by Lisa Childs
And Tom grimaced. “You got a man crush on him?” he asked with disgust.
The chief glared at him. “I have a healthy respect for him.”
Tom snorted. He respected few people himself. And this conversation had just ended whatever he’d had for his chief of security.
“And having that respect will probably keep me alive,” Archie added. Another man had been shot at the house to which Archie and one of his guards had followed Lillian Davies and her protector.
So that guy was out of commission. The two from the night before were dead. Others had quit. Tom’s resources were dwindling. He would have to tap into some more of that money he’d stolen, like he had when he’d bought the damn flash drive.
How could he have been so stupid? He’d paid for something before he’d checked it out. The one that had been dropped in the locker where he’d left the money had been empty. Of course, there might have never been anything on it. Or the real one might still be out there—ready to incriminate him.
He needed to find it and Lillian Davies ASAP. “Killing him will keep you alive,” Tom said.
And the chief nodded in understanding. He must have figured out that he wasn’t in danger just from the man helping Lillian. He was in danger from Tom, as well.
If Tom didn’t get Lillian Davies and that flash drive soon, more people were going to die. And he was going to start killing them himself.
Chapter 14
Over the past eight months, Jake had spent so many nights lying awake in the dark, missing the warmth of Lillian nestled in his arms like she had been every night since that first time they’d made love. She’d fit against him so perfectly, had felt so right lying on him, her body curled against his side.
For a while tonight, he’d had that warmth—that rightness—back. He could taste her yet on his lips, feel the warmth of her body as he’d filled her.
And the pleasure...
It had been every bit as mind-blowing as he’d remembered. And it must have blown his mind or he’d just lost it entirely. How had he fallen asleep?
Knowing the danger she was in, how had he been able to sleep at all?
He jerked awake now. But when he did, he found himself alone in bed. Had he dreamed it all?
Had she never been there?
No. He could smell the scent that was hers alone—like wildflowers and fresh rain. And he could feel her yet, the warmth of her body where she’d lain beside him. The sheets were warm yet, too.
She hadn’t been gone long.
Maybe she was just in the bathroom. Didn’t pregnant women have to get up all the time?
“Lillian?” he called out.
But the door to the bathroom stood open, no light spilling from it. No sound.
Where the hell had she gone?
Her blouse was no longer lying on the floor. Neither were her pants. And as he fumbled around the clothes he’d dropped to the floor, he discovered that the keys to the rental vehicle were gone, too.
Damn it!
He never should have trusted her. She’d played him, using sex as a way to escape him. How the hell had he fallen for it? Why had he begun to trust her again?
She was every bit the Davies that her dad and brothers were. She was a con and a crook.
With his rental vehicle gone, he had no idea how to track her down—even if he knew where to look. But he jumped out of bed anyway and quickly dressed.
He would hunt her down and catch her—just as he had her brother and her dad. There was only one fugitive who’d ever escaped Jake. And that was probably only because he hadn’t really wanted to find him.
He hadn’t ever wanted to see him again—because he hadn’t trusted himself to bring the fugitive in to the proper authorities. He wouldn’t have been able to wait for the man’s trial and conviction. Jake would have sentenced him himself and administered his own justice.
That was what he felt like doing with Lillian now. He was furious with her. Not just for playing him but for putting her life at risk.
She knew she was in danger. Why the hell would she have gone out on her own?
And then he knew. She must have figured out where her brother was. Maybe she thought that without Jake along she would have a chance to get through to Donny and get back the flash drive.
Despite how she’d played him tonight, Jake still believed the flash drive existed. He’d seen her disappointment when they hadn’t found it in the lawyer’s office. But then he’d seen her passion and desire when they’d made love.
And he’d thought he’d seen something else on her face, as well. He’d thought she’d cared about him again.
So what was real and what was the con when it came to Lillian?
Damn it!
He never should have trusted her.
* * *
Jake was never going to trust her again. And Lillian didn’t blame him. Was she crazy for sneaking out like she had? She hadn’t wanted to escape him. Hell, she hadn’t wanted to leave him at all. She’d felt so safe and protected lying in his arms. But more than that, she’d felt like she had eight months ago—like she belonged at his side and he at hers.
And that wasn’t right. If they were meant to be together, they would have been together. He wouldn’t have stayed away the past eight months.
She knew other couples that had broken up and then reunited later. Their new relationships had proven stronger after the separation. They’d appreciated each other more after being apart. But those other couples hadn’t had to overcome the lies and broken trust that lay between her and Jake.
But when she’d been thinking of revisiting past relationships, it had dawned on her where Donny was. Of course, his relationship with Katie hadn’t ended any better than hers with Jake. But at least Jake had just lied to her. He hadn’t cheated like Donny had. At least she didn’t think he had.
But she had no idea what had been real back then. She wasn’t even sure of her own feelings—since she hadn’t known who Jake really was. Her stomach lurched with the horrible thought that he might have been involved with someone else. But when would he have managed to see anyone else?
