she would have been safer had she stayed where she’d been. “I will take better care of myself and the baby,” Maggie vowed. “Do you know what I’m having?” She had had an ultrasound earlier in her pregnancy, but it had been too soon to tell the gender.
The young woman shook her head. “I wasn’t able to tell.”
Or she probably would have pointed it out then.
“But maybe the radiologist had an idea.” The young woman’s face flushed as she glanced down at the notes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t realized that you’d been at the bank that was robbed and that paramedics had brought you from the scene.”
“That’s fine,” Maggie said. “I should have told you myself.” But she hadn’t wanted to talk about it—to remember what it had been like to see those gruesome masks again and to watch as one of them killed Sarge. She shuddered.
“Of course your blood pressure would be elevated,” the PA continued. “You must have been terrified.”
She had been until the FBI agent had saved her. Where was he? He was supposed to come to the hospital to interview her. Hadn’t Agent Campbell survived his second run-in with the bank robbers?
“I’ll be okay,” she assured the physician’s assistant. She had survived. Again. Daryl Williams hadn’t been as fortunate—because of her. Maybe Agent Campbell hadn’t survived, either.
The young woman nodded. “Considering what you’ve been through, you’re doing very well. But I would follow up with your obstetrician tomorrow and make sure your blood pressure goes down.”
“I will do that,” Maggie promised. She was taking no chances with her pregnancy. She had already lost the baby’s father; she wouldn’t lose his baby, too.
“You can get dressed now.” The young woman passed over some papers. “Here is your release and an ultrasound picture. There isn’t any way of telling his or her gender yet.”
Maggie stared down at the photo. She had seen her baby on the ultrasound screen this time and the previous time she’d had one. But this was the first photo she’d been given to keep—probably because he looked like a baby now and not a peanut. He or she was curled up on his or her side, and the little mouth was open. She smiled as she remembered her mother claiming that Maggie’s mouth had been open during every ultrasound. She’d been talking even before she’d been born.
“Thank you,” she told the PA. But she didn’t look up. She couldn’t take her gaze from the amazing photo of her baby. The child had already survived so much: the loss of a parent and two bank robberies.
“Good luck, Ms. Jenkins,” the young woman replied as she pulled the curtain closed again.
Maggie’s smile slid off her lips. She was going to need luck to make it safely through her pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby. He was fine now. And she would do everything within her power to keep him that way.
She dressed quickly so that she could pick up and study the picture again. Maybe she should wait for the FBI agent—to make certain that he was all right. It wasn’t as if she could leave anyway. Her purse was back at the bank, so she didn’t have any money to pay for a cab. And with Mr. Hardy busy with corporate, the only other person she could have called at the bank to bring it to her was dead.
Sarge...
If only he hadn’t stepped out from behind that pillar...
If only he hadn’t tried to save her...
Tears blurred her vision, but she blinked them back to focus on the baby picture again. She needed to focus on him or her, needed to keep him or her healthy and safe. The baby was her priority.
She would have to find a phone she could use and call a friend to pick her up. But she didn’t really know anyone here in this suburb of Chicago. She hadn’t known anyone but Sarge. After the bank where she’d previously worked had been robbed, she had transferred to the branch where Sarge worked—thinking she would feel safer with him there. But the danger had followed her and claimed his life—cruelly cutting his retirement short. The tears threatened again, but she fought them. Sobbing would not help her blood pressure.
The curtain moved as a gloved hand pulled it back.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling guilty for taking up the area. “I realize you probably need the bed for someone else...” For someone who actually needed medical attention. “I’m all ready to leave.” She just needed someone to pick her up. “I can wait in the lobby.”
Nobody said anything, though. But she could feel them standing there, watching her. So then she looked up, and her heart began to pound frantically as she stared into the creepy face of one of those horrible zombie masks. It was her nightmare come to life again.
She would have screamed but for the gun barrel pointing directly at her. She already knew that these people had no compunction about killing. They had already killed once and that had been because Sarge had been trying to save her. She couldn’t scream and risk someone else getting hurt again. The only reason they would have tracked her down at the hospital was to kill again.
To kill her...
* * *
BLAINE CURSED HIMSELF as he flipped screens on his tablet. The Bureau had forwarded him the case file for the bank robberies.
Now he knew exactly what Maggie had been muttering in the back of the ambulance—because it had happened again. A different bank. A different city. But the same witness.
Maggie Jenkins had been robbed before—a couple of months ago—at another bank where she’d been working as an assistant manager. What were the odds that the same robbers, wearing zombie masks and black trench coats, would track her down at another bank in another city? Maybe it was a coincidence, but in his years with the Bureau, Blaine had found few true coincidences.
It was more likely that they knew her. And if they knew her, she knew them. He’d had a lot of questions for Maggie Jenkins before; now he had even more. And he wouldn’t let her tear-damp dark eyes or her sweet vulnerability distract him again.
He dropped the tablet onto the passenger seat and threw open the driver’s door. After clicking the locks, he hurried across the parking lot to the hospital. He sidestepped through the automatic doors before they were fully open and flashed his badge at the security guard standing inside the doors. “I’m looking for a witness who was brought here from a bank-robbery scene. Maggie Jenkins.”
After waving him through the blinking, beeping metal detector, the guard pointed toward the emergency-department desk. Blaine showed his badge to the receptionist. “I need to talk to Maggie Jenkins—from the bank robbery.”
The older woman stared at his badge before nodding. “Nyla can show you where she is.”
A young nurse stepped from behind the desk and pushed open swinging doors. “Ms. Jenkins is behind the last curtain on the left.”
He followed the woman’s directions, past a long row of pulled curtains, and he pulled aside the very last curtain on the left. The bed was empty but for a black-and-white photo. Maggie was gone. He picked up the photo and recognized it as an ultrasound picture. His older sisters had shown him a few over the past ten years. He’d thought they looked like
