an accountant in his seventies as backup, especially if that accountant in his seventies was his father.

“About me.”

4

Inside, Dad handed him a cup of coffee, then, before Jack could ask him what this was about, disappeared into his bedroom. He returned a minute later carrying the gray metal lockbox Jack had found back on Tuesday. He hadn’t expected to see it again, but he was more surprised by what his father was wearing.

“Dad, are you kidding with that sweater?”

His father pulled the front of the ancient brown mohair cardigan closer about him. “It’s cold! The thermometer outside my window says sixty-nine degrees.”

Jack had to laugh. “The Sasquatch look. It’s you, Dad.”

“Never mind the sweater.” He set the box on the coffee table. “Have a seat.”

Jack sat across from him. “What’ve you got there?” he said, already knowing the answer.

Dad unlocked the box and flipped it open. He pulled out an old photo and passed it to Jack: Dad and six other young guys in fatigues.

Jack pretended to study it, as if seeing it for the first time.

“Hey. From your Army days.”

“Army?” His father made a face. “Those clods? These are Marines, Jack. Semper fi and all that.”

Jack shrugged. “Army, Marines, what’s the diff?”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever been in the Corps.”

“Hey, you were all fighting the same enemy, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but we fought them better.” He tapped the photo. “These were my wartime buddies.” His expression softened. “And I’m the only one left.”

Jack looked at those young faces. He pointed to the photo. “What are you all smiling about?”

“We’d just graduated Corps-level scout-sniper school.”

Jack looked up from the photo. “You were a sniper?” He’d learned to believe in the unbelievable, but this was asking too much. “My father was a sniper?”

“Don’t say it like it’s a dirty word.”

“I didn’t. I’m just…shocked.”

“Lots of people look on sniping with disdain, even in the military. And after that pair of psychos killed all those folks in the DC area a while back, so does just about everybody else. But those two weren’t sniping. They were committing random murder, and that’s not what sniping is about. A sniper doesn’t go out and shoot anything that moves, he goes after specific targets, strategic targets.”

“And you did that in Korea.”

Dad nodded slowly. “I killed a lot of men over there, Jack. I’m sure there’s plenty of soldiers walking around today who’ve killed more of the enemy—Germans, Japs, North Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese—in their tours of duty than I did, but they were just shooting at the faceless foreign bodies who were trying to kill them. We snipers were different. We positioned ourselves in hiding and took out key personnel. We could have a hundred, a thousand soldiers milling around just five hundred yards away, but we weren’t interested in the grunts. We were after the officers, the NCOs, the radio men, anyone whose death would diminish the enemy’s ability to mount or sustain an attack.”

Jack was watching his dad’s face. “Sounds almost…personal.”

“It does. And that’s what makes people uncomfortable. They feel there’s something cold-blooded about picking out a specific individual in, say, a bivouac area, sighting down on him, and pulling the trigger.” He sighed. “And maybe they’re right.”

“But if it saves lives…”

“Still pretty cold-blooded, though, don’t you think. When I started out, if I couldn’t nail an officer or NCO, I’d go after radio men and howitzer crews. But I noticed that whenever I took a guy out, another would pick up the radio or jump in and start reloading the howitzer, and then I’d have to take them out as well.”

Jack started nodding. “So you began going after their equipment.”

“Exactly. Know what a .30 caliber hardball will do to a radio? Or to the sights on a howitzer?”

“I can imagine.” Jack had a very good idea of the damage it could do. “Good for the junk pile and nothing else. You guys were using M1s back then, right?”

“Not us snipers. I was trained on the M1903A1 with an eight-power Unertl scope, and that’s what I used. Made a couple of thousand-yard kills with that.”

A thousand yards…three thousand feet…killing someone more than half a mile away. Jack couldn’t imagine that. He tried to keep guns out of his fix-its whenever possible, but when the need arose he had no qualms about using them. Usually it was up close and personal, and never more than twenty-five feet.

A thousand yards…

“What kind of round were you shooting?”

“I got hold of a cache of Match M72s and I hoarded them.”

Jack wasn’t familiar with the round. “How many grains?”

Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You shoot?”

Jack shrugged. “A little. Mostly range stuff.”

“Mostly?”

“Mostly.” He didn’t want to get into that. “Grains?”

“One-seventy-five point five.”

Jack whistled.

“Yeah,” Dad said, nodding. “Penetrated eleven inches of oak. Nice little accuracy radius. I loved that round.”

“Don’t think I’m morbid, but…how many did you kill?”

Dad closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know. I stopped counting at fifty.”

Fifty-plus kills…jeez.

“I thought I was hot stuff,” Dad said, “really making a difference in the fighting, so I kept count at first. But by the time I reached fifty or so it stopped mattering. I just wanted to go home.”

“How long were you there?”

“Not terribly long—most of the latter half of 1950. I was shipped into Pusan in August and what a major screw-up that was, mainly because the Army units didn’t do their job. Mid September I was shipped to Inchon where I landed with the Fifth Regiment. By the end of the month we’d fought through to Seoul, recaptured it, and handed it back to the South Koreans. We thought that was it. We’d freed up the country, kicked those NK commies back above the thirty-eighth parallel. Job done, time to go home. But no.”

Dad drew out that last word in a way that reminded Jack of John Belushi. He rubbed a hand across his face to hide a smile.

“No, MacArthur had the bright idea of pushing into North Korea so we could reunite the country. And there we found ourselves facing the Red Chinese. What a bunch of crazies they were. No respect for life, their own or anyone else’s, just hurling themselves at us in human waves.”

“Maybe what was facing them at the rear if they didn’t do as ordered was worse than charging you guys.”

“Maybe,” Dad said softly. “Maybe.” He seemed to shiver inside his cardigan. “If there’s a colder place on Earth than the mountains of North Korea, I don’t want to know about it. It was chilly in October, but when November rolled around…temperatures in the days would be in the thirties but at night it would drop to minus-ten with a howling thirty-to forty-mile-an-hour wind. You couldn’t get warm. So damn cold the grease that lubricated your gun would freeze up and you couldn’t shoot. Fingers and toes and noses were falling off left and right from frostbite.” He looked up at Jack. “Maybe that’s the deep psychological reason I moved down here: so I’d never be cold again.”

Christ, it sounded like a nightmare. Jack could see this talk was disturbing his father, but he needed answers to a few more questions. He pointed to the medal case restingin the bottom of the box.

“What’s in there?”

Dad looked embarrassed. “Nothing.”

Jack reached in and snatched up the case. “Then you won’t mind if I open it.” He did, and then held up the two medals. “Where’d you get these?”

