“It’s crazy to think that you’d be attracted to me.”

“It is?” That green gaze was intense on her face and then it slid down her body.

“Of course it is,” she said. “I’m so fat and unattractive …”

“You’re pregnant,” he said. “And you’re beautiful.”

She laughed. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I know exactly what I look like—a whale.”

“I would not be attracted to a whale.”

“You’re not attracted to me.” She wished he was. But it wasn’t possible. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, she knew he would never go for a woman like her.

He stepped closer, his gaze still hot on her face and body. “I’m not?”

She shook her head. But he caught her chin and stopped it. Then he tipped up her chin and lowered his head. And his lips covered hers.

The Pregnant Witness

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LISA CHILDS writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Mills & Boon. She lives on thirty acres in Michigan with her two daughters, a talkative Siamese, and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To Kimberly Duffy—with great appreciation for all our years of friendship! You’re the best!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Gunshots erupted like a bomb blast, nearly shaking the walls of the glass-and-metal building. Through the wide windows and clear doors, Special Agent Blaine Campbell could easily assess the situation from the parking lot. Five suspects, wearing zombie masks and long black trench coats, fired automatic weapons inside the bank. Customers and employees cowered on the floor—all except for the uniform-clad bank security officer.

Blaine had already reported the robbery in progress and had been advised to wait for backup. He wasn’t a fool; he could see that he was easily outgunned since he carried only his Glock and an extra clip.

But he left the driver’s door hanging open on his rental car and ran across the parking lot crowded with customers’ cars. How many potential hostages were inside that bank? How many potential casualties were there, with the way the robbers were firing those automatic weapons? Blaine couldn’t wait for help—not when so many innocent people were in danger.

Ducking low, he shoved open the doors and burst into the bank lobby. “FBI!” he called out to calm the fears of the screaming and crying people.

But his entrance incited the robbers. Glass shattered behind him, as bullets whizzed over his head and through the windows, falling like rain over the customers lying faces down on the tile floor. The interior walls, which were glass partitions separating the offices from the main lobby, shattered, as well.

More people screamed and sobbed.

Blaine took cover behind one of the cement-and-steel pillars that held up the high ceiling of the modern building. He held out his hand, advising the customers to stay down as he surveyed them. Except for some cuts from the flying glass, nobody looked mortally wounded. None of the shots had hit anyone. Yet.

“Campbell,” the security guard called out from behind another pillar. “You picked the right time to show up.” The older man, who was also a friend, had called him here with suspicions that the bank was going to be robbed. Obviously Blaine’s former boot-camp drill instructor’s instincts were as sharp as ever. He had been right—except about Blaine.

He was too late. The robbers already carried bags overflowing with cash. If only he’d arrived earlier, before they’d gotten what they wanted...

He couldn’t arrest them all on his own.

“Stay down!” one of the robbers yelled, as he fired his automatic rifle again.

A woman cried out as another robber tangled a gloved hand in her dark hair and pulled her up from the floor. She was close to one of the wrecked offices, so maybe she worked for the bank or had been meeting with one of the bank officers. She turned toward Blaine, her eyes wide with fear as if beseeching him for help.

But before he could take aim on the robber holding her, the security guard, armed only with a small-caliber handgun, stepped from behind his pillar. “Let her go!” Daryl Williams shouted as he fired at them.

“Sarge, get down,” Blaine shouted.

But his advice came too late as a bullet struck the security guard’s chest and blood spread across his gray uniform. The woman shrieked—either in reaction to Sarge getting shot or because she was afraid she might be next.

Blaine cursed, stepped out from behind the pillar and fired frantically back. One of the mask-wearing bank robbers spun around, as if Blaine had struck him. But he probably wore a bulletproof vest because he didn’t drop to the floor as the guard had. Instead the robber hurried toward the back of the bank with the other zombies. One of them dragged along that terrified young woman. But now she stared back at Sarge instead of Blaine, her gaze full of fear and concern for the fallen security guard. Blaine scrambled over to his friend’s side. The man wore his iron-gray hair in a military cut. He may have retired from the service, but he was still a soldier. “Hang in there, Sarge.”

“Assist...assist.” Daryl Williams tried to speak through the blood gurgling out of his mouth.

“I already called it in when I pulled up and heard the shots. Help is coming,” Blaine promised, even though they both knew it would be too late.

Williams weakly shook his head. “Assist...manager...”

“The hostage?”

Daryl nodded even as his eyes rolled back into his head. He was gone.

And so was the woman. Of course Sergeant Williams would want Blaine to rescue her—the civilian. Remembering the stark fear on her pale face, Blaine snapped into action and hurried toward the back of the bank. Alarms wailed and lights flashed as the security door stood open to an alley. If it closed, he wouldn’t be able to open it again. That must have been why the robbers had taken their hostage out the back, so she could open the security door for them. But why not leave her? Why take her along?

Blaine caught the door before it swung shut and pointed his gun into the alley. Bullets chiseled chips off the brick around the door as the bank robbers fired at him. If they had a getaway car parked in the alley, they obviously hadn’t driven it away yet. He couldn’t let them leave with the hostage or else nobody would probably ever see the young woman again. He had barely seen her long enough to give a description beyond dark hair and eyes.

Blaine risked a glance through the crack of the door and more bullets pinged off the steel. But he caught a glimpse of white metal—a van—as the side door opened. Another door slammed. The driver’s? He couldn’t let them get the hostage inside the vehicle, so he threw the bank door all the way open and burst into the alley. A shot struck him in the chest, but he kept going despite the impact of the bullet hitting his vest.

After his honorable discharge from active duty, he had thought the last thing he would miss was the helmet. He had hated the weight and the heat of it. But he could actually use one now—to protect himself from a head shot. More bullets struck his vest.

He returned fire, his shots glancing off the side of the van before one shattered the glass of the driver’s window. Hopefully he’d struck the son of a bitch. But he didn’t wait to find out; instead, he reached out for the hostage that one of the damn zombie robbers was pulling through the open side door. He caught the young woman’s arm and jerked her backward as he fired into the van. The engine revved, and the vehicle burst forward, tires squealing.

But just in case the occupants fired back at them, he pushed the hostage to the ground and covered the young woman with his body. And that was when he realized she wasn’t just terrified for herself but probably also for the child she carried.

She was pregnant.

The van kept going, but someone fired out the open back doors of it. And more bullets struck him, stealing his breath.

* * *

MAGGIE JENKINS’S THROAT was raw and her voice hoarse from screaming, but even though the robbers—dressed in those horrible zombie costumes—were gone, she wanted to scream again. She didn’t want to scream out of fear for herself but for the man who lay on top of her. His body had gone limp as the breath left it.

He had been shot so many times. But he’d kept coming to her rescue like a golden-haired superhero. And then he’d covered her body with his, taking more shots to his back.

He had to be dead. Why had he interrupted the robbery in progress and risked his own life? He had claimed to be an FBI agent, but why would he have been alone? Why wouldn’t he have waited for more agents and for local backup before bursting into the bank?

“Please, please be alive,” she murmured, her voice no louder than a whisper. She grasped his shoulders—his impossibly wide shoulders—and eased him back. Something cold and metallic hung from his neck and pressed against her chest. A badge.

So he really was a lawman. But how had he known the bank was being robbed? When the robbers rushed the bank, she hadn’t had the time or the nerve to push the silent alarm beneath her desk before bullets had shattered the glass walls of her office.

