Evidence of Passion (Shadow Agents #7)(28)
Author: Cynthia Eden

While I was stuck in the hospital. Now she knew exactly why he hadn’t stayed with her at the hospital. He’d been busy working to get her sent down to Atlanta.

The door opened with a squeak. Rachel was in Dylan’s chair. She pushed with her feet, making the chair roll so that she faced the door. And him.

I gave myself to you, Dylan. Why did you do this to me? Why?

He stared at her a moment. Then he stepped fully into the small office and shut the door behind him. “I guess you’ll be heading out soon. Your flight—”

“Is tomorrow,” Rachel managed to say in an almost normal voice. “Yes, that’s what I’ve been told.” She would not lose control in front of him. But she would get to the bottom of the mystery that was Dylan. Something that Mercer said kept nagging at her. “Thanks to you, of course.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “EOD agents get transferred to new assignments all the time. It’s part of life here, you know that.”

Seriously? He was trying to play that card?

They were alone. No eyes on them. No ears. So she said exactly what she was thinking. “We had sex, Dylan. It was supposed to mean something.” It had sure meant something to her.

He glanced away from her. “There’s us, Rachel, and then there’s the EOD. The missions we have to take… We both knew that when we crossed that particular line—”

“The line that made us lovers?”

“We wouldn’t be able to stay in the field together.”

Her breath caught. “You…told Mercer?”

“No.”

That was something.

“But the transfer was going to happen, no matter what.”

She wanted to shake him. This wasn’t the Dylan she knew. Rachel jumped to her feet. “Stop it!”

He blinked at her.

“What is going on with you? I thought… We work together, Dylan. You and I. There’s no one closer to me than you. There’s no one I trust like I do you.” But that trust was shaking. He’d requested she be sent away, even knowing how important this particular case was to her.

He didn’t respond. Damn him.

“Why are you on this case?” And it was back again, the twisting suspicion that Mercer had planted with his words.

He’s been after Jack since long before you even joined the EOD. He’ll do what is necessary to bring the killer in, you can count on that.

“I’m after him because the EOD wants the threat Jack poses to be eliminated.”

That answer sounded rehearsed. Like he was just spewing some line he’d been taught before. “When I first met you…you were hunting Jack then.”

His gaze slid back to hers.

She struggled to put the pieces of this puzzle together. She’d read all of the case files on Jack and she knew… “You’d been hunting him for six months before that. I remember reading it in the reports.”

He nodded. “So you know that I won’t stop until I—”

“Why were you the agent in charge back then? How’d you get landed with Jack’s case?”

He pushed back his shoulders. “Mercer assigned me to the case.”

Rachel had worked intimately with Dylan on so many cases, and because of that she knew him very well. She also knew all of his “tells”—the signs that he gave when he twisted the truth. Or when he just flat-out lied.

That shoulder rollback? He did it right before he lied.

“That’s not true.” Her head was aching again, but there was no way she was about to let that weakness show. “You…you requested to be on the assignment, didn’t you?” That was a pure hunch on her part.

But after a tense moment, Dylan nodded.

“Why?”

“Because he’s a dangerous man. Jack needs to be—”

“Stop it! Just tell me the truth.” She was almost begging him. And Rachel was so confused. Lost and confused because she’d thought they always had honesty between them.

Now she wasn’t sure what was happening or if they had anything between them. She exhaled slowly. “Why were you after him?”

His lips thinned. “Because he killed someone I knew.”

“Knew?” Rachel pressed. But she suddenly realized that maybe she didn’t want to hear this part. Because that poker was back in her gut, burning hotter than before.

“Shannon Morgan. She was his fourth victim. Shannon and I were…close.”

It hurt. So much that she retreated a step. “You were lovers.”

A grim nod was her answer.

He’d had lovers. Of course he had. She’d thought…just the other night…Rachel shook her head. “There’s more to this story.”

More that she just didn’t know.

He glanced down at the floor. “We talked about getting married.”

She grabbed the edge of the desk. He’d loved Shannon. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shook his head.

“Dylan—”

“Because they were together!” The words burst from him. Angry. Snarling.

Her hold on the desk tightened.

“Shannon and I…we talked about a future together. She knew what I wanted but she wasn’t ready to settle down. She met Jack. He seduced her, charmed her. She thought the guy actually cared about her.”

A dull ringing seemed to sound in her ears. “But he was just getting close to her because she was an assignment. The same way he got close to me.”

“She told me that she wanted to be with him. Her ‘Jack.’ She broke up with me. She went to be with him. And the next day, she was dead. He’d put a bullet in her heart and left his calling card in her hand.”

There was grief in his voice. Grief and fury.

Rachel realized where she fit into his equation then. “It was always personal for you. You wanted vengeance.”

“I wanted justice.”

She didn’t believe him. “You…you used me.” She’d never thought that someone else had been involved. When they were together…he’d said that it was just about her. About him.

But as soon as they’d realized that Jack was back in town, Dylan had been the one to push. He’d wanted them to play at being lovers, then to take it a step further…to be lovers.

“That’s why three years passed and you never so much as tried to kiss me.” She’d been blind. Trusting the wrong man, again.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He raked a hand over his face. “You’re tired. You need to rest before your flight.”