Читать книгу Watching Over Her - Lisa Childs, Carla Cassidy - Страница 29

Chapter Twenty-One

Maggie handed Tammy a cup of tea. Brewing it had bought her some time to gather her thoughts since she had no idea what to say to the new widow.

But Tammy must not have wanted the tea because she set the cup on the coffee table in front of her. Maggie kept hers in her hands, hoping the heat of the mug would warm her. But she still shivered—maybe more with nerves than cold.

“You still have a bodyguard,” the other woman said.

It hadn’t been a question, but Maggie nodded in reply. Truman had searched Tammy to make sure she carried no weapon, so of course she would have realized he was a bodyguard.

“But there haven’t been any attempts lately,” Tammy said. “It seems like the FBI wouldn’t want to waste manpower.”

“I don’t know,” Maggie replied. She had no idea why Tammy cared about the bodyguard or the FBI, let alone how she would have known about the attempts on Maggie’s life.

Unless...

No, she refused to suspect the worst of everyone; she refused to be as cynical as Blaine had been. But Blaine had been right about Mark...

“Having protection for you is probably Agent Campbell’s idea,” the woman continued, her voice sharp with bitterness as she said his name. “I’m surprised that he’s not still personally protecting you.”

“He’s busy,” Maggie said. At least that was what she was telling herself to salve her wounded heart.

Tammy sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

But it did matter to Maggie that she hadn’t heard from Blaine—that she didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Or feeling.

Since the mug was beginning to cool, Maggie set it beside Tammy’s on the coffee table. But she didn’t join her on the couch or settle onto one of the chairs across from her. Maggie didn’t feel comfortable enough with this woman to sit down with her.

But she should have gone to see her earlier out of respect. “I’m glad you came over,” Maggie said.

“You are?” Tammy asked skeptically.

“Of course. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, wanting to tell you how sorry I am about Mark.” Of course she hadn’t known how to express sympathy for a man dying in the commission of a crime—of a murder. If only Mark hadn’t been involved in the robberies...

Both he and Sarge would be alive. How could Maggie express sympathy for that?

The woman ignored her remarks and pointed out a box that sat on the end of the coffee table. Wrapping paper with little rubber ducks covered the box, and a bright yellow bow topped it. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. She hadn’t noticed it earlier. Tammy hadn’t had it with her when Truman had searched her body and her purse. He would have found the brightly wrapped package. “It wasn’t here this morning.”

“Maybe it was delivered today,” Tammy suggested.

Maggie shook her head. “Then it would have been left outside the door.” Not on her coffee table.

“Maybe your elderly janitor brought it inside for you.”

Maggie’s skin chilled as she realized that Tammy wasn’t offering a possible explanation but a fact. She knew because she had given it to Mr. Simmons to bring inside for her. Why?

“This is yours?” Maggie asked. “You brought this for me?” Despite what she’d told Truman, they weren’t friends. Why would the woman have brought her a baby gift?

“Yes,” Tammy replied. “But let me open it for you.” She tore the ribbon and easily slipped the top off the box. Then she smiled and lifted a gun out. “Now tell me how sorry you are about Mark.”

Fear slammed into Maggie as she stared down the barrel of that gun. She covered her belly with her palms—even though she knew there was no way to protect her baby from a bullet. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to do what we should have done at the first bank so you wouldn’t have time to figure out it was us and report us to the FBI,” Tammy said. “I’m going to kill you.”

“But the guard is just outside the door,” Maggie reminded her. “Truman is going to hear the shot. You won’t get away with this. He might even shoot you.”

“You think I have anything to live for?” Tammy asked, her face contorting into a mask of pain and hatred nearly as grotesque as those zombie masks. Tammy must have chosen them; she had found it funniest that Maggie had been so afraid during that movie. “Mark’s dead because of you.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Maggie said.

“No, your FBI agent shot him,” Tammy said. “I had hoped that he was the one protecting you. That he would be here, so that I could kill you both.”

“You’ve got your wish,” a deep voice murmured as the apartment door opened with a slight creak of the hinges. “I’m here.”

Maggie had spent the past few days missing Blaine and longing to see his handsome face again. But not now. She would rather have never seen him again than to have him die with her.

* * *

BLAINE HAD EXPECTED the gun because he’d met Mr. Simmons at the door. The older gentleman had wanted to make certain that Maggie got the baby gift that he’d put in her apartment for the red-haired woman. He’d thought the box was heavy for a baby-shower gift.

Of course it held no gift for Maggie or her baby. It had held the gun.

Tammy was clever—so clever that she had probably been the one who had actually plotted the bank robberies. She had probably been the one who’d read Maggie’s letters.

“This is perfect,” the widow said with a smile of delight as she stood up with the gun clutched in her hands. At least the barrel was pointed at him instead of Maggie, who stood trembling on the other side of the coffee table from the deranged woman.

“This is stupid,” Blaine corrected her. “There’s nothing specifically linking you to the robberies. No evidence that you were aware of the crimes your husband and your brother were committing. You could have gotten away with it all.”

Her smile vanished off her thin lips. “My brother?”

The woman obviously didn’t care about herself right now—not when she planned to shoot two people with another federal agent posted right outside the door. But maybe she cared about her sibling.

“He was the one who tried abducting Maggie from Emergency,” Blaine said. “He’s a security guard at the hospital.”