Dad sighed. “The same time and place: November 28th, 1950, at the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. The Chinese commies were knocking the crap out of us. There seemed no end to the men they were throwing our way. I had a good position when what looked like a couple of companies of reds made a flanking move on the fifth. I’d brought lots of ammo and I took out every officer I could spot. Anyone who made an arm motion or looked like he was shouting an order went down. Every radio I spotted took a hit. Pretty soon they were in complete disarray, all but bumping into one another. It might have been funny if it had been warmer and if my whole division wasn’t being chopped to pieces. Still, they told me I saved a lot of lives that day.”

“By yourself…you faced down a couple of Chinese companies by yourself?”

“I had a little help at first from my spotter, but Jimmy took one in the head early on and then it was just me.”

Dad didn’t seem to take all that much pride in it, but Jack couldn’t help being impressed. This soft-spoken, slightly built man he’d known all his life, who he’d thought of as the epitome of prosaic middle-classdom, had been a stone-cold military sniper.

“You were a hero.”

“Not really.”

Jack held up the Silver Star. “This medal says different. You had to have been scared.”

“Of course I was. I was ready to wet my pants. I’d been good friends with Jimmy and he was lying dead beside me. I was trapped. They weren’t taking prisoners there, and if I surrendered, God knows what they’d have done to me for killing their officers. So I hung in and figured I’d take as many of them with me as I could.” He shrugged. “And you know, I wasn’t that scared of dying, not if I could go as quickly as Jimmy. I hadn’t met your mother, I had no kids depending on me for support. And at least I wouldn’t be cold anymore. At that moment, dying did not seem like the worst thing in the world.”

Fates worse than death…Jack understood that. But there was still the Purple Heart to be explained. Jack held it up.

“And this one?”

Dad pointed to his lower left abdomen. “Took a piece of shrapnel in the gut.”

“You always told me that scar was from appendicitis!”

“No. I told you that’s where I had my appendix taken out. And that’s what they did. When they went in after the shrapnel they discovered it had nicked my appendix, so they removed it along with the metal fragments. Somehow they got me to Hungnam alive, put me on penicillin for a week, and that was the war for me.”

Jack looked at his father. “Why’d you keep all this hidden? Or am I the only one who doesn’t know?”

“No, you’re the only one who does know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, like when I was eight, or ten?”

As a kid it would have been so cool to know he had a father who’d been a Marine sniper. And even as an adult, he’d have had a whole different perspective on his Dad.

My father, the sniper…my father, the war hero…yow.

Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. When I was finally sent home, I realized how many of my buddies weren’t going with me. Their families would never see them again. And then I got to thinking about all the NKs and Red Chinese I’d killed who wouldn’t be going home to their families, and it made me a little sick. No, make that a lot sick. And the worst of it was, beyond getting a lot of good men killed, we didn’t accomplish a goddamn thing by pushing north of the thirty-eighth. So I just put it all behind me and tried not to think about it.”

“But you kept the medals.”

“You want them? Keep them. Or throw them away. I don’t care. It was the photos I kept—I didn’t want to forget those guys. Somebody should remember them. The rest just happened to come along for the ride.”

Jack dropped the medals into the little case and returned it to the strongbox.

“You keep them. They’re part of who you were.”

“And you might say they’re part of who I still am. That’s why I’ll be backing you up when you go out there to get Carl back.”

“No way.”

“Jack, you can’t go out there alone.”

“I’ll think of something.”

Dad sat silent a moment, then said, “What if I can prove to you that I still have it? Please, Jack. I want to do this with you.”

His father was practically begging Jack to take him along. But damn…it could turn ugly, and then what? He’d never forgive himself if the old guy got hurt.

Still, he felt he owed him a chance.

“Okay, Dad. You’re on—for a test run. How are we going to work this?”

His father’s eyes were bright behind his glasses. “I think I know a way.”

5

The sign shouted DON’S GUNS &AMMO in big red letters—peeling red letters—with Shooting Range below it in smaller black print.

“This must be the place,” Jack said as they pulled into the sandy lot on a rural road in Hendry County.

Only one other car, an old Mercedes diesel sedan, in sight. Probably the owner’s. Opening time was 9:00 A.M. and it was after ten now. Jack figured there probably would be lots more activity once hunting season started, but at the moment he and Dad seemed like the only customers.

They went inside. Behind the counter they found a slim guy with salt-and-pepper hair and mustache. His lined face made him look sixtyish, maybe even older.

“Are you Don?” Dad said, extending his hand.

“That’s me.”

“We called about the M1C.”

They’d made a lot of calls to a lot of gun shops—amazing how many there were in Florida—and not one of them had a M1903A1. But this place said it had an old M1C. Close enough, Dad had said. Hendry County was a good ways north of Gateways, but they’d had no other options.

Don smiled as he lifted the rifle leaning against the wall behind him and laid it on its side, bolt handle up.

“One M1C Garand, coming up. Heavy sucker. Gotta weigh a dozen pounds. But it’s fully rigged—still has the original scope and flash hider.”

“I see that,” Dad said.

Jack was seeing a beat-up piece of junk: The dried-out wooden stock was scratched and dinged and gouged, the metal finish worn, and the whole thing looked like it had just received its first dusting in years.

Dad picked up the rifle and hefted it. In one seamless move he raised it to his shoulder and sighted down the scope.

“Never liked the M82 scope. Never liked the way it was mounted, and only two-and-a-half power. The Unertl I used was an eight.” He looked at Jack. “This was the Army’s sniper rifle for a while. Couldn’t hold a candle to the M1903A1, if you ask me.”

“If you really want to shoot that thing,” Don said, “I can sell you a much better scope.”

Dad shook his head. “I qualified on this as well as the 1903. It’ll have to do. But will it shoot?”

Don shrugged. “Got me there. I’d forgotten I had it until you called. That thing’s been here so long, I can’t remember when I bought it or who from.”

“What do you want for it?”

Don pursed his lips. “I’ll let it go for twenty-five hundred.”

“What?” Jack said.

Dad laughed. “Let it go? That’s way overpriced for Army surplus junk.”

“A fully outfitted M1C like this is a collector’s item. If this baby was in better shape it’d go for twice that at auction.”

“Hey, Dad, you can get a better rifle for a lot less.”

“But not one I’m used to.”

“Yeah, but twenty-five hundred bucks…”

“Hell, it’s only money.” He looked at Don. “I tell you what: You can have your asking price on the condition that it still fires. That means you’ve got to let me clean it and fire a few test rounds. Do you have a bench where I can spruce it up?”

Don pursed his lips again. “Okay. I’ve got a cleaning set-up in the back you can use. Go ahead. But give me a picture ID and your Social Security Number so I can background you while you’re doing that.”

“Background?” Jack said.

“Yeah. Instant background check. It’s the law. I’ve got to place a call to the FDLE to make sure he hasn’t got a criminal record, a domestic violence conviction, or under a restraining order. If he comes through clean, he gets the rifle. If not, no deal.”

