“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.”