LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      “If he gets in the way,” Tom said, “eliminate him, too.” He didn’t care who the hell he was. Tom had come too far to go back now. He was too close to pulling off the plan.

       Chapter 3

      Jake was so close. He dragged in a deep breath and could smell her scent yet inside the cottage. It was like flowers and grass after a summer rain—fresh and new. She had been here recently, maybe just moments ago.

      How the hell had he missed her?

      He’d parked down the block at the empty lot for the beach access. But it was after dark, so nobody else had been there. Nobody was here, either.

      After seeing those old letters from her grandmother, he’d realized this was where she’d be. And he’d found the little yellow cottage easily because he’d been here before, that day they’d taken those photos in the booth on the beach. He’d been pressing her to introduce him to her family. So she’d brought him to meet her elderly grandmother.

      It hadn’t been what he’d had in mind, but he’d certainly enjoyed meeting her grandmother more than he had any of the rest of her family. Gran wasn’t a Davies and had had less use for the family her now-deceased daughter had married into than even Jake had. While she loved her grandsons, too, the only one she trusted and respected was her granddaughter.

      Where was Gran?

      He couldn’t believe the octogenarian would have

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