Maybe one of the tellers or Mr. Hardy, the bank manager, had pushed an alarm. Whatever the FBI agent had driven to the bank hadn’t had sirens or lights. She hadn’t even known he was there until he pushed open the lobby doors. But, then again, she had hardly been able to hear anything over all of those gunshots. Her ears rang from the deafening noise.

But now she heard his gasp as he caught his breath again. He stared down at her, his face so close that she picked up on all the nuances in his eyes. They were a deep green with flecks of gold that made them glitter. His body, long and muscular, tensed against hers. He moved the hand that was not holding his weapon to the asphalt and pushed up, levering himself off her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He was apologizing to her? For what? Saving her life? Maybe shock had settled in, or maybe his good looks and his concern had struck her dumb. Usually she wasn’t silent; usually people complained that she talked too much.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Her hands covered her stomach, and something shifted beneath her palm. She sighed with relief that her baby was moving, flailing his tiny fists and kicking his tiny feet as if trying to fight off his mother’s attackers.

But it was too late. This man had already fought them off for her. Of course her baby shouldn’t be fighting to protect her; it was Maggie’s job to protect him or her...

“Are you all right?” the man asked again. He slid his gun into a holster beneath his arm, and then he lifted her from the ground as easily as if she were half her size.

“How are you alive?” she asked in wonder.

He reached for his shirt and tore the buttons loose. The blue cotton parted to reveal a black vest. The badge swung back against it.

She was no longer close enough to read all the smaller print, but she identified the big brass-colored letters. “You really are an FBI agent? I thought you just said that to scare the robbers.”

And she’d thought he had been a little crazy to try that when the robbers had had bigger guns than his. But maybe announcing his presence had scared the robbers into leaving quickly because they’d worried that backup would come.

Where was it, though?

“I’m Special Agent Blaine Campbell,” he introduced himself.

“How did you get here so quickly?” she asked, still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t a superhero. “How did you know the bank was being robbed?”

He shook his head and turned back to the building. “I didn’t know that it was being robbed today. Sarge—Daryl Williams—called me a few days ago with concerns.”

She gasped as she relived the security guard getting shot, flinching at the sound of the shot, at the image of him falling. He hadn’t been wearing a vest, but he’d stepped out from behind that pillar anyway—undoubtedly to save her. “Is Sarge okay?”

The agent shook his head again, but he didn’t speak, as if too overwhelmed for words. He had called Mr. Williams Sarge, so he must have known him well. Maybe Mr. Williams had once been his drill instructor, as he had been her fiancé’s six years ago. The older man worked only part-time at the bank for something to do since he retired from the military.

If only he hadn’t been there today...

If only he hadn’t tried to save her...

The tears that had been burning her eyes brimmed over and began to slide down her face. She had just lost her fiancé a few months ago, and now she had lost another connection to him because Sarge had really known him. Not only had he trained him, but he’d also kept in touch with Andy over the years. He’d worried about him. He’d known that Andy shouldn’t have joined the Marines; he hadn’t been strong enough—physically or emotionally—to handle it. He had barely survived his first two deployments, and he had died on the first day of his last one.

Sarge had come for Andy’s funeral and never left—intent on taking care of Maggie and her unborn baby since Andy was now unable to.

Strong arms wrapped around her, offering comfort when she suspected he needed it himself. Blaine Campbell had lost a man he’d obviously respected and cared about. So she hugged him back, clinging to him—until tires squealed and the back door of the bank burst open to the alley.

Guns cocked and voices shouted, “Get down! Get down!”

Fear filled her that the robbers had returned. She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t look at them again, couldn’t see those horrific zombie costumes again. When she and Andy had been in middle school, his older brother had sneaked them into an R-rated zombie movie, and she’d been terrified of them ever since, even to the point where she didn’t go to Halloween parties and even hid in the dark so no trick-or-treaters would come to her door.

But they kept coming to her.

Had they returned to make certain she and the agent were dead?

Chapter Two

“Agent Campbell,” Blaine identified himself to the state troopers who’d drawn their weapons on him.

While he respected local law enforcement, especially troopers since his oldest sister was one in Michigan, he had met some unqualified officers over the years. So the gun barrels pointing at him and the woman next to him made him nervous. But he refused to get down or allow the pregnant woman to drop to the pavement again, either.

She had already been roughed up enough; her light gray suit was smudged with grease and oil from the alley. Her legs were scraped from connecting with the asphalt earlier. Had he done that when he’d shoved her down? Had he hurt her?

She had also lost a shoe—either in the bank or maybe in the van from which Blaine had pulled her, so she was unsteady on her feet. Or maybe her trembling wasn’t because her balance was off but because she was in shock. He kept a hand on her arm, so that she didn’t stumble and fall. But she needed more help than a hand to steady her.

“The bank robbers have already left in a white panel van,” he continued. “The driver’s-side window is broken and the rear taillights have been shot out.” He read off the license plate number he’d memorized, as well.

One of the officers pressed the radio on his lapel and called in an APB on the vehicle. “What else can you tell us about the suspects, Agent Campbell?”

Fighting back the grief that threatened to overwhelm him, he replied, “One of them shot the security guard.”

“We already have paramedics inside the bank,” another officer told him. “They’re treating the wounded.”

They were too late to help Sarge. The man had died in his arms—his final words urging Blaine to save the assistant bank manager.

“You should have them check out Mrs....?” He turned to the young woman, waiting for her to supply her name. She hadn’t offered it when he’d introduced himself earlier.

“Miss,” she corrected him, almost absentmindedly. Her dark eyes seemed unfocused, as if she were dazed. “Maggie Jenkins...”

She was single. Now he allowed himself to notice how pretty she was. Her brown hair was long and curly and tangled around her shoulders. Her eyes were wide and heavily lashed. She was unmarried, but she probably wasn’t single—not with her being as pretty as she was.

“The paramedics need to check out Miss Jenkins,” he told the troopers. “The bank robbers were trying to take her hostage. She could have been hurt.” But he might have been the one who’d done it when he had knocked her onto the hard asphalt of the alley.

“She should probably be taken to the hospital,” he added. For an ultrasound to check out the well-being of her unborn child, too. But he didn’t want to say it out loud and frighten her. The young woman had already been through enough.

The officer pressed his radio again and asked paramedics to come around to the back of the bank. They arrived quickly, backing the ambulance down the alley. A female paramedic pushed a stretcher out the doors and rolled it toward them.

But Miss Jenkins shook her head, refusing treatment. “What about Mr. Williams?” she asked. “He needs your help more than I do.”

The paramedic just stared at her.

“The security guard,” Miss Jenkins said. “One of the robbers shot him.” Her already rough voice squeaked with emotion. “Will he be all right?”

The paramedic hesitated before shaking her head.

Tears spilled from Miss Jenkins’s eyes again, trailing down her smooth face. She had cared about Sarge. But Blaine didn’t think they could have worked together that long. Sarge had retired from the military only a few short months ago.

Blaine wanted to hold her again, to comfort her as he had earlier. Or had she comforted him? Her arms had slid around him, her curves soft and warm against him. He resisted the urge to reach for her, and instead he released her arm.

“Go with the paramedic,” he said. “Let her check you out.”

Blaine had questions for the assistant bank manager—so many questions. But his questions would wait until she was physically well enough to answer them.

