by Lisa Childs
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 willingly left her house. Maybe finding out that her precious granddaughter was no different than the other Davies had killed her, because the old woman had told him the only way she’d leave this place was in a pine box.
And he hadn’t blamed her. The cottage had access to and a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan with its gorgeous sunsets.
Was that where Lillian had gone? Down to the beach? He started toward the door when he heard the knob rattle. He’d turned on no lights so he wouldn’t alert her to his presence. He had also locked the door behind him for the same reason.
Of course, he’d remembered where the hide-a-key was kept, too—in the little birdhouse, which was an exact replica of the yellow cottage her grandfather had made for her grandmother. Lillian had wistfully remarked how she envied their love and wanted one like that for herself someday. Then she’d looked at him—with those ocean-blue eyes of hers—and something had shifted inside his chest.
It must have been fear—because he felt it now when the door blasted open and gunfire erupted. He ducked and drew his weapon.
What the hell?
Where had they come from? There was more than one shooter. Glass shattered as the windows were shot out. Wood chipped off the bead-board cabinets and the shabby-chic furniture. Jake raised his weapon and returned fire.
Unless they’d gotten a hell of a lot more zealous than they’d been before, these were not the O’Hanigans. Even they wouldn’t have gone to these extremes to bring back a jumper for a bounty.
Lillian wasn’t wanted dead or alive, at least not by the law. So who the hell else was after her? And why were they so willing to take him out along with her?
* * *
The gunfire erupted, shattering the silence of the summer night. Lillian could see the flashes of the shots inside the dark cabin. She could also see glass exploding from the windows and bullets ripping through the walls. She gasped in shock and horror.
Gran’s little haven was being destroyed. Because of Lillian...
They had to be after her. Had they gone inside and just started shooting up the place?
Were they that determined to kill her?
Lillian needed to get the hell out of there. Her hands shaking, she reached for the keys dangling from the ignition. She turned them but the ignition just clicked. The engine didn’t turn over; it didn’t even rumble. And she remembered that it had sounded funny before she’d heard her cell ringing. She’d shut it off and coasted to a stop on the road just a few yards from the cottage.
The gas gauge proclaimed it had half of a t
ank. But it had been stuck there since she’d started using it, and she’d driven it all the way into the city to her lawyer’s office building. Oh, no, the gauge was probably broken. She had no gas. No way of escaping.
While she’d been working up the nerve to go inside the cottage and retrieve Gran’s gun and her clothes, she’d seen a van pull in to the short driveway. At least half a dozen men, maybe more, had jumped out and headed for the cottage. She should have run then.
She needed to run now. She threw open the door and headed toward the lot down at the beach. Someone might have left a vehicle there. Sometimes people walked the beach at night, despite it being closed after dark. Tools clanged inside her big purse. She didn’t have the gun. But she had other weapons she could use.
She blew out a breath of relief when she found an older truck parked in the lot. Hopefully, it didn’t have an alarm system. She pulled a slim jim from her bag and, slipping it between the window and the door, unlocked the door. Then she pulled it open and reached under the dash for the wires.
She hadn’t been old enough to drive when her oldest brother, Dave, had taught her how to hot-wire a car. He’d insisted she would need to know how someday. She hadn’t—until today. Could she remember what he’d shown her?
She reached into her bag for the flashlight she’d also stashed in there. She needed to know what color the wires were to remember which ones to splice together. But before she could turn on the flashlight, she heard someone coming—footsteps pounding across the asphalt as they ran—straight toward her.
Had he seen her get out of the Buick and run down here? Was he chasing her? Since she hadn’t heard those footsteps until now, she didn’t think he’d seen her yet.
So she jumped into the truck and pulled the door shut. Maybe she could hide in there. But before she could lock it, he pulled open the door and jumped in beside her, his broad shoulder and hip bumping against her side with such force that he slid her across the long bench seat. She turned away to protect her belly.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed between pants for breath. Then he must have recognized her because he exclaimed, “Lillian!”
Her heart slammed against her ribs with shock at Jake’s sudden appearance. He had definitely found her. Or maybe she had inadvertently found him.
“Were you stealing my truck?” he asked, as he noticed the wires dangling below the dash.
Before she could reply, the back window shattered with another blast of gunfire. He pushed her off the seat and onto the floor as he jammed a key in the ignition and started the engine. Tires squealing and gravel flying, he steered the pickup out of the parking lot.
“Friends of yours?” he asked. “Or family?”
“I don’t know who they are,” she replied. But she had a very good idea who had sent them. Tom Kuipers.
“Did they hit you?” she asked with concern. He must have been inside that cottage with them—with all those bullets flying.
“No,” he said, “which probably disappoints you to no end.”
She’d once considered shooting him herself not that long ago. But she couldn’t imagine actually hurting him or wanting him hurt. There had already been enough pain between them. Unfortunately, all that pain had been hers when he had shattered her trust and broken her heart.
