“What’d you say?”

I motioned to Juleen to give me the phone. I picked up an eyelid and managed to orient a finger on the phone’s letters. I pecked out: Tape the arm.

Chris read it. He said, “Anyone have any tape?”

Someone from the front seat said, “I have electrical tape.”

Serial killer, I thought.

“Give it to me,” Chris said. “This is going to stick to her arm.”

I made a motion with my left hand.

“I don’t understand,” Chris said.

“Flip … it.”

“Flip … Oh, right.” He took my right arm, and again, I screamed in pain as he started wrapping my forearm on the nonsticky side as tight as he could. It felt like a tourniquet. I was sobbing, it was so painful.

“Hold on, baby doll. Almost done.” Finally, he said, “This is going to hurt—”

“Go …”

He took my wrist and pulled my arm forward and straight out from my body with some force, guiding the ball back into the socket. I shrieked in pain. Afterward, it still hurt, but I could wiggle my fingers.

I still couldn’t move my arm without pain. “Better,” I whispered. I pulled at the tape.

“You want me to take the tape off?” Chris asked.

I nodded.

“Hold still.” A moment later, something cool touched my skin as it ran the length of the electrical tape up my arm. A knife, I presumed. Chris always carried weapons. Even lying next to him, against his chest, I could feel his gun in its shoulder holster.

He said, “Don’t you dare fall asleep.” I was too tired to answer him. Still, he kept talking … to keep me awake. “We had problems, I know, but we also had a lot of good times too. Like … like remember in Vegas … I took you there for our five-year anniversary. And we both got so plastered that as soon as we entered the hotel room, we fell down onto the floor.” A pause. “And we laughed and laughed and laughed. And we made love all night. And …” Another pause. “And then we left for breakfast … after having been up all night. We both looked a mess—well, I did, not you. You always looked good, Terry, no matter what.”

Uh, I beg to differ.

“Anyway, we went down to the casino. And there was the giant slot machine that only took ten-dollar tokens. And you wanted to play it, and I said gambling was flushing money down the toilet.”

How true is that.

“But you insisted, so I bought you a token. And you pulled the lever. One time.” He gave a laugh. “One pull and the bell went off. You won a couple of grand. It wasn’t the big jackpot, but it was a good return on your investment.”

His voice was far away, like the distant music of a parade.