The troopers immediately began to question Blaine. He had to explain his presence and about Sarge—even while tears of loss stung his eyes. He blinked them back, knowing his former drill instructor would have kicked his butt if he showed any weakness. Sarge had taught all his recruits that a good marine—a strong marine—controlled his emotions. Blaine had already learned that before boot camp, though.

“Why did the security guard call you?” one of the troopers asked.

“I just transferred to the Chicago Bureau office to take over the investigation of the robbers who’ve been hitting banks in Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.” Bank robberies were his specialty. He had a perfect record; no bank robbery he had investigated had gone unsolved, no bank robber unapprehended.

Of course, some robbers were sloppy and desperate and easily caught. Blaine already knew that this group of them—in their trench coats and zombie masks—were not sloppy or desperate. And, therefore, they would not be easily caught. But he would damn well catch them.

For Sarge...

“You think those robberies are related to this one?” the trooper asked.

“I can’t make a determination yet.” Because he hadn’t had a chance to go to the office; his flight had landed only hours ago. But ever since Sarge’s call, the urgency in the man’s voice had haunted Blaine and made him come here first—with his suitcase in the trunk of a rental car. “I need more information.”

And he didn’t want to give up too much information to the troopers before he’d verified his facts. He needed to check in with the Bureau, but he couldn’t leave the scene yet.

He couldn’t leave Maggie Jenkins.

He turned back to where the paramedic had helped her into the back of the first-responder rig. A man in a suit was standing outside the doors, talking to her. He’d come through the back door of the bank, so the troopers must have cleared him.

Blaine recognized him as one of the people who’d been lying on the floor, cowering from the robbers. Instead of checking on her, the man appeared to be questioning her—the way Blaine wanted to. But he wasn’t certain she had any more information than he did.

He just wanted to make sure she was all right—that his rescue hadn’t done her more harm than being taken hostage had.

* * *

MAGGIE WAS FINALLY ALONE. Mr. Hardy, the bank manager, had gone back inside the damaged building to call the corporate headquarters, as she had told him to do. At thirty, he was young and inexperienced for his position, so he had no idea what to do or how to manage after a robbery.

Unfortunately, Maggie did.

She trembled—not with cold or even with fear. She hadn’t felt that until the bullet had struck Sarge, and he had dropped to the floor. Before that, when the gunmen had burst into the lobby wearing those masks and trench coats, she had been too stunned to feel anything at all.

Usually just the sight of those gruesome masks would have filled her with terror, as they had ever since Andy and Mark had sneaked her into that violent horror movie. She’d had nightmares for years over it. But for the past few months she’d been having new nightmares. And while they’d still been about zombies, they hadn’t been movie actors—they’d been about these zombies.

“I can’t believe it,” she murmured to herself. “I can’t believe it happened. Again...”

And it was that disbelief that had overwhelmed her fear—until Sarge had been shot.

“Are you all right?” a deep voice asked.

Startled, she tensed. It wasn’t one of the paramedics. Their voices were higher and less...commanding. Agent Campbell commanded attention and respect and control.

He had taken over the moment he’d burst into the bank with his weapon drawn. He had taken over and saved her from whatever the bank robbers had planned for her. And he’d taken over the investigation from the state troopers more easily.

She nodded. “I’m okay,” she assured him, worried that he might think she was losing it. “I always talk to myself. My parents claim I came out talking and never shut up...” But as she chattered, her teeth began to chatter, too, snapping together as her jaw trembled.

The FBI agent lifted the blanket a paramedic had put around her and he wrapped it more tightly—as if he were swaddling a baby. She had taken a class and swaddled a doll, but she hadn’t done it nearly as well as he had. Maybe he had children of his own. She glanced down at his hands—his big, strong hands—but they were bare of any rings. Not every married man wore one, though. Her face heated with embarrassment that she’d even looked. His marital status should have been the last thing on her mind.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m fine, really...” But it wasn’t cold out. Why was she so deeply chilled that even her bones felt cold? “I can go back inside the bank and help Mr. Hardy—”

“The bank manager,” he said.

She’d noticed that he had stopped Mr. Hardy before letting him back inside the bank. And he’d questioned him. She doubted the young manager had been able to provide many answers.

“Yes,” she said. “I need to go back inside and help him close up the bank and take inventory for corporate. There’s so much to do...” There always was, after a robbery.

“You need to go to the hospital and get checked out,” Agent Campbell said as he waved over the paramedic. “You should have already taken her.”

“She wanted to talk to you first,” the female paramedic replied. She’d told Maggie that she wouldn’t mind talking to the agent herself, and her male partner had scoffed at her lack of professionalism.

Maggie hadn’t intended to go to the hospital at all—not when there was so much to do inside the bank. And Sarge...

Was he still inside?

She shuddered, then shivered harder. And the baby shifted inside her, kicking her ribs. She flinched and nodded. “Maybe I should get checked out...”

For the baby. She had to protect her baby. She had nearly three months left of her pregnancy—three months to keep her unborn child safe. She hadn’t realized how hard that might be.

“My questions can wait,” the FBI agent told her, “until you’ve been thoroughly checked out.” He turned toward the paramedics. “Which hospital will you take her to?”

“Med West,” the woman paramedic replied. “You can ride along and question her in the back of the rig.”

Maggie stilled her trembling as she waited for his reply. She wanted him to agree; she felt safer with him close. She felt safe in his arms...

And after what had happened—again—she would have doubted she would ever feel safe. Anywhere.

“Agent Campbell,” one of the officers called out to him. He didn’t pull his gaze from her, his green eyes intense on her face. The officer continued anyway. “We located the van.”

That got the agent’s attention; he turned away from her. “And the robbers?”

The officer shrugged. “We don’t know if there’s anyone inside. Nobody’s approached it yet.”

Maggie struggled free of the blanket and grabbed the agent’s arm—even though she knew she couldn’t stop him. He was going.

“Be careful,” she advised him.

She had told Andy the same thing when he had left her last, but he hadn’t listened to her. She hoped Agent Campbell did. Or the next time the robbers’ bullets might miss his vest and hit somewhere else instead.

Agent Campbell barely spared her a nod before heading off with the state troopers. He had been lucky during his first confrontation with the thieves, but Andy had been lucky, too, during his first two deployments.

Eventually, though, luck ran out...

* * *

HIS GUN STEADY in one hand, Blaine slid open the side door with the other. But the van was empty. The robbers had ditched it between Dumpsters at the end of an alley.

“This vehicle was reported stolen three days ago,” one of the troopers informed him.

Either they’d stolen it themselves or picked it up from someone who dealt in stolen vehicles. It was a lead that Blaine could follow. Maybe someone had witnessed the theft.

They must have exchanged the van for another vehicle they had stashed close to the bank. They’d had to move quickly, though, so they hadn’t taken time to wipe down the van.

They had left behind forensic evidence. Blaine could see some of it now. Fibers from their clothes. Hair— either from their masks or their own. And blood. It could have been fake; they’d had some on their gruesome disguises. But that hadn’t looked like this.

This blood was smeared and drying already into dark pools.

“You hit one of them?” a trooper asked.

He hoped he’d hit the one who’d killed Sarge. “I fired at them, but I thought they were wearing vests.”

“You must be a good shot,” the trooper replied.

More likely he had gotten off a lucky shot. He was fortunate one of them hadn’t done the same. If they hadn’t been worried that he had backup coming, they probably would have killed him the way they had Sarge.

Blaine sighed. “But the suspect wasn’t hurt so badly that he couldn’t get away.” As they had all gotten away. But at least one of them had not been unscathed.