After their first meeting, they had spent all their free time together. And they’d both made sure they’d had plenty of free time for each other. No. He couldn’t have been seeing anyone else back then. Was he now?
When they’d made love, he had said it had been a long time. But for them? Or for him specifically?
She shook her head and focused on the road. This was the way to Katie’s, wasn’t it? She had been to the young woman’s house a couple of times when she had babysat Katie’s twins so that the young mother and Donny could go out. Lillian would have tried to look up the address on her phone, but her cell had died some time ago.
Maybe there was a charger in the glove box of the SUV. She pulled it over to the shoulder of the road and reached inside the glove box. All she found were papers, and as she held them into the glow from the streetlamp over the SUV, she spied the name on the papers: Jacob Williams.
Jake had rented the vehicle in the name he’d given her eight months ago. Had he used the alias so that no one would find out he’d rented the SUV? Or was that his real name? A picture of his license was included in the paperwork. It could have been fake, though.
Just like Jake.
He was a fake. She had no idea who or what the real Jake was. Her head pounded, and she wished she had slept instead of lying awake thinking about their relationship. She didn’t regret making love with him, though. He made her feel pleasure she hadn’t thought possible to feel.
He was an incredible lover. But more than his skill was the connection she felt with him, closer than she had ever felt to anyone else.
“Jake...” She sighed. She blinked against the sting of tears and focused on the street sign at the corner.
This was
it.
She’d instinctively driven to the right place. As she glanced down the street, she saw the house, too. It was dark now—like the night. Maybe she had slept a few hours in Jake’s arms after all.
It had been daylight when they’d arrived at the hotel. And with spring here, it stayed light out longer now, especially since the time had sprung ahead. But she didn’t feel rested. She felt on edge.
And scared...
And it wasn’t just because she was here alone. She was scared that she was falling for Jake again.
That was why she had left him behind, sleeping. It wasn’t just because she’d been afraid that Donny would run if he saw the bounty hunter. But she suspected he would have if he’d done anything wrong.
And he’d been wrong to not bring that flash drive to her lawyer. How could he have done that to her?
Hell, he would probably run when he saw her, too. If he’d wanted to talk to her, he would have returned at least one of the many, many calls she’d made to him. Maybe he hadn’t been able to, though. Just because Jake hadn’t found him in a morgue didn’t mean Donny wasn’t dead.
If he was here, hiding out at his old girlfriend’s, he’d better run from Lillian. Because she was going to kill him...
She swung open the driver’s door and rushed down the street, then up the steps to the front porch. Up close, the house wasn’t as dark as she’d thought. A light glowed inside, so Lillian rang the bell.
Katie must not have been asleep because she quickly jerked open the door, saying, “Did you lose your key?” She stopped when she saw Lillian standing on her porch, and her mouth fell open in shock.
“No, I didn’t lose my key,” Lillian said. “I lost something else, though. And I think Donny has it.”
The young woman tensed and stepped forward, pushing Lillian out more onto the porch rather than allowing her inside. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for my brother,” Lillian said.
The woman shrugged her thin shoulders. She wore just a tank top and boxers, like she had been about to go to bed or she had just gotten up from bed. “I haven’t seen Donny in a while.” But when she said it, she glanced down as if unable to meet Lillian’s gaze.
“I know you’re back together,” Lillian bluffed.
The woman shook her head, sending her ponytail bobbing back and forth across her shoulders. “No. I can’t believe you’d think I would take him back after the way he treated me!”
Lillian thought of making love with Jake, of how much she’d missed him and ached for him despite his lies. If Katie and Donny had had even a small percentage of the passion that Lillian shared with Jake, then she believed Katie would take him back. “Yes.”
Katie snickered but it sounded brittle with nerves. “Not a chance...”
“My brother can be charming,” Lillian said. He’d gotten her to trust him, and she should have known better. She had known him all his life. Katie had only known him a couple years.
“I’m not the only girl he’s charming, though,” Katie said. “I never am...”
That was probably the truth. And Katie had slipped up with tense. She wasn’t talking in the past anymore. She had definitely been talking to Donny recently.
“Did he mention anything about me?” Lillian asked. “About the trouble I’m in?”
The woman glanced nervously around Lillian, staring at the street. She’d obviously been expecting someone—someone who had a key to let himself into her home. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmured. “I haven’t talked to Donny in a while.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lillian said.
The girl sucked in a breath and looked at Lillian now. “You’re calling me a liar?”
She had definitely heard about the trouble Lillian was in. But Katie could have just seen it on the news. Just because she knew about it didn’t prove that she had been talking to Donny. But Lillian was pretty convinced that she had been.
Katie sniffed and looked down her nose at Lillian. “After what you’ve done, you shouldn’t be acting so lily-white anymore.”
