InSight

confided about business or family. At the time, that suited me fine. My lower middle-class self never felt comfortable in their company.”
    “Did you ever have a problem with any of them?”
    “Not so I’d be on anyone’s hit list. After all these years, why would Carlotta Gentry send someone to harass me? I don’t get it.”
    “That’s the million-dollar question, but it has something to do with your ex-husband. Bet my life on it.”
    Abby didn’t like the sound of that.
    * * * * *
    M att pulled the copies from the printer in his home office and tucked them into his special vault. Yesterday was the second time he saw a Lincoln Navigator behind him. Was it the same car both times? The driver wasn’t Collyer; he knew that. But with the South African running the show, he could employ any number of thugs. Maybe he should have called the police. And what? Say he saw a car following him?
    Living in a secluded area offered plusses and minuses, solitude being the beneficiary of both. Nothing suspicious caught his attention, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he got into his car. His nerves were shot. Then he thought of his stove and knew he had reason to be nervous.
    A quick glance at his dash clock gave him about twenty minutes to get to the bank by opening time. He took the fastest route into town but also the most desolate. Then he saw it in the rear view mirror—a black Navigator, moving up behind like an on-track missile. Sweat oozed from every pore. His heart rate accelerated.
    Stupid. He should have called the police. Matt couldn’t see the driver through the Lincoln ’s darkened windows. He checked the mirror. No one behind but the black bullet. No one coming the other way, either. He reached for his cell phone. Shit. He’d left it on his desk. Of all times to be forgetful. He stepped on the accelerator, slamming his foot to the floor.
    Sixty.
    Seventy.
    The Lincoln kept gaining ground.
    Eighty.
    Eight-five.
    He’d never driven this fast in his life. The Navigator was almost on his bumper.
    Ninety.
    He was coming into the curve, knuckles white, palms sweaty-slick on the wheel. The Lincoln pulled alongside. Matt saw the dark forms of a driver and a passenger, both faces obscured behind tinted glass. The window slid down a few inches, and a gun barrel poked through, aimed in Matt’s direction. Fear gripped him, and he lost his concentration. He turned into the curve too fast and pulled sharply to the right. Too sharply. He straightened the wheel, but the Lincoln forced him to veer out of its way, swerve back hard into the turn. The car went into a long skid. He couldn’t pull it out. Then he was sliding. It felt like he was on two wheels. He jumped the embankment, then careened onto its side. Rolling. Once. Twice. The seatbelt held him tight as he tumbled into the ravine and, after a slow final flip, landed right-side up.
    The airbag inflated on impact and pressed against Matt’s face before deflating. He was strapped into his seat with water and mud oozing into the car like a sluggish river of cold lava. The envelope lay next to him. If only he could bury it in the viscous sludge or stuff it under him so they couldn’t see it. He worked his fingers free, but his arm was caught under something. He couldn’t move it. The steering wheel pressed against his rib cage. Pain shot through him with every attempted breath.
    Searing hot pain.
    He gasped for air, but his lungs weren’t working. He coughed, and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth and trickled down his chin. A car door opened. Footsteps pounded on the blacktop, then made sucking sounds in the mud. Matt strained to turn his head. A shadow pulled against the passenger-side door, but it was jammed. The man turned away and returned with a heavy log he used as a battering ram against the window, fracturing it. Chunks of glass showered all over the passenger side, one small piece catching in his eye.
    “Help me,” Matt wheezed.
    The unfamiliar man leaned down and snatched the envelope, then pulled out a gun and aimed it at Matt. “They shoot horses, don’t they?” he said. After a few seconds, the gun receded from view. “I can’t put a bullet into a dying man who was the victim of his own reckless driving. That’d be murder.” The footsteps sloshed out of hearing range. “ Gotta run.”
    A car door slammed. Then Matt heard nothing at all except his own heartbeat.
    Until it stopped.
    * * * * *
    L uke’s emails to Matt went