Czytaj książkę: «The Pregnant Witness»

To Kimberly Duffy—with great appreciation for all our years of friendship! You’re the best!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Gunshots erupted like a bomb blast, nearly shaking the walls of the glass-and-metal building. Through the wide windows and clear doors, Special Agent Blaine Campbell could easily assess the situation from the parking lot. Five suspects, wearing zombie masks and long black trench coats, fired automatic weapons inside the bank. Customers and employees cowered on the floor—all except for the uniform-clad bank security officer.

Blaine had already reported the robbery in progress and had been advised to wait for backup. He wasn’t a fool; he could see that he was easily outgunned since he carried only his Glock and an extra clip.

But he left the driver’s door hanging open on his rental car and ran across the parking lot crowded with customers’ cars. How many potential hostages were inside that bank? How many potential casualties were there, with the way the robbers were firing those automatic weapons? Blaine couldn’t wait for help—not when so many innocent people were in danger.

Ducking low, he shoved open the doors and burst into the bank lobby. “FBI!” he called out to calm the fears of the screaming and crying people.

But his entrance incited the robbers. Glass shattered behind him, as bullets whizzed over his head and through the windows, falling like rain over the customers lying faces down on the tile floor. The interior walls, which were glass partitions separating the offices from the main lobby, shattered, as well.

More people screamed and sobbed.

Blaine took cover behind one of the cement-and-steel pillars that held up the high ceiling of the modern building. He held out his hand, advising the customers to stay down as he surveyed them. Except for some cuts from the flying glass, nobody looked mortally wounded. None of the shots had hit anyone. Yet.

“Campbell,” the security guard called out from behind another pillar. “You picked the right time to show up.” The older man, who was also a friend, had called him here with suspicions that the bank was going to be robbed. Obviously Blaine’s former boot-camp drill instructor’s instincts were as sharp as ever. He had been right—except about Blaine.

He was too late. The robbers already carried bags overflowing with cash. If only he’d arrived earlier, before they’d gotten what they wanted...

He couldn’t arrest them all on his own.

“Stay down!” one of the robbers yelled, as he fired his automatic rifle again.

A woman cried out as another robber tangled a gloved hand in her dark hair and pulled her up from the floor. She was close to one of the wrecked offices, so maybe she worked for the bank or had been meeting with one of the bank officers. She turned toward Blaine, her eyes wide with fear as if beseeching him for help.

But before he could take aim on the robber holding her, the security guard, armed only with a small-caliber handgun, stepped from behind his pillar. “Let her go!” Daryl Williams shouted as he fired at them.

“Sarge, get down,” Blaine shouted.

But his advice came too late as a bullet struck the security guard’s chest and blood spread across his gray uniform. The woman shrieked—either in reaction to Sarge getting shot or because she was afraid she might be next.

Blaine cursed, stepped out from behind the pillar and fired frantically back. One of the mask-wearing bank robbers spun around, as if Blaine had struck him. But he probably wore a bulletproof vest because he didn’t drop to the floor as the guard had. Instead the robber hurried toward the back of the bank with the other zombies. One of them dragged along that terrified young woman. But now she stared back at Sarge instead of Blaine, her gaze full of fear and concern for the fallen security guard. Blaine scrambled over to his friend’s side. The man wore his iron-gray hair in a military cut. He may have retired from the service, but he was still a soldier. “Hang in there, Sarge.”

“Assist...assist.” Daryl Williams tried to speak through the blood gurgling out of his mouth.

“I already called it in when I pulled up and heard the shots. Help is coming,” Blaine promised, even though they both knew it would be too late.

Williams weakly shook his head. “Assist...manager...”

“The hostage?”

Daryl nodded even as his eyes rolled back into his head. He was gone.

And so was the woman. Of course Sergeant Williams would want Blaine to rescue her—the civilian. Remembering the stark fear on her pale face, Blaine snapped into action and hurried toward the back of the bank. Alarms wailed and lights flashed as the security door stood open to an alley. If it closed, he wouldn’t be able to open it again. That must have been why the robbers had taken their hostage out the back, so she could open the security door for them. But why not leave her? Why take her along?