And Lillian sucked in a breath now as if the other woman had punched her. That hurt. Her dad and brothers had always called her that—lily-white Lillian. From them, she’d taken it as a term of endearment. But now, she wasn’t too sure that they hadn’t been mocking and patronizing her.
She had never really felt like part of her family. At least not like part of the Davies side. She’d been her mother’s daughter. And Gran’s favorite. She blinked back tears, missing her mother all over again.
And Gran. She had to get better. Lillian couldn’t lose her, too.
Katie reached out and squeezed her arm. “I’m sorry, Lillian. That was a bitchy thing to say. I know you’re in trouble. It’s all over the news. You’re a fugitive now.” She glanced around the street again. “You’ve got to get out of here.”
“Who are you waiting for?” Lillian asked her. “My brother?”
Katie shook her head. “No. You’re in trouble, Lillian. And I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then you shouldn’t have gotten involved with my brother again,” Lillian said.
Katie didn’t bother denying it verbally. She just shook her head again. “You have to leave,” she insisted. Putting her hands on Lillian’s shoulders, she pushed her back a couple of steps farther from the door. “I can’t have you around my kids.”
Not all that long ago, she had begged Lillian to babysit the twins and praised her for being so good with them. Of course, now Lillian realized the young mother had probably just been using her—like so many other people had—for free childcare. But at least it had given Lillian practice for when she would become a mother, which was going to be much sooner than she’d planned on becoming one. The baby kicked, hard enough that Lillian gasped and clutched her stomach.
Was that a kick? Or a contraction? The sensation hadn’t been in just one spot. It had felt more like a tightening of her stomach than of the baby just moving inside it.
“Are you okay?” Katie asked, alarm in her voice.
Then another alarm echoed Katie’s when from somewhere inside the house a child screamed. And another shouted, “There’s a man in Timmy’s room!”
Katie cursed, but she didn’t run for the stairs the way Lillian started to. Instead, she held Lillian back. “It’s probably just your stupid brother,” she said. “I never should have let him back into my life.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Lillian agreed. But she didn’t think Katie’s kid would have screamed over finding Donny in his bedroom. It had to be someone else. Had one of those men followed Lillian here?
Was he searching for the flash drive she’d given Donny?
Timmy screamed again. And Katie must have realized what Lillian already had. That wasn’t Donny in her child’s room. If Lillian was smart, she would have run for the SUV and safety. But a kid was in danger probably because of her, so she had to do what she could to help—even if she risked her own life doing it.
* * *
The scream reached inside Donny, tearing out of his heart. That was one of Katie’s kids screaming. And that was his sister heading up the stairs to that kid.
What the hell had he done?
He’d put Lillian in danger. And now he had brought that danger to his girl and her kids. None of them deserved this—just because of his greed.
He pulled the gun he’d just bought from his pocket. He hadn’t had to fill out any paperwork or wait for approval. All he’d had to do was look up one of his older brother Dave’s friends.
After watching all the news and seeing his apartment on the latest broadcast, he’d known he would need a gun, that they were coming for him now. He just hadn’t expected to have to use it so soon.
It wasn’t an airsoft pistol like his dad and Dave had used to rob that bank. T
his was a real gun.
But Donny knew he could use it, especially when he heard another scream ring out and recognized it as Katie’s. This scream was even louder than when she’d caught him in bed with another girl.
This scream wasn’t one of outrage. It was one of terror. Clasping the gun tightly in his hand, he headed toward the house. He had to make sure nobody else got hurt because of what he’d done. Well, nobody but whoever was making his family scream in terror.
Chapter 15
Jake had recognized the house when the rental company had given him the GPS location of the SUV Lillian had stolen from him. Of course, he hadn’t told them it was stolen, just that his girlfriend had taken off to run an errand and forgotten where she’d parked it. He hadn’t wanted them to call the police. At least not yet.
He’d wanted to find out if she was trying to get away or trying to get that flash drive. But when he’d seen the house, Jake had known what she was after.
Donny had been dating Katie when Jake was dating Lillian. So he’d remembered her, just like Lillian must have. And while Lillian had been talking to her at the front door, Jake had snuck in the back, figuring Donny, the little weasel, was probably hiding in her bed.
When he’d found that empty, he’d moved to the other rooms—searching for Donny and for that flash drive. It was too bad he hadn’t been quieter because he’d woken up the kids and scared the hell out of them.
He’d never been good with kids. Hopefully, the one Lillian was carrying wasn’t his—for the kid’s sake. For so many reasons...
“Shhh.” He’d tried to quiet the kid. But it had lasted only moments before the mother burst into the room and screamed even louder than the kid had.
Then Lillian appeared behind her, her blue eyes wide with shock. “Jake!”
He needed to get her out of here. If a neighbor had heard all the screaming and called 911...
He stepped around Katie, who swung her fists at him, and he grasped Lillian’s arm. “We need to get out of here before the police come.”