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