Blaine caught the door before it swung shut and pointed his gun into the alley. Bullets chiseled chips off the brick around the door as the bank robbers fired at him. If they had a getaway car parked in the alley, they obviously hadn’t driven it away yet. He couldn’t let them leave with the hostage or else nobody would probably ever see the young woman again. He had barely seen her long enough to give a description beyond dark hair and eyes.

Blaine risked a glance through the crack of the door and more bullets pinged off the steel. But he caught a glimpse of white metal—a van—as the side door opened. Another door slammed. The driver’s? He couldn’t let them get the hostage inside the vehicle, so he threw the bank door all the way open and burst into the alley. A shot struck him in the chest, but he kept going despite the impact of the bullet hitting his vest.

After his honorable discharge from active duty, he had thought the last thing he would miss was the helmet. He had hated the weight and the heat of it. But he could actually use one now—to protect himself from a head shot. More bullets struck his vest.

He returned fire, his shots glancing off the side of the van before one shattered the glass of the driver’s window. Hopefully he’d struck the son of a bitch. But he didn’t wait to find out; instead, he reached out for the hostage that one of the damn zombie robbers was pulling through the open side door. He caught the young woman’s arm and jerked her backward as he fired into the van. The engine revved, and the vehicle burst forward, tires squealing.

But just in case the occupants fired back at them, he pushed the hostage to the ground and covered the young woman with his body. And that was when he realized she wasn’t just terrified for herself but probably also for the child she carried.

She was pregnant.

The van kept going, but someone fired out the open back doors of it. And more bullets struck him, stealing his breath.

* * *

MAGGIE JENKINS’S THROAT was raw and her voice hoarse from screaming, but even though the robbers—dressed in those horrible zombie costumes—were gone, she wanted to scream again. She didn’t want to scream out of fear for herself but for the man who lay on top of her. His body had gone limp as the breath left it.

He had been shot so many times. But he’d kept coming to her rescue like a golden-haired superhero. And then he’d covered her body with his, taking more shots to his back.

He had to be dead. Why had he interrupted the robbery in progress and risked his own life? He had claimed to be an FBI agent, but why would he have been alone? Why wouldn’t he have waited for more agents and for local backup before bursting into the bank?

“Please, please be alive,” she murmured, her voice no louder than a whisper. She grasped his shoulders—his impossibly wide shoulders—and eased him back. Something cold and metallic hung from his neck and pressed against her chest. A badge.

So he really was a lawman. But how had he known the bank was being robbed? When the robbers rushed the bank, she hadn’t had the time or the nerve to push the silent alarm beneath her desk before bullets had shattered the glass walls of her office.

Maybe one of the tellers or Mr. Hardy, the bank manager, had pushed an alarm. Whatever the FBI agent had driven to the bank hadn’t had sirens or lights. She hadn’t even known he was there until he pushed open the lobby doors. But, then again, she had hardly been able to hear anything over all of those gunshots. Her ears rang from the deafening noise.

But now she heard his gasp as he caught his breath again. He stared down at her, his face so close that she picked up on all the nuances in his eyes. They were a deep green with flecks of gold that made them glitter. His body, long and muscular, tensed against hers. He moved the hand that was not holding his weapon to the asphalt and pushed up, levering himself off her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He was apologizing to her? For what? Saving her life? Maybe shock had settled in, or maybe his good looks and his concern had struck her dumb. Usually she wasn’t silent; usually people complained that she talked too much.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Her hands covered her stomach, and something shifted beneath her palm. She sighed with relief that her baby was moving, flailing his tiny fists and kicking his tiny feet as if trying to fight off his mother’s attackers.

But it was too late. This man had already fought them off for her. Of course her baby shouldn’t be fighting to protect her; it was Maggie’s job to protect him or her...

“Are you all right?” the man asked again. He slid his gun into a holster beneath his arm, and then he lifted her from the ground as easily as if she were half her size.

“How are you alive?” she asked in wonder.

He reached for his shirt and tore the buttons loose. The blue cotton parted to reveal a black vest. The badge swung back against it.

She was no longer close enough to read all the smaller print, but she identified the big brass-colored letters. “You really are an FBI agent? I thought you just said that to scare the robbers.”

And she’d thought he had been a little crazy to try that when the robbers had had bigger guns than his. But maybe announcing his presence had scared the robbers into leaving quickly because they’d worried that backup would come.

Where was it, though?

