Читать книгу Watching Over Her - Lisa Childs, Carla Cassidy - Страница 28

Chapter Twenty

Maybe it had been only days. But it felt like weeks since Maggie had last seen Blaine. She knew he was busy working the case. He had explained that he had to hand off her protection to someone else so that he could focus.

Had she distracted him?

She was working again, too. But she was preoccupied by thoughts of Blaine. It wouldn’t matter how long she went without seeing him; she knew she would never not think of Special Agent Blaine Campbell.

A noise at her office door startled her, and she jumped.

“Sorry,” the bank manager said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s not your fault,” she assured him. Even though no attempts had been made to kidnap or kill her the past few days, she was still on edge. Still waiting for the robbers in their hideous masks to burst through the bank doors or into her apartment with their guns drawn.

“Has everything been all right?” he asked.

She nodded instead of uttering a lie. Because everything was not all right—not without Blaine. She ached for him.

“Things are back to normal now,” Mr. Hardy said with a sigh of relief as he gazed around at the bank. The glass had all been repaired. Everything was back in its place as if the robbery had never happened. “And with one of the robbers found dead, maybe the others have gone into hiding.”

“Agent Campbell will catch them,” she said with unshakable confidence.

“Hopefully,” he said, but he sounded doubtful. “I understand that the robber that was found dead was related to you.”

“No,” she said.

“Well,” he said again, his voice rising with a slight whine, “he would’ve been had your fiancé not died.”

She wouldn’t have married Andy, though—even after finding out she carried his child. She hadn’t wanted friendship love in her marriage; she’d wanted passionate love. She had wanted to be in love, not just to love someone. She had finally found that with Blaine, but he didn’t want the instant family he would have with her. He probably didn’t even want a relationship. He was totally focused on his career—so much so that she hadn’t even heard from him.

Mr. Hardy was looking at her strangely. Then Maggie recognized the suspicion. “I was not involved in the robberies,” she said. “I had nothing to do with them.”

Except for those damn letters she’d written. Did he know about those, too?

He nodded. “Of course you didn’t...”

But she heard the doubt in his voice. “I need this job, Mr. Hardy. I wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize it.”

“Susan Iverson thinks you may have been involved with that man.”

“Susan may have been,” Maggie said. “But I wasn’t. He’s just someone I used to know.” And apparently she hadn’t known him nearly as well as she’d thought she had. “Like Susan, he proved to be someone I couldn’t trust.”

“She claims that the agent totally misread the situation when he found her in your apartment—”

“Stealing my engagement ring,” she said.

“She assured me she wasn’t stealing it,” he defended the blonde bank teller. “That she was only looking for evidence that you were involved in the robberies.”

Maggie shook her head. She’d had enough of people lying and scamming her. “She used my credit cards,” she said. “She can’t explain that away.”

“You owed her rent money.”

Anger surged through her, and she stood up. “That’s a lie. And if you choose to believe her lies over me, maybe I don’t need this job as much as I thought.”

He held out his hands. “Calm down, Maggie. I know this is an emotional time for you. Susan needs her job, too, and if you drop the charges against her, I think you could work together again.”

Blaine had caught the woman in the act of stealing. It wasn’t up to Maggie whether or not charges were pressed. But she didn’t bother explaining that.

“Why are you defending her?” she wondered. And then, as color flooded his face, she realized why. He was involved with the young teller. “Oh...”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he said fearfully, as if he actually did know, “but you’re wrong.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Especially if he had betrayed his wife with the blonde opportunist. “There actually is evidence against her, and she will be prosecuted. I couldn’t drop the charges even if I wanted to.”

Maybe Susan had been involved in the robberies, too. Maggie wouldn’t put anything past the woman. She was a user. Mr. Hardy would figure that out soon enough. Disgusted with him, she grabbed her purse and said, “I’m going home.”

“Yes, get some rest and think about it,” he suggested.

Maybe Maggie needed to return to the branch where she had previously worked. She couldn’t work for Mr. Hardy anymore. She couldn’t work with Susan Iverson. Maybe she needed to join her parents in Hong Kong. It wasn’t as if Blaine would miss her. He had gone days with no contact.

As she headed out the door, her new protector followed her. The burly young man, Truman Jackson, was something with the Bureau—maybe a new recruit. Since there had been no recent attempts to grab her, she doubted they would have wasted a special agent on babysitting duty. She had been lucky to have Blaine as long as she had.

“Are you all right, Miss Jenkins?” the young man asked as he helped her into his unmarked vehicle.

“Maggie,” she corrected him as she had the past few days. “And I’m fine.”

“But you’re leaving early...”

She hadn’t done that the past couple of days. In fact, she had worked late, trying to catch up from the time the bank had been closed for repairs.

“I’m tired,” she said. And that was no lie. She was exhausted. From looking over her shoulder. From worrying.

From missing Blaine.

“So you want to go right back to your apartment?” Truman asked.

“Yes, please,” she said, and happy that he was driving, she closed her eyes and relaxed as much as she could.

