the ends of my sleeves. 'Richie,' I said tenderly, the fire in me rising up like a firework, a burst of stars. 'I'm yours.'
'No,' he said.
'You made me yours.' I looked at him. He had made Tawanda his, and then he had erased her. He had made Mary his, and then erased her. Even though he had erased Tawanda and Mary, these feelings inside me were Tawanda's:
But Sheila? Richie hadn't erased Sheila; he had never even met her.
It was Tawanda who was talking. 'You killed me and you made me yours,' she said. My fingers went to the jacket, unbuttoned it, dropped it behind me. 'What I am I owe to you.'
'I—' he said, and coughed. 'No,' he said.
I heard the purr of car engines in the near distance, not the constant traffic of the Strip, but something closer.
I reached into the car and gripped Richie's arm. I pulled him out, even though he grabbed at the door handle with his free hand. I could feel the bone in his upper arm as my fingers pressed his muscles. 'Richie,' I whispered, and put my arms around him and laid my head on his shoulder.
For a while he was stiff, tense in my embrace. Then a shudder went through him and he loosened up. His arms came around me. 'You're mine?' he said.
'Yours,' said Tawanda.
'Does that mean you'll do what I say?' His voice sounded like a little boy's.
'Whatever you say,' she said.
'Put your arms down,' he said.
I lowered my arms.
'Stand real still.' He backed away from me, then stood and studied me. He walked around, looking at me from all sides. 'Wait a sec, I gotta get my flashlight.' He went around to the trunk and opened it, pulled out a flashlight as long as his forearm, turned it on. He trained the beam on my breasts, my neck. 'I did you,' he said, nodding. 'I did you. You were good. Almost as good as the first one. Show me your hands again.'
I held them out and he stared at my blackened fingers. Slowly he smiled, then looked up and met my eyes.
'I was going to visit you,' he said. 'When I finished with this one. I was coming back to see you.
'I couldn't wait,' said Tawanda.
'Don't talk,' Richie said gently.
Don't talk! Tawanda and Mary accepted that without a problem, but I, Sheila, was tired of people telling me not to talk. What did I have to lose?
On the other hand, what did I have to say? I didn't even know what I wanted. Tawanda's love for Richie was hard to fight. It was the burning inside me, the sizzling under my skin, all I had left of life.
'Will you scream if I say so?' said Richie in his little boy's voice.
'Yes,' said Tawanda; but suddenly lights went on around us, and bullhorn voices came out of the dark.
'Hold it right there, buddy! Put your hands up!'
Blinking in the sudden flood of light, Richie slowly lifted his hand, the knife glinting in the left one, the flashlight in the other.
'Step away from him, miss,' said someone else. I looked around too, not blinking; glare didn't bother me. I couldn't see through it, though. I didn't know who was talking. 'Miss, move away from him,' said another voice from outside the light.
'Come here,' Richie whispered, and I went to him. Releasing the flashlight, he dropped his arms around me, held the knife to my neck, and yelled, 'Stay back!'
'Sheila!' It was Marti's voice this time, not amplified.
I looked toward her.
'Sheila, get away from him!' Marti yelled. 'Do you want him to escape?'
Tawanda did. Mary did. They, after all, had found the place where they belonged. In the circle of his arms, my body glowed, the fire banked but burning steady.
He put the blade closer to my twisted throat. I could almost feel it. I laid my head back on his shoulder, looking at his profile out of the corner of my eye. The light glare brought out the blue in his eye. His mouth was slightly open, the inside of his lower lip glistening. He turned to look down into my face, and a slight smile curved the corner of his mouth. 'Okay,' he whispered, 'we're going to get into the car now.' He raised his voice. 'Do what I say and don't struggle.' Keeping me between him and the lights, he kicked the back door closed and edged us around the car to the driver's side. Moving in tandem, with his arm still around my neck, we slid in behind the wheel, me going first. 'Keep close,' he said to me. 'Slide down a little so I can use my arm to shift with, but keep close.'
'Sheila!' screamed Marti. The driver's side window was open.
Richie started the car.
'Sheila! There's a live woman in the back of that car!'
Tawanda didn't care, and Mary didn't care, and I wasn't even sure I cared. Richie shifted from park into drive and eased his foot off the brake and onto the gas pedal; I could feel his legs moving against my left shoulder. From the back seat I heard a muffled groan. I looked up at Richie's face. He was smiling.
Just as he gunned the engine, I reached up and grappled the steering-wheel-mounted gear shift into park. Then I broke the shift handle off.
'You said you'd obey me,' he said, staring down into my face. He looked betrayed, his eyes wide, his brow furrowed, his mouth soft. The car's engine continued to snarl without effect.
Fire blossomed inside me, hurting me this time because I'd hurt him. Pain came alive. I coughed, choking on my own tongue, my throat swollen and burning, my wrists and ankles burning, my breasts burning, between my legs a column of flame raging up inside me. I tried to apologize, but I no longer had a voice.
'You promised,' said Richie in his little boy's voice, looking down at me.
I coughed. I could feel the power leaving me; my arms and legs were stiffening the way a body is supposed to do after death. I lifted my crippling hands as high as I could, palms up, pleading, but by that point only my elbows could bend. It was Tawanda's last gesture.
'Don't make a move,' said a voice. 'Keep your hands on the wheel.'
We looked. A man stood just outside the car, aiming a gun at Richie through the open window.
Richie edged a hand down the wheel toward me.
'Make a move for her and I'll shoot,' said the man. Someone else came up beside him, and he moved back, keeping his gun aimed at Richie's head, while the other man leaned in and put handcuffs on Richie.
'That's it,' said the first man, and he and the second man heaved huge sighs.
I lay curled on the seat, my arms bent at the elbows, my legs bent at the knees. When they pulled Richie out of the car I slipped off his lap and lay stiff, my neck bent at an angle so my head stuck up sideways. 'This woman needs medical attention,' someone yelled. I listened to them freeing the woman in the back seat, and thought about the death of Tawanda and Mary.
Tawanda had lifted me out of my grave and carried me for miles. Mary had probably mostly died when Grannie cursed me and drove me out of the house. But Sheila? In a way, I had been pregnant with Sheila for years, and she was born in the grave. She was still looking out of my eyes and listening with my ears even though the rest of me was dead. Even as the pain of death faded, leaving me with clear memories of how Richie had treated me before he took that final twist around my neck, the Sheila in me was awake and feeling things.
'She's in an advanced state of rigor,' someone said. I felt a dim pressure around one of my arms. My body slid along the seat toward the door.
'Wait,' said someone else. 'I got to take pictures.'
'What are you talking about?' said another. 'Ten minutes ago she was walking and talking.'
Lights flashed, but I didn't blink.
'Are you crazy?' said the first person. 'Even rapid-onset rigor doesn't come on this fast.'
'Ask anybody, Tony. We all saw her.'
