Speaking in Tongues

in the car. Leave your right hand up and with your left reach out the window and open the door. Don’t lower that right hand.”
    Tate didn’t move.
    “I’m not telling you again! I have a—”
    “Put it down!” came Bett’s raw scream from inches behind his head. Tate’s pistol was resting at the cop’s throat.
    “Oh, shit.”
    “Do it!”
    “I’ve got him covered, lady. You do anything to me and he’s gone. I’ll shoot him. I swear . . .” But he said this out of shame, not resolve, and when Bett screamed, “We’re after my daughter and I’ll kill you right now if I have to,” the cop’s disgusted grunt was followed by the sound of his large pistol hitting the dirt.
    Bett stepped away from the man, who towered over her. He went limp as he saw the ferocity in her face, maybe wondering just how close to death he’d come. He sagged against the car.
    “All right,” Bett muttered. “Lie down on the ground. There. On your stomach.”
    Tate was out of the car and jogging toward them.
    “There’re other troopers coming, lady. They’ll be here in minutes.”
    “All the more reason to move!”
    He eased down. Bett handed the cop’s pistol to Tate.
    “Cuff him and let’s go,” she said.
    But Tate put his hand on her shoulder. “No. You’re staying.”
    “No, Tate,” Bett said, holding a wad of Kleenexes up to her bloody chin. “I want to come.”
    What could he say to her? That there wasn’t anything she could do and Tate needed to focus on saving Megan—if she could be saved? That it was important for her to stay here and tell the police exactly what had happened, send them out to the hospital? They were both surefire arguments. But Tate answered instead from his heart and told her the truth. Simply: “I don’t want to risk losing you.”
    She looked at the dark blood on the Kleenex and up at Tate once more. She nodded.
    “Now, listen to me,” he said gravely. “When they get here, just set the gun down and put your hands up. They’ll be nervous and looking to shoot. Do exactly what they say. You hear me?”
    She nodded. He touched her cheek, wiping away some blood.
    “A sexy woman with a scar—won’t be a man in the county’ll keep his hands off you.”
    “You’ll get her, won’t you, Tate?”
    “I’ll get her.”
    He kissed her forehead and ran to the car.
    He floored the accelerator, splattering the squad car with gravel and dirt. As he drove over a crest in the road, the tach nosing into the red crescent of the warning zone, he caught a glimpse of Bett in the rearview mirror, crouching beside the prone trooper, undoubtedly apologizing earnestly. Still, the pistol that was gripped in both her hands was pointed steadily at his face.
    •   •   •
    She couldn’t take it anymore.
    Crazy Megan was gone, dead and sleeping with the fishes.
    The depleted air suffocated her. The smells—the rot and the sweet scent from embalmed skin—wrapped themselves around her throat and squeezed.
    Which was bad enough. But then the panic started to sizzle through her body like electricity. The claustrophobia.
    “No, no, no,” she said, or maybe she just thought it. “No, no . . . Let me out, let me out, let me out . . .”
    Suddenly she wasn’t even worried that Matthews was outside the casket, waiting for her. It didn’t matter; she couldn’t stay inside a moment longer.
    Megan pushed against the lid of the coffin.
    It didn’t move.
    She tried again, with all her strength. Nothing.
    “Ah,” she gasped. “Oh please, God, no . . .”
    He’d locked her in! She pounded on the lid then heard a wild laugh outside. Words she couldn’t distinguish. More laughter.
    More words, louder: “. . . two having fun together . . . likes you . . . Peter likes you . . .”
    “Let me out, let me out!”
    Her voice rose to a wild keening, her whole body shivered in violent spasms.
    “You fucker you fuck let me outoutoutout!” With both her fists Megan pounded on the lid until they bled, banged it with her head, feeling with horror Peter’s cold face against her neck, his cold penis against her thigh.
    From outside Aaron Matthews beat on the lid too, responding to her pounding. Then more laughter. And finally more tapping, like a drummer, keeping perfect time with the rhythm of her raw screams.
    •   •   •
    No subtlety, no nuance . . .
    Tate Collier came to the end of Palmer Road and saw the mental hospital in front of him. He aimed Bett’s