where I used to work.” She shuddered as she thought of the grotesque masks. They could have come right from that R-rated zombie movie she’d gone to so long ago. “With the masks and the trench coats, I couldn’t see any facial features or even body types of the robbers.”
“You’re not protecting anyone?”
She shook her head. But her hands automatically covered her belly. The baby had stopped moving. Maybe the food had satiated him. The cheesy scrambled eggs, crisp bacon and wheat toast had been delicious—so delicious that Maggie had probably eaten more than she should have.
But then, she could barely remember the last time she’d eaten. Some crackers at the hospital? Before that a breakfast she’d made herself—lumpy oatmeal with too much brown sugar. She would have to learn to be a better cook for the baby. If she lived long enough to cook for him...
“I want to protect my baby,” she said. But she feared that she was going to fail, just as she had failed Andy. “That’s the only person I’m protecting. So if I knew anything about the robbers, I would tell you.”
“You haven’t noticed anyone hanging around the bank, casing the place?” he asked.
She shook her head again. “I don’t know what casing a place looks like. So I can’t say that someone hasn’t done it.” Obviously they had or they wouldn’t have pulled off the robbery so easily—until Blaine had arrived. If only he could have saved Sarge...
Blaine hadn’t eaten nearly as much as she had. Most of his food was on his plate yet, forgotten, as he asked his questions. “Nobody came around both of the banks?”
Once again, she shook her head. “The branches are far enough away that they had different customers. I knew most of the clients from Sturgis since I’d worked at that branch since I graduated, but I’m just getting to know the people at this branch.” Should she bother? Or should she move on again to another branch, another city?
How would she work there without remembering those robbers bursting in? That was why she’d left Sturgis. Because of the memories. But there were worse ones here; there was Sarge getting shot and dying.
“What about workers?” Blaine asked. “Did Susan work at both branches, too?”
“No,” she said. “I’m the only one who worked at both branches.” Which was why he had suspected she was involved, and she couldn’t blame him for his suspicions. “But I really have nothing to do with the robberies.”
He didn’t look at her the way he had before, as if he doubted her.
Hope fluttered in her chest like her baby fluttered in her belly, waking up from his or her short nap. “Do you believe me?” she asked.
He uttered a heavy sigh of resignation. “I believe that you’re not consciously involved.”
She should have been happy that he didn’t think she was a criminal mastermind, but his comment dented her pride. He clearly thought she was an idiot instead. “I’m not unconsciously involved, either.”
“You haven’t told anyone about your job?” he asked.
“Most people know that I work at a bank,” she said, “except for Mr. Simmons.”
“Because you don’t want to worry him,” he said with a slight smile, as if amused or moved.
She sighed. “That was all for nothing after you called the cops on Susan. He probably knows now. But that’s all anyone knows about me—that I work there.”
“You haven’t told anyone any details that might make it easier for them to hold up the bank,” he persisted, “to know which days you’d have the most cash on hand?”
“No,” she replied, pride stinging at how stupid he thought her. He wasn’t the only one who’d thought that. Because she talked a lot, people sometimes thought she was flighty. But her grades in school and college had proved them all wrong. She talked a lot because she really didn’t like silence. It made her uncomfortable, so she generally tended to fill it with chatter.
“You don’t talk to your family about your job?” he asked skeptically. “You wouldn’t share any details with them?”
So now he thought her family members were criminal masterminds? She corrected that misassumption. “For his job, my dad and mom moved to Hong Kong a couple of years ago.”
And since Andy’s death, all they talked about was the weather—asking about hers, telling about theirs. Their conversations didn’t get any deeper; they were probably afraid that they might make her cry if they brought up something that would remind her of Andy. Or maybe it would make them cry because they’d loved him like a son.
“You don’t have any brothers or sisters?” he asked.
“No.” And because she was sick of being the only one answering questions, she started asking some of her own. “What about you?”
“I have three older sisters,” he replied, and his lips curved into a slight smile as his green eyes crinkled a little at the corners.
Growing up, she had wanted sisters. But her father had been busy with his career, and her mom hadn’t wanted to raise more than one child alone. Maggie would really be raising her baby alone.
She shook off the self-pity before she could wallow and asked, “Any brothers?”
“Just in arms,” he replied.
Fellow marines. Andy had called them brothers, too. She sighed.
“Do you have any friends that you’re really close to?” he asked. “Anyone that you would talk to without realizing that you might have let some information slip?”
He really thought she was an idiot. But maybe she had been—because she had told someone more than she should have.
Since he watched her closely, he must have caught her reaction as her realization dawned. “There is someone,” he concluded. “Who?”
“It doesn’t make a difference now,” she said.
“Who is it?” he asked, his voice sharp as if he thought she was protecting someone.
“Andy,” she said. “I told Andy everything...” Since they were kids, he had been her best friend, her confidant.
His blond head bobbed in a sharp nod. “Of course...”
But then she realized that she’d lied to the agent. She hadn’t told Andy everything, or she would have told him the truth—that she didn’t love him as anything more than her best friend. Maybe she’d told him so much about the bank because, as with her parents just discussing the weather, she had preferred to talk to Andy about her job than about her feelings or their future. She hadn’t seen one for them, but not because she’d thought he was going to die.
“But Andy’s gone,” she said. “So there’s no way he could have had anything to do with the bank robberies.”
“Can I ask...how did he die?”
For once she was short with
