Lisa Childs - Watching Over Her

Since the mug was beginning to cool, Maggie set it beside Tammy’s on the coffee table. But she didn’t join her on the couch or settle onto one of the chairs across from her. Maggie didn’t feel comfortable enough with this woman to sit down with her.

But she should have gone to see her earlier out of respect. “I’m glad you came over,” Maggie said.

“You are?” Tammy asked skeptically.

“Of course. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, wanting to tell you how sorry I am about Mark.” Of course she hadn’t known how to express sympathy for a man dying in the commission of a crime—of a murder. If only Mark hadn’t been involved in the robberies...

Both he and Sarge would be alive. How could Maggie express sympathy for that?

The woman ignored her remarks and pointed out a box that sat on the end of the coffee table. Wrapping paper with little rubber ducks covered the box, and a bright yellow bow topped it. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. She hadn’t noticed it earlier. Tammy hadn’t had it with her when Truman had searched her body and her purse. He would have found the brightly wrapped package. “It wasn’t here this morning.”

“Maybe it was delivered today,” Tammy suggested.

Maggie shook her head. “Then it would have been left outside the door.” Not on her coffee table.

“Maybe your elderly janitor brought it inside for you.”

Maggie’s skin chilled as she realized that Tammy wasn’t offering a possible explanation but a fact. She knew because she had given it to Mr. Simmons to bring inside for her. Why?

“This is yours?” Maggie asked. “You brought this for me?” Despite what she’d told Truman, they weren’t friends. Why would the woman have brought her a baby gift?

“Yes,” Tammy replied. “But let me open it for you.” She tore the ribbon and easily slipped the top off the box. Then she smiled and lifted a gun out. “Now tell me how sorry you are about Mark.”

Fear slammed into Maggie as she stared down the barrel of that gun. She covered her belly with her palms—even though she knew there was no way to protect her baby from a bullet. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to do what we should have done at the first bank so you wouldn’t have time to figure out it was us and report us to the FBI,” Tammy said. “I’m going to kill you.”

“But the guard is just outside the door,” Maggie reminded her. “Truman is going to hear the shot. You won’t get away with this. He might even shoot you.”

“You think I have anything to live for?” Tammy asked, her face contorting into a mask of pain and hatred nearly as grotesque as those zombie masks. Tammy must have chosen them; she had found it funniest that Maggie had been so afraid during that movie. “Mark’s dead because of you.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Maggie said.

“No, your FBI agent shot him,” Tammy said. “I had hoped that he was the one protecting you. That he would be here, so that I could kill you both.”

“You’ve got your wish,” a deep voice murmured as the apartment door opened with a slight creak of the hinges. “I’m here.”

Maggie had spent the past few days missing Blaine and longing to see his handsome face again. But not now. She would rather have never seen him again than to have him die with her.

* * *

BLAINE HAD EXPECTED the gun because he’d met Mr. Simmons at the door. The older gentleman had wanted to make certain that Maggie got the baby gift that he’d put in her apartment for the red-haired woman. He’d thought the box was heavy for a baby-shower gift.

Of course it held no gift for Maggie or her baby. It had held the gun.

Tammy was clever—so clever that she had probably been the one who had actually plotted the bank robberies. She had probably been the one who’d read Maggie’s letters.

“This is perfect,” the widow said with a smile of delight as she stood up with the gun clutched in her hands. At least the barrel was pointed at him instead of Maggie, who stood trembling on the other side of the coffee table from the deranged woman.

“This is stupid,” Blaine corrected her. “There’s nothing specifically linking you to the robberies. No evidence that you were aware of the crimes your husband and your brother were committing. You could have gotten away with it all.”

Her smile vanished off her thin lips. “My brother?”

The woman obviously didn’t care about herself right now—not when she planned to shoot two people with another federal agent posted right outside the door. But maybe she cared about her sibling.

“He was the one who tried abducting Maggie from Emergency,” Blaine said. “He’s a security guard at the hospital.”

Tammy shook her head in denial. “The fact that he works there doesn’t prove anything.”

“His security badge will prove he was the one who opened the back door of the employees’ locker room when he tried to kidnap Maggie.” At least Blaine hoped it would. He needed evidence—not just suspicion—linking the man to the crimes.

“No...” But the conviction was gone from Tammy Doremire’s voice as it began to quaver. “You can’t tie him to the robberies...”

Maybe he wouldn’t be able to, but he wasn’t going to let her think that. “I have a team working on it right now. They’re getting search warrants. They’re digging into all of his financials. They’re checking all his properties for any evidence linking him to the robberies. I’m pretty sure they’ll find something. Aren’t you?”

Her thin face tightened with dread and hatred. She knew that her brother wouldn’t have gotten rid of all the evidence—or at least not the money. He could see she was torn, tempted to call and warn her brother about the warrants.

So he stepped closer, prepared to grab her weapon from her hands. Her eyes widened with alarm as she noticed that he’d closed some distance between them.

“Get back!” she yelled. “I’m going to kill her. You’re not going to stop me this time.”

“Why do you want her dead?” he asked. “If you hadn’t sent your brother to the hospital after her, I wouldn’t have linked him to the crimes.” He was sure that her brother had acted on her orders; all the men probably had.

“It’s all her fault!” Tammy yelled, as if she thought that saying it loud enough would make it true. “If she hadn’t written those damn letters to Andy...”

A noise emanated from Maggie, but she’d muffled it with a hand over her mouth. She had already held herself responsible for the robberies; she didn’t need this crazed woman compounding her guilt.

But making her feel guilty wasn’t enough torment for Tammy Doremire. She intended to kill her, too.

“Who read them?” Blaine asked, stalling for time—hoping to distract the woman enough for Maggie to escape. He had left the apartment door open. Maybe Truman could get off a shot.

“I—I did,” Tammy admitted.

As he’d suspected, she was the mastermind behind the robberies. He acted shocked, though, as he edged closer to her and that damn gun she gripped so tightly. “You read her personal correspondence to her fiancé?”

She snorted. “Personal? There hadn’t been anything very personal about them. They were not love letters—not like I would have written to Mark—” her voice cracked with emotion, with loss “—if he’d been in a war zone.”

She had loved her husband. The grief and pain contorted her face.

“Why didn’t you take Mark to a hospital when he was hurt?” he asked. “Why did you drive him instead to that cabin in Michigan?”

“He—he wanted to go there,” she said. “He knew he was dying—because of you. Because you shot him!” She pointed the gun at Blaine’s chest.