“Do you think I’ll need protection much longer?” she asked. If no more attempts were made on her life...

“I couldn’t say, Maggie.”

“Do you know if Special Agent Campbell has gotten any closer to apprehending the other bank robbers?” She wanted to know what was going on with the case, but most of all she wanted to know what was going on with Blaine.

Was he okay? Had he recovered completely from the fire? Had anyone tried to kill him again?

Truman shrugged his broad shoulders; one of them nudged hers. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Do you have his number? Could you call and ask?”

No. She hadn’t been given his number. He had barely looked at her as he’d passed off her protection to someone else.

“I don’t want to bother him,” she said. And that was true. She didn’t want to distract him anymore. He had a job to do, and she had only been part of that job to him.

Truman had lost interest in their conversation, his attention on her apartment door as he pulled into the parking lot. He reached for his holster. “Who is that?”

A woman stood outside the door. She wore dark glasses that obscured most of her face, but Maggie recognized the bright glow of her red hair.

“It’s my...” almost sister-in-law? “...friend.” But Tammy had never really been her friend—not even when they were younger. Like Maggie and Andy, Tammy and Mark had dated all during high school. Tammy had actually been there when Mark had sneaked her and Andy into that horror movie. She had thought Maggie’s fear funny—as Mark had. And recently Tammy had been suspicious and resentful of Maggie. She had even suspected her of cheating with Mark.

Was that why she’d come here? To lash out some more in her grief? Maggie wasn’t certain how much more she could take today.

* * *

BLAINE GRABBED AT his tie, struggling to loosen the knot. He felt suffocated within the walls of his new office, and he felt buried beneath the files atop his new desk. He would rather be out in the field, physically tracking down solid leads instead of fumbling through piles of paper.

He would actually rather be with Maggie, making certain that she was safe. There had been no new attempts on her life. But he was not a fool enough to think that it was over, not with so many of Mark’s associates out there yet. Blaine was only a fool for Maggie—for falling for her.

As he’d had to so many times over the past few days, he pushed thoughts of Maggie from his mind and focused on the case again. He grabbed a file from the stack and read over the names of Mark Doremire’s friends and family. Was old man Doremire one of the robbers?

Hell, was Andy? Maybe the guy wasn’t really dead.

Blaine shook his head. He was losing it. Andy was gone. But another name on his list looked familiar. He shuffled through the other folders for the report from the security chief at the hospital, and he pulled out her list of employees. One of the names matched.

Mark Doremire’s brother-in-law worked security at the hospital. Hadn’t Tammy Doremire told him she had no friends or family in the area? Why had she lied to Blaine?

Had she been trying to protect her brother since she must already have known that she’d lost her husband? If her brother had been in on the thefts, she would have known that Mark had been hurt.

Maybe she had even been along for the robberies. Blaine touched his tablet and played some of the security footage from the holdup. There had been a robber who was smaller than the others. It was the one who’d dragged Maggie to the back door of the bank, the one who’d pulled her into the van.

Tammy Doremire wasn’t just related to a couple of the robbers. She was one of them.

He just had to find the other two. They might be associates of her brother’s. Or...

His phone rang, drawing his attention from all those files. He clicked the talk button. “Campbell.”

“Special Agent Campbell?”

“Yes.”

“This is Truman Jackson,” a male voice said.

“You’re the guard on Maggie.” Blaine’s heart slammed against his ribs as fear overwhelmed him. Before letting Truman protect her again, he had made certain that the man had not been compromised—that he could be trusted. Ash Stryker had vouched for him, so Truman had been chosen as her new protector. Had he failed his duty?

“Is she okay?” Blaine anxiously asked. “Has there been another attempt on her life?”

“No, no,” the man quickly assured Blaine. But there was concern in his voice.

That concern had Blaine grabbing his keys and rushing out of his office. But even outside the confining walls, he couldn’t breathe. Now panic and concern suffocated him.

“What’s going on?” he asked. What had compelled the man to call him?

“I brought Maggie home from the bank,” Truman relayed, “and there was a woman waiting at her apartment door.”

At least she had been at the door and hadn’t let herself inside the way Susan Iverson had. But maybe Susan had learned her lesson about doing that.

“Who was she?” Blaine asked.

“Maggie,” he said, “told me that the woman was a friend but...”

“But what?”

“I don’t know,” the man replied. “But I didn’t pick up the friendship vibe from her. Maggie insisted on speaking alone with the woman, though, so I left them together in Maggie’s apartment.”

Blaine clicked the lock on his SUV and jumped behind the wheel. “Did you check the woman for a weapon before you left them alone?”

“Of course,” the man replied, as if offended. “She wasn’t armed. And she’s too thin to do any physical harm to Maggie.”

That didn’t ease Blaine’s fears any. “Who is she?”

“A red-haired woman,” Truman replied. “I checked her license.”

Blaine didn’t even need her name for confirmation. He knew who was with Maggie.

“Tammy Doremire...”

The robber from the bank—the one who had tried bringing Maggie along. Probably the only one who really wanted her dead...