Tammy shook her head in denial. “The fact that he works there doesn’t prove anything.”

“His security badge will prove he was the one who opened the back door of the employees’ locker room when he tried to kidnap Maggie.” At least Blaine hoped it would. He needed evidence—not just suspicion—linking the man to the crimes.

“No...” But the conviction was gone from Tammy Doremire’s voice as it began to quaver. “You can’t tie him to the robberies...”

Maybe he wouldn’t be able to, but he wasn’t going to let her think that. “I have a team working on it right now. They’re getting search warrants. They’re digging into all of his financials. They’re checking all his properties for any evidence linking him to the robberies. I’m pretty sure they’ll find something. Aren’t you?”

Her thin face tightened with dread and hatred. She knew that her brother wouldn’t have gotten rid of all the evidence—or at least not the money. He could see she was torn, tempted to call and warn her brother about the warrants.

So he stepped closer, prepared to grab her weapon from her hands. Her eyes widened with alarm as she noticed that he’d closed some distance between them.

“Get back!” she yelled. “I’m going to kill her. You’re not going to stop me this time.”

“Why do you want her dead?” he asked. “If you hadn’t sent your brother to the hospital after her, I wouldn’t have linked him to the crimes.” He was sure that her brother had acted on her orders; all the men probably had.

“It’s all her fault!” Tammy yelled, as if she thought that saying it loud enough would make it true. “If she hadn’t written those damn letters to Andy...”

A noise emanated from Maggie, but she’d muffled it with a hand over her mouth. She had already held herself responsible for the robberies; she didn’t need this crazed woman compounding her guilt.

But making her feel guilty wasn’t enough torment for Tammy Doremire. She intended to kill her, too.

“Who read them?” Blaine asked, stalling for time—hoping to distract the woman enough for Maggie to escape. He had left the apartment door open. Maybe Truman could get off a shot.

“I—I did,” Tammy admitted.

As he’d suspected, she was the mastermind behind the robberies. He acted shocked, though, as he edged closer to her and that damn gun she gripped so tightly. “You read her personal correspondence to her fiancé?”

She snorted. “Personal? There hadn’t been anything very personal about them. They were not love letters—not like I would have written to Mark—” her voice cracked with emotion, with loss “—if he’d been in a war zone.”

She had loved her husband. The grief and pain contorted her face.

“Why didn’t you take Mark to a hospital when he was hurt?” he asked. “Why did you drive him instead to that cabin in Michigan?”

“He—he wanted to go there,” she said. “He knew he was dying—because of you. Because you shot him!” She pointed the gun at Blaine’s chest.

And he was glad; it wasn’t anywhere near Maggie now. Maybe she could escape. Instead, she gasped in fear for him.

And her gasp drew Tammy’s rage back to her. She whirled the gun in Maggie’s direction. “But we wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for her. Mark just couldn’t stay away from poor, sweet Maggie. She caused his death—just like she caused Andy’s.”

“That’s bull.” Blaine called her on her craziness. “I killed Mark—not Maggie. I pulled the trigger. Not Maggie.”

She swung the gun back to him, and her eyes were wild with rage and grief. “It was your fault!”

“I shot him, but the vest should have protected him,” Blaine said. “But he wasn’t wearing his vest. He was wearing yours.”

Tears began to streak down the woman’s face as her own guilt overwhelmed her. She knew why her husband had died. But she couldn’t accept her own part in his death. It was easier for her to blame him and Maggie.

She sniffled back her tears. And as she tried to clear her vision, he edged closer yet. “No...” she cried in protest of her guilt more than his nearness. “He shouldn’t have died...”

He was counting on her not noticing how close he was to her. But she wasn’t looking at him anymore; she had swung the gun back toward Maggie.

“Mark killed an innocent man,” Maggie said in defense of Blaine shooting him. Of course she would defend him as she did everyone. “Why? Why would you two resort to stealing and killing?”

“Mark and I needed that money,” Tammy said, desperately trying to justify their crimes. “We needed it to start our family.”

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars?” Blaine scoffed. He wanted to irritate her, wanted her to shoot at him instead of Maggie. He wore a vest. Maggie was completely unprotected.

“I—I couldn’t get pregnant. I need—needed—fertility treatments. Or in vitro. All that’s so expensive, and Mark lost his job.” Now she wasn’t just pointing the gun at Maggie but at her belly, and jealousy twisted the woman’s face into a mask nearly as grotesque as the zombie one. “But this one—she easily gets pregnant.”

Maggie held her hands over her belly, trying to protect her unborn baby. But her hands would prove no protection from a bullet.

“You don’t want to hurt the baby,” Blaine said, as horror gripped him. Maggie’s baby was a part of her, and because he loved Maggie, he loved her baby, too. He couldn’t lose either of them.

“She doesn’t deserve that baby,” Tammy said. “She never wanted it. She never wanted Andy. She didn’t love him like I loved Mark. It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Blaine commiserated.

But the woman didn’t hear or see him anymore. It didn’t matter that he was the one who’d fired the shot that had killed Mark. She hated Maggie more—she hated that the woman had what Tammy had wanted most. A baby...

And she intended to take that baby from Maggie before she took her life. He had to protect them. So Blaine did two things—he kicked the coffee table into the woman’s legs and he grabbed for the gun.

But it went off. And a scream rang out. Maggie’s scream.