EMMET STARED AT CALVIN. HE COULDN’T HELP IT. HIS jaw was almost on his chest.

“Did you just say your grandfather? Dr. Catalyst is your grandfather?” Something wasn’t right here. “I thought he was dead.”

“So did I,” Calvin mumbled, his head down.

“Wait. Wait a minute,” Dr. Geaux was saying. “You can’t possibly mean this. Lucas’s father died in the swamp. Years ago.”

“I am afraid that is not true, Rosalita,” Yaha said. “He is very much alive.”

“You’re lying!” Dr. Geaux said. She walked over to Calvin and stood behind him, with her arms around him. Like she wanted to protect him from some awful truth.

“Would that it were so, but I’m not.”

“How do you know this?” Dr. Doyle asked. “And if you know it, why didn’t you say anything until now? Do you know what this man has done? The damage he’s caused? The people he’s hurt? If you knew —”

Yaha held up his hand, cutting him off.

“I know it’s true because he came to me some months ago, after he was injured in a confrontation with one of his … Pterogators, I believe he called them? I provided him with treatment.” There was something about Yaha — something Emmet couldn’t quite put his finger on — that made him think the old man was telling the truth. Yaha stood there in the living room, ramrod straight, and acted almost irritated that anyone would question him.

He was also starting to make Emmet a little angry.

“What do you mean, ‘treatment’?” Dr. Doyle asked.

“Yaha is, or rather was, a medical doctor,” Dr. Geaux said.

“Yes. I am a doctor. Retired. I served in the army in Vietnam as a battalion aid surgeon. I returned home to run the central clinic on the reservation for many years. Now I am retired and live at my camp in the Everglades. The man you call Dr. Catalyst came to me injured, bleeding, almost dead. I treated his wounds and nursed him back to health.”

Now Dr. Geaux was furious. She had an olive complexion to begin with, and was always tanned from being out in the sun a lot. Now you could see the red showing through on her cheeks, a bright red that was growing brighter by the minute.

“Did you know what he was doing? What he’d done? Kidnapping? Releasing these creatures? Why didn’t you stop him? Turn him in? People have been hurt, Yaha!” She had moved past furious, straight to seething.

“Yes. And it is regrettable. At first, I didn’t turn him in because I agreed with him,” he said quietly.

“You … what?” Dr. Geaux was flabbergasted.

“No one can argue that the Everglades aren’t being destroyed by man,” he said. “The current problems with pythons and boa constrictors are just the latest. The River of Grass has suffered mismanagement and outright destruction for many years. Dr. Catalyst — the man you would call my brother-in-law — has been seeking to restore nature’s balance in his own way. But as I considered it, I grew to think that while he may have his heart in the right place, his methods are not sustainable. They will only cause further damage. He has lost his way. When Calvin came to me with the photo and his questions, I answered them as best I could. But the more I thought of it — about Calvin, about Philip — I realized I could not allow him to continue as Dr. Catalyst.”

“Well, thank you so much,” Emmet said. He couldn’t help it. Now he was furious, boiling-mad, someone-better-stop-him-before-he-does-something-he’ll-regret angry. This Yaha person just sat out there, knowing all along who Dr. Catalyst was, and probably how to find him, and kept it a secret? Oh. No. Way.

Yaha looked at Emmet, and for a moment Emmet saw something flash across his eyes. It wasn’t anger or regret. It was shame. But it was only there for a brief instant, and then it was gone.

Emmet’s hands were balled into fists. He stalked across the carpet until he was right in the old man’s face. “He kidnapped my father! He stole my dog! I got disgusting Blood Jacket goop all over me! And you knew! I don’t care what you thought about balance. My dad and Dr. Geaux and a bunch of other people have been working around the clock to fix this mess. People’s lives have been put in danger. And you knew? You should be arrested! In fact, Dr. Geaux, arrest him! Take him downtown and beat him with a nightstick until he tells us everything! And —” Emmet felt arms on his shoulders pulling him back.

“Whoa, son,” his dad said, trying to gently lead him away. “Cool off. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“I don’t blame you for being angry,” Yaha said.

“Oh, I’m not angry. I’m incensed.” Then Emmet remembered Calvin. He had a role here, too. He spun on his friend.

“And you knew? All this time?” Emmet couldn’t see himself, but he was sure he was turning purple by now.

“I thought I did. But with all respect to my elder, these are not the things he told me,” Calvin said.

“What? You’re not making sense at all. Why is no one making any sense here?” Emmet was trying to get free of his dad’s grip, but Dr. Doyle just held him a little tighter.

Calvin sighed and tried to explain. “I had a photo of some men. It was in a journal that belonged to my father. I found it after he died. They were out in a camp in the Everglades. One of them sort of looked like the man we saw at the school when the Blood Jackets attacked. Uncle Yaha was in the photo, too. I went to the reservation to find out the identity of the man in the photo. He told me it was my grandfather. Not that it was Dr. Catalyst. He told me none of what he’s said here tonight. I thought and thought about it. And I began to think maybe my grandfather was alive. My dad told me Grandfather was very smart. He went to college and had a PhD in microbiology. When he lived on the reservation, he fought long and hard with the state and federal government over saving the Everglades. But I couldn’t get around the fact that my dad was convinced he’d died in the swamp. No one knew the Everglades better than Dad. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that. So the more I thought about it, I couldn’t just come out and accuse someone of being Dr. Catalyst — someone who was supposed to be long dead — because we caught a fleeting glimpse of a guy in a hallway.”

“Calvin is telling the truth,” Yaha said. “I told him nothing about his grandfather being alive. And he is correct in that no one knew the swamp better than his father, Lucas Geaux. Except one person — his grandfather, Philip Geaux. I have come here now to tell you the rest of the story.”

Emmet wanted to punch something, but he never got the opportunity. Apollo started barking and running around in circles, back and forth between the patio doors and the living room. Crazy barking. Like he had a couple of nights ago.

“Apollo …” Dr. Doyle said.

Then the patio door exploded in a cascade of broken glass.