“Might as well quit now, Dad,” Jack said gravely. “You are so busted.”

“Very funny.” He looked at Don. “No waiting period?”

He shook his head. “Not for rifles, but there’s a mandatory three-day ‘cooling-off period’ for pistols.”

Jack was glad he didn’t have to buy his guns through legal channels.

Dad fished out his wallet and handed his Florida driver license to Don, saying, “What about ammo? Have any match grade?”

Don nodded. “Got a box of thirty-ought-six Federals. I’ll throw in half a dozen rounds to let you check it out.”

Dad smiled. “You’re on.”

6

“Jesus, Dad,” Jack said as he stared through the field glasses.

“Not bad for an old fart, ay?”

Dad was down on his right knee, left elbow resting on his left thigh, eye glued to his scope.

“Not bad? It’s fantastic!”

Earlier he’d watched with amazement as his father’s wrinkled old hands disassembled the M1C like it was a tinker toy. He’d inspected the firing pin, wiped the scope lenses, cleaned and oiled all the works, scoured the inside of the barrel with a long-handled brush, then reassembled it with a precision and an efficiency that left Jack in awe.

Dad had explained that it was like riding a bike: Do it enough times and you never forget how. Your hands know what to do.

Then it was time for the test firing. Don had a two-hundred-yard rifle range behind his shop with acres of open country beyond it. Dad’s targets—large paper sheets with concentric black circles at their centers—were set against a rickety wooden fence.

His first shots had been grouped wide to the left, but as he made progressive adjustments on the sight, the holes in the target crept inexorably toward the heart of the bull’s-eye. He’d punched the last three shots through a one-and-a-half-inch circle.

“Not so fantastic,” Dad said. “It’s only two hundred yards.” He patted the stock. “Definitely worth the price.”

“A hundred yards is all we’ll need, I hope. And by the way, I’m paying.”

The Tyleski Visa had a five-thousand-dollar credit limit. Still plenty of slack there.

“Like hell.”

“No, the least a guy can do for his backup is arm him.” Jack extended his hand toward his father. “You’ve still got it, Dad.”

The flash of his father’s smile as they shook hands warmed him.

7

As Jack beached the motorized canoe on the bank of the channel shallows, he got his sneakers soaked yet again. This was getting to be a habit. The clouds had blown off and the sun was cooking his shoulders.

The shell lay nestled in the right front pocket of his jeans. Now where was Semelee?

“You’re late,” she said.

Jack looked right and saw her rounding a bend on the far side of the shallows. She stood in the front of a small, flat-bottomed boat and—

What the hell? She held a shell over her left eye and had her hand clapped over her right. As Jack watched, she lowered the shell and the hand and smiled at him.

Carl and Corley sat amidships directly behind her; Luke operated the little outboard motor mounted on the stern and glowered at Jack.

Carl grinned and waved the oar protruding from his sleeve. Jack was relieved that he looked pretty much the same as he’d left him.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “Had some things to do and everything down here seems to take longer than it does up north. Ever notice that?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Semelee said. “I ain’t never been up north.”

Luke pulled up the motor; the hull of the boat scraped the sandy bottom as he let it run aground in the shallows. All four stepped out. Corley stayed by the boat while the other three approached—Semelee and Luke first, Carl behind them.

Jack gave Corley a quick look, noted a knife in his belt, but no gun. Same with Luke: a hunting knife with a six-inch blade in a leather scabbard strapped to his belt, but again, no gun. Good. Jack wanted to keep an eye on that knife, though.

They stopped in front of him. Luke stood with his arms folded across his barrel chest.

“Well,” he said with a belligerent edge to his voice, “you can see plain and simple we got Carl. Time for you to show us the shell.”

Jack dug into his pocket, all the while keeping an eye on Luke’s hunting knife. If he made a move toward it, Jack would go for the Glock.

He fished out the shell and handed it to Semelee. As she took it and clutched it between her breasts, Luke’s right hand moved, not going for the knife but flicking toward Jack’s face. He heard a metallic click and found himself face to face with a three-inch, semi-serrated, tanto-style blade. Sunlight gleamed off the stainless steel surface.

Jack cursed himself for not guessing Luke might be palming a folder.

“Luke!” Semelee cried. “What’re you doin’?”

“Taking care of business.”

“I’ve got the shell! Put that away!”

Luke shook his head. “Uh-uh. We’re leavin’ with Carl and the shell. None of this trade shit.”

Jack started creeping his free hand around toward his back while they argued, taking his time, moving a few millimeters at a time.

“Luke,” Semelee said, “we told him we’d trade and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Luke shook his head, never taking his eyes off Jack. “I’m callin’ the shots here, Semelee. This is man’s work.”

“You better put that knife away, Luke,” Semelee told him. “His daddy’s over there in that willow thicket with a rifle trained on us.”

Jack stiffened. The little stand of trees where he’d stationed his father was about a hundred and fifty yards away. How did she know?

Luke’s gaze snapped past Jack’s shoulder, then back. He grinned. “That old coot? What’s he gonna do?”

“Think about that,” Semelee said. “He’s got a rifle and he’s been watchin’ this spot since before any of us arrived.”

How did she know ?

“Yeah? So? He ain’t gonna hit nothin’ from that distance. But if he’s watchin’, maybe he’d like to watch me cut his little boy’s face.”

As Luke drew back his arm for a slash, Jack reached for his Glock and raised his free arm to block the thrust, but didn’t have to.

Everything seemed to happen at once—red sprayed from Luke’s head, something whizzed by Jack’s ear, a rifle cracked from somewhere behind him, though not necessarily in that order.

Semelee screamed as Luke staggered back, spun, and crashed face first into the water. A bright red stain began to drift away from him in the barely existent current.

Jack drew the Glock and turned to stare at the thicket.

Jesus, Dad! You didn’t have to go for a kill shot.

This was going to make for big trouble—police, coroner’s inquests, the whole legal ball of wax—shit!

“Luke! Luke!” Corley cried as he splashed toward him.

Jack kept the Glock trained on him; to his left, Semelee hadn’t moved; she stood with her hands pressed against her mouth. Carl was in a squat, looking around like a cat who’d just heard thunder for the first time.

And then, miraculously, Luke jerked his face out of the water and coughed. He shook his head and sat up. Blood still streamed down his forehead, but Jack could see now that it was from a front-to-back furrow along the center of his scalp.

Jack had to laugh. Dad, you pisser! You pisser!

“He only parted your hair, big boy,” Jack said. “Next time, he parts your tiny brain.” He waved his pistol at Corley. “Get him back to the boat.” Jack motioned Carl toward the canoe. “Welcome back, Carl. Get that thing turned around and ready to go.”

Carl grinned. “You got it.”

“Wait,” Semelee said as Jack turned to go.

“Sorry. Gotta go. We’re finished with this bullshit.”

“No.” She reached out and touched his arm. Gently. “I need to talk to you.”

“Sorry.”

“Please?”

8

Jack waited. Semelee looked around as if checking to make sure Luke was out of earshot.

She lowered her voice. “You gotta believe I didn’t know Luke was gonna pull somethin’ like that.”

Jack looked into her eyes and did believe. “Okay. But that wouldn’t have made much difference if I was the one bleeding now instead of your pal there.”

“Please don’t be mad at me.”

The plaintive note in her voice, the fawn like look in her huge dark eyes…Jack couldn’t fathom what she was up to.

“Lady, you’ve got to be kidding.” He went to jab a finger at her and realized he still had the Glock in his hand. So he pointed with his left. “This is all your doing. We’re all here because of you. You kidnapped Carl. You’re behind the deaths of three innocent folks, and it was only by luck that my dad didn’t wind up the fourth.”

“You gonna tell the cops?”

“Maybe.”

A slow smile stretched her lips. “No, you ain’t. I can tell.”

Well, she had that right. Jack couldn’t see any point of bringing cops into the picture. The Dade County DA was going to charge Semelee with what? Murder by coral snake? Murder by bird? Yeah, right.

“You can’t blame me,” she said. “Don’t you see? It wasn’t really me. It was all part of the plan.”

“Plan?” Jack felt the weight of the pistol in his hand. I should put one in her right now, he thought. Who knew how many lives he’d save if she never got back to her lagoon. “Well, you’d better come up with another plan, because I’m declaring this one over, done, finis.”

“Ain’t my plan.”

That caught Jack off guard. “Then whose?”

“The lights’.”

Oh, boy, Jack thought. Here we go.

“You mean the lights—the ones that supposedly come out of your sinkhole—are behind all this?”

She beamed. “Yeah. I didn’t see it before, but then I got the big picture. It’s all been part of a plan, one big, beautiful plan.”

“Okay. The lights have a plan.” The lights…if they were connected to the nexus point, then, according to Anya, they were connected to the Otherness. “Tell me about it.”

Her smile widened. “Can’t tell you all of it, but I can tell you some. I can tell you that the lights drew me back here so’s I could find out who I was.”

“Really. And who would that be?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that. Leastways not yet. Only someone real close to me can know that.”

“Well, I’m only a foot or two away.”

“Not that kind of close. The other kind of close…the way you’re gonna be with me real soon.”

Oooooh, lady, I wouldn’t count on that, Jack thought.

“Really.”

“Yeah. Which brings me to another part of the big picture: the sacrifices. They was done for a purpose.”

“Like what?”

“To get you down here.”

Jack’s mouth went dry. All along he’d had a niggling suspicion, a creeping fear that his father hadn’t been a random victim; but having it laid out before him like this was unnerving.

I’m responsible.

But he saw a problem.

He licked his lips. “Wait. That doesn’t make sense. You say your lights figured if they killed my father I’d come down here. But I might not have come. My brother might have come instead. And why the other three deaths before him?”

Semelee shrugged. “Who can explain how the lights think? Maybe they liked the sacrifices, maybe they knew Mr. Weldon would get to your daddy sooner or later and so they just let things happen. Maybe your daddy’s name came up when only you could come. Don’t much matter none. You’re here, ain’t you.”

Yeah, he thought. I’m here all right.

“Why would your lights want me here?”

Semelee smiled. “For me.”

“For you? What do you want with me? What do you even know about me?”

“I know you’re special. And I know we was meant to be together.”

“Yeah? Well, sorry. You and your lights are a little late. I’m taken.”

“Don’t matter. It’s gonna be you and me. Can’t stop it. It’s like…like…”

“Kismet?”

“Kiss what?”

“Destiny?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Destiny. You and me’s destined to be together. You’re gonna bring me in, take me back with you, make me belong, and then together we’re gonna rule the roost.”

Make you belong? he thought. Boy, sister, have you picked the wrong guy. “Listen, if you’re an outsider, the last guy you want to hook up with is me.”

“Lemme be the judge of that.” She stepped closer until her lips were barely an inch from his. “I’ll meet you tonight at—”

“Sorry,” Jack said, backing away. “Game over. Hangout with your lights and your buddies here, do whatever floats your boat, but stay away from Gateways, especially from my father.” He raised the Glock and held it beside his head, muzzle skyward. “I see you or any of your clan within a hundred yards of my father, you’re dead. Not figuratively dead, not virtually dead, not merely dead, but clearly and sincerely dead. Got it?”

She stared at him with her big, suddenly sad eyes. Her lower lip trembled.

“No…you can’t…”

“Got it?”

Jack turned and sloshed over toward where Carl waited with the boat in the deeper water.

“You can’t!”she screamed behind him.

Watch me.

9

“He needs killin’, Semelee,” Luke said. “He needs killin’ real bad.”

They had the deck of the Horse-ship all to theirselfs. Semelee sat with her legs danglin’ over the side, starin’ at her reflection in the water. Luke crouched next to her.

His head had stopped bleedin’. Finally. For a while there she’d thought he was gonna lose every drop of blood in his body. He’d refused to go to the hospital, sayin’ he’d heal up just fine without no damn fool doctors stickin’ him with needles. Maybe he was right, but he sure looked stupid with that red bandanna tied across his head and under his chin.

“You’re right,” Semelee told him. “For once, I ain’t got no argument with you.”

Luke stared at her with shocked eyes. “You mean it?”

“Damn right I do.”

“But I thought you was sweet on him.”

“Wasn’t never sweet on him. I thought he was special but that don’t matter none now. He hurt you and—”

“His daddy did the shootin’.”

“I know that. But his daddy only pulled the trigger. It was him, it was Jack who put him up to it. Probably told his daddy to blow your head off but the old boy only creased you. Can’t have that, Luke. Can’t have nobody, no matter how special they are, hurtin’ someone in the clan.”

“So then it’s okay with you if I take Corley and a couple—”

Semelee shook her head. “Uh-uh. I’m gonna handle this my own self. For you, Luke. It’ll be a present from me to you.”

The shock in Luke’s eyes melted into something like love.

Don’t be gettin’ no ideas, she thought.

Because this had nothin’ to do with Luke. She was just lettin’ him think that. He’d been too far away and too busy with his bleedin’ head to pay any attention to what had gone on between her and Jack in the shallows. Didn’t hurt none though to let him think he was the reason she was gonna go after Jack.

But this was gonna be all for her.

She’d wanted to cry all the way back from the shallows. Her heart still felt like it’d been tore right out of her chest. He’d turned her down, turned his back and walked away. He said it was because he was taken, but that was a lie. Semelee had seen it all through her life and she knew the real truth: Jack thought he was too good for her.

