InSight

Then you’re going to walk out of here with me like I’m your best friend.”
    “What if I won’t go?”
    “I’ll kill your dog while you listen, and it won’t be pleasant. Then I’ll dispose of anyone who walks in here. I assume you have patients coming. And because I enjoy what I do, I’ll take you along while I kill your deaf boyfriend and that flake of a mother.”
    Fear pulsed through Abby’s veins. Collyer did not make threats. Cleo lay dead or dying, and so did Officer Howard. Collyer meant every word.
    Abby patted Daisy’s furry coat and calmed her down. “Where are we going?”
    “We’re taking a ride to Atlanta .”
    “Why?”
    “There’s a minor problem of a safe deposit box only you can get into. Call the bank. Tell them you’ll be there in exactly three hours.”
    “But ― ”
    “No buts. Fucking do what you’re told, and hurry up.”
    “The number’s on my recorder.”
    “Good. I can check to make sure you’re not dialing someone else. Not that it would matter.”
    Abby listened, then punched in the bank’s number with a shaky hand. She checked her watch. Nine. She told them she’d be there at noon, barring traffic.
    They’d been so careful. How did Collyer know about the bank? If he knew about the bank, he knew about Stewart.
    He thrust the cane at her. She took it. “But how—”
    “Shut up.” He grabbed her arm and led her out of the office. Abby didn’t hear anyone in the corridor, and no one spoke on the way out. If she screamed, people would surely die, and she couldn’t add that to her already overloaded conscience. Don’t die, Cleo . Please don’t die.
    They walked across the street to the parking garage. The car was low and small with four doors, because he put the cane in the back seat. Definitely not a Navigator.
    “How do you know about Atlanta ?” she asked when they settled inside.
    “You ask too many questions.”
    “You can’t let me go now, so what difference would it make if I know?”
    “Did you and your cop friends really think we didn’t know where Stewart was all this time?”
    “Then why…” Of course! They were waiting for Stewart to lead them to the papers. And the only person he would tell was me. “Then you planned his escape?”
    “Not exactly. His walking out of the hospital took us by surprise, but one thing about Stewart—he’s predictable. Sooner or later he’d show up at your place. You’re what makes him tick.”
    Collyer pinched her chin. Abby jerked her head away, disgusted by the sound of his derisive laugh.
    “At first we thought his escape would be a problem, but then, well, he hadn’t told Scanlon anything in eight years, maybe this was just what the doctor ordered.”
    All the planning, all the precautions meant nothing. They sat back and waited.
    “That fellow is amazing, really. With all the doctor’s incentives, Stewart never told where he stashed the damn papers. Don’t you find that fascinating?”
    “Fascinating? You took a man’s life to find some papers?”
    “Not any papers,” Collyer said. “Papers more important to the people I work for than Stewart is. Family business. I liked Stewart, certainly better than the rest of the Gentrys ’ snotty brood. If he’d kept his mouth shut eight years ago—but no, he had to tell his mother he was going to the cops. That might’ve been the stupidest thing Stewart had ever done. Good thing he told, though, or I might’ve been forced to leave the country to escape the fallout, and I like it here.”
    “You still didn’t answer my question. Why come after me?”
    “I’m getting to that. Patience. We have three hours to Atlanta and five back to Charleston . All the time in the world.”
    Not for me. Not by this time tomorrow. Once Mrs. Gentry has the papers, she’d see me as more collateral damage.
    “So, we wondered,” Collyer continued, “did you know about the envelope eight years ago? Dr. Scanlon didn’t think so, but maybe Stewart would release some hidden memory. I tossed your house, planted a bug in your phone and another in the house. I also put a tracking device in your purse. Who’d’ve thought a blind woman would change purses?”
    Abby suppressed a shiver as Collyer shed light on the extent of his intrusion into her personal life. They knew her every move, everything that went on in her house. “I’m a fashion plate,” she said, figuring the sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “I like brown with brown and black with black.”