He forced himself to smile back. Lillian had rented the upstairs apartment from the older woman who owned the old Victorian house near downtown River City, Michigan. Mrs. Truman—that was her name.
“You haven’t been around for a while, but I haven’t forgotten about you,” the elderly widow teased. “I’m sure Lillian hasn’t, either.”
Jake wondered if she’d thought of him as much as he had her. Of course, she hadn’t been happy that he’d brought her dad and brother into custody. Her plan must have been to make him fall in love with her so that he wouldn’t do his job. That must have been why she’d acted so sweet and innocent when she was really anything but.
She was a thief—just like the rest of her family. And she’d nearly stolen his heart all those months ago. He’d thought he was falling for her, but he hadn’t known who she was, either.
“Now, those other men...” The older woman shuddered. “I don’t remember them. They claimed to be her friends.” She shook her head, and the blond wig she wore slipped slightly, revealing the thin wisps of white hair beneath it. “But you were the only guy I ever saw come around, except for her brothers and her dad.”
Her brow furrowed. “But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her family around for a while, either—even before Lilly gave up the apartment.”
That was because most of them were behind bars. But he didn’t share that information with the elderly woman. He was stuck instead on what else she’d shared with him.
Had Jake been the only boyfriend she’d brought home? As passionate as Lillian had been, he doubted it. The old woman was obviously going senile.
But what if she wasn’t?
“What other men?” he asked.
Damn Tuttle. The old bail bondsman wasn’t just playing Jake; he was probably also playing him off against the O’Hanigans. Those bounty hunters were ruthless when it came to tracking down a fugitive. They would go much further than Jake would in order to collect their bounty. Jake looked more closely at the older woman, making certain they hadn’t roughed her up any.
She chuckled. “Nobody for you to be jealous of, honey. They had nothing on you.”
“Did you show them any of this stuff?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Heavens no, like I said—I didn’t recognize them. I don’t think they were friends of hers at all, not like you.”
He had never been Lillian’s friend, either. For a little while, he’d hoped he could be more. But when he’d done his job and apprehended her dad and brother, she’d sworn she would never forgive him.
What would she do when he apprehended her? Because now he knew exactly where she was...
* * *
He knew where she was. The thought both thrilled and terrified Lillian. Even as much as she hated him, she had missed him. She’d missed seeing his handsome face with the faint stubble that always shadowed his strong jaw no matter how recently he’d shaved. She’d missed seeing his brown eyes go black with desire when they’d made love.
But that hadn’t been love.
That had been deception.
He’d deceived her. That was why she’d been furious with him—not because he’d apprehended her dad and brother but because he’d used her to do it. She didn’t approve of the things her family did, and she never would have helped or harbored any of them once they became fugitives. But when other family members had told her dad and brother Dave that she was getting serious about a man, their protective instincts had kicked in and they’d wanted to check him out—to 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,