“I’m Special Agent Blaine Campbell,” he introduced himself.

“How did you get here so quickly?” she asked, still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t a superhero. “How did you know the bank was being robbed?”

He shook his head and turned back to the building. “I didn’t know that it was being robbed today. Sarge—Daryl Williams—called me a few days ago with concerns.”

She gasped as she relived the security guard getting shot, flinching at the sound of the shot, at the image of him falling. He hadn’t been wearing a vest, but he’d stepped out from behind that pillar anyway—undoubtedly to save her. “Is Sarge okay?”

The agent shook his head again, but he didn’t speak, as if too overwhelmed for words. He had called Mr. Williams Sarge, so he must have known him well. Maybe Mr. Williams had once been his drill instructor, as he had been her fiancé’s six years ago. The older man worked only part-time at the bank for something to do since he retired from the military.

If only he hadn’t been there today...

If only he hadn’t tried to save her...

The tears that had been burning her eyes brimmed over and began to slide down her face. She had just lost her fiancé a few months ago, and now she had lost another connection to him because Sarge had really known him. Not only had he trained him, but he’d also kept in touch with Andy over the years. He’d worried about him. He’d known that Andy shouldn’t have joined the Marines; he hadn’t been strong enough—physically or emotionally—to handle it. He had barely survived his first two deployments, and he had died on the first day of his last one.

Sarge had come for Andy’s funeral and never left—intent on taking care of Maggie and her unborn baby since Andy was now unable to.

Strong arms wrapped around her, offering comfort when she suspected he needed it himself. Blaine Campbell had lost a man he’d obviously respected and cared about. So she hugged him back, clinging to him—until tires squealed and the back door of the bank burst open to the alley.

Guns cocked and voices shouted, “Get down! Get down!”

Fear filled her that the robbers had returned. She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t look at them again, couldn’t see those horrific zombie costumes again. When she and Andy had been in middle school, his older brother had sneaked them into an R-rated zombie movie, and she’d been terrified of them ever since, even to the point where she didn’t go to Halloween parties and even hid in the dark so no trick-or-treaters would come to her door.

But they kept coming to her.

Had they returned to make certain she and the agent were dead?

Chapter Two

“Agent Campbell,” Blaine identified himself to the state troopers who’d drawn their weapons on him.

While he respected local law enforcement, especially troopers since his oldest sister was one in Michigan, he had met some unqualified officers over the years. So the gun barrels pointing at him and the woman next to him made him nervous. But he refused to get down or allow the pregnant woman to drop to the pavement again, either.

She had already been roughed up enough; her light gray suit was smudged with grease and oil from the alley. Her legs were scraped from connecting with the asphalt earlier. Had he done that when he’d shoved her down? Had he hurt her?

She had also lost a shoe—either in the bank or maybe in the van from which Blaine had pulled her, so she was unsteady on her feet. Or maybe her trembling wasn’t because her balance was off but because she was in shock. He kept a hand on her arm, so that she didn’t stumble and fall. But she needed more help than a hand to steady her.

“The bank robbers have already left in a white panel van,” he continued. “The driver’s-side window is broken and the rear taillights have been shot out.” He read off the license plate number he’d memorized, as well.

One of the officers pressed the radio on his lapel and called in an APB on the vehicle. “What else can you tell us about the suspects, Agent Campbell?”

Fighting back the grief that threatened to overwhelm him, he replied, “One of them shot the security guard.”

“We already have paramedics inside the bank,” another officer told him. “They’re treating the wounded.”

They were too late to help Sarge. The man had died in his arms—his final words urging Blaine to save the assistant bank manager.

“You should have them check out Mrs....?” He turned to the young woman, waiting for her to supply her name. She hadn’t offered it when he’d introduced himself earlier.

“Miss,” she corrected him, almost absentmindedly. Her dark eyes seemed unfocused, as if she were dazed. “Maggie Jenkins...”

She was single. Now he allowed himself to notice how pretty she was. Her brown hair was long and curly and tangled around her shoulders. Her eyes were wide and heavily lashed. She was unmarried, but she probably wasn’t single—not with her being as pretty as she was.

“The paramedics need to check out Miss Jenkins,” he told the troopers. “The bank robbers were trying to take her hostage. She could have been hurt.” But he might have been the one who’d done it when he had knocked her onto the hard asphalt of the alley.