“Put out an APB that one of the suspects might be seeking medical treatment for a gunshot wound,” Blaine said, “at a hospital or doctor’s office or med center. Hell, don’t rule out a vet clinic. These guys will not want the wound getting reported.” And doctors were legally obligated to report gunshot wounds.

So he wouldn’t worry that he had sent Maggie Jenkins off to the hospital in the back of that ambulance. He wouldn’t worry that one of the men who had tried to abduct her earlier might get a chance to try again.

Again...

What had she been muttering when he’d walked up to the ambulance? Her already soft voice had been strained from screaming, so he’d struggled to hear, let alone understand, her words. But she’d murmured something about not believing that it had happened. Again...

Had Maggie Jenkins been the victim of a bank robbery before?

The same bank robbers?

Hell, Blaine was worried now. Not just that she might be in danger but that he might have let the best lead to the robbers ride away. Had he let her big, dark eyes and her fear and vulnerability influence his opinion of her?

What if Maggie Jenkins hadn’t been a hostage but a coconspirator?

Maybe Sarge hadn’t been trying to tell him to rescue the assistant bank manager. Maybe he had been trying to tell Blaine to catch her.

Chapter Three

Maggie pressed her palms over the hospital gown covering her belly and tried to soothe the child moving inside her. He kept kicking, as though he was still fighting. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. “I know Mama’s not doing a very good job of keeping you safe.”

But she’d tried.

Why was it that danger kept finding her? She had already changed jobs, or at least locations, but she couldn’t afford to quit. Maybe she should have married Andy one of the times he had suggested it. They had been together since middle school, and she’d loved him. But she hadn’t been in love with him.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. But this time she was talking to Andy.

She should have told him the truth, but he’d enlisted right out of high school and she hadn’t wanted to be the heartless girlfriend who wrote the Dear John letter. And when he’d come home on leave, she had been so happy to see him—so happy to have her best friend back—that she hadn’t wanted to risk losing that friendship.

But eventually she had lost him—to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Tears stung her eyes and tickled her nose, but she drew in a shaky breath and steadied herself. She had to be strong—for her baby. Since he had already lost his father, he needed her twice as much.

A hand drew back the curtain of Maggie’s corner of the emergency department. The young physician’s assistant who’d talked to her earlier smiled reassuringly. “I had a doctor and a radiologist review the ultrasound,” the PA said, “and we all agree that your baby is fine.”

Maggie released her breath as a sigh of relief. “That’s great.”

“You, on the other hand, have some bumps and bruises, and your blood pressure is a little high,” the PA continued. “So you need to be careful and take better care of yourself.”

She nodded in agreement. Not that she hadn’t been trying. That had been the whole point of her new job—less stress. But Mr. Hardy wasn’t as competent as the manager at the previous branch where she’d worked. And the zombie bank robbers had hit the new bank anyway.

Maybe she would have been safer had she stayed where she’d been. “I will take better care of myself and the baby,” Maggie vowed. “Do you know what I’m having?” She had had an ultrasound earlier in her pregnancy, but it had been too soon to tell the gender.

The young woman shook her head. “I wasn’t able to tell.”

Or she probably would have pointed it out then.

“But maybe the radiologist had an idea.” The young woman’s face flushed as she glanced down at the notes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t realized that you’d been at the bank that was robbed and that paramedics had brought you from the scene.”

“That’s fine,” Maggie said. “I should have told you myself.” But she hadn’t wanted to talk about it—to remember what it had been like to see those gruesome masks again and to watch as one of them killed Sarge. She shuddered.

“Of course your blood pressure would be elevated,” the PA continued. “You must have been terrified.”

She had been until the FBI agent had saved her. Where was he? He was supposed to come to the hospital to interview her. Hadn’t Agent Campbell survived his second run-in with the bank robbers?

“I’ll be okay,” she assured the physician’s assistant. She had survived. Again. Daryl Williams hadn’t been as fortunate—because of her. Maybe Agent Campbell hadn’t survived, either.

The young woman nodded. “Considering what you’ve been through, you’re doing very well. But I would follow up with your obstetrician tomorrow and make sure your blood pressure goes down.”

“I will do that,” Maggie promised. She was taking no chances with her pregnancy. She had already lost the baby’s father; she wouldn’t lose his baby, too.

“You can get dressed now.” The young woman passed over some papers. “Here is your release and an ultrasound picture. There isn’t any way of telling his or her gender yet.”

Maggie stared down at the photo. She had seen her baby on the ultrasound screen this time and the previous time she’d had one. But this was the first photo she’d been given to keep—probably because he looked like a baby now and not a peanut. He or she was curled up on his or her side, and the little mouth was open. She smiled as she remembered her mother claiming that Maggie’s mouth had been open during every ultrasound. She’d been talking even before she’d been born.

“Thank you,” she told the PA. But she didn’t look up. She couldn’t take her gaze from the amazing photo of her baby. The child had already survived so much: the loss of a parent and two bank robberies.

“Good luck, Ms. Jenkins,” the young woman replied as she pulled the curtain closed again.

Maggie’s smile slid off her lips. She was going to need luck to make it safely through her pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby. He was fine now. And she would do everything within her power to keep him that way.

She dressed quickly so that she could pick up and study the picture again. Maybe she should wait for the FBI agent—to make certain that he was all right. It wasn’t as if she could leave anyway. Her purse was back at the bank, so she didn’t have any money to pay for a cab. And with Mr. Hardy busy with corporate, the only other person she could have called at the bank to bring it to her was dead.

Sarge...

If only he hadn’t stepped out from behind that pillar...

If only he hadn’t tried to save her...

Tears blurred her vision, but she blinked them back to focus on the baby picture again. She needed to focus on him or her, needed to keep him or her healthy and safe. The baby was her priority.

She would have to find a phone she could use and call a friend to pick her up. But she didn’t really know anyone here in this suburb of Chicago. She hadn’t known anyone but Sarge. After the bank where she’d previously worked had been robbed, she had transferred to the branch where Sarge worked—thinking she would feel safer with him there. But the danger had followed her and claimed his life—cruelly cutting his retirement short. The tears threatened again, but she fought them. Sobbing would not help her blood pressure.

The curtain moved as a gloved hand pulled it back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling guilty for taking up the area. “I realize you probably need the bed for someone else...” For someone who actually needed medical attention. “I’m all ready to leave.” She just needed someone to pick her up. “I can wait in the lobby.”

Nobody said anything, though. But she could feel them standing there, watching her. So then she looked up, and her heart began to pound frantically as she stared into the creepy face of one of those horrible zombie masks. It was her nightmare come to life again.

She would have screamed but for the gun barrel pointing directly at her. She already knew that these people had no compunction about killing. They had already killed once and that had been because Sarge had been trying to save her. She couldn’t scream and risk someone else getting hurt again. The only reason they would have tracked her down at the hospital was to kill again.

To kill her...

* * *

BLAINE CURSED HIMSELF as he flipped screens on his tablet. The Bureau had forwarded him the case file for the bank robberies.

Now he knew exactly what Maggie had been muttering in the back of the ambulance—because it had happened again. A different bank. A different city. But the same witness.

Maggie Jenkins had been robbed before—a couple of months ago—at another bank where she’d been working as an assistant manager. What were the odds that the same robbers, wearing zombie masks and black trench coats, would track her down at another bank in another city? Maybe it was a coincidence, but in his years with the Bureau, Blaine had found few true coincidences.