But as she’d returned to the lagoon she realized it was the other way around.

Jack…how could she’ve thought he was special and meant for her? What was she thinking? He obviously wasn’t so special and definitely not for her. She saw that now. Her visit to the lights in the sinkhole had changed everything. She knew her True Name now, knew that she’d been brought here for a purpose. She wasn’t sure what that was yet, but she would. She just knew she would.

She’d been special before—her powers proved that—but now she was even more special. Much too special for Jack.

Yeah, but if that was true, why was she still hurtin’? Why this cold hard lump where her stomach used to be?

She knew of only one way to make it better.

“Leave me be for now,” she told Luke. “I gotta work on this. I’m gonna fix a big fat surprise for our friend Jack.”

He got up and backed away. “Okay, Semelee. Sure. Sure. Maybe I’ll go check on Devil. See how he’s doin’.”

Despite how bad she was feeling, Semelee had to smile. Luke’d always been sorta like her puppy dog, but now he was actin’ like her slave.

But she was okay with that. Every girl should have a slave.

10

“I think this calls for a drink,” Dad said as they stepped into the house.

They’d dropped Carl—with his thousand dollars—off at the trailer park. All the way home he’d been so effusive in his thanks for rescuing him from the clan and the lights that Jack had had to shut him up by getting him to describe what he’d seen last night. He’d found Carl’s description of Semelee being lowered into the hole particularly unsettling. If the lights, filtered through sand and water, had caused the clan’s deformities, what would direct exposure do? Make you crazy? The cenote must have been where she’d learned—how had she put it? Who I am. Who was she if not Semelee?

“That was one hell of a shot, Dad. One hell of a shot.”

Jack kept reliving the emotional swings of that moment.

“Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, though?”

Dad had darted into the kitchen and was searching through the bottles in a cabinet above the sink. His speech came in staccato bursts, his movements were quick, jittery, as if he’d mainlined caffeine.

He’s higher than the proverbial kite, Jack thought.

“I wasn’t looking to kill him, you know, and prayed I wouldn’t, but I was also thinking, if it’s his life or Jack’s, then I can live just fine with a kill shot. All the skills came back as I was sitting in that tree, Jack. Suddenly I was back at the Chosin Reservoir, and I was on autopilot and really, really relaxed because no one was shooting at me out in the Glades. It was just me and the rifle, and control of the situation was mine for the taking. I—here it is.” He pulled a dark green bottle from the cabinet and held it aloft. “Wait till you taste this.”

“Scotch? I think I’ll go for a beer.”

“No-no. You’ve got to try this. Remember Uncle Stu?”

Jack nodded. “Sure.”

Uncle Stu wasn’t a real uncle, just a close friend of the family. Close enough to earn “Uncle” status.

“He belongs to a single malt scotch club. He let me try this once and I had to get a bottle. Aged in old sherry casks—amontillado, I believe.”

“And discovered with a skeleton behind a brick wall?” When Dad gave him a questioning look, Jack said, “Never mind.”

“You drink this neat.” Dad poured two fingers’ worth into a couple of short tumblers. “Adding ice, water, or soda is punishable by death.” He handed Jack a glass and clinked his own against it. “To the best day of my life in the last fifteen years.”

Jack was pierced by an instant of sadness. The best? Really?

Not a Scotch drinker, Jack took a tentative sip and rolled it around on his tongue. It had a sweetness and a body he’d never tasted in any other Scotch. And the finish was…fabulous.

“For the love of God, Montresor!” he said. “That is good!”

“Isn’t it?” Dad said, grinning. “Isn’t that the best you ever had?”

“No question. Potent stuff.”

“That’s what I hear, but I haven’t seen any proof.”

Jack let that one slide. “Where can I get a bottle?”

“You can’t. It’s all gone. They produce only so many casks and this batch is long sold out.”

Jack lifted his glass for another sip. “Then we’d better nurse this one.”

“I don’t care if we empty the bottle. This is a special day. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt this alive.” He looked at Jack. “But I have to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Where’d that pistol come from, the one you pulled after I parted the big guy’s hair?”

Jack felt very close to his father at the moment, closer than he could ever remember. The father-son slope had been leveled. They were eye to eye now. Equals. Friends. He didn’t want anything to get in the way of that, but he couldn’t very well tell Dad he’d imagined the Glock.

So he pulled it from the small of his back and laid it on the kitchen counter.

“You mean this?”

“Yes. That.” His father picked it up and hefted it. Jack noted with approval how he kept the muzzle directed down and away from both of them. “What’s it made of? Feels almost like…”

“Plastic? That’s because most of it is. Not the barrel and firing pin, of course, but pretty much all the rest.”

He turned it back and forth in his hand, staring at it. “Amazing.” He raised his eyes to Jack. “But what’s an appliance repairman doing with something like this?”

How to handle this…

“Sometimes I wind up in bad neighborhoods and I feel more comfortable knowing I’m carrying.”

“But how did you get it down here? I know you didn’t carry it aboard the plane.”

Jack shrugged. “There are ways.”

Dad continued to stare at him. “Tell me the truth: You’re not really a repairman, are you.”

“Oh, but I am. That’s the truth.”

“Okay, but what else are you?” He waggled the Glock. “I saw how you handled this out there. I saw plenty of people handle guns in the war, and you could always tell the ones who knew what they were doing and were comfortable with them, just as you could tell the ones who weren’t. You fall into the first category, Jack.”

Despite the closeness he felt to his father at this moment, despite the combat-zone bond they’d formed, Jack couldn’t bring himself to tell him.

“You’re pretty comfortable too, Dad. Maybe it just runs in the family.”

“All right. Keep your secrets. For now. But promise me that someday, before I die, you’ll tell me. Promise?”

Jack knew a trap when he heard one. This one was a cousin of “When did you stop beating your wife?” If he promised, he’d be admitting there was something to tell.

“Let’s not talk about you dying, Dad.”

He sighed. “I’m not going to get anywhere, am I?” He poured more Scotch into Jack’s glass. “Maybe this will loosen your tongue.”

Jack laughed. “No one’s ever tried to ply me with liquor before. Bring it on!”

11

The shadows was gettin’ long by the time Semelee was ready to make her move. Even us in both eye-shells, it had took her a while to get Dora in place. Like any other alligator snapper, she was slow and kinda clumsy. Nothin’ like Devil.

Poor Devil. Luke said he was doin’ right poorly and looked like he was fixin’ to die. That made her feel bad.

But she shook off the sadness and fixed on what she aimed to do. Now that she finally had Dora where she wanted her, Semelee was ready for the next step.

She moved away from the lagoon and walked through the hummock until she came to the bees’ nest. She didn’t get too close. These was killer bees and once they got mad they’d swarm and wouldn’t stop stingin’. They didn’t know how.