“She should probably be taken to the hospital,” he added. For an ultrasound to check out the well-being of her unborn child, too. But he didn’t want to say it out loud and frighten her. The young woman had already been through enough.

The officer pressed his radio again and asked paramedics to come around to the back of the bank. They arrived quickly, backing the ambulance down the alley. A female paramedic pushed a stretcher out the doors and rolled it toward them.

But 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 shuddered, then shivered harder. And the baby shifted inside her, kicking her ribs. She flinched and nodded. “Maybe I should get checked out...”

For the baby. She had to protect her baby. She had nearly three months left of her pregnancy—three months to keep her unborn child safe. She hadn’t realized how hard that might be.

“My questions can wait,” the FBI agent told her, “until you’ve been thoroughly checked out.” He turned toward the paramedics. “Which hospital will you take her to?”

“Med West,” the woman paramedic replied. “You can ride along and question her in the back of the rig.”

Maggie stilled her trembling as she waited for his reply. She wanted him to agree; she felt safer with him close. She felt safe in his arms...

And after what had happened—again—she would have doubted she would ever feel safe. Anywhere.

“Agent Campbell,” one of the officers called out to him. He didn’t pull his gaze from her, his green eyes intense on her face. The officer continued anyway. “We located the van.”

That got the agent’s attention; he turned away from her. “And the robbers?”

The officer shrugged. “We don’t know if there’s anyone inside. Nobody’s approached it yet.”

Maggie struggled free of the blanket and grabbed the agent’s arm—even though she knew she couldn’t stop him. He was going.

“Be careful,” she advised him.

She had told Andy the same thing when he had left her last, but he hadn’t listened to her. She hoped Agent Campbell did. Or the next time the robbers’ bullets might miss his vest and hit somewhere else instead.

Agent Campbell barely spared her a nod before heading off with the state troopers. He had been lucky during his first confrontation with the thieves, but Andy had been lucky, too, during his first two deployments.

Eventually, though, luck ran out...

* * *

HIS GUN STEADY in one hand, Blaine slid open the side door with the other. But the van was empty. The robbers had ditched it between Dumpsters at the end of an alley.

“This vehicle was reported stolen three days ago,” one of the troopers informed him.

Either they’d stolen it themselves or picked it up from someone who dealt in stolen vehicles. It was a lead that Blaine could follow. Maybe someone had witnessed the theft.

They must have exchanged the van for another vehicle they had stashed close to the bank. They’d had to move quickly, though, so they hadn’t taken time to wipe down the van.

They had left behind forensic evidence. Blaine could see some of it now. Fibers from their clothes. Hair— either from their masks or their own. And blood. It could have been fake; they’d had some on their gruesome disguises. But that hadn’t looked like this.

This blood was smeared and drying already into dark pools.

“You hit one of them?” a trooper asked.

He hoped he’d hit the one who’d killed Sarge. “I fired at them, but I thought they were wearing vests.”

“You must be a good shot,” the trooper replied.

More likely he had gotten off a lucky shot. He was fortunate one of them hadn’t done the same. If they hadn’t been worried that he had backup coming, they probably would have killed him the way they had Sarge.

Blaine sighed. “But the suspect wasn’t hurt so badly that he couldn’t get away.” As they had all gotten away. But at least one of them had not been unscathed.

“Put out an APB that one of the suspects might be seeking medical treatment for a gunshot wound,” Blaine said, “at a hospital or doctor’s office or med center. Hell, don’t rule out a vet clinic. These guys will not want the wound getting reported.” And doctors were legally obligated to report gunshot wounds.

So he wouldn’t worry that he had sent Maggie Jenkins off to the hospital in the back of that ambulance. He wouldn’t worry that one of the men who had tried to abduct her earlier might get a chance to try again.

Again...

What had she been muttering when he’d walked up to the ambulance? Her already soft voice had been strained from screaming, so he’d struggled to hear, let alone understand, her words. But she’d murmured something about not believing that it had happened. Again...

Had Maggie Jenkins been the victim of a bank robbery before?

The same bank robbers?

Hell, Blaine was worried now. Not just that she might be in danger but that he might have let the best lead to the robbers ride away. Had he let her big, dark eyes and her fear and vulnerability influence his opinion of her?