make sure he was good enough for her.
He wasn’t, because he was a liar and a sneak. All he’d been after was the bounty for her family. The minute he’d seen them, he’d taken them into custody. And Lillian had told Jake, among several other things, that she never wanted to see him again.
She certainly didn’t want to see him now.
She knew he wasn’t looking for her to declare his undying love. Or he would have done that months ago. He would have continued to apologize and beg her forgiveness if he’d wanted to see her again. So obviously, he had never cared about her; he’d only been using her. The only reason he wanted to find her now was to bring her in and collect the bounty on her. And doing that would probably get her killed.
“Thanks for calling me, Mrs. Truman,” she told her former landlady.
The older woman’s voice crackled in the cell phone Lillian had pressed to her ear as she leaned back in the driver’s seat. “I’m sorry I showed him what you left behind, honey, but when I dug those photos out of your trash can, I knew that man was special.”
If he had truly been special, she wouldn’t have thrown the photos away. But she didn’t bother pointing that out to Mrs. Truman. However, Lillian had taken those photos out of the trash several times herself. Every time she’d tossed them, something had compelled her to fish them back out. Maybe she’d been holding out hope that he would come back and beg her forgiveness. She hadn’t been able to completely give up on him or to completely forget about him.
She touched her belly.
And now she never would. Would the baby look like Jake, with those big dark eyes, chiseled features and naturally tanned-looking skin?
The older woman cackled. “He sure got jealous when I told him about the other men looking for you.”
Lillian’s heart stopped beating for a moment before resuming at a frantic pace. “Other men?”
“They said they knew you.” She paused to inject a derisive snort. “But I never saw them around before.”
And Mrs. Truman, despite her age and cataracts, didn’t miss a thing.
So how many people were looking for Lillian? Were these guys Tom Kuipers’s men or more bounty hunters? Or police officers?
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