She fixed the shells over her eyes and concentrated…and sees the inside of the hive. Her vision’s all weird, like she’s lookin’ through dozens of eyes at once…

Semelee lowered the shells and picked up the rock she’d brought along. She tossed it at the hive, then put the shells back over her eyes, real quick like.

…and once again she’s inside the hive with that weird way of looking at things. But the hive’s different now. It’s filled with angry buzzing—real angry. They’re movin’ toward the opening, hittin’ the air and the sunlight, and then she’s flyin’, movin’ right with them.

She sees herself, standin’ in the shadows with the shells over her eyes. The swarm homes in on her like she’s the absolute worst thing in their world, like they gotta protect the hive from her or die tryin’. Sweat breaks out all over her body. Maybe she shouldn’t have done this. Maybe she should have thought of another way. Cause if she can’t turn them, they’re gonna kill her.

She pulls at them, pushes at them, there’s somethin’ worse than her, somethin’ that’s a bigger threat to the hive and they’ve gotta get him, gotta stop him or the hive’ll be destroyed.

It doesn’t seem to be working. They’re still comin’ at her. Somethin’ inside her is screamin’ to run but she knows that won’t do no good. Ain’t nobody gonna outrun these bees.

Gotta turn ’em, gotta turn ’em, gotta—

There! They’re turnin’, veerin’ away from her and turnin’ east. She did it. She’s in control now and her own rage adds fuel to the bees’.

12

With his father noisily engaged in an exploration of the deep, dark recesses of napland, Jack wandered outside. Square-foot-wise, Dad’s place was bigger than Jack’s apartment back in New York, but it felt smaller. Maybe because he didn’t have to share his place with anyone. He needed some fresh air.

With the comforting weight of the Glock at the small of his back, he scanned his surroundings as he yawned and stretched, looking for signs of the clan. Semelee had said Dad was no longer a target, but she’d been acting pretty weird out there in the Glades. What was to prevent her from changing her mind?

He started to circle the house, as much inspecting as trying to walk off the Scotch. He hadn’t had all that much but it had made him a little drowsy. Not drowsy enough for a nap, though.

No white-haired girl sitting on his car hood this time. No one at all in sight. As he walked around to the left side he heard a faint buzzing, like a far-off chainsaw, filtering through the air. He looked around for the source but saw nothing. Maybe someone was using one on the far side of one of the houses. One thing he knew, it wasn’t Carl. He was taking the rest of the day off—although he’d told Jack he’d return briefly tonight to set up the Anya-cam again.

The buzzing grew louder and Jack did another slow turn. What—?

Then he saw the man-size cloud sweeping toward him from the Glades and knew with a sick, cold dread what it was and who had sent them. All his instincts urged him to turn and run but he forced himself forward, toward them. Because that was where the front door was. He sprinted with everything he had, but the bees got there first.

He staggered back as they swarmed over him and began stinging. Their angry buzzing and pain like dozens of red-hot ice picks stabbing into his flesh became Jack’s world. He needed both hands to bat the bees away from his face but that left the rest of him vulnerable—his neck, his scalp, his bare arms. He could feel them stinging him through his T-shirt. He tried for the door again but they drove him back.

Through the cloud he caught a glint of water—the pond. He stumbled in that direction, picking up speed. When he reached the bank he leaped blindly in a headlong dive. As he knifed through the surface he felt most of the swarm back off—but not all. Some still clung to him, stinging as he—

His outstretched hands hit the rough, hard surface of an underwater rock. He clung to it to keep himself submerged. He was safe for the moment, but he was going to need air soon. Very—

The rock moved, twisting under him. Through the murky water he saw that it had scalloped edges and a tail and he didn’t need to see the two big heads rearing up, hooked jaws agape, to know what was sharing the pond with him.

He clung to the edges of the shell as the big alligator snapper surged toward the surface, twisting this way and that as it tried to shake him off. The ridged surface was slimy and his fingers were losing their grip. Jack was running out of air as he raced through his options. The pond was clearly a no-win. Had to get out and take his chances with the bees. With the snapper surfacing, he was going to have to deal with them anyway.

As his lungs screamed for air, he drew his legs up under him, folding them till his sneaker soles were on the shell. As soon as his head broke water, the bees were on him again. He kept his face submerged until the last possible instant, then sprang off the shell, leaping for land. His right sneaker slipped, robbing him of the distance he needed, and the breath he’d taken while airborne was knocked out of him when he belly flopped onto the edge of the bank. His legs were still in the water and, for a panicky instant as he heard the splash of the snapper coming for him, he remembered what those jaws could do to a broomstick. A flashing vision of himself crawling the rest of the way out of the water with a bloody stump where a foot used to be threw him into a twisting roll that left him clear of the water. As he batted at the relentless bee swarm, he glimpsed the two heads stretched to the limits of their thick necks snapping at empty air where his legs had been.

Could an alligator snapper move on land? Jack wasn’t waiting around to find out, especially with the bees stinging him again. He realized he’d emerged on Anya’s side of the pond, so he scrambled to his feet and raced toward her front door. It was closed but maybe it was unlocked.

Please be unlocked!

But he didn’t need the shelter of her house. As soon as he crossed into her circle of green lawn, the killer bees peeled off him the same way the palmettos had the other night when he’d jumped through his father’s door.

He heard their enraged buzzing rise in pitch and volume as they hurled themselves at him, only to be turned back as soon as they crossed the line into Anya’s space.

“Go!” he heard a voice cry behind him.

Jack turned and saw Anya crossing the lawn in his direction. She was waving both arms in a shooing motion.

“Go!” she shouted again. “Back where you came from!” She pointed to the snapper’s two heads, watching from the pond. “You too! Go!”

The bees swarmed in random confusion, then gathered into an oblong cloud and buzzed away. When Jack looked at the pond again, the snapper was gone.

He dropped to his knees, panting. His skin felt a flame, his stomach threatened to heave.

“Thank you,” he gasped. “I don’t know how you did that, but thanks.”

“Didn’t I tell you that nothing on earth can hurt you here?”

“I guess you did.” He looked up at her. “Who are you? Really.”

Anya smiled. “Your mother.”

The familiar words chilled Jack.

“That’s what the Russian lady said to me by my sister’s grave. And that Indian woman in Astoria said the same thing to Gia. What’s it mean?”

Anya shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, hon. There’s no need for you to know. Not yet. Hopefully not ever.”

“Then why say it to me?”

Anya had turned and started walking away. Over her shoulder she said, “Because it’s true.”

13

Semelee stumbled pantin’ and sweatin’ along the path through the palms. She stopped and leaned against a gumbo limbo tree to catch her breath.

