Miss Jenkins shook her head, refusing treatment. “What about Mr. Williams?” she asked. “He needs your help more than I do.”
The paramedic just stared at her.
“The security guard,” Miss Jenkins said. “One of the robbers shot him.” Her already rough voice squeaked with emotion. “Will he be all right?”
The paramedic hesitated before shaking her head.
Tears spilled from Miss Jenkins’s eyes again, trailing down her smooth face. She had cared about Sarge. But Blaine didn’t think they could have worked together that long. Sarge had retired from the military only a few short months ago.
Blaine wanted to hold her again, to comfort her as he had earlier. Or had she comforted him? Her arms had slid around him, her curves soft and warm against him. He resisted the urge to reach for her, and instead he released her arm.
“Go with the paramedic,” he said. “Let her check you out.”
Blaine had questions for the assistant bank manager—so many questions. But his questions would wait until she was physically well enough to answer them.
The troopers immediately began to question Blaine. He had to explain his presence and about Sarge—even while tears of loss stung his eyes. He blinked them back, knowing his former drill instructor would have kicked his butt if he showed any weakness. Sarge had taught all his recruits that a good marine—a strong marine—controlled his emotions. Blaine had already learned that before boot camp, though.
“Why did the security guard call you?” one of the troopers asked.
“I just transferred to the Chicago Bureau office to take over the investigation of the robbers who’ve been hitting banks in Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.” Bank robberies were his specialty. He had a perfect record; no bank robbery he had investigated had gone unsolved, no bank robber unapprehended.
Of course, some robbers were sloppy and desperate and easily caught. Blaine already knew that this group of them—in their trench coats and zombie masks—were not sloppy or desperate. And, therefore, they would not be easily caught. But he would damn well catch them.
For Sarge...
“You think those robberies are related to this one?” the trooper asked.
“I can’t make a determination yet.” Because he hadn’t had a chance to go to the office; his flight had landed only hours ago. But ever since Sarge’s call, the urgency in the man’s voice had haunted Blaine and made him come here first—with his suitcase in the trunk of a rental car. “I need more information.”
And he didn’t want to give up too much information to the troopers before he’d verified his facts. He needed to check in with the Bureau, but he couldn’t leave the scene yet.
He couldn’t leave Maggie Jenkins.
He turned back to where the paramedic had helped her into the back of the first-responder rig. A man in a suit was standing outside the doors, talking to her. He’d come through the back door of the bank, so the troopers must have cleared him.
Blaine recognized him as one of the people who’d been lying on the floor, cowering from the robbers. Instead of checking on her, the man appeared to be questioning her—the way Blaine wanted to. But he wasn’t certain she had any more information than he did.
He just wanted to make sure she was all right—that his rescue hadn’t done her more harm than being taken hostage had.
* * *
MAGGIE WAS FINALLY ALONE. Mr. Hardy, the bank manager, had gone back inside the damaged building to call the corporate headquarters, as she had told him to do. At thirty, he was young and inexperienced for his position, so he had no idea what to do or how to manage after a robbery.
Unfortunately, Maggie did.
She trembled—not with cold or even with fear. She hadn’t felt that until the bullet had struck Sarge, and he had dropped to the floor. Before that, when the gunmen had burst into the lobby wearing those masks and trench coats, she had been too stunned to feel anything at all.
Usually just the sight of those gruesome masks would have filled her with terror, as they had ever since Andy and Mark had sneaked her into that violent horror movie. She’d had nightmares for years over it. But for the past few months she’d been having new nightmares. And while they’d still been about zombies, they hadn’t been movie actors—they’d been about these zombies.
“I can’t believe it,” she murmured to herself. “I can’t believe it happened. Again...”
And it was that disbelief that had overwhelmed her fear—until Sarge had been shot.
“Are you all right?” a deep voice asked.
Startled, she tensed. It wasn’t one of the paramedics. Their voices were higher and less...commanding. Agent Campbell commanded attention and respect and control.
He had taken over the moment he’d burst into the bank with his weapon drawn. He had taken over and saved her from whatever the bank robbers had planned for her. And he’d taken over the investigation from the state troopers more easily.
She nodded. “I’m okay,” she assured him, worried that he might think she was losing it. “I always talk to myself. My parents claim I came out talking and never shut up...” But as she chattered, her teeth began to chatter, too, snapping together as her jaw trembled.
The FBI agent lifted the blanket a paramedic had put around her and he wrapped it more tightly—as if he were swaddling a baby. She had taken a class and swaddled a doll, but she hadn’t done it nearly as well as he had. Maybe he had children of his own. She glanced down at his hands—his big, strong hands—but they were bare of any rings. Not every married man wore one, though. Her face heated with embarrassment that she’d even looked. His marital status should have been the last thing on her mind.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m fine, really...” But it wasn’t cold out. Why was she so deeply chilled that even her bones felt cold? “I can go back inside the bank and help Mr. Hardy—”
“The bank manager,” he said.
She’d noticed that he had stopped Mr. Hardy before letting him back inside the bank. And he’d questioned him. She doubted the young manager had been able to provide many answers.
“Yes,” she said. “I need to go back inside and help him close up the bank and take inventory for corporate. There’s so much to do...” There always was, after a robbery.
“You need to go to the hospital and get checked out,” Agent Campbell said as he waved over the paramedic. “You should have already taken her.”
“She wanted to talk to you first,” the female paramedic replied. She’d told Maggie that she wouldn’t mind talking to the agent herself, and her male partner had scoffed at her lack of professionalism.
Maggie hadn’t intended to go to the hospital at all—not when there was so much to do inside the bank. And Sarge...
Was he still inside?
She
