Lisa Childs - The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise

But police officers would have identified themselves. No. It had to be someone else. Someone she wouldn’t want to find her any more than she wanted Jake to find her.

“Thanks for letting me know,” she said. And she was glad that she’d given the older woman her new cell number. Mrs. Truman didn’t have any family to call if something happened to her. She and her late husband had never had children, and their extended families had already passed on, too.

Lillian didn’t need to worry about Mrs. Truman right now, though. She wasn’t the one that something was about to happen to. It was Lillian. Had she left anything behind that might have given a clue to her whereabouts? She tried to remember what she’d left and what she’d thrown out.

Since Mrs. Truman had fished out the photos, she might have taken the old letters from the trash can, too. Lillian looked through the windshield at the small cottage her maternal grandmother owned.

Gran was in a nursing home now. That was why she hadn’t gotten down to her place in Florida. But she was just in the rehabilitation part of the nursing home to recuperate from a broken hip. It was taking a little longer than expected, or maybe not since she was eighty-nine, but with as sharp and feisty as she was, she might be able to live on her own again someday.

Or with Lillian, if Lillian wasn’t in prison.

What had happened to the flash drive?

She had to find that evidence—if it hadn’t already been destroyed.

A chill raced over her skin with the thought. What if it had been destroyed? She would never be able to get into the office again, never be able to gain access to the records to prove her innocence.

She shivered. She’d shut off the ignition a while ago, since the car had been making odd clunky noises when Mrs. Truman had called. She’d wanted to be able to hear her, so she’d shut off the car and coasted to a stop on the road just a few yards away from the cottage. With the heater off, it had grown cool inside the vintage Buick.

Fortunately, it wasn’t her car, so Jake wouldn’t recognize it. Knowing that once she failed to appear in court a warrant would be issued for her arrest, she had left her vehicle at the courthouse. Then she’d had a taxi driver bring her to the lakeshore. From there, she had walked to her grandmother’s cottage. This was Gran’s car, her pride and joy. Like her cottage, she hoped to use it again someday.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” Mrs. Truman said.

Lillian felt a twinge in her heart. The older woman obviously missed her. She missed her, too. She wanted her life back—the one she’d had before the embezzlement charges. The one she’d had before Jake.

Her baby kicked, as if in protest. And Lillian ran her hand over her belly again. She was happy she was pregnant. She wanted this baby. So she didn’t regret making love with Jake. She just wished it had been love and not deception.

“It’s been good to hear your voice, too,” she told Mrs. Truman. Before her landlady hung up, Lillian thought to ask, “How long ago was he there?”

“Who? Tall, dark and handsome?”

Despite her resentment of Jake, Lillian smiled. “Yes.”

The older lady paused as if looking around for a clock. Or her TV. She judged time by her shows as much as the hands on a clock. “He was here during Wheel ,” she replied, “so over an hour ago.”

Which was more than enough time for him to have made it to the cottage. Lillian glanced down the street at the little yellow structure, but she saw no other vehicles parked near it. And the inside of the cabin was as dark as it was outside. It looked as empty as it had when Lillian had arrived earlier that day.

Nobody was there.

Was he ?

She felt a flutter in her belly and pressed her hand over it. Was it the baby? Or nerves?

Usually the baby kicked hard, and she had no doubt it was him or her moving around inside her—as if the baby felt trapped and was anxious to get out. He or she still had a few weeks to go, though.

No. Lillian felt sick now with nerves.

She couldn’t stay here now. Did she have enough time to go inside and grab the bag she hadn’t even bothered to unpack? The car wasn’t the only thing Gran had had to leave at the cottage. She had a gun, too. And even with her concealed weapons permit, it hadn’t been allowed in the nursing home.

Years ago, she’d taught Lillian how to shoot the gun. Maybe she should grab that, too. Lillian didn’t care who was coming after her.

She was not going to jail.

* * *

“Who the hell is he?” Tom Kuipers demanded to know. He divided his attention between the cell phone in his hand and the doors to his den. Beyond those French doors, he had a house full of people.

None of them could overhear this conversation.

None of the who’s who of River City society could know what he had done, what he really was. Not a one of them was smart enough to suspect the truth, not even his wife and father-in-law who owned the building equipment and supply company from which Tom had taken all that money. He had fooled them all—just like he’d fooled Lillian Davies.

“I don’t know,” the man replied. “I didn’t see him flash a badge at the old woman or anything.”

Would the police be looking for Lillian Davies already, though? She’d just missed the first court date. And it wasn’t as if she was being tried for murder.

Maybe he should have framed her for that, too. He had a few people he’d like to kill, but the first was Lillian Davies herself.

“So whoever the hell showed up at her old place—he’s not a lawman?” Tom asked.

A long silence was his reply.

“Well?”

“I don’t know,” the man finally answered him. “He carried himself a certain way, like ex-military or former Secret Service or something.”

Tom heard a voice from someone else talking inside the vehicle they were driving as they tailed the guy they’d seen at Lillian Davies’s apartment. But that other man speaking wasn’t close enough to the cell phone to be understood.

“What?” he asked impatiently.

He hated this, hated not knowing what the hell was going on. And most of all, he hated not knowing where the hell she was and if she had that damn flash drive with her.

Maybe she was more like her notorious family than the naive young girl he’d thought she was.

“He was armed,” the man replied. “Wilson saw a holster under his coat.”

Who the hell was this guy? Some Rambo wannabe?

Tom cursed. Who else was looking for Lillian Davies and why? Maybe the authorities were already involved and looking for her. After all, when she hadn’t shown up in court, she had jumped bail.

So maybe this guy was a bounty hunter.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said. Especially now. Voices rose behind the door as his guests milled around the estate that also belonged to his wife and father-in-law. Tom was pretty much just a damn guest, too. But he’d started to turn that around when he’d taken all that money.

Pretty soon he would have more than they had. And he would no longer need either of them.

Laughter rang out. People were close. His wife was probably showing guests around the house. She wouldn’t hesitate to barge into his den, even though it was the one part of the house that was supposed to be his alone.

He lowered his voice and spoke quickly but succinctly into the phone. “Lillian Davies needs to be found and eliminated. Now. ”

Before she could turn over that flash drive—if it actually existed—to the authorities.

“What about the big guy?” his man asked, and there was a faint crackle of nerves in his voice. Or maybe it had just been the phone.

There were seven or eight of them. They couldn’t be afraid of one man. And if they were, Tom needed to hire tougher guys. At least these weren’t the only men he had working on this special assignment.