It was more likely that they knew her. And if they knew her, she knew them. He’d had a lot of questions for Maggie Jenkins before; now he had even more. And he wouldn’t let her tear-damp dark eyes or her sweet vulnerability distract him again.

He dropped the tablet onto the passenger seat and threw open the driver’s door. After clicking the locks, he hurried across the parking lot to the hospital. He sidestepped through the automatic doors before they were fully open and flashed his badge at the security guard standing inside the doors. “I’m looking for a witness who was brought here from a bank-robbery scene. Maggie Jenkins.”

After waving him through the blinking, beeping metal detector, the guard pointed toward the emergency-department desk. Blaine showed his badge to the receptionist. “I need to talk to Maggie Jenkins—from the bank robbery.”

The older woman stared at his badge before nodding. “Nyla can show you where she is.”

A young nurse stepped from behind the desk and pushed open swinging doors. “Ms. Jenkins is behind the last curtain on the left.”

He followed the woman’s directions, past a long row of pulled curtains, and he pulled aside the very last curtain on the left. The bed was empty but for a black-and-white photo. Maggie was gone. He picked up the photo and recognized it as an ultrasound picture. His older sisters had shown him a few over the past ten years. He’d thought they looked like Rorschach tests. They had all prized them.

No matter what her involvement was in the robberies, Maggie Jenkins wouldn’t have willingly left that photo behind. He reached for his holster and whirled around to the nurse who’d followed him. “She’s gone.”

Unconcerned, the young woman shrugged. “She was cleared to get dressed and leave.”

“She came by ambulance and didn’t have her purse,” he said. “She couldn’t have left on her own.” Not with no car and no money for a cab. At the very least, she would have had to call someone to pick her up. But then, why wouldn’t she have taken the ultrasound photo with her? “Did you see anyone come back here?”

Metal scraped against metal as another curtain was tugged back, its rings scraping along the rod. A little girl, propped against pillows in a bed, peered out at Blaine. “The monster came for her.”

His skin chilled as dread chased over him. “What monster?”

An older woman, probably the little girl’s mother, was sitting in a chair next to the bed. With a slight smile, she shook her head. “It wasn’t a monster. Just someone wearing a silly Halloween mask.”

“But it’s not Halloween,” the little girl said, as if she suspected her mother was lying and that the monster was very real.

Blaine was worried that the monster was real, too. “Was it a zombie mask that the person was wearing?”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t know.”

But the little girl’s already pale face grew even paler with fear as she slowly nodded. “It was a really creepy zombie. He was wearing a long black coat.”

Blaine’s dread spread the chill throughout him. He bit back a curse. One of the robbers had tracked her down at the hospital?

The woman shrugged again. “He put his fingers to his lips, so that we wouldn’t say anything. He was just playing a joke.”

Apparently the woman hadn’t seen any of the news coverage about the zombie robbers.

The nurse shook her head in vigorous denial of the little girl’s claim. “I didn’t see anyone dressed like that in this area, and the security guard wouldn’t have let him through the front doors.”

“What about the back doors?” he asked. “Could someone have come in another way?”

“Only employees can,” the nurse replied.

He doubted that employees had to go through a metal detector the way visitors had to. “Show me.”

The nurse stepped around the curtain to show Blaine another set of double doors on that end of the emergency department—just a few feet from where Maggie had been. If the robber had come through those doors, no one would have seen him but Maggie and apparently the little girl next to her. He wouldn’t have gone through security if he’d come in the employee entrance. The nurse had to swipe her ID card to open those doors. They swung into an empty corridor.

“How would someone get to the parking lot from here?” he asked.

With a sigh of exasperation, as if he was wasting her time, she turned left and continued down the corridor to a couple of single doors. “The locker rooms have doors to a back hallway that leads to the employee parking lot,” she said in anticipation of his next questions. “But it’s too soon for a shift change, so nobody’s back here now.”

But a noise emanated from behind one of the doors. A thump. And then a scream pierced the air. Blaine grabbed the nurse’s ID badge and swiped it through the lock. As he pushed open the door, shots rang out. A bullet struck him—in the vest over his heart. The force of it knocked him against the door and forced the breath from his lungs.

The nurse cried and ran back down the corridor. Then another scream rang out—from Maggie Jenkins. She had fallen to her knees. But the bank robber had a gloved hand in her hair, trying to pull her up—trying to drag her to that door at the back of the locker room—the door that would lead to the employee parking lot.

How did he know where to take her? How did he have the access badge to do it? He must either be an employee of the hospital or he knew an employee very well.

Ignoring the pain she must have been in from that hand in her hair, Maggie wriggled and reached as she continued to scream for help. But she didn’t wait for Blaine’s help. She tried to help herself. She grabbed at the benches between the rows of lockers and at the lockers, too, as she tried to prevent the robber from dragging her off. She flailed her arms and kicked, too, desperately trying to fight off her attacker. But then the gun barrel swung toward her face and she froze.

Was the robber just trying to scare her into cooperating? Or did he intend to kill her right here, in front of Blaine?

Chapter Four

Maggie couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but stare down the barrel of the gun that had been shoved in her face.

Agent Campbell had stepped inside the room, but then a shot had slammed him back against the door. Wasn’t he wearing his vest anymore? Was he hurt?

Or worse?

She wanted to look, but she was frozen with fear. Because she was about to be worse, too. With the barrel so close to her face, there was no way the bullet could miss her head. She was about to die.

In her peripheral vision, she was aware of the gloved finger pressing on the trigger. And she heard the shot. It exploded in the room, shattering the silence and deafening her. But she felt no pain. Neither did she fall. She still couldn’t move. Apparently she couldn’t feel, either.

But the gun moved away from her face. With a dull thud, it dropped to the floor. And the robber fell, too, backward over one of the benches in what appeared to be the employee locker room.

The robber had forced her to be quiet while they’d been in Emergency—because he’d kept the barrel of the gun tight against her belly. He would have killed her baby if she’d called out for help. But when he’d brought her to this locker room, he’d had to move the gun away to swipe the badge. And so, as the doors were closing behind them, she’d risked calling out.

But she hadn’t expected Agent Campbell to come to her aid again. He must have recovered from the shot that had knocked him back because now he started forward again, toward the robber. But he stopped to kick away the gun, and the robber vaulted to his feet. He picked up one of the benches and hurled it at the FBI agent. It knocked Blaine Campbell back—into Maggie.

She fell against the lockers, the back of her head striking the metal so hard that spots danced before her eyes. Her vision blurred. Then her legs, already shaking with her fear, folded under her, and she slid down to the floor.

While the bench had knocked over the agent, he hadn’t lost his grip on his gun. And he fired it again at the robber. The man flinched at the impact of the bullet. But like the agent, he must have worn a vest because the shot didn’t stop him. But he didn’t fight anymore. Instead he turned and ran.

“Stop!” the agent yelled.

But the man in the zombie mask didn’t listen, or at least he didn’t heed the command in Agent Campbell’s voice as everyone else had. He pushed open the back door with such force that metal clanged as it struck the outside wall. Then the man ran through that open door.

Campbell jumped up, but instead of heading off in pursuit of the robber, he turned back to her and asked, “Are you all right?”

The gunfire echoed in her ears yet, so his deep voice sounded far away. She couldn’t focus on it; she couldn’t focus on him, either.

