Читать книгу Watching Over Her - Lisa Childs, Carla Cassidy - Страница 23

Chapter Fifteen

“Blaine!”

The sound of his name—uttered with such fear and urgency—jerked him awake as effectively as if she’d screamed. He coughed and sputtered as smoke burned his throat and lungs.

Soft hands gripped his shoulders, shaking him. “The house is on fire! We have to get out!”

They pulled on clothes in the dark and Blaine grabbed up his holster and his gun. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t awakened earlier. The fire must have been burning for a while because there was a lot of smoke—so much that it was hard to breathe. Hard to see. But there wasn’t much heat.

Maybe the smoke was just a ruse to get them out of the house—where Maggie could be grabbed. Or shot. But the smoke, growing denser and denser, could kill her, too.

She coughed and sputtered. But she didn’t speak. She must have been too scared.

So was Blaine. He was scared that he had failed her and the baby—that he had broken his promise to her that he would keep them safe. He shouldn’t have let his desire for her distract him. He shouldn’t have crossed the line with a material witness.

“We have to stay low,” he said as he helped her down to the floor. He reached forward and touched the door, his palm against the wood. It wasn’t warm—at least, not as warm as the floor beneath his knees.

Maggie must have felt it, too, because she gasped and started to rise. But Blaine caught her arm and pulled her back down as she began to cough.

Getting out wouldn’t be easy, especially if the whole first floor was engulfed as he suspected. But he didn’t have time to devise a plan. He had to act now—before the floor gave way beneath them.

So he opened the door to the hall. The smoke was even thicker than in the bedroom. He crossed it quickly to the bathroom, grabbed towels from a shelf and soaked them under the tub faucet. Maggie was still in the hall as if she hadn’t been able to see where to go. He wrapped Maggie’s face and body in the wet towels, and then he picked her up in his arms.

“Blaine...”

He coughed, and his eyes teared up from the smoke. But there was no time. And maybe there was no escape. He couldn’t jump out a second-story window—not without hurting Maggie and her baby. So he ran toward the stairs. The bottom floor was aglow from the flames, but none licked up the steps. So he ran down them—wood weakening and splintering beneath them from the heat and the fire.

The house creaked and groaned as the flames consumed it. And the smoke overwhelmed him, blinding him to any exits. But he remembered where the front door was.

But had it been barricaded? Or were those gunmen waiting outside it to make sure they didn’t escape?

As he headed toward it, the door burst open, and men in masks hurried into the house. These weren’t those horrible zombie masks. These masks had oxygen pumping into them and were attached to hats. Firemen had arrived. Of course one of Ash’s neighbors would have called the police. They would have noticed the flames—unlike Blaine.

He shouldn’t have sent the other agents away. But he had wanted one last night alone with Maggie. That night might have cost her life or her baby’s life. Her body was going limp in his arms.

One of the firemen took Maggie from him and carried her out. Blaine should have fought the man. He should have made certain that he really was a fireman. What if it was one of the robbers in another disguise?

Blaine hurried after him, but the smoke was so thick in his lungs now that he couldn’t draw a breath deep enough. He couldn’t breathe. And before he could hurry after Maggie, the house shuddered as the second story began to fall into the first...

* * *

MAGGIE’S THROAT BURNED. From the smoke and from screaming. Over the fireman’s shoulder, she had seen the roof collapse and the house fold in on itself...and on Blaine. She’d pounded on the fireman’s shoulders, but he hadn’t released her.

And for a moment, she had stared up in fear that the mask wasn’t any more real than the zombie masks had been. She’d worried that it had just been a disguise.

And she’d reached for it. But she’d been too weak to pull it off. Too weak to fight off the man as he carried her away. He put her into the back of a vehicle, and it sped away with her locked inside. Sirens wailed and lights flashed, but she still did not trust where it would take her. She didn’t trust the oxygen either that a young woman gave her in the back of that van.

What if it was a drug or a gas? What if it knocked her out? She tried to fight it, but she didn’t have the strength to pull off the mask. And then it began to make her feel better, stronger.

So when the doors opened again, she was strong enough to fight. To run. But the doors opened to a hospital Emergency entrance. She pulled off the oxygen mask and asked, “Where’s Blaine?”

The paramedic stared down at her as she pushed the stretcher through the sliding doors of the ER entrance. “Who?”

“Agent Campbell,” she said. “He was in the house...” She coughed and sputtered, but she wasn’t choking on the smoke. She was choking on emotion. “He was in the house...when the roof caved in...”

The paramedic shrugged. “I don’t know...”

“Do you know if anybody else got out?”

Blaine hadn’t been the only one inside; there had been other firemen, too. Real firemen, she realized they were. They would have saved him. Right? They would have made certain Blaine got out alive.

“I don’t know, miss,” the female paramedic replied. “We were told to get you to the hospital right away because of the baby.”

Maggie had one hand splayed across her belly, feeling for movement. Was he okay? She hoped the smoke hadn’t hurt him. She was scared to think of what it might have done to his heart. His brain...

“That’s good,” she agreed. “We need to check out the baby.”

“And you, too,” the paramedic said. She leaned back as doctors ran up.

But Maggie grabbed the young woman’s arm. “Was there another ambulance there?” Was there someone who could help Blaine?

Because after seeing the roof collapse, she had no doubt that all of the people still inside would need medical help. Maggie was glad that she and her baby had been brought to the hospital so quickly. But she also wished they would have waited for Blaine—to bring him in with her.

Then she would know how badly he’d been hurt. Or if he had survived at all...

