“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 metallicclick 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 Carland 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 sheknow ?

“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 riflecracked 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! Youpisser!

“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.”