The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise. Lisa Childs

coursed through him, chasing away the last vestiges of sleep. Hell, he would probably be awake the rest of the night now. “It shouldn’t be this damn hard to catch that stupid little girl!”

      But she’d already been missing for months.

      He should have tried harder to find her then. But he’d been certain that she’d show up for court, and she’d be convicted and sentenced to jail. He didn’t really believe that flash drive existed.

      Despite the flicker of doubt he felt now and then.

      “I’ve...got...her.” The man finally spoke again, but he sounded winded, like it was a struggle for him to talk at all.

      Tom didn’t know which one it was. He didn’t think he’d talked directly to this guy before. But usually his men didn’t talk, they just listened.

      And followed orders.

      “Then why isn’t she dead?” Tom impatiently asked him.

      “Uh...” The guy’s voice trailed off again. He sounded weak.

      Tom hated weakness. “Why not?” he demanded to know.

      Had she said something about the flash drive? Had she threatened that it would be turned over to the authorities if something happened to her?

      “She’s pregnant.”

      Thinking of all the times his wife had begged him over the years to start a family, Tom snorted. What was the big deal about getting pregnant and having babies?

      “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” he asked.

      The guy had been fine with killing a woman. Why get squeamish about killing a pregnant one?

      “I—I—uh...” the man stammered.

      His patience gone, Tom sighed. “Bring her to me,” he said. “I want to talk to her first anyway.” He wanted to find out what the hell had happened to that flash drive—if it even existed in the first place.

      “To—to the house?” the man asked.

       What an idiot!

      “Hell, no!” he growled. If any woman was going to die within these walls, it was going to be his wife.

      Maybe he would find a way to do that anyhow, a way where he would not be blamed.

      “Bring her to the warehouse,” he ordered. He didn’t wait for the man to agree. He knew that he would, so he just disconnected the call.

      It was better this way. Tom would get his answers from little Miss Lillian Davies. And once he knew the truth about that damn flash drive, then he would pull the trigger and kill her himself.

      Yeah, this was better.

      When he killed her himself, he would send a message to his men to never mess with him and he would have the assurance that she was no longer a problem.