She flinched as the baby kicked her ribs. Her last ultrasound hadn’t been able to determine the sex, but the baby had to be a boy. He was already causing her pain, too, just like his father. Crouched on the floor, she hid her belly behind her raised knees. She didn’t want Jake to see that she was pregnant and it was easier to hide in the dark. She had never wanted him to know—unless he came to her of his own accord. Not to take her to jail, but to apologize for what he’d done. She didn’t think he’d shown up tonight to apologize. But unless she jumped out of the speeding truck, she didn’t know how she was going to get away from him now.
More gunshots rang out, pinging off the metal of the truck. The side mirror broke, sending bits of glass and plastic flying. She gasped in fear.
She didn’t have to worry about getting away from Jake right now. She had to worry about staying alive.
“Stay down!” he yelled at her over the sound of the wind rushing through the shattered windows.
Even if she hadn’t been paralyzed with fear, she wasn’t about to move, not at the risk of getting hit by one of the flying bullets.
“And hang on,” he added, as he jerked the wheel and careened around a corner.
Lillian’s shoulder bumped against the passenger’s door, and she grimaced. But she wasn’t worried about her shoulder. She was worried about her baby. She couldn’t risk anything happening to her unborn child—to their unborn child.
“You have to slow down!” she yelled back at him.
“If I slow down, they’ll catch us,” he countered.
But he must have slowed down enough that the van had caught up with them because something rammed against the back bumper, sending the pickup into a spin.
Lillian grabbed tightly on to the seat and screamed. Earlier she’d been worried about losing her freedom. Now she was worried about losing her life.
* * *
What the hell had Donny Davies done? Guilt weighed heavily on his thin chest, making it difficult for him to breathe.
Lillian had trusted him...
But then the rest of the family had trusted her. And she’d betrayed them with that damn bounty hunter, Jake Howard. She had literally been sleeping with the enemy. She claimed she hadn’t known who he was. But she hadn’t stepped in and stopped the man from taking Dad and Dave into custody. From collecting his bounty.
Sure, she’d been crying, but it had been about the man lying to her. Not about her family getting arrested. Just like Gran, she’d always disapproved of the things some of the Davies family did.
She and Gran would certainly disapprove of what Donny had done. But Dad and Dave had declared that they owed her nothing now...
She was no longer one of them.
But since she hadn’t shown up for court that day, she was a fugitive now. So maybe for the first time in her twenty-five years, Lillian was one of them.
What would it cost her?
Her freedom?
Or her life?
The people after her were more dangerous than Donny had realized. And he had betrayed them, too. But unlike her, he had a place to hide where no one would find him.
Not even her.
He lay in the dark, unable to sleep, barely breathing, as he fingered the plastic device in his hand. What the hell should he do with it?
The right thing?
The thing his sister had asked him to do in the first place? Just like she’d asked him to stick with school and not resort to the life of crime the rest of their family lived. But Davieses rarely did the right thing.
Even Lillian.
She had made some big mistakes. Jake Howard was the biggest one, though. It was his fault that it had come to this, that her own family had turned against her.
So whatever happened to her was Jake’s fault.
Not his...
Chapter 4
His knuckles ached, straining from his efforts, as Jake clutched the steering wheel, fighting to keep it from spinning out of his grasp as the old truck careened wildly across the road.
Crouched yet in the small space between the dash and the front seat, Lillian screamed in fear. It wasn’t safe for her down there. She could hit her head on the passenger’s door or the dash. But it was better than getting it blown off.
The men in the van kept firing at them. Bullets pinged off the metal and cracked what was left of the glass.
He steered the truck out of the tailspin the van had sent it into when it had slammed into the rear bumper. Before the men could catch up again, Jake pressed hard on the accelerator. The truck jerked forward,
and Lillian’s forehead bumped against the dash.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“No!” Her voice cracked with fear.
At least she hadn’t lost consciousness.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t lost the van yet, either. Bright lights glinted off his rearview mirror as the van accelerated, too, closing the distance between the vehicles again. He had to move faster.
“Hang on!” he warned her. Then he gunned the engine.
A whimper of fear slipped between her lips. He wanted to reach out and reassure her. But then he reminded himself that this was all her fault. Those men were shooting at them because of her.
“You must know who these guys are,” he insisted. “They showed up at your grandma’s house.”
“They must have followed you there,” she said.
Damn it. She was right. If these were the guys Mrs. Truman had talked about, the ones who’d shown up at Lillian’s place, they hadn’t seen the things she’d left behind six months ago. They couldn’t have learned what he had. But they might have staked out her apartment in case she showed up there. And they’d seen him instead.
“They probably don’t even know I’m in this truck,” she continued.
And they might not. He hadn’t known that she was inside it when he’d jumped into his truck. But she hadn’t just been inside it, she’d been trying to steal it. She couldn’t have known the rusted old pickup was his, though.
Could she?
He hadn’t used this vehicle when he’d been dating her. He’d used his pleasure vehicle instead, an old Chevrolet Nova he’d restored himself. This old truck was his work vehicle because its big block engine had more power. But at the moment it wasn’t fast enough.
“The last place I was before driving out here was your apartment. If they followed me...” And how the hell had they managed that without his noticing? “...then they followed me from there.”
The truck lurched forward as the van struck again. Metal crunched. He wasn’t sure if it was the truck’s rear bumper or the front of the van. He hoped like hell it was the front of the van. Maybe they’d disable their own damn vehicle.