Читать книгу The Pregnant Witness - Lisa Childs - Страница 11

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...