InSight

there. I’d stake my life on it.”
    Abby heard an uncharacteristic defensiveness in Collyer’s tone. Someone was criticizing his expertise, and he didn’t like it.
    “Not a good way of putting it, Mr. Collyer,” Mrs. Gentry responded. “If there are other copies of this audit, then everything we’ve done for the last eight years has been for nothing. I doubt my father would be happy if somehow you missed retrieving any duplicates.”
    The memory of Mrs. Gentry’s pinched face filled Abby’s dark world, and she recoiled.
    “No, he wouldn’t be happy at all.”
    “She’s bluffing,” Collyer charged. “She’s a shrink. That’s what they do. Play games with your head. I’ll get the truth out of her.”
    “I said no. I don’t want a scratch on her. Understand?”
    Carlotta Gentry’s cold tone struck fear in Abby. If Collyer moved her and Stewart, Luke and Norm might not find them in time. She needed to put a kink in their plans. Something to prolong the time.
    “You fucked up, Graeme,” she taunted. “Bet you didn’t check the wine bottles in Matt’s cooler. They were right in front of you. A blind woman could find them. I thought you were a professional, but you’re just another dumb thug with shit for brains.”
    The quick, powerful blow to Abby’s face knocked her off the chair and sent her sprawling onto the floor. She had prepared herself, expected retaliation, but the vicious strike still surprised her. A small measure of satisfaction dulled the pain as she realized her provocation worked. As much as he thinks he’s above being goaded, men like him are predictable when their manhood is challenged. All it takes is the right twist of the knife.
    “Now see what you’ve done,” Mrs. Gentry snapped.
    A warm trickle of blood seeped into Abby’s throat, unleashing an unpleasant metallic taste. She smiled. Did he see her laughing at him? She wanted him to see. “So, you’re not beyond insult, are you, Graeme?” She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. She hoped blood covered her clothes.
    Collyer hovered over her, his anger defined by short, panting breaths. “What the fuck are you smiling at?”
    She crawled to her knees, unsure of her position.
    “Move back, Mr. Collyer,” Mrs. Gentry said.
    The old lady hadn’t wanted a scratch on her. So much for that. She heard Collyer move away, his anger still apparent in his staccato breaths.
    Abby tried to regain her balance. The ringing in her ears obliterated the sound of his footsteps coming toward her, but she felt his vibration in the floor. Mrs. Gentry yelled in an attempt to stop him, but Graeme Collyer wasn’t about to give in to the demands of his boss or anyone else. The powerful thrust of his foot connected under Abby’s rib cage as she started to rise, lifting her off the floor. She fell backward and collapsed, pain shooting through her midsection.
    At that moment, Stewart’s guttural drone turned into a high-pitched yowl and he screamed in an otherworldly voice. “ Nooo . Don’t hurt my Abby.”
    Dazed, her nose and throat filling with blood, she heard and felt the struggle nearby.
    “Do something, Herbert,” Mrs. Gentry pleaded. “Stewart’s strangling him. Mr. Collyer can’t breathe.”
    “ Wha …what do you want me to do? I could get myself killed.”
    Collyer’s attack on Abby awakened the sleeping giant inside Stewart, prodding him to break free of the lethargy that bound him. He must have attacked Collyer from behind—Stewart wouldn’t stand a chance in a frontal assault—because sounds of coughing and choking emanated from the big man.
    Abby knew Collyer’s massive size from his hold on her and the height of his voice. The Stewart she knew, although tall and lanky and a mass of sinewy muscle, had spent the last eight years in a drugged haze where food meant little. From the touch of his hand, he didn’t seem much more than a bony remnant, no threat to a professional killer. Nevertheless, she heard the South African gasping for breath.
    Carlotta Gentry alternated between shrieking Collyer’s name and Stewart’s, but Stewart’s grunts indicated he was holding on, strangling, squeezing, his mother’s pleas lost in his addled brain.
    “Stop this! Stop this now! Oh, my God, Mr. Collyer’s face is turning blue. Herbert, help him.”
    Abby’s elation that Stewart might actually subdue Collyer fizzled when she heard Collyer suck in enough air to regain his wind, then the crunching of bones.