Watching Over Her. Lisa Childs
she let herself fall for him...
But she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t risk her heart on anyone right now. She was going to save all her love for her baby.
Maggie was getting to him in a way that no one had ever gotten to Blaine before. He couldn’t even draw a deep breath for the panic pressing on his chest.
What had he been thinking to bring her along? He shook his head in self-disgust.
“What?” she asked from the passenger seat of the battered SUV.
“I shouldn’t have brought you...”
“I told you that I won’t be in any danger.”
Maybe she wouldn’t be. But he was worried that he was in danger. He was in danger of falling for her. And that would be the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
It wasn’t that he still believed she was involved in the robberies. But he would be a fool to totally rule out the possibility. Even though there were attempts being made on her life, it could be to silence her, so that she wouldn’t reveal her coconspirators. But he doubted that. If she actually knew anything about the robbers, she would have told him by now; she was too scared to keep secrets any longer.
The reason it would be a mistake for him to fall for Maggie Jenkins was because she was in love with another man. He suspected she would forever love her dead fiancé.
That was why she had insisted on coming along with him. To protect Andy’s family from him.
“I really don’t believe they’re involved,” she insisted. And he wondered now if she was trying to convince herself or him.
“Andy could have told them what you had shared with him about the bank,” he said. “What did you share with him?” And how did it tie in to the robberies?
“I rambled on,” she said, “like I usually do since I talk so much. I complained about working harder than the manager. I told him what my duties were—how I handled the money deliveries and pickups—how I knew the security code for the back door and the vault.”
That information had definitely been used in the robberies. Even at the other banks, the robbers had threatened the assistant managers and never questioned the managers.
“It sounds like Andy shared that information with his brother.” And Mark had used it to rob all the banks.
She shook her head, tumbling her brown curls around her shoulders. “Andy wouldn’t talk to anyone about my job.”
“Why not?” he asked, and he wondered about her dismissive tone.
She shrugged. “It’s not very interesting.”
“It’s not?”
“Most of the time it’s very boring,” she said.
Had Andy thought her job boring and uninteresting? “But you told him about it anyway?”
“I wrote about it,” she said. “I guess my letters to him were kind of like writing in a journal. I complained about stupid policies and procedures.”
“You wrote him letters?”
“Yes,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you that before?”
“Not about the letters—just that Andy was the only person you’d told about your job,” he said. Because she told Andy everything. He’d thought that had been in person, though. “Where are the letters now? Did you get them back?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t know what would have happened to them after he...after he...” She trailed off, unable to talk of his death. Of her loss...
“His personal effects would have been returned to his family,” Blaine said. He was definitely right about Andy’s family; they had to be involved in the robberies.
Maggie sucked in a breath, as if she had just realized it, too. “But they wouldn’t have read his personal letters...”
“If they miss him as much as you do,” he pointed out, “they might have.”
“But those are letters that I wrote to him,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “They’re not the letters he wrote to me. They’re not about Andy and his life.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. She had every right to be angry. “Those letters should have been returned to you. They’re your personal thoughts and feelings. Hell, you were his fiancée. You should have gotten everything.”
She shook her head in denial. “We weren’t married. So his personal effects should have gone to his family.”
“You’re family—you and his baby,” Blaine said. “His parents and brother should have at least given you those letters.”
“Maybe they just didn’t have time...” She kept defending them.
Maybe she was naive. Maybe she just tried to see the best in everyone. But that was how she had wound up with Susan Iverson as a roommate. She didn’t need protection just now; she needed it every day. She needed protection from her own sweetness and generosity.
“His brother’s been checking on you,” he said. The image from the security footage of him hugging her hadn’t left his mind. “He could have brought the letters to you then. He’s had six months to get them to you.” Unless he had been using them for something else—to help him plan the bank robberies.
“We’re here,” she said with a sigh of relief as he pulled the battered SUV to the curb across the street from the brick Cape Cod.
He could have sworn earlier today that she hadn’t wanted to come back here. Of course, she thought she was going to prove to him that Andy’s family wasn’t involved. But with every new thing he learned, his suspicions about them grew. He didn’t even need confirmation from Dalton Reyes that Mark Doremire was the one ordering those stolen vans.
He was so convinced that Doremire was involved that he’d had a local officer watching the house before they arrived. The car was parked a little way down the street. Too far down the street if Doremire and his father were armed. The other men from the bank could be there, too.
Maggie reached for her door handle, but Blaine caught her arm and held her back from opening the door. With his other hand, he grabbed his cell and checked in with the officer.
“Nobody’s come or gone, Agent Campbell,” the officer assured him.
So what did that mean? That they had holed up in the house with weapons? At least the driver of the van, and whoever else might have been riding inside, couldn’t have joined them. They wouldn’t have had time to ditch the van for another vehicle and drive up without the officer seeing them.
Blaine clicked off the cell and turned back to Maggie. “I want you to stay here until I check out the inside of the house.”
“Mr. Doremire may not let you in unless he sees me,” she warned him. “Andy’s parents kind of kept to themselves when we were growing up. They didn’t socialize much. So he’s not going to open his door to a stranger.”
Blaine tugged his badge out of his shirt. He wasn’t hiding it this time. “This will get him to open the door,” he said. Or he would knock down the damn thing. “You need to stay here until I determine if it’s safe or not.”
He waited until she reluctantly nodded in agreement before he stepped out the driver’s side. But moments later Mr. Doremire proved her right. When Blaine knocked on the door, a raspy voice angrily called out, “Go away!”
“I am Special Agent Campbell with the FBI,” Blaine identified himself. “I need you to open up this door, sir. I need to talk to you about your son.”
“It’s too