Watching Over Her. Lisa Childs
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he focused on the video screens playing out on the monitors in Sarge’s office. It might have been hard to be there, if Sarge hadn’t been like Blaine and Ash—too nomadic to personalize any space. It wasn’t as if they would be there long enough to put down roots anyway. If Ash hadn’t inherited that house in the Chicago burbs, he would have just had an apartment like Blaine had in Detroit—something devoid of decoration and sparsely furnished.
Days of security footage passed before his eyes in a blur—slow enough to pick out faces but fast enough that hours passed in minutes. His head began to pound—maybe more from his mostly sleepless night than from watching the footage.
If staring at those monitors had affected him, he worried how it was affecting Maggie. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
Maggie nodded. “I’m fine.” But her fingers touched her temple and she closed her eyes.
“We can take a break,” he offered.
“I don’t understand why we’re watching these videos,” she said as she gestured at the screens. “All of this happened a week or more ago.”
Had she expected him to show her the footage of the robbery? That would have been too much for her—to relive those terrifying moments, to relive Sarge getting killed...
He may have already told her. So much had happened that he couldn’t remember exactly, so he asked, “Do you know why I showed up when I did yesterday?”
“Because you’re working those bank robberies.”
That was what he’d told the state troopers in the alley. “Sarge called me,” Blaine said. “He told me that he thought the bank was going to be hit.”
She gasped in surprise. “He knew?”
“Yeah, he must have realized that someone was casing the place.” And hopefully that someone had been picked up on the security footage.
She shrugged. “But I don’t know how to tell who’s casing the place.”
“I do,” he said. While he’d worked his way up in the Bureau through other divisions, he specialized in bank robberies now. To date, his record was perfect; he always caught the thieves.
Always...
And this time he had even more incentive than his record and his career. He had Sarge. And Maggie...
“So what am I looking for?” she asked.
“Someone you know.”
She laughed as if he’d said something ridiculous. “I know a lot of these people.”
He could tell. Even though she hadn’t been at this branch that long, she often stepped out of her office to talk to bank clients, her face breathtakingly beautiful as she smiled welcomingly at them. They all smiled back, charmed by her friendly personality.
But he stopped the footage on one monitor as he noticed that one man smiled bigger than the others. And he hadn’t left his greeting at a smile. He had gone in for a hug—a big one that had physically lifted Maggie off her feet. She hadn’t looked happy, though; she had looked uncomfortable.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
She stared at the screen, her eyes wide and face pale as if she’d seen a ghost. “I always forget how much he looks like Andy...”
“Who is he?”
She released a shaky breath. “Mark—that’s Andy’s older brother, Mark.”
“Does he have accounts at the bank?”
She shook her head. “No, he just came by to see me. To check on me.”
Blaine’s senses tingled as he recognized a viable lead. “Did he use to come by the other branch you worked at?”
“Sometimes.”
He nodded.
“It’s not what you think,” she assured him.
She had no idea what he was thinking. People rarely did. He wasn’t even thinking of the case. He was thinking that the man wasn’t just looking at her with concern or familial affection. He was looking at her with attraction. The way Blaine looked at her...
But in the footage she wasn’t looking at the man at all. Like the ring, it was as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Because he looked so much like her dead fiancé?
He was a good-looking man. With their frequently inappropriate comments, his sisters would’ve gone on and on about his dark hair and light-colored eyes. And Andy had looked like that?
A weird emotion surged through Blaine—anger or resentment? Jealousy?
He was jealous of a dead man...
* * *
“WHAT AM I THINKING?” Blaine was asking her, his voice gruff with a challenge as if he doubted she could read him.
Few people probably could. The man was incredibly guarded. But he’d let that guard down, briefly, to mourn the loss of his friend and former drill instructor. So Maggie felt as if she had found a tiny hole in his armor.
“You’re thinking that Mark is involved in the robberies,” she replied. “And that’s ridiculous.”
Blaine turned back to the monitor and studied the frozen frame of Mark lifting her off her feet. That muscle twitched in his cheek—almost as if it bothered him that another man was holding her.
But her thought was even more ridiculous than his thinking that Mark Doremire was a robber. Blaine Campbell was not jealous of another man touching her. Blaine had no interest in her beyond helping him figure out who the robbers were.
“Why is it ridiculous?” Blaine asked.
“Because he’s Andy’s brother.”
A blond brow arched, as if that made Mark guiltier. Because of what she’d told Andy? If only she’d kept her mouth shut...
Maybe her mother had been right—she talked too much. Or, in this case, she’d written too much.
Once again, she defended her best friend. “Andy was the most honest person I’ve ever known.”
Blaine didn’t challenge her opinion of Andy. He just pointed out, “That doesn’t mean that his brother is honest, too.”
“I understand their personalities being different. But not their fundamental beliefs. They were raised by the same parents—raised the same way,” she said. “How could they be that different?”
“You are obviously an only child.” He laughed. “I have three sisters, and they are very different from each other.”
“How?” she asked. She had always wished she’d had siblings. But her dad’s career was demanding, and he hadn’t been around that much to help her mother. So Mom had won the argument to have only one child.
He laughed again. “Sarah is a car salesperson—with that over-the-top bubbly personality. Erica is a librarian—quiet and introspective. And Buster...”
“Buster?” She’d thought he’d said they were all sisters.
“Becky is her real name,” he explained. “She’s in law enforcement, too. She’s a county deputy. So my sisters are absolutely nothing alike.”
“Maybe not personality-wise,” she said. Mark and Andy hadn’t been that much alike, either. Mark had liked to tease and joke around, and Andy had always been so sensitive and serious. “But morality and ethics...”
“Sarah sells cars,” he repeated. “I’m not so sure about the ethics...”
She laughed now. From the twinkle in his green eyes, it was obvious how much he loved all of his sisters—even the car salesperson.
“Mark