asked her.
Her beautiful face tense, she nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. It must have been hard for her to see the ring her dead fiancé had given her—especially after all she’d been through that day.
“Sorry?” the other woman asked with a disparaging snort. “She never even wore that ring. She probably wouldn’t have noticed it missing...”
“So you did intend to steal it?” Blaine asked. He needed to grab his phone and call in this attempted robbery, but when he tried to hand the ring case over to Maggie, she drew back as if she couldn’t touch it, either. So he shoved it into his pants pocket to reach for his cell. “I’m going to call the local authorities to book you, Ms. Iverson.”
“No,” Maggie said, reaching out now to grab his arm and stop him from calling. “I don’t want to press charges.”
“Why not?” he asked. He was furious with this woman, and he wasn’t the one she’d been trying to rob.
Maggie just shook her head, and the blonde breathed a sigh of relief.
But Blaine ignored them both. “This needs to be reported and Ms. Iverson needs to be questioned about her involvement in the robberies.”
“What involvement?” the woman asked, her already high voice squeaking with outrage. “I have no involvement.”
“I’m not so sure about that...” She could have taken advantage of Maggie leaving her purse behind to try to steal the ring. Or she could have been here waiting for Maggie—to abduct her for the others.
“You think I was stealing the ring,” the woman said. “Why would I need to pawn that for money if I was helping rob banks for millions of dollars?”
It wasn’t quite millions. Not yet. But he worried that it would be if the robbers weren’t stopped. And he worried that more people would die. The robbers had killed once, so it would be easier for them to kill again.
Was that what they’d intended to do with Maggie? Kill her? Why? To keep her quiet? And if they needed to keep her quiet, she had something to say—something she hadn’t shared with him yet.
But then, there was a lot she hadn’t shared with him. Maybe Susan Iverson wasn’t the only one who needed to be brought in for questioning...
* * *
MAGGIE WAS SO exhausted that all she wanted to do was put on her comfy pajamas, crawl into her bed and sleep for days. But she was still wearing the skirt and blouse from her suit. And this wasn’t her bed. It wasn’t soft and comfortable. It was hard and cold—kind of like she was beginning to believe Agent Blaine Campbell might be.
Despite her protest, he’d had Susan arrested for breaking and entering, and attempted theft. He should have just let her take the ring.
Susan was right that Maggie had never worn it. She couldn’t even look at it without remembering what Andy had sacrificed to buy her that ring. He’d bought it with the bonus for re-upping and volunteering for that last deployment—the one that had taken his life.
And she had never wanted the ring. She should have told him—should have made it clear that she didn’t love him the way he had deserved to be loved. Andy had been a wonderful man, and he’d been taken too soon.
Like Sarge.
Could Susan have been involved in the robbery that had claimed his life? If she was, Maggie was certain that Agent Campbell would find out. With just a look he made Maggie want to confess all. But she had nothing to confess.
He didn’t look as though he believed her, though. Was he cynical because of his FBI job and all he’d seen on it? Or was being a marine the reason he didn’t trust easily?
Of course he had no reason to trust Maggie. He didn’t know her.
If he knew her, he would have just let her stay in her apartment. But he’d insisted that she would be in danger in her own home. Susan knew she lived there, and if she were involved with the robberies, some of the others might try to kidnap her again—as they had at the hospital. So he’d had her brought here—to some sort of “safe” house.
But even with an officer standing outside the motel room door, Maggie didn’t feel safe.
She had felt safe only with Agent Campbell. But he’d had Maggie brought here, and he’d gone down to the local police station with Susan.
Maggie was surprised that he hadn’t taken her to the station, too. She knew he considered her every bit as much a suspect in the robberies as he did Susan. So maybe that officer wasn’t posted outside the door for her protection. Maybe he was posted outside the door to keep her inside—to keep her from escaping.
But where would Maggie go?
She had already tried to escape once—when she’d moved from Sturgis to the Chicago suburb where she lived now. But the robbers had followed her.
Was it only the coincidence she wanted to believe it was? After all, the bank she’d worked at before and the one she worked at now weren’t the only ones that had been robbed.
But that danger wasn’t the only thing Maggie hadn’t been able to leave in her past. When she’d let Susan stay with her, the woman had pried into her life. She’d learned about Andy. That was how Mr. Simmons had heard Maggie’s sad story. Susan had used it when she’d been late with her part of the rent.
So Maggie hadn’t been able to escape her guilt and loss, either. It had followed her, or maybe she was carrying it with her. She clasped her hands over the baby. She didn’t want to escape him or her, though. She wanted to protect her baby—the way she hadn’t been able to protect Andy. She’d thought that she was saving him from pain by keeping the truth of her feelings from him.
Maybe there was no escape from her past. But what about the danger? Was she really safe here?
Moments later she had her answer as gunfire erupted outside the motel room. She wasn’t safe. The robbers had come for her again.
And this time Agent Campbell wouldn’t arrive in time to save her...
In the dark Blaine fumbled around the top of the doorjamb for the key his friend had left for him. “I found it,” he told Ash through the cell phone pressed to his ear. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”
If he’d left a key outside his apartment in Detroit, it wouldn’t have been there long; neither would any of the stuff in his apartment. He wouldn’t have thought a Chicago suburb would be much safer—especially after he’d found an intruder in Maggie Jenkins’s apartment.
Of course, that intruder had been someone she knew. Apparently she hadn’t known her that well, though, if she’d ever trusted the treacherous woman. Not only had Susan tried to steal Maggie’s engagement ring, but when Blaine searched her purse, he found that she’d helped herself to Maggie’s credit and debit cards, as well.
Blaine blindly slid the key into the lock and quietly opened the door. Ignoring Ash’s voice in his ear, he listened carefully for any sounds within the small bungalow. It was the only dark house on the street; that was how Ash had told him to find it.
At this hour everyone else was home—probably watching TV after dinner. What was Maggie Jenkins doing right now?
Eating?
Sleeping?
She’d looked exhausted. Maybe he should have insisted that she stay at the hospital for observation. But then, she hadn’t been safe there, either.
“I told the neighbors to expect a tall blond guy to show up at my door within the next couple of days,” Ash said.
This was the kind of neighborhood where people watched out their windows, aware of their surroundings