That same old lady…doin’ it again…causin’ trouble, gettin’ in the way…

She was stronger than Semelee. Somehow she’d just waved her hand and told the bees and Dora to get home and that was that. Semelee’s power got canceled like turnin’ off a light. Everything went black. When she come to, the sun was pretty much down and she was flat on her back in the ferns with the shells off her eyes but still in her hands.

She had to be stopped. But how? How do you stop someone with that kind of power?

Where did she come from? Who was she that she could protect herself from Dora and a swarm of bees—not only keep them out but give them orders?

Maybe she couldn’t be hurt. Maybe she was beyond Semelee’s special power.

She stumbled up to the bank of the lagoon and saw Luke sitting on the deck of the Bull-ship.

He looked up at her with sad eyes. “Bad news, Semelee. Devil’s dead.”

A wave of sadness washed over her. Feelin’ weak, she lowered herself to the ground and rested her back against a palm.

Poor Devil…her fault…if she hadn’t—

No, wait. It was that old bitch and her dog. They were the ones killed Devil. Not her.

She ground her teeth. Had to be a way to get back at her.

She glanced to her left toward the sinkhole and saw the glow of the lights seepin’ up through the darkenin’ air. Pullin’ herself to her feet she walked over. She stopped at the edge, then stretched herself out flat on her belly with her head pokin’ over the rim. She gazed into the flashin’ deeps and tried to remember more of what happened down there. But nothin’ came back to her.

She gave up tryin’ to remember and was just startin’ to get to her feet when she had an idea. She still had the eye-shells in her hands and figured, Why not? She put them over her eyes. For an instant they blotted out the lights, then suddenly she was seein’ them again. But they looked different.

Then Semelee realized she wasn’t seein’ the lights from above, she was seein’ them from within. She was inside some kinda creature down there and was seein’ things through its eyes. She looked around and saw wings and jaws and teeth—lots of long, sharp teeth.

An idea crept into her head, an idea so wonderful she started to laugh out loud.

14

“I still say we should take you to the emergency room,” Dad said.

Jack shook his head as he shivered under the blanket. “I’ll be fine, Dad. No doctors.”

At least not yet.

He sat on the sofa and shook despite the dark blue wool blanket wrapped around him. Most of his sting-lumped skin was crusted pink with calamine lotion and he was dopey from the Benadryl his father had picked up for him in town. The stings themselves—he hadn’t counted them, but Pinhead had nothing on Jack—itched and burned, and now his muscles were aching. The chills and fever had started about an hour after the attack. He figured he had so much bee venom in his system that he was having a reaction. He felt as if he had the flu.

At least he wasn’t vomiting; his stomach was queasy but he was holding down the orange juice Dad kept pushing at him.

He’d shown his father how to break down the Glock and wipe it dry. Here was where its mostly plastic construction was a blessing. Dad didn’t have any gun oil, but substituted a little 3-in-1 to lubricate the few metal parts.

And now his father paced back and forth between Jack and the TV as the Weather Channel showed a satellite photo of Hurricane Elvis picking up speed and power as it looped southward through the Gulf of Mexico. It had graduated to Category II and was expected to brush South Florida and the Keys sometime tomorrow, then continue on toward Cuba.

“We’ve got to call the cops,” Dad said.

Dad always seemed to want to call the cops.

“And what—tell them about this woman in the Glades who sent a swarm of bees and a two-headed snapping turtle after me? They’ll take you away in a straitjacket.”

“We’ve got to do something! We can’t just sit here like targets and let her take potshots at us!”

“I can’t think right now, Dad.”

Jack hauled himself unsteadily to his feet and shuffled toward the guest bedroom.

He’d planned to drop in on Anya tonight. He’d cut her too much slack, let her evade straight answers for too long. He was going to get nose to nose with her and find out exactly who she was, how she could keep giant alligators and bees and mosquitoes from trespassing on her property, and have them obey her when she told them to take off. He wasn’t going to leave until he had some answers.

But that was all changed now. Christ, he felt awful. If he’d been sitting on the hood of Dad’s car when it got clocked by that truck, he didn’t think he’d feel much worse.

“I’m going to hit the rack. In the meantime, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That’s all fine and dandy,” Dad said with a touch of acid in his voice, “except I don’t know what you wouldn’t do.”

“Well, for one thing, I wouldn’t leave the house tonight, that’s what I wouldn’t do. As for what I would do”—he pointed to the reassembled Glock resting on a section of the Novaton Express —“I’d keep that handy. See you in the morning.”

15

Jack awoke bathed in sweat. He threw back the covers, sat up, and pulled off his undershirt.

What time was it? The clock’s LED display was angled away from him. No light filtered through the curtains. Still night. He ran a hand over a tender, bumpy arm. God, he felt like hell.

As he flopped back and pulled the sheet up over him, he thought he heard a dog barking—high-pitched yips that could only belong to Oyv. They had an almost hysterical edge. Jack wondered what was bothering him. Not that the little guy couldn’t take care of himself—look at what he’d done to that big ugly gator—but he hadn’t struck Jack as the kind of pooch to bark at nothing.

Jack was ready to force himself out of bed to go have a look when the barking stopped. Whatever had set off Oyv must have passed.

Jack closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

Sunday

1

I’ve got to get back to New York, Jack thought.

Not just because he missed Gia and Vicky, but here it was Sunday afternoon and instead of watching the Jets kick Dolphin butt up at Giants Stadium, he was sitting here with his father and staring at the Weather Channel.

Trouble was, he found it mesmerizing.

The Weather Channel as a way of life…scary.

I stay much longer I’ll be as addicted as everybody else around here.

He excused his present fascination by the fact that the weather was about to have significant personal impact: Hurricane Elvis had reentered the building. In fact he was announcing his presence with a chorus of gusts that hurled sheets of rain against the outside of this little building.

Satellite tracking of Elvis showed how it had made a sharp eastward turn during the night and homed in on the Everglades like a cruise missile. At this moment its eye was making landfall on South Florida’s west coast. Elvis wasn’t a monster; it was a tight little storm with sustained winds now in the 120-mile-an-hour neighborhood, making it a Category III. Multiple waterspouts had been spotted among the Ten Thousand Islands, wherever they were. But apparently it was a very wet storm and everyone was happy that it was going to dump a lot of much needed rain onto the Everglades.

But how many times could you watch the same graphic and listen to the same Storm Center report?

Gia apparently had been watching the weather too. She’d called to tell him to stay inside. Not that he had any intention of venturing out into this mess, but he appreciated her concern. He hadn’t told her about the bee stings. They were still swollen; not as much as last night, but still itchy and tender.

He was about to ask his father to switch the channel for half a minute—not a second more than that, God forbid—to check the score of the Jets game, when he heard a frantic knocking on the door. As his father peeled himself away from the tube to see who it was, Jack slipped the Glock from where he’d stowed it under his sofa cushion.

