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exhilarating. As she worked, part of her was observing the whole thing, as if outside herself.
    That had happened once before that she could remember. She was ten, and they were making fun of her like always. In the school cafeteria. She had mashed potatoes and gravy and red Jell-O and green beans. She was sitting alone, of course, nobody ever sat with her, but she had a highly developed sense of awareness. She could tell when people were making fun of her and getting ready to do things. Like throw dirt clods at her, which was one of their favorite pastimes when she walked home from school.
    This day there was a little group of them, all boys. Laughing and pointing at her. Turning heads back to each other for a fresh insult.
    She pretended not to see, but out of the corner of her eye she could. Her peripheral vision was acute. Maybe because she had to use it so much to protect herself.
    And then one of them sauntered up to her table. Cal Sensenbrenner. The athletic one. Stocky, built, fastest runner in school. He said, “Hey, Lazy Lizzie, your daddy in jail again?”
    “No.” But he was.
    “I heard he was in jail and drunk and he peed his pants.”
    “Did not!”
    “Maybe he could come to career day. I wanna be a jailbird someday.”
    She didn’t say anything. She looked down at her food.
    “Answer me,” he said and pushed her.
    An explosion went off in her head. Nobody does that to me. Nobody , nobody , nobody.
    She threw the tray. It got most of him. The rest ended up on the floor and on some shoes and on a couple of the other kids. They started swearing at her.
    Cal swore loudest, picked up some Jell-O in his hands and mashed it in her face while everybody started cheering. While she was crying, Miss Brainerd waddled over and told Cal to cut it out and he cussed at Miss Brainerd.
    “You shouldn’t have done that, Elizabeth,” Miss Brainerd said. “You broke the rules, you sure did.”
    Liz wanted to cuss, too, but instead she held her tongue and looked at the mess she made, and it seemed beautiful to her. Reds and greens and browns, like a finger painting. It was beautiful because she had done it. She had made trouble and stopped stupid Cal’s face from having that stupid smile.
    Now, feeling in control with two dead bodies near, Liz’s movements were fast and sure.
    Arty’s body lay far enough away that no one could see it or her from the path. The biker had managed to get himself good and dead in an out-of-the-way spot, too. It was to her advantage, if she moved quickly.
    She put the four sacks next to each other on the ground. Then she checked the other saddlebag. It was empty.
    The dead biker wore a leather jacket. He wasn’t going to miss it. His ashen-faced, blank-eyed stare looked somehow shocked at his own condition.
    Liz started working the jacket off the inflexible body. That’s why they call it a stiff , she thought. That’s what Arty will be like in a couple of hours.
    At that moment a jolt of regret and a little fear zinged through her. The jolt had a voice, and the voice said, Give this up. Don’t do this thing. Go back and call the police and tell them everything that happened. It was an accident, see, and this elaborate plan you’re coming up with has too many holes in it, don’t do this thing . . .
    “Shut up,” she said out loud. That surprised her. What did she think she was doing? Responding to some real voice? No , pack it away. Put aside any idea that you’re guilty here of anything. You are not. You deserve this.
    But Arty didn’t deserve what he got. He was a good guy, deep down. He didn’t know what he was getting when he proposed to you. You played him , offered your body at just the right time , withheld it after that until he was mad to have you.
    But Arty had brought this whole thing on himself. He should not have changed. He shouldn’t have traded in what made him a man and a success. People like that didn’t survive in this world. They ended up like this biker —