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?”