“Oh, that’s an Ybor. It’s a Florida brew I discovered.”

His father gave him a hard look. “What did you do? Move in while I was out cold?”

“Well, Anya said you’d want it that way.”

“She did, did she?”

These mood swings between friendly and hostile were getting to be a bit too much. “Look, if you want me to move out—”

“I wouldn’t hear of it.”

He popped the caps off a pair and handed one to Jack. They clinked the bottles.

Jack said, “To letting bygones be bygones?” At least for now.

“Not always as easy as it sounds, but I’ll drink to that.” His father took a sip and then studied the label. “Ybor Gold, ay? I like it.”

Jack took a long pull. “Yeah. But they should have named it Ygor Gold. Then they could have had this sneaky-looking hunchback on the label. Would have been very cool.”

His father stared at him. “Now why on earth would you think of that? Why would anyone think of that? You know, I used to worry that all those monster movies you watched as a kid would warp you. Now I can see they did. I swear they did.”

“Hey, I’ve watched lots of romantic films too, Dad, but they didn’t make me romantic. And I know I must have seen hundreds, maybe a thousand comedies, but they didn’t make me funny. I haven’t committed stand-up yet and, trust me, I’mnot the life of the party.”

His father laughed for the first time since he’d come out of the coma. That was a good thing.

8

They hung around the front room for about twenty minutes or so, sipping their brews and making small talk, then his father dozed off in his recliner. At first Jack worried that he’d lapsed back into coma, but he responded when Jack shook his shoulder. He left him sleeping in his chair and went outside.

Through the late afternoon haze he spotted Carl working three houses down. When he saw Jack he hurried toward him across the dry grass. A small garden spade protruded from his right sleeve.

“I heard about your daddy,” he said, flashing a yellow grin. “Real glad he’s okay. That’s pan-o-ramic!”

“Sorry?”

He shrugged. “I just like the word. Anyways, I’m glad he’s back.”

“Thanks, Carl. He’s napping now.”

“Good. Real good. Looks like the list don’t get more pan-o-ramic.”

Wishing he’d never uttered that word, Jack said, “What list?”

“The list of Gateways folks who’ve gone before their time—not that ‘before their time’ means a whole helluva lot round a place like this. Funeral home waiting rooms is what they is.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Had a bunch of strange deaths real recent like.”

Jack felt a crawly sensation in his gut. “Like what? Hit and runs?”

“Nup. Nothin like that. I mean strange. Like Mrs. Borger bein attacked by about a dozen pelicans last year—right before Christmas, it was. Pecked her to death. I hear tell one of them bit into her neck and there was blood shootin everwhere. Been in Florida all my life and I ain’t never heard of no one bein attacked by no pelicans. Then back in March there was Mr. Leo, all bitten up by a bunch of spiders. Brown recluses, they say.” He shuddered. “If I was ever onFear Factor , that’s what would set me to runnin. Anyways, Doc Harris said he’s never heard of someone gettin bit more’n once, but there you go. Poor old guy died in the hospital.”

“Jeez.”

“Then just last June, Mr. Neusner trips and falls into a whole nest of coral snakes. He was DOA like the others. Come to think of it, your daddy was the only accident that made it to the hospital alive. I guess that’s a good sign.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Funny thing about Mr. Neusner and the coral snakes. We got a sayin down here: ‘red touch yellow—kill a fellow.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, there’s coral snakes, which got red, yellow, and black stripes, and they’s poisonous as all get out. And then there’s the scarlet snake and the scarlet king snake which got similar stripes but they’re harmless. The way you tell ’em apart is by the order of their stripes.”

“You mean people hang around long enough to check out the stripe order?”

“Sure. If it’s got a red stripe next to a yellow stripe, it’s a coral snake. If it don’t, then you’re okay. You may get bit, but you won’t get poisoned.” He pronounced it “pie-zund.”

Jack said, “I’m a city boy. I see any snake, striped or plaid, I’m gone.”

He much preferred dealing with human snakes than the legless kind.

“But the thing is,” Carl added, “I seen one of them snakes, the one Mr. Neusner stomped on before he keeled over. Don’t know bout the other ones that bit him, but this one didn’t have no red touchin yellow. It shouldn’t have been poisonous, but it was.” He shook his head. “Kinda scary when somethin you always depended on turns out not to be true anymore.”

Tell me about it, Jack thought. He’d seen the pins kicked from under more than one Cherished Truth lately.

“You said there was a nest of them? Right here at Gateways? How? The place looks so…manicured.”

“I can’t figure that one neither. I run the mower over that spot every week and I ain’t never seen no snake nest. I think a buncha them just coiled theirselfs all together durin the night and was still there when Mr. Neusner come by like he did every mornin.” Carl looked away, toward the Everglades. “Almost like…”

“Almost like what?”

“Like they was waitin for him.”

Jack’s gut crawled again. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

A shrug. “Just a thought.”

“I’m having a thought too,” Jack said as the crawling sensation increased. “December, March, June…every three months someone buys it. And three months from June is—”

“September,” Carl said. “You’re thinkin of your daddy, right? But the others was done in right here at Gateways by things like birds and spiders and snakes—all natural like. Your daddy had a car accident and he wasn’t here at Gateways like the others.”

But the regularity of the fatal mishaps to Gateways residents, the steady three-month intervals between them, bothered Jack. Especially since his father had almost bought it at the end of another three-month cycle.

Something might be going on, but it sure as hell wasn’t the Everglades seeking revenge.

Jack feared something less substantial but far more real might be behind it.

9

Tom awoke from his nap and looked around. Where was Jack? Or had he only dreamed he was here? That might mean that the whole coma thing was a dream too.

Then Jack walked in the front door and he felt a strange mix of emotions: up that his prodigal son had come home, even if only for a few days, and down because it meant the accident and coma were all real.

“Oh,” Jack said. “You’re awake. Short nap.”

“The short ones are the best. They don’t leave you groggy.”

Jack headed toward the kitchen. “I’m going to have another beer. Want one?”

“No, thanks. But you go ahead.”

Tom watched him twist off the top of an Ybor Gold and thought how much he looked like his mother. He had Jane’s brown hair and brown eyes. And he moved with her grace, her economy of motion.

Tom hadn’t seen his younger son in over a year, not since that father-son tennis match he’d roped him into last summer. He’d changed in that time. He didn’t look older, but his eyes held a different look. He couldn’t call it a hunted look. Maybe haunted? Haunted by Kate’s death? Or was it something else? Guilt, maybe. Well, heshould feel guilty about missing Kate’s funeral. Damn guilty.

He didn’t know what to make of his younger son. He’d thought they’d been close. He’d made a special effort to spend time with Jack while he was growing up. An unplanned baby. He and Jane had their boy and their girl and were content with that. But Jack showed up eight years after Kate, and neither Tom nor Jane had quite the energy they’d had with the first two. But Tom hadn’t wanted to shortchange the little guy, thus the special effort.