But his handsome face came closer as he dropped to his knees in front of her. His green eyes full of concern and intensity, he asked, “Maggie, are you all right?”

No. She couldn’t speak, and she was usually never at a loss for words. Her heart kept racing even though the robber and his gun were no longer threatening her. In fact, the more she stared into the agent’s eyes, the faster her heart beat. The green was so vibrant—like the first leaves on a tree in spring. Just as she had been unable to look anywhere but the barrel of the gun in her face, she couldn’t look away from the agent’s beautiful eyes.

“Maggie...” Fingers skimmed along her cheek. “Are you all right?”

She opened her mouth, but no words slipped out. Her pulse quickened, and her breath grew shallower—so shallow that she couldn’t get any air. And then she couldn’t see Agent Campbell any longer as her vision blurred and then blackened.

* * *

BLAINE SHOULD HAVE been in hot pursuit of the robber. He should have been firing shots and taking him down in the parking lot. Instead he was standing over a pregnant woman, waiting for her to regain consciousness. And as he waited, he drew in some deep breaths—hoping to ease the tightness in his chest.

The intern, who had come running, along with the security guards, when Blaine had yelled for medical help, assured him that she was fine. She and her baby were fine. She must have just hyperventilated. And with someone shooting at her, it was understandable—or so the intern had thought.

Blaine wasn’t sure what to think. Had she really passed out? Or had she only staged a diversion so the robber could get away from him and those guards that nurse Nyla had called to the locker room?

But then, if Maggie was an accomplice, why had she fought the man so hard? Why had she looked so terrified?

His older sisters had pulled off drama well in their teens. They’d worked their parents to get what they wanted, so he’d seen some pretty good actresses work their manipulations up close and personal. But if Maggie Jenkins had been acting in the locker room, she surpassed his sisters.

“Who are you really, Maggie Jenkins?” he wondered aloud. Innocent victim or criminal mastermind?

Her thick, dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks, as if she’d heard him and his words had roused her to consciousness. She blinked and stared up at him, looking as dazed and shocked as she had when she’d fallen against the lockers.

When he’d inadvertently knocked her against them. A pang of guilt had him flinching, and he fisted his hands to keep them from reaching for her belly to check on the baby. It had been real to him even before he’d seen the picture, but now it was even more real.

“The doctor said you and your baby are not hurt,” he assured her. And himself.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and her brown eyes softened with concern.

He shrugged off her worry. “I’m fine.”

He would probably have a bruise where the bench had clipped his shoulder, but his physical well-being was the least of his concerns right now.

She stared up at him, her smooth brow furrowing slightly, as if she doubted his words. “Really?”

No. He was upset about Sarge. And he was frustrated as hell that he’d lost one of the leads to Sarge’s killer—or maybe the actual killer himself—when the robber had run out the employee exit to the parking lot. But Blaine had another lead—one he didn’t intend to let out of his sight.

“I’m worried about you,” he admitted. For so many reasons...

She tensed and protectively splayed her hands over her belly. “You said the baby isn’t hurt.”

“The baby is fine,” he assured her. “And so are you.”

She stared up at him again, this time full of doubt.

So he added, “For now.”

Despite the blanket covering her, she shivered at his foreboding tone.

“You’re obviously in danger,” he said, “since one of the robbers risked coming here to abduct you from the ER.” Or had she called him? Had she wanted to be picked up before Blaine could question her further?

He needed to take her down to the Bureau, or at least the closest police department for an interrogation. But if he started treating her like a suspect, she might react like one and clam up or lawyer up. Maybe it was better if he let her continue to play the victim...

But her eyes—those big, dark eyes—didn’t fill with tears this time. Instead her gaze hardened and she clenched her delicate jaw. Angrily she asked, “Why won’t they leave me alone?”

“I’m not sure why you were tracked down at the hospital today,” he replied.

Could it have been another coincidence? Could the robber have been here to get treatment for the gunshot wound Blaine had inflicted and then stumbled upon her?

But the robber hadn’t seemed injured—especially since he’d had the strength to hurl the bench with such force at Blaine. And he’d been fighting with Maggie before that. Maybe he wasn’t the injured robber, but had been bringing that one for treatment...

But where was that person?

He’d already lost so much blood in the van.

“Why did one of them come here?” she asked—the same question Blaine had been asking himself. “What do they want with me?”

That was another question Blaine had been asking himself. “Maybe you saw or heard something back at the bank,” he suggested, “something that might give away the identity of one of them?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t see any of their faces. They wore those horrible masks...” And she shuddered.

“What about their voices?”

“Only one of them spoke at the bank,” she said, “and I didn’t recognize his voice.”

Did the others not speak because she would have recognized one of their voices? And now he wondered about the father of her baby...

But wouldn’t she have recognized him despite the disguise? Wouldn’t she have recognized his build, his walk, any of his mannerisms? Or maybe she had but wasn’t about to implicate him and possibly herself.

Blaine waited, hoping that she would voluntarily admit to having been robbed before. But if she’d been about to confess to anything, she was interrupted when the hospital security chief approached.

The chief was a woman—probably in her fifties, with short gray hair and a no-nonsense attitude. Blaine had been impressed when he’d spoken with her earlier when she’d joined her security guards in the locker room. She was furious that someone had brought a gun into the hospital and nearly abducted one of the patients.

“Agent Campbell,” Mrs. Wright said. “As you requested, I have all the footage pulled up from the security cameras.”

“Thank you,” he said. “That was fast.” Hopefully one of those cameras had caught the robber without his hideous disguise. But Blaine hesitated again.

“The security room is this way,” Mrs. Wright said, making a gesture for him to follow her from the emergency department.

But he didn’t want to leave Maggie Jenkins alone and unprotected. “Do you have a guard that you can post here with Ms. Jenkins?”

Mrs. Wright nodded. “Of course. The police are here now, too. Sergeant Torreson is waiting in the security room to meet with you.”

He needed Sergeant Torreson posted by Maggie Jenkins’s bed, so that nobody could get to her. And so that she couldn’t get away before she finally and truthfully answered all his questions. “Is he the only officer?”

Because he really didn’t want to use one of the security guards—not when the zombie robber had to either be an employee or be close friends with an employee. He couldn’t trust anyone who worked for the hospital. Not a doctor, nurse or even a security guard...

Mrs. Wright gestured to where a young policeman stood near the nurse who’d brought Blaine back to the employee locker room. He wasn’t sure if the man was interrogating or flirting with her, so he waved him over to Maggie’s bedside. “I’m Agent Campbell.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man replied. “We’re aware you’re the FBI special agent in charge of the investigation into the bank robberies.”

Blaine studied the kid’s face, looking for the familiar signs of resentment from local law enforcement. But he detected nothing but respect. The tightness in his chest eased slightly. He had backup, and given how relentless the bank robbers were, he needed it.

Of course, he could have called in more agents. Immediately after the robbery, he’d checked in, and the Bureau chief had offered him more FBI resources. But Blaine had thought the bank robbers gone—the immediate threat over—until he’d come to the hospital and nearly lost the witness. But was Maggie a witness or an accomplice?

“Officer, this is Maggie Jenkins, the woman who was nearly abducted,” he introduced them. “I need you posted here to protect her until I come back.”

“I’ll be fine,” Maggie said. “I’ll be safe.” But her hands trembled as she splayed them across her belly again. She was either afraid or nervous. “I’ll be safe,” she repeated, as if trying to convince herself.

