“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, he should feel guilty about missing Kate’s funeral. Damn guilty.