“Better let me get it, Dad.”

But before either of them could reach the door, it blew open. Jack had the pistol up and aimed at the figure standing in the doorway, his finger tightening on the trigger, when he recognized Carl.

“Come quick!” he cried as wind swirled around him and scattered sections of the Sunday paper. He wore a dripping, dark green poncho, had a screwdriver sticking out of his right sleeve, and a plastic shopping bag clutched in his left. “Y’gotta see this, y’just gotta!”

“See what?” Dad said.

“Miss Mundy’s place! It’s all tore up!”

Carl turned and started to lead the way, but once they were outside in the slashing wind and rain, Jack broke into a trot and pulled ahead of him. The sudden memory of Oyv’s barking last night sent a cold spike of unease through his chest. It speared down through his gut when he saw her doorway.

“Oh, shit!”

The screen had been shredded; gray, moss like tatters fluttered within the frame. The wooden door behind it stood open.

“Anya!” Jack shouted as he pulled open what was left of the screen door and stepped inside.

He stopped suddenly, just beyond the threshold, causing Dad to bump into him, pushing him forward.

“Oh, dear God!” he heard his father gasp.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Carl said. “Didn’t I?”

The place was a shambles. That was the only word for it. The furniture had been torn apart, the carpet gouged up, and the plants…they’d been torn from their pots, their roots savaged, and every leaf had been torn from the ravaged branches.

Jack forced himself to move forward, calling Anya’s name as he checked both bedrooms and behind the kitchen counter. He found a small spatter of darkening red fluid, and something that looked like a severed finger on the floor.

Jack knelt for a closer look. It was pale, the size of a finger, but it was covered with fur.

What the—?

And then he knew: Oyv’s tail.

Christ! The blood…Oyv had to be dead—died defending Anya no doubt. A slow wave of sadness settled over him. But what could have killed that preternaturally tough little dog? It had to be something bigger and meaner than a giant alligator. But what? And where was the rest of him?

Jack noticed something glittering on the floor. He bent closer: three little slivers of glass. He looked around for a broken window but didn’t see one. Maybe a glass had been knocked off the counter and shattered.

He was pushing himself to his feet when he noticed that all three shards appeared identical. Each about an inch and a half long, with the same curve, and the same taper from thicker base to needle-fine point. He picked one up and rotated it in the light. Its edges were smooth, rounded. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said it was a fang of some sort. But he didn’t know anything that had glass teeth.

He touched the point with the tip of his finger and it slipped through the skin like a bird’s beak dipping into water.

Damn! He started to toss it back to the floor, then decided not to. Maybe he should find out what it was before he threw it away.

He rose and grabbed a paper towel from the roll suspended from the underside of a cabinet. He rolled the needle within and used it to blot the drop of blood oozing from his fingertip.

He turned to his father and Carl, still standing in the doorway.

“What the hell happened here?”

Dad could give him only a stunned look, but Carl held up his plastic shopping bag.

“It’s all here!”

“What’s all there?”

“What happened. The camera caught it all. Or at least most of it.”

2

“When I picked up the camera this morning,” Carl said, “I was in a hurry so it just sat in the bag till after I got home. Long after I got home.”

They’d all hurried back to Dad’s place to set up the camera for playback.

“You didn’t check it right away?”

“Nuh-uh. I figured, what for? I mean, I ain’t never seen nothin’ before and figured this wouldn’t be no different. So I just left it be until I was watchin’ the Dolphins game. That’s when I checked it and found the battery didn’t have no charge left. That ain’t happened before. So I recharged it and took a look to see if somethin’d set it off.”

“What’s this camera about?” Dad said.

Jack ran through a quick explanation of Dr. Dengrove’s attempts to catch Anya watering her yard.

“Dengrove,” Dad said. “Cheats at golf but God forbid anyone sneaks a little water onto their lawn. What an ass.”

Jack had the two-inch LCD screen flipped open. He hit PLAY and started to watch. Dad hung over his shoulder, Carl crouched farther back. The screen lit with green and black blobs that quickly stretched and coalesced into recognizable shapes—the side of Anya’s house, her plantings, the doo-dads, the lawn furniture in her front yard. And then a set of legs went by. Then more.

“Doesn’t this thing have any sound?” Dad said.

“If you hook it up to your TV you can get sound. Want me—?”

“We can do that later if we need to,” Jack said. He had a sick cold feeling in his gut that they’d be listening to the high-pitched barking he’d ignored last night. “First let’s see what’s to see.”

Carl jabbed a finger toward the little screen. “There they are! See?”

Jack saw. A crowd was gathering in an irregular semicircle around the edge of Anya’s lawn. Light from the front windows lit their faces. His intestines began to writhe as he recognized Luke and Corley and a couple of the others. Looked like the whole gang had shown up.

“The clan,” he said.

“All cept Semelee. I didn’t see her nowheres when I watched.”

Jack stared at the tiny screen. He now wished they’d hooked it to the TV. Probably would have lost some resolution, but maybe he’d have a better view of their faces. Beyond a few grins, he couldn’t make out much in the way of expressions. He could read their postures, though, and they radiated something between revulsion and avid fascination, as if they wanted to press forward for a better look, but fear held them in check.

He kept watching, waiting for the clan to do something. He searched for Semelee but couldn’t find her. That white hair of hers would be hard to miss. Why were all the men there? What did they have against—?

Oh, right. The big ugly alligator…her dog had chewed a hole in its side. And the bees yesterday…Anya had chased them off. Yeah, he could see where Semelee could have a bone or two to pick with Anya. But how was she going to get her if Anya’s promise—Nothing on earth can harm you here—was true?

Obviously it wasn’t. Someone had got to her—and to poor little Oyv. What had Semelee—?

“There!” Carl cried. “Didja see that?”

“No.” Jack’s attention had been wandering. “What?”

“I saw something too,” Dad said, “but I don’t know what.”

Jack found the reverse button and backed up the recording. Again he watched Luke and the rest of the men standing in their semicircle, eyes fixed on the front of the house. The camera angle didn’t include the front door, but they were staring like there was a stripper doing her thing there. And then something—maybe three somethings, two feet long at most—suddenly streaked out of the house and over their heads. The way the men ducked and covered made it pretty obvious that they were afraid of the things, whatever they were. More flew out. Once they were gone, the clan came to life. Luke swung an arm and they all charged toward the house.

For a good five to seven minutes, nothing happened, and then the clan reemerged. A group of them seemed to be carrying something but the way they were bunched together prevented him from seeing exactly what. He didn’t have to see. He knew.

“They’ve got Anya.”

“The sons of bitches,” Dad said, straightening and reaching for the phone. “I’m calling the cops.”