ambulance as the driver closed the door, effectively cutting off his view of Chief Garraway. It was rather shocking to see the indomitable chief put out of commission. As far back as he could remember, she had never even taken a sick day. And here she was being wheeled away in an ambulance.
The sniffling noises behind him reminded him of the reason why his former chief was injured. Maggie was comforting Siobhan, bouncing the disgruntled little girl on her hip and shushing her. It wasn’t fair, but he felt an irrational surge of anger toward the woman. If it hadn’t been for her, Chief Garraway would be fine. All because she’d been too chicken to go to the police a year and a half earlier. If she was telling the truth about the corrupt cop, going to the police might have caused her to be killed herself.
Enough. He had a job to do.
“Can you get her settled down enough to move to my car?”
Maggie jerked up her head, startled.
“You’re not supposed to reuse car seats that have been in accidents,” she gasped. “They might be defective.”
He sighed impatiently and rolled his neck on his shoulders. This day had been too long already.
“Look, Maggie, right now I’m more worried about the jerk that has it out for you. Defective car seats are better than none at all. You and your kiddos are targets here. We need to move. Now.”
Maggie hesitated, then nodded. She handed Siobhan to him. Startled, he grabbed for the little girl. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He had never held a baby before. What if he dropped her? What if...? Siobhan trained huge blue eyes on his face and stared. Oh, no. What if she started screaming? But she didn’t scream. She grinned, then laughed. Her chubby hands found his beard and pulled. Hard.
Dan winced.
“Vonnie,” Maggie cooed near his ear, deftly reaching out her free hand to disentangle her daughter. “Don’t touch his beard, sweetie. Who knows when he last washed it?”
Dan swung his head around to glare and encountered her mischief-filled blue eyes.
“Huh. Your kids have your eyes.” Well, now that was a dumb thing to say.
She blushed. She sure was cute when she got flustered.
Focus, man. Focus. You don’t need to start thinking about women. They’re pure poison to you. Too many things go wrong when women and children get involved.
He turned on his heel and led the way to his waiting vehicle. As soon as the seats were set up and the kids were buckled in, he started driving. A couple exits down, he turned off and headed north.
“Where are we going, Lieutenant Willis?” Maggie asked, her voice tense and worried. He remembered that she had a distrust of police officers. “The police station isn’t this way. I drive past it every week when I go shopping.”
“I know. My priority right now is the safety of you and your children. And that means I need to find out what happened to your husband. The good thing is that I’m not actually with Garraway’s unit anymore, so I don’t need to stick around while they investigate at this end.” He glanced at her. The anxious look on her face had faded, and she looked thoughtful instead. “And I’m thinking we need to stay under the radar for a while. Which means you should probably call me Dan instead of Lieutenant.”
She gave him a pointed look. “I noticed that you never call me Ms. Slade like Chief Garraway. You always call me Maggie. As if we know each other.”
A wave of heat flooded his face. He hadn’t realized he had been doing that. “Sorry. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. In LaMar Pond, we got used to referring to you as Maggie. It stuck. I meant no offense.”
A feminine shrug answered him. “I’m not offended. I just was surprised at how casual you were.”
Dan nodded but didn’t speak. His mind was busy with a problem. He was positive that Phillip Nelson’s murder, the arson on the house and the attack on Maggie were all linked. Which meant someone was out to get her. Probably because of whatever it was that they had wanted from Phillip. That raised several urgent questions.
What had Phillip gotten himself into? Who was after Maggie? And how was he supposed to keep her low profile if she was conspicuously traveling around with twins? Not that the kids weren’t adorable. He sneaked a glance in the rearview mirror. They were facing backward. All he could make out were Rory’s feet as he kicked them in the air. A smile tugged at his mouth. He tried to keep it down. He needed to come up with a solution.
“Hold on.” He pulled to the side of the road. The driver of the car behind him swerved to miss him and blared his horn.
“Should have followed the two-second rule, buddy,” he muttered.
“Hey, watch how you drive, Dan! You have kids in the car.” Maggie glared at him.
“Yeah, sorry.” Dan pulled out his cell phone and shot off a quick message to Paul. He had an idea, but he needed the LaMar Pond chief to handle the logistics.
Paul sent a message back a minute later. Satisfied, Dan flipped on his blinker and slipped back into traffic.
“Is everything all right?”
Maggie looked tense again, her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap.
“Just solving a problem. Nothing you need to worry about.”
Unfortunately, her expression darkened. She bit her lip, hard. He winced, half expecting her to draw blood. Obviously, his words weren’t reassuring.
“Honestly, Maggie, it’s nothing. I just had a question, so I texted my chief.”
“Chief Garraway is on the way to the hospital.” Maggie furrowed her brow and tilted her head. The corners of her mouth turned down in a slight frown.
“Not Garraway. Chief Kennedy. In LaMar Pond. He’s my official boss now.”
At the words LaMar Pond, the blood drained from Maggie’s face. Her eyes grew huge in her face. She clenched her hands together so tightly that her knuckles whitened. The air almost vibrated with her fear.
“LaMar Pond? I can’t go back there! I just can’t!” A slight edge of hysteria shadowed her words.
Dan reached over and set his hand over her clenched fists. He took his eyes off the road long enough to look into her eyes. Seeing that she was in control again, he removed his hand and returned his eyes to the road.
“I know you are scared.” He kept his voice low, just a soft rumble in the strained silence. “I don’t blame you. But for your safety, and for your kids’ safety, we have to find out who is after you. And what secret is in your husband’s past.”
Sneaking a peek over, he saw that Maggie looked far from convinced. Her face was still pale, and he could detect a tremble in her hands, which she tried to hide as soon as she noticed him looking at them. Not much he could do about that. Whether she trusted him or not, he had a job to do. And to his way of thinking, the sooner this particular job was done, the better.
He saw a sign for the next gas station. It was sheer reflex to check the fuel gauge. Oh, man, they were getting pretty low. They would have to stop.
“What are we doing?” Maggie asked as he pulled off at the exit ramp.
“We have to get gas.” He pulled into the station, carefully watching out the windows for any sign of pursuit before he opened the door. The chain gas station was equipped with a food mart. Dan could see nothing but trees and hills behind them, although there were houses down the road a bit. Maggie threw open the other door, but he grabbed her arm before she could exit.
“You should stay in the car,” he said. “It’s safer.”
“I should change the twins’ diapers,” she argued. “Can’t you smell it?”
Dan took a deep whiff and wished he hadn’t. Okay, so she had a point. He let go of her