The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents #6)(40)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“You’re not bait,” Cooper immediately denied. His arm brushed against hers. “You’re my partner. I keep telling you that. We’re working together from here on out.”

She wanted to believe him.

She couldn’t.

“Cooper Marshall is the only EOD agent that you should trust,” the boss told her.

Her eyebrows lifted at that warning.

“The others you’ve met—Rachel, Dylan—I don’t want you alone with any of them. Cooper was out of the country when I first became aware of the rogue. Cooper is clear.” Spoken flatly. “Trust him.”

Noelle nodded. “And I’m going to finish working up my profile. Understanding why the rogue is killing is key. He’s targeting the women first for a special reason. I—I think it’s even possible that the man we’re after lost someone that he cared about, and now he’s determined to take out his rage on the other agents. He wants them to feel the same pain, the same agony that he experienced.”

Cooper frowned. “He’s punishing us?”

“By taking away what you value most,” the boss told him. “So remember the advice I gave you. Do whatever is necessary, Cooper, to protect what matters most.”

* * *

GABRIELLE COULD ONLY see darkness. Another blindfold covered her eyes. Only this time, Cooper had been the one to blindfold her.

She might have gotten an audience with the mysterious EOD boss, but apparently she didn’t have enough clearance to learn the EOD’s address.

A door shut. Cooper took her hand, as he’d already done several times. A car engine growled, and then she heard the distinct sound of wheels rolling away.

Their ride—heading back to the EOD.

She waited, expecting Cooper to remove the blindfold.

When he didn’t, she tensed. What’s next?

His fingers curled around her elbow, and he led her forward. He guided her up a set of steps.

A wind chime sounded. A familiar sound. It was her wind chime.

Her hands lifted, and Gabrielle ripped that blindfold away.

They were back at the brownstone.

So much for not being bait.

Cooper stood beside her. He stared at her with wary eyes. The guy was right to be wary. The darkness of the night surrounded him, and the only light spilled from the porch. In that harsh light, his face seemed carved from granite. The shadows and darkness surrounded him.

He opened the front door.

Right. They couldn’t just stand out there. They’d no doubt make a perfect target if they did that.

She hurried inside and immediately went toward the stairs.

“Gabrielle.” He caught her hand, stilling her before she could escape. “My place. Day and night, remember?”

Like she could forget.

Seething, she followed him. She understood why the EOD needed to be kept secret. She understood that he was doing his job.

But why did he make love to me?

That part, she didn’t get it. The idea that he’d just been using her, trying to get close to her so that he could gather intel…that part hurt the most.

She made her way into his apartment, too aware of every move that he made. He shut the door behind her. She took five more steps—then froze. “Are we being watched?” The way she’d been watched back at the EOD?

“We could be under surveillance,” he admitted as he came toward her.

Not what she wanted to hear. “Video equipment? Audio surveillance?” The whole place could be bugged. “Did they see what we did?” Her voice was a horrified whisper.

If he’d let the other agents watch them…she felt her cheeks burn.

Cooper gave a hard shake of his head. “Do you think I would let that happen? That was about me and you, and no one else.”

Her breath rushed out in relief. She turned away.

“Don’t treat me like a stranger.”

Her hands trembled. She rubbed her fingers over her jean-clad thighs. “Isn’t that what you are? I mean, I lay down next to my lover—a living, breathing man I trusted, but then I found out that he was some secret agent, and that he’d supposedly died on a mission in Afghanistan.”

“I should have died. I was shot to hell and back—”

The image of his scars flashed through her mind.

“But somehow Mercer found out about me.”

Mercer. She filed that name into her vault.

“I don’t even know how I showed up on the guy’s radar,” Cooper continued. “He found out about me. He came for me. His Shadow Agents burst onto the scene, they dragged me out of that hell, and they brought me back to life.” His shoulders rolled back as if he were trying to push away the memory. “But by that point, everyone on my original team already thought I was dead. And it wasn’t like I had any family. I never knew my dad. Cancer took my mother when I was a teenager. Hell, I already felt like a ghost, so when Mercer made me an offer, I took it.”

He turned on the lamp near him, and more light spilled across the room.

“I’ve worked with the EOD since then. The agents do their missions, and like Mercer said, we save lives.”

It wasn’t that simple. “One of the agents is taking lives.”

He paced toward her. “And it’s our job to stop him. I didn’t expect you to get involved. You were my neighbor. The sexy girl who slipped into my fantasies. I’d known only blood and death until you.” He swallowed. “Then you were in my world, looking so beautiful and smelling of lilacs.”

She had lilac body lotion. A gift from Penelope.

“But then I found you at Lockwood’s apartment. You were in the wrong place. Hell, you almost walked right in on me.”

Another piece of the puzzle snapped into place. He’d been in Lockwood’s apartment. “That was why the door was open.” He’d been there, first, before her. “You broke in to that apartment.”

He nodded, and kept coming closer to her. “No one had heard from Lockwood in days. I knew something was wrong, and I had to get inside to him.”

“How did you get out—” Gabrielle began, then stopped because she realized what he’d done. “You scaled the building.”

Another nod. “The same way that the killer did.”

Because they were the same—the same training, the same deadly instincts.

“Everything changed when you got involved,” he said again. “Protecting you became a priority for me. I only called the EOD in because I didn’t have a choice. I knew the killer had you in his sights—after that phone call, how could there be any doubt? It was too risky for you to go off alone.”