InSight

wanted to, wouldn’t you?” Lucy picked up the frame and studied it. “Luke hasn’t changed much. A handsome young boy. The brother is cute but delicate-looking, favors the mother. Luke must resemble his father.”
    “Luke wouldn’t like that comparison.”
    “I’m starved,” Lucy said. “How ’bout I make dinner and we eat outside.”
    “Dinner sounds great, but we’ll eat inside. Luke would probably think that’s unsafe.”
    “Hmm, protective, huh?”
    “Only until they catch whoever is trying to screw up my life.”
    “Stewart?”
    “We don’t think so.”
    “I’ll make dinner.”
    Lucy’s fizzled attention span left Abby without a tour guide. But she’d learned a lot about Luke McCallister. Yes, she felt nosy and invasive, but she needed a visual picture of how he lived his life. Abby knew more about his inside than his outside, and even that seemed to have a locked cupboard. Lucy’s travelogue helped acquaint her with a side of Luke out of her reach.
    They ate sautéed tilapia served over a bed of braised spinach with a slice of cantaloupe on the side and drank apple juice in wine glasses. Abby would have loved a glass of chardonnay, but not tonight. Not so close to Lucy’s near breach of the twelve steps.
    “Dinner’s tasty, Lucy.”
    “Luke’s a good guy.”
    “I know, but there’s something inside him I can’t reach.”
    “Do you think it’s important?”
    Abby thought about Luke and how he closed up whenever she got too close to drawing out his past. She felt her stomach sink. “Yeah, I think it’s very important.”

Chapter Twenty-Five
    Black Widow

    L ucy dashed out the door the minute Luke returned early the next morning. “Glad you’re home safe. Gotta hurry. I want to stop by to see Meyer before I open the shop.”
    He called his thanks to her back. “She’s a whirlwind.”
    “An understatement,” Abby said. “How did it go?”
    “I was nervous as a feral cat. They insisted on a back booth, but the place was small, and I could see them clearly enough. Got the time and place, so it worked out. Everyone was happy.”
    “That’s great. You watch, they’ll be calling you from all over the country. Have you eaten breakfast?”
    “Coffee. I’ll make something after I email Matt.”
    “Lucy made French toast. It’s still warm.”
    “Great.” Luke didn’t want to further involve Pete in a case where he might have to tap dance around police procedure. The instant messaging worked fine. He typed Matt’s address, and he answered immediately. Both men typed fast. Luke read the dialogue out loud for Abby.
    Matt: “ Receptormine , the primary product produced by Synthetec, the small pharmaceutical company owned primarily by the Gentry family, went through years of clinical trials with mixed results. Enough positive data secured its approval by the FDA, and eventually it was hailed as a breakthrough in the treatment of schizophrenia. Martin Gentry instituted a major advertising campaign—television, print, you name it. The stock soared. Then a few deaths linked to the drug sent the stock into a tailspin. Martin and his publicity department went into high gear. The company released the results of numerous trial cases, all successful.
    I started poking around and found a Synthetec chemist who told me that their studies had been doctored. He made me promise I wouldn’t use his name, because if word got out that he’d divulged company secrets, he’d lose his job, or worse. I called a few other Synthetec employees to verify what he’d told me, but no one would speak to me, confidentially or otherwise.
    My source had no reason to lie, so I wrote an article questioning the validity of the trials without giving away my source. How do they say in politics? Something about the anonymity of an unnamed source? Then my kitchen blew up. I would have gone up with it if it weren’t for a stroke of luck that took me out of harm’s way. Shook me up plenty.”
    Luke: “They tried to kill you, Matt. Why didn’t you go to the police?”
    Matt: I did. They couldn’t find anything suspicious, or didn’t want to. Whoever rigged the stove used a delay. A few seconds, but it gave me enough time. I set my pan on the burner and turned on the gas. Then the phone rang, and when I went to answer it, boom. Sent me flying. I escaped injury, but the near miss scared my chemist into recanting his story, and I couldn’t get him to change his mind.
    “Martin subjected Receptormine to