“We can’t be certain of that,” Blaine said. After all, the robbers kept returning...for her.

She slowly nodded in agreement, and tears welled now in her dark eyes. The tightness returned to his chest. But, growing up with three older and very dramatic sisters, he should have been immune to tears—especially since Maggie actually looked more frustrated than sad. But something about the young woman affected him and brought out his protective instincts.

But maybe the person he needed to protect when it came to Maggie Jenkins was himself.

“Be vigilant,” Blaine advised the young officer. “For some reason these guys keep coming after her.” And he intended to find out that reason. But he suspected he could learn more from the footage than he could Maggie Jenkins. She obviously wasn’t being forthcoming with him.

So he headed to the surveillance room. But his mind wasn’t on the footage he watched or on the police sergeant’s questions, either. The hospital was a busy one—with so many people coming and going that it wouldn’t be easy to determine which one might have walked in as himself and emerged as a zombie robber.

That was the only footage in which he could positively identify the person—as he burst through the back door and ran across the employee parking lot. But he kept the disguise on even as he jumped into an idling vehicle.

The sergeant cursed. “These guys—with those damn silly Halloween masks—have hit two banks in my jurisdiction.”

As the vehicle, another van, turned, the driver came into view of the camera. But they must have known that camera would be there because the driver wore one of those damn masks, too.

“I want you to review your employees,” Blaine told the hospital security chief. “Find out who wasn’t working today.”

“The hospital has hundreds of full-and part-time employees,” Mrs. Wright said. “That’ll take some time.”

“Your employees,” Blaine said. “I want you to focus on the security staff.” He was really glad that he hadn’t left Maggie Jenkins in the protection of one of the hospital guards.

“You think it’s one of my people?” Mrs. Wright asked—with all the resentment he usually confronted with local law enforcement.

He pointed toward the masked men. “They knew where the cameras are—they knew how to get a gun in and out. They were familiar with employee-only areas of the hospital.”

“But...” The woman’s argument sputtered out as she grimly accepted that he was right.

Blaine turned toward the police officer. “I’d like you to bring in more officers, Sergeant. And check out anyone on that footage who walked in carrying a bag or a suitcase—anything big enough to carry that disguise and a weapon.”

The woman sighed. “There is a metal detector at the front door.”

Blaine was well aware of that—since he’d had to have a security guard wave him through it. But he’d wanted the security chief to come on her own to the same realization that he had. It had to be one of her people. But that didn’t mean another robber hadn’t come through the front door—an injured one.

“It’ll still take me some time,” she said. “We have three shifts, and since we have some trouble with gangs in this area, we have several guards on staff.”

“Check out ex-staff, too,” Blaine suggested.

“I’ll help you,” the sergeant offered.

He wanted the robbers, as well. But he didn’t want them as badly as Blaine did. One of them had killed his friend and former mentor. Blaine couldn’t let them get away with that—with ending what should have been Sarge’s golden years way too soon.

“I have one of your officers helping me now,” Blaine told the sergeant. “He’s guarding the hostage for me.”

The sergeant winced. “That kid’s a trainee and easily distracted.”

Blaine cursed and rushed out of the security room. He had wasted too much time on footage that had revealed no clues when he should have been interrogating his only concrete lead. But when he returned to the emergency department, he found the young officer flirting with the nurse once again.

And he found the bed where he’d left Maggie Jenkins empty. She was gone. Either she’d been grabbed again, or she’d escaped...

Chapter Five

Even though they had left the hospital a while ago, Special Agent Campbell had yet to speak to her. He only spared her a glare as he drove. The man was furious with her. A muscle twitched along his jaw, and his gaze was hot and hard. Maggie found his anger nearly as intimidating as his devastating good looks. But she couldn’t understand why he was mad at her. Unless...

His stare moved off her to focus on the road again. He hadn’t said where he was taking her. She had foolishly just assumed it would be to her apartment. Now she wasn’t so certain...

Her wrists were bare; he hadn’t cuffed her. She sat in the passenger’s seat next to him—not in the back. But was he arresting her?

“Do you think I’m involved in the robberies?” she asked. “Is that why you were so upset when you couldn’t find me at the hospital?”

That muscle twitched in his cheek again. “When you were gone, I assumed the worst.”

The worst to her would have been one of the robbers in the creepy zombie mask returning. But she wasn’t convinced that Agent Campbell thought the same.

“Is that really what you thought?” she asked. “That one of them had come back for me? Or had you thought that I’d taken off on my own?”

“I thought you were gone,” he said, which didn’t really answer her question. “And I had left that young officer to protect you...”

“I was only using the restroom,” she reminded him. “And he couldn’t go into the ladies’ with me.” She had stepped out of the room to raised voices in the ER. For a moment she’d feared that one of the robbers had returned...until she’d recognized the voices.

At first she had been touched that Agent Campbell had been concerned about her. But he hadn’t been relieved that she was okay; he had stayed angry. Even after checking her out of the hospital and seeing her safely to his vehicle, he was still angry.

“You do suspect that I’m involved in the robberies,” she said, answering her own question.

“Robberies?” he queried, his tone guarded. But then, everything about Special Agent Blaine Campbell was guarded and hard to read—except for the grief he’d felt over Sarge’s death. It had been easy to see his pain.

“They’ve robbed more than one bank,” she said. “But you know that...” Or the FBI wouldn’t have taken over the case. She suspected he was also aware of something else, too. “You probably know that they robbed the other branch of this bank where I previously worked.”

“And then they followed you to the bank where you’re working now...” His tone was less guarded now and more suspicious.

Of her?

Her stomach pitched. She hadn’t had morning sickness even in her first trimester, so that wasn’t the problem. It was nerves. He obviously did suspect that she was involved in the robberies.

“They have robbed a lot of other banks that I haven’t worked at,” she pointed out.

“How do you know that?” he asked, as if she had somehow slipped up and implicated herself. “How do you know how many other banks have been robbed?”

“From the news,” she said. “They’ve even made national broadcasts. And our corporate headquarters sends out email warnings about robberies at other branches or other banks in the area. So it was just a coincidence that they hit both banks where I’ve worked.”

A horrible coincidence—that was what she’d been trying to tell herself since the robbers, in those grotesque disguises, had burst through the doors of the bank earlier that afternoon.

“They have robbed other banks,” he agreed. “But you’re the only hostage they’ve tried taking. They didn’t abduct anyone from any other bank.”

She shuddered. “That was just today...” They hadn’t tried to take her last time; they’d only had her open the security door to the alley. Then they’d left.

“So what was different about today?” he asked.

“You.” He was the first thing that came to mind. Actually, since he’d saved her from being kidnapped the first time, Special Agent Blaine Campbell—with his golden-blond hair and intense green eyes—hadn’t left her mind. Then he’d saved her a second time...

That muscle twitched again in his cheek, which was beginning to grow dark with stubble a few shades darker than his blond hair. “I wasn’t the only thing different about today.”

She uttered a ragged sigh and blinked back the tears that threatened as she remembered what else had been different. “They killed Sarge.”

“Until today they hadn’t killed anyone,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head. She didn’t know how a person could take another life for any reason. That was why she hadn’t been able to understand Andy’s insistence on joining the military. He had always been so sensitive. He had never even hunted and had been inconsolable when he’d accidentally struck and killed a deer with his truck.

Agent Campbell answered his own question, his voice threatening. “It means that whoever has been helping them will face murder charges, as well.”