The young paramedic didn’t have a chance to answer her question before doctors and nurses whisked Maggie’s stretcher into a treatment area. They hooked her to another oxygen machine and an IV. There was also a heart monitor for the baby and an ultrasound.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the fast but steady beat. “He’s alive...”

“His heart sounds good,” a doctor agreed.

“And his lungs?”

“Did you ever lose consciousness?” someone asked. “Did you pass out from the smoke?”

Maggie shook her head.

“We’ll administer some prenatal steroids to help the development of his lungs,” the doctor said, “to make sure everything’s fine...”

But everything wouldn’t be fine until she learned if Blaine had made it out of the burning house.

“He’s active,” the doctor said as he watched the ultrasound screen.

He. The picture on the ultrasound confirmed what Maggie had previously only suspected. She was carrying a baby boy. She wanted to share that news with her best friend. But he was gone. She wanted to share that news with the man she loved. But Blaine was gone, too.

Maybe the IV contained a sedative because she must have drifted off despite her worry. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but when she awoke, she was no longer in the emergency department. She was alone in a room but for the man—tall and broad-shouldered—who stood in the doorway.

Hope burgeoned in her heart. “Blaine?”

The man stepped forward...into the light that glowed dimly from another doorway, perhaps to the bathroom. The man’s hair was dark and his eyes were light, not gold and green like Blaine’s. Disappointment made her heart feel heavy in her chest. “You’re not Blaine.”

But the man who had purchased those stolen vans had been described as dark haired with light eyes. This man matched that description as much as Mark Doremire had.

Could he be one of the robbers? And if he’d forgone the zombie mask, then he had no intention of letting her live.

“Who are you?” she asked. She didn’t recognize him. She would have had no way of identifying him as one of the suspects in the robbery.

“I’m not Blaine Campbell,” he agreed with a short chuckle. “My name is Ash Stryker. I’m also an FBI agent and a friend of Blaine’s.”

“Is he okay?” she asked. “Is he here?” She struggled to sit up, ready to jump out of bed and go to him.

Ash shook his head. “No. He’s not here. That’s why he asked me to stay with you.”

“But is he okay?” she asked, and her panic grew. Had Blaine asking Ash to stay with her been his deathbed request? Was that why he wasn’t there?

Because he was gone? Dead and gone?

Ash nodded, but he had that same telltale signal of stress that Blaine did. A muscle twitched in his cheek. Maybe that twitch wasn’t just betraying his stress but his lie—like a gambler’s tell in a poker game.

“No,” she said, her voice cracking as hysteria threatened. “I don’t believe you. I saw the roof collapse. He couldn’t have gotten out of there without some injuries.”

Serious injuries.

Fatal injuries.

The man flinched as if he’d felt Blaine’s pain. “He has some bumps and scratches,” he admitted. “And a couple of small burns. But he’s fine. Or I wouldn’t be here.”

Even though Blaine had asked him? But then, he would have been too distraught over the loss of his friend to worry about her.

Maybe Blaine wasn’t gone.

The dark-haired man sighed. “Of course, I have no place to go right now...”

“It was your house he was staying at,” she realized. And that Blaine had let her stay at, as well. He should have taken her to a motel. It might not have protected her, but it would have protected Ash Stryker’s house. “I’m sorry...”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he assured her.

“But whoever set the fire is after me,” she said. “So I feel responsible.” She felt responsible for the house and for those injuries Blaine had suffered. How badly had he really been hurt?

Agent Stryker moved closer to the bed and assured her, “You’re not responsible for any of this.”

“I wish that was true,” she said. “I shouldn’t have stayed at your house. I shouldn’t have stayed with Blaine.” Or made love and fallen in love with Blaine.

He chuckled. “Blaine was right...”

“What was he right about?”

“He said that you couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the robberies,” Ash said. “He said that you’re too good a person to be consciously involved.”

He thought she was a good person?

“I figured Blaine was only thinking that because he grew up with sisters and has this whole chivalry thing going on,” Ash said.

She nodded. “He is very chivalrous and protective.” The man was a hero like she had never known.

“I also guessed that you’re pretty,” he said.

She didn’t feel pretty now. She felt bedraggled from the smoke. Maybe it was good that Blaine wasn’t there. He would have regretted sleeping with her.

Maybe he did regret it. Maybe that was why he wasn’t here—with her. Had he even checked on her?

“Where is Blaine?” she asked.

Ash sighed. “He’s determined to end this,” he said. “He wants these guys caught.”

“He wants to avenge Sarge’s death,” she said. “Sarge is—”

“I knew Sarge, too,” Ash said with a grimace of regret and loss. “He was also my drill instructor.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” he said. “None of this is your fault. Blaine is going to prove that. He’s going to find out who the hell is responsible and bring them to justice.”

She breathed a small sigh of relief. He had to be okay, then. He had to be strong enough to want revenge. But her breath caught again as she realized that he was putting himself in more danger.

“You should be with him,” she said. “You should make sure he’s really all right. The doctors wanted to keep me here because they’re worried about my lungs having a delayed reaction to all that smoke. I think it’s called hypoxia.” That was why they were keeping her on oxygen.

Blaine wouldn’t have oxygen with him. He wouldn’t have anyone to help him if hypoxia kicked in, depriving his body of oxygen. He could die.

He wasn’t just in danger from whoever was trying to kill them. He was in danger from his own body shutting down on him.

That muscle twitched in Ash’s cheek again. He was worried, too. Blaine must have checked himself out against doctor’s orders.

“Have you heard from him?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Maybe it was already too late to help Blaine.