Riggs reached across to his glove box and pulled out his portable phone. He was just about to punch in 911 when the Honda now took the very aggressive tack of ramming his truck from behind. The phone flew out of his hand and smashed into several pieces against the dashboard. Riggs cursed, shook off the impact, clenched the wheel hard, shifted into low gear, and slowed down even more as the Honda repeatedly smashed into him. What he was hoping would happen eventually did, as the Honda’s front bumper and the truck’s heavy-duty rear one locked together. He could hear the gears grinding in the Honda as the driver tried to extricate his vehicle without success. Riggs peered into the rearview mirror and he saw the man’s hand slide over to his glove compartment. Riggs wasn’t going to wait around to see whether a weapon emerged from it or not. He jerked the truck to a stop, slammed the gear in reverse, and the two vehicles roared backward down the road. He watched with satisfaction as the man in the Honda jerked back upright and gripped the steering wheel in a panic. Riggs slowed as he came to the curve, cleared it and then shot forward again. As he came to a straightaway, he cut the wheel sharply to the left and slammed the Honda into the rocky side of the road. The force of that collision uncoupled the two vehicles. The driver appeared unhurt. Riggs slammed the truck into drive and quickly disappeared down the road in pursuit of the BMW. He continually looked back for several minutes but there was no sign of the Honda. Either it had been disabled upon impact, or the driver had decided not to pursue his reckless actions further.
The adrenaline continued to course through Riggs’s body for several minutes until it finally dissipated. Five years removed from the dangers of his former profession, Riggs was aware that this morning’s five-minute episode had reminded him vividly of how many close calls he had survived. He had neither expected nor ever wanted to rekindle that anxious feeling in the sleepy morning mists of central Virginia.
His damaged bumper clanking loudly, Riggs finally slowed down, as further pursuit of the BMW was hopeless. There were innumerable roads off the main track and the woman could have taken any one of them and be long gone by now. Riggs pulled off the road and stopped, plucked a pen from his shirt pocket and wrote the license plate numbers of the Honda and BMW down on the pad of paper he kept affixed to his dashboard. He ripped the paper off the pad and tucked it in his pocket. He had a pretty good idea who was in the Bimmer. Someone who lived in the big house. The same big house he had been hired to surround with a state-of-the-art security fence. Now the owner’s request started to make a whole lot more sense to Riggs. And the question he was most interested in now was why? He drove off, deep in thought, the morning’s peacefulness irretrievably shattered by the look of sheer terror on a woman’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The BMW had indeed pulled off on a side road several miles away from where Riggs and the Honda had tangled. The driver’s side door was open, the motor running. Arms clutched tightly around her sides, LuAnn walked in tight, frenetic circles in the middle of the road, shooting frosty breaths skyward in her agitation. Anger, confusion, and frustration raced across her features. All traces of fear were gone, however. The present emotions were actually far more damaging to her. Fear almost always passed; these other mental battering rams did not retreat so easily. She had learned this over the years, and had even managed to cope with it as best as she could.
Now thirty years old, LuAnn Tyler still carried the impulsive energy and sleek animal movements of her youth. The years had grafted onto her a more complete, mature beauty. However, the basic elements of that beauty had been discernibly altered. Her body was leaner, the waist even tighter. The effect was to make her appear even taller than she already was. Her hair had grown out and now was far more blond than auburn, and cut in a sophisticated manner that highlighted her more defined facial features, including the minor nose job done for disguise rather than aesthetics. Her teeth were now perfect, having benefitted from years of expensive dentistry. There was, however, one imperfection.