So he didn’t think she was only a thief; he thought she was a killer, too. Anger coursed through her. She was the one who was mad now.

“Sarge was my friend,” she said. “And what today means to me is that I lost a friend. I thought it meant the same to you. I thought you knew him and cared about him.”

His teeth sank into his lower lip and he nodded. “That’s why I want to find out who killed him and bring them to justice. All of them.”

Her anger cooled as she realized she had no right to it. Agent Campbell was only doing his job, and not just because it was his job but because he’d cared about Sarge. And if she were him, she might have suspected her, too. She had been at the scene of two robberies.

She reached across the console and touched his hand. But it tensed beneath hers, tightening around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I understand that you have to question me. I just wish I could be more help for your investigation. I really don’t have any idea who the robbers are.”

He tugged his hand from beneath hers and reached for the shifter, putting the car in Park after pulling into a space in the parking lot of her apartment complex.

She breathed a soft sigh of relief. He hadn’t arrested her after all. He had actually brought her home. But she wasn’t foolish enough to think that he no longer suspected her of being involved.

* * *

WAS HE BEING a fool? Blaine silently asked himself. Probably.

He should have taken her down to the Bureau or a local police department for questioning. But she was already trembling with exhaustion and dark circles rimmed her dark eyes. He wasn’t heartless, but he hoped she wasn’t playing him.

Maggie Jenkins had a sincerity and vulnerability that made him want to believe her and to believe that she was just an innocent victim.

Like Sarge...

He flinched over the loss of his friend. Instead of dealing with that death, he’d been busy trying to prevent another—to make sure that Maggie Jenkins stayed safe. He’d believed that was what Sarge had wanted. But what if his old friend had been trying to tell him something else about the assistant bank manager?

That she wasn’t just involved in the robberies but maybe that she’d plotted them?

Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the seat belt. Was she exhausted or was she nervous that he was questioning her? Or nervous that he’d brought her here?

He turned off the car, opened his door and hurried around the car to open hers. She was still having trouble with the seat belt, so he reached across her, brushed her fingers aside and undid the clasp. But now he was too close to her, too close to the curly hair that tumbled around her shoulders, to the big brown eyes staring up at him—to the full breasts that pushed against the thin material of her blouse. He’d never considered a pregnant woman sexy...until now. Until Maggie Jenkins...

Something shifted beneath his arm, which was pressed to her belly, as if her baby was kicking him for the thoughts he was entertaining. He jerked back and stepped away from the car. She slid her legs out first. Since she’d lost her shoe earlier, she wore slippers from the hospital. But she didn’t need to wear heels for her legs to look long and sexy.

Remembering how his sisters had struggled to get out of cars while they were pregnant, he reached out to help her. She clutched his hand but barely applied any pressure to pull herself up. And then she was standing right in front of him, so close that her breasts nearly brushed against his chest.

She tugged her hand free of his, and a bright pink color flushed her face. “I—I don’t have my purse,” she said. “I don’t have my keys to get inside.”

“You live alone?”

“Now I do,” she replied. “But I can get an extra key from my super.” She glanced up to the darkening sky. “If he’s still awake...”

“You don’t live with the baby’s father anymore?” He told himself he was asking only because of the case, but he really wanted to know for himself.

She shook her head. “I never did...” And there was something in her voice and her expressive eyes...an odd combination of guilt and grief.

Blaine wanted to ask more questions but Maggie was walking away from him. His skin chilled. It could have been because of the cool wind that was kicking up as night began to fall. It could have been because he had an odd sense of foreboding—the same sense he’d had as he’d driven up to the bank during a robbery in progress.

He glanced around the parking lot. The complex was big—an L-shaped, four-story redbrick building, so there were a lot of vehicles parked in the lot. Quite a few of them were vans. Could one of them have been from the hospital? Could the robbers have followed them here?

He hurried and closed the distance between them, keeping his body between hers and the exposure to the parking lot. His hand was also on his holster, ready to pull his weapon should he need it.

Maggie rapped her knuckles hard against the door of a first-floor apartment. “My super’s a little hard of hearing,” she explained.

It took a couple more knocks before the door opened. A gray-haired man grinned at her. “Hey, Miss Maggie, what can I help you with?”

“Hi, Mr. Simmons. I left my purse at work,” she said but spared him the details of why. “I’m so forgetful these days.” She’d actually had other matters on her mind, but again she didn’t share those with the older man. “So I need the extra key to my apartment, please.”

His gray-haired head bobbed in a quick nod. “Of course I’ll get that for you. Who’s your friend?” His cloudy blue eyes narrowed as he studied Blaine. Apparently Blaine wasn’t the only one in whom Maggie brought out protectiveness.

“Blaine Campbell. He’s an old friend,” she said, easily uttering the lie.

What else had she lied about?

The older man nodded again, accepting her explanation. “I’ll be right back with the key.”

After he disappeared, she turned toward Blaine and explained. “I didn’t want to worry him. He knows the bank I worked at in Sturgis was robbed, so I told him I left the banking business.”

“What does he think you do now?” he wondered.

“He thinks I work in an insurance office,” she said, “which isn’t really a lie since the bank does offer insurance policies.”

Keys jangled as the old man returned to the doorway. “Have you checked on that renter’s policy for me yet, Maggie?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll bring that quote home tomorrow.” She held out her hand for the key, but the gray-haired janitor glanced at Blaine again.

“You’re an old friend of hers?” he asked with curiosity instead of doubt.

Blaine just nodded.

“Then you must’ve known her Andy?”

Andy? Was that the father of her baby? Blaine just nodded again.

“Thought you looked like you might’ve been a marine, too,” the old guy said with another bob of his head.

“I was, sir,” Blaine replied, and the admission reminded him of the man who had made him a marine. Sarge... “I served two tours.”

“That’s how you knew Sarge,” Maggie said, softly enough that the older man probably didn’t even hear her. “He was your drill sergeant?”

Blaine nodded. As a drill instructor, Sarge had been tough but fair. And he’d been a good and loyal friend.

“Glad you made it home, boy,” Mr. Simmons said and reached out to pat Blaine’s shoulder. “Too bad her fiancé didn’t...”

“Andy,” Blaine murmured, and the older man nodded again. Shocked and full of sympathy for her, Blaine turned toward Maggie. Earlier she’d told him that she was single, but she hadn’t told him why. She hadn’t said that her fiancé died before they could marry.

Her lashes fluttered furiously as she fought back tears over the loss of her baby’s father. The hand she held out for the key began to tremble slightly. “Thank you for letting me use your spare, Mr. Simmons.”

Finally the old man handed over the key she’d been waiting for. The second she closed her fingers around it, she rushed off toward the other end of the complex.

With a nod at the older man, Blaine hurried after her, careful to keep looking around to make sure nobody had followed them—the way someone must have followed the ambulance to the hospital.

But why?

If Maggie really had no idea who the robbers were, why had they wanted to kidnap her so desperately that they hadn’t tried just once but twice?

Blaine stopped at the door where Maggie had stopped, her hand with the key outstretched toward the lock. She gasped. Hearing the fear in her voice, Blaine reached for his gun and pulled it from the holster.

Then he closed his free hand around Maggie’s shoulder. She tensed and gasped again. Peering around her, he saw what she had—that the door to her apartment stood ajar. Since Maggie had said she lived alone now, someone must have broken in.

A thud emanated from the crack in the door. Whoever had broken in was still there. Waiting for Maggie...

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.