Watching Over Her. Lisa Childs
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exits. But he remembered where the front door was.
But had it been barricaded? Or were those gunmen waiting outside it to make sure they didn’t escape?
As he headed toward it, the door burst open, and men in masks hurried into the house. These weren’t those horrible zombie masks. These masks had oxygen pumping into them and were attached to hats. Firemen had arrived. Of course one of Ash’s neighbors would have called the police. They would have noticed the flames—unlike Blaine.
He shouldn’t have sent the other agents away. But he had wanted one last night alone with Maggie. That night might have cost her life or her baby’s life. Her body was going limp in his arms.
One of the firemen took Maggie from him and carried her out. Blaine should have fought the man. He should have made certain that he really was a fireman. What if it was one of the robbers in another disguise?
Blaine hurried after him, but the smoke was so thick in his lungs now that he couldn’t draw a breath deep enough. He couldn’t breathe. And before he could hurry after Maggie, the house shuddered as the second story began to fall into the first...
* * *
MAGGIE’S THROAT BURNED. From the smoke and from screaming. Over the fireman’s shoulder, she had seen the roof collapse and the house fold in on itself...and on Blaine. She’d pounded on the fireman’s shoulders, but he hadn’t released her.
And for a moment, she had stared up in fear that the mask wasn’t any more real than the zombie masks had been. She’d worried that it had just been a disguise.
And she’d reached for it. But she’d been too weak to pull it off. Too weak to fight off the man as he carried her away. He put her into the back of a vehicle, and it sped away with her locked inside. Sirens wailed and lights flashed, but she still did not trust where it would take her. She didn’t trust the oxygen either that a young woman gave her in the back of that van.
What if it was a drug or a gas? What if it knocked her out? She tried to fight it, but she didn’t have the strength to pull off the mask. And then it began to make her feel better, stronger.
So when the doors opened again, she was strong enough to fight. To run. But the doors opened to a hospital Emergency entrance. She pulled off the oxygen mask and asked, “Where’s Blaine?”
The paramedic stared down at her as she pushed the stretcher through the sliding doors of the ER entrance. “Who?”
“Agent Campbell,” she said. “He was in the house...” She coughed and sputtered, but she wasn’t choking on the smoke. She was choking on emotion. “He was in the house...when the roof caved in...”
The paramedic shrugged. “I don’t know...”
“Do you know if anybody else got out?”
Blaine hadn’t been the only one inside; there had been other firemen, too. Real firemen, she realized they were. They would have saved him. Right? They would have made certain Blaine got out alive.
“I don’t know, miss,” the female paramedic replied. “We were told to get you to the hospital right away because of the baby.”
Maggie had one hand splayed across her belly, feeling for movement. Was he okay? She hoped the smoke hadn’t hurt him. She was scared to think of what it might have done to his heart. His brain...
“That’s good,” she agreed. “We need to check out the baby.”
“And you, too,” the paramedic said. She leaned back as doctors ran up.
But Maggie grabbed the young woman’s arm. “Was there another ambulance there?” Was there someone who could help Blaine?
Because after seeing the roof collapse, she had no doubt that all of the people still inside would need medical help. Maggie was glad that she and her baby had been brought to the hospital so quickly. But she also wished they would have waited for Blaine—to bring him in with her.
Then she would know how badly he’d been hurt. Or if he had survived at all...
The young paramedic didn’t have a chance to answer her question before doctors and nurses whisked Maggie’s stretcher into a treatment area. They hooked her to another oxygen machine and an IV. There was also a heart monitor for the baby and an ultrasound.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the fast but steady beat. “He’s alive...”
“His heart sounds good,” a doctor agreed.
“And his lungs?”
“Did you ever lose consciousness?” someone asked. “Did you pass out from the smoke?”
Maggie shook her head.
“We’ll administer some prenatal steroids to help the development of his lungs,” the doctor said, “to make sure everything’s fine...”
But everything wouldn’t be fine until she learned if Blaine had made it out of the burning house.
“He’s active,” the doctor said as he watched the ultrasound screen.
He. The picture on the ultrasound confirmed what Maggie had previously only suspected. She was carrying a baby boy. She wanted to share that news with her best friend. But he was gone. She wanted to share that news with the man she loved. But Blaine was gone, too.
Maybe the IV contained a sedative because she must have drifted off despite her worry. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but when she awoke, she was no longer in the emergency department. She was alone in a room but for the man—tall and broad-shouldered—who stood in the doorway.
Hope burgeoned in her heart. “Blaine?”
The man stepped forward...into the light that glowed dimly from another doorway, perhaps to the bathroom. The man’s hair was dark and his eyes were light, not gold and green like Blaine’s. Disappointment made her heart feel heavy in her chest. “You’re not Blaine.”
But the man who had purchased those stolen vans had been described as dark haired with light eyes. This man matched that description as much as Mark Doremire had.
Could he be one of the robbers? And if he’d forgone the zombie mask, then he had no intention of letting her live.
“Who are you?” she asked. She didn’t recognize him. She would have had no way of identifying him as one of the suspects in the robbery.
“I’m not Blaine Campbell,” he agreed with a short chuckle. “My name is Ash Stryker. I’m also an FBI agent and a friend of Blaine’s.”
“Is he okay?” she asked. “Is he here?” She struggled to sit up, ready to jump out of bed and go to him.
Ash shook his head. “No. He’s not here. That’s why he asked me to stay with you.”
“But is he okay?” she asked, and her panic grew. Had Blaine asking Ash to stay with her been his deathbed request? Was that why he wasn’t there?
Because he was gone? Dead and gone?
Ash nodded, but he had that same telltale signal of stress that Blaine did. A muscle twitched in his cheek. Maybe that twitch wasn’t just betraying his stress but his lie—like a gambler’s tell in a poker game.
“No,” she said, her voice cracking as hysteria threatened. “I don’t believe you. I saw the roof collapse. He couldn’t have gotten out of there without some injuries.”
Serious injuries.
Fatal injuries.
The man flinched as if he’d felt Blaine’s pain. “He has some bumps and scratches,” he admitted. “And a couple of small burns. But he’s fine. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
Even though Blaine had asked him? But then, he would have been too distraught over the loss of his friend to worry about her.
Maybe