screamed in fear as the SUV teetered on two tires, about to roll over and plummet to that rocky shore.
Blaine cursed and jerked the wheel, steering the SUV away from the shoulder. Gravel spewed from the tires as the SUV fishtailed, the back end sliding toward that steep drop-off to the rocky shore below. He needed all four tires on the pavement before he could accelerate. But before he could regain complete control, the van struck again. Metal crunched on the rear door of the passenger’s side.
Too close to Maggie and her baby.
He had just promised that he would protect them. It was a promise that he’d had no business making. As a marine, he knew that there were promises that couldn’t be kept—the way all his fallen friends had promised their families they would come home again. It was a promise that Maggie’s fiancé had probably made to her when he’d given her that ring.
Blaine was not about to break his promise. At least not yet.
He pressed on the accelerator, taking the curve at such a high speed that a couple of the tires might have left the asphalt again. The black cargo van skidded around the corner behind him, its tires slipping off the pavement onto the gravel shoulder. So close to that dangerous edge, the van slowed down, and Blaine increased the distance between them.
He had grown up driving on roads like this—roads that curved sharply around lakes. But there had been mountains to maneuver, too, in New Hampshire. So he wasn’t fazed. But neither was the driver of the van as he regained control and closed the distance between them again.
Blaine wanted to reach for his gun; he wanted to shoot out the van’s tires and windshield. He wanted to do anything he could to stop the van from slamming into them again. But he needed both hands on the wheel to keep the SUV from plummeting over the rocky shoulder, and he didn’t want Maggie trying to use his weapon.
He didn’t want Maggie doing anything but hanging on—especially as the van made contact with them again. But the SUV absorbed the impact better than the van did.
In the rearview mirror, Blaine caught sight of a dark cloud as smoke began to billow from beneath the hood of the vehicle behind them. The rear bumper of the SUV was probably mangled, but so were the front bumper and the grille of the van.
If the radiator was ruined, it wasn’t going to get far. He could just wait for it to stop running and try to apprehend the driver and whoever else was riding with him. But Blaine had no idea how many people were inside the van or how much firepower they had.
Even if he hadn’t just made that promise to protect them, he couldn’t risk the safety of Maggie and the baby. So he accelerated again and took the curves at breakneck speed. Maggie’s hands were still pressed against the dashboard as she braced herself and her baby for another hit.
But the van didn’t catch up again.
Blaine slowed down and, using his cell, called in the attempt to run them off the road. He described the van and then he asked for the nearest hospital.
“Do you think one of them was hurt?” Maggie asked as she peered behind them. But the van was no longer in view.
It might be where Blaine had left it smoking. Or the driver might have turned it around and tried to get somewhere they could hide it—the way they had tried to hide the getaway van between those Dumpsters in the alley.
He doubted blood would be found inside this van. He hadn’t been able to take any shots at them. So he explained, “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Her face was eerily pale, and he could see the frantic beat of her pulse pounding in her throat.
“No, you’re not fine,” he argued, as he followed the directions the local dispatcher had given him to the hospital.
If there was something wrong with her or the baby, it was his fault. He should not have brought her along with him. He hadn’t been any better at protecting her than the young officer the night before. Even with the van chasing them, he should have driven more carefully.
He slowed down on his way to the hospital. But he wanted her checked out. He wanted to make sure that she and the baby were fine.
Before he left them...
* * *
BLAINE HAD INTENDED to leave as soon as a doctor had taken Maggie into the ER to be checked out. But before he could cross the waiting room to the exit doors, another FBI agent, badge dangling down the front of a black leather jacket, showed up at the hospital.
“Agent Dalton Reyes,” the dark-haired man introduced himself, hand outstretched. He didn’t look much like the proverbial men in black since he wore a jacket and jeans instead of a dark suit.
But Blaine wasn’t wearing a suit, either—just black pants and shirt. Since interrupting the robbery in progress, he hadn’t had an opportunity to even take his suits out of their dry-cleaning bags.
“Reyes?” Ash had mentioned the young agent before. The Bureau had recruited him from an undercover gang task force with the Chicago PD. “You work organized crime?”
The dark head bobbed in a quick nod. “Yeah. Right now I’m working on a car-theft ring. The black cargo van that just tried running you off the road was recovered. It’s one these thieves grabbed yesterday. This ring is very organized and very professional. You put in a request, and they’ll steal the vehicle you want.”
Blaine had put out a request himself—for information on a ring just like this. “Thanks for getting back to me about this, but you could have just called...”
Reyes grinned. “I could’ve, but then I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to meet the infamous Blaine Campbell.”
“Infamous?” Blaine asked. He didn’t think that adjective had ever been used for him before.
“You’ve got quite a reputation.”
He groaned. “What has Ash told you?”
Dalton laughed. “Ash doesn’t talk. But he’s damn good at getting other people to talk.”
He was new to the Chicago Bureau, so people were bound to talk about him. To wonder what his story was, to worry that he might move up ahead of agents who had been there longer. He didn’t care to move into management; he just wanted to take criminals off the street. He had never wanted to put anyone away more than these suspects. They’d already killed Sarge and were determined to kill Maggie, too.
“How about you?” Blaine asked, turning the conversation back to what he really cared about: the case. “Can you get these car thieves to tell you who’s been putting in the requests for these vans?”
“I’ve got an inside man,” Dalton said. “So I’ve got confirmation that the bank robbers have been paying—and paying big—to get disposable vehicles for the bank heists.”
“Who?” he asked. “Who the hell are these robbers?”
Dalton shrugged. “My guys aren’t the kind who care about names. In fact, they would probably rather not know. The only thing they care about is cash.”
Blaine cursed as frustration overwhelmed him. He needed a lead and some hard evidence. “Does your inside man at least have a description of the guy ordering the vans?”
“Good-looking guy with dark hair and light eyes,” Dalton replied with a chuckle. “My inside man is actually a woman.”
That description matched the man from the security footage—the man who’d lifted Maggie into his arms. “I’ll send you a picture to see if she can confirm it’s my guy.”
Blaine would forward him a screen shot from the security cameras as well as Mark Doremire’s DMV picture. If he was the