The Girl Next Door

And that’s my sign to leave.

His fingers were very close to her hips. And she was arching against his touch like a cat.

Get a grip, Gabrielle. It’s just a massage. It’s not lovemaking.

But she almost wished that it was.

Gabrielle jerked away from his touch. “I have to go.” She jumped to her feet.

He stared up at her.

“Thanks for the ride home. And the drink. And the massage.” She was rambling. “Good night.” Then she scrambled for the door.

“Gabrielle.”

His voice stopped her just as her fingers closed around the doorknob.

“If you get scared, if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

Good to know. She tossed him a quick, nervous smile, then she fled. No other word for it.

A smart woman ran from trouble.

* * *

THE WOMAN WAS going to be trouble.

He’d known that, of course, the minute she moved in.

Long, black hair, golden skin, dark eyes... And a body that sure made him want to sin.

Gabrielle Harper was the last person he’d expected to find in his life. A reporter, right upstairs?

Fate had a twisted sense of humor.

If Gabrielle ever found out what he really did for a living, if she found out about the secret government group known as the EOD—

Can’t happen.

There were only a few civilians with clearance to possess intel about the Elite Operations Division. Too-pretty and too-tempting Gabrielle couldn’t learn about his group.

Secrecy meant survival for the EOD agents. He would do anything to secure that survival.

Anything necessary. Those were his orders, after all. They’d come straight down from the top—from the director of the EOD, Bruce Mercer.

And anything necessary...well, that included a little breaking and entering.

Cooper had waited a few hours, until he was sure that Gabrielle had finally drifted into slumber. Then he’d commenced his B&E routine.

It was ridiculously easy to get inside Gabrielle’s place. Since he’d installed the locks right before she moved in, Cooper had a key to her apartment.

He also knew her security code.

Again, because he’d installed the system.

She’d left a light on in her hallway. The faint glow spilled into the living area.

Her place was an exact copy of his. Only instead of a workout area, Gabrielle had an office in that side space.

The office was his destination. But first, he had to make sure that he wouldn’t be disturbed.

He crept toward her bedroom. Cooper pushed the door open just a few inches.

Another light was on in there. A closet light this time.

Gabrielle didn’t like the darkness. Odd, considering that her job sent her right into the dark path of criminals every day.

The glow fell on the bed, on her.

She’d kicked away her covers, and she lay on her side. Gabrielle wore a pair of jogging shorts and a faded college T-shirt. Her legs were long and bare and perfect.

Killer legs. Truly killer.

Her eyes were closed. Her right hand curled, palm up, on the edge of the bed. Sexy and vulnerable—a dangerous combination.

He took a deep breath and smelled her. A light scent. Lilac. He knew it only because she always smelled that way. He’d had to figure out the scent because it was driving him crazy.

The first day he’d met her, she’d come to him, a sweet smile on her face and a tray of chocolate chip cookies in her hands.

He’d gobbled up the cookies. He’d wanted to gobble her up. He still did.

Focus on the job.

Carefully, Cooper backed away from the door. Then he made his way to the office. Booting up her computer was easy. Figuring out her password was a bit harder. Luckily, he’d had some help from the EOD on that end.

Another agent, Sydney Sloan Ortez, had created a program that let him bypass most security walls on systems like Gabrielle’s.

It took sixty seconds, and he was in.

He found Gabrielle’s files on Lockwood. With a few clicks, he transferred copies of those files to his flash drive.

Then... Sorry, sweetheart, I hate to do it but... He uploaded a virus to her computer.

The EOD didn’t want Gabrielle getting involved in Lockwood’s murder. Mercer had given him an order to throw her off the killer’s scent.

Now they had her case notes. Her files.

She’d have to start over from scratch once again. That would buy him some time.

Enough time to hunt a killer.

* * *

WELL, WELL, WELL...

It seemed that Cooper Marshall was the agent on his trail.

He’d seen Cooper in the crowd outside of Lockwood’s place. He’d known the reporter was going to meet Keith, so figuring out that the police would be called after midnight hadn’t been exactly hard.

He’d watched the scene with interest.

He certainly hadn’t expected to see Cooper Marshall rush through the crowd and go straight to the reporter’s side.

Then to leave with the woman...

Interesting.

Perhaps Gabrielle Harper was more important than he’d originally thought.

He would learn more about her. Then he would determine...was she valuable enough to bring into his game?

Or was she a pawn that could be eliminated?

Chapter Two

Gabrielle slid under the yellow police tape that blocked the entrance to Keith Lockwood’s apartment. The cops had tried to repair the lock on his door, but their attempt hadn’t been exactly successful.

That lack of success made getting in much easier for her.

She’d waited for night to fall once more. Waited to make sure all the cops had cleared out of the place.

She wasn’t waiting any longer.

Gabrielle tiptoed into the apartment. She didn’t turn on any lights. Lights would be seen from the street below, and she wasn’t about to advertise her B&E stint.

So instead of turning on the overhead lights, Gabrielle pulled out a small flashlight. She crept carefully through the apartment. Her first stop was the desk near the kitchen. She opened the top drawer.

Empty.

The second drawer—

Empty.

The third—

Totally cleaned out.

Her eyes narrowed. There had been a computer on that desk last night. It was gone now, so she’d have to check in with Lane to see if the cops had confiscated it. No doubt, they had. Their tech department would search it and when they were finished, she’d just call in a favor from said tech department and get them to spill their results to her.

She turned away from the desk. There were other places to search.

Like the room where she’d found the body.

Her shoulders squared as she headed down the hallway. The scent of death still hung in the air. She hated that smell.

Her foot pressed down on the wooden floor. The long, low creak made her stiffen, but she kept going.

Then she was in the bedroom. Her flashlight illuminated the floor and the outline of the body. The blood had stained the wood.

So much blood.

Gabrielle exhaled. She hoped that Lockwood had died quickly. No one deserved to suffer.

She forced herself to look away from that outline. Her gaze and her light darted around the room. She could see a chest of drawers, a dresser and a nightstand. No photographs. Just like Cooper’s place.

That wasn’t normal. She edged closer to the nightstand positioned to the right of the bed. People usually kept photographs of family and friends in their homes. Light touches to personalize the place.

At the edge of the bed, her foot stepped down on something hard.

She heard the crunch of glass.

Gabrielle winced—so much for being good at crime scenes—and she bent down. She’d stepped on a frame. One that had dropped to the floor and slipped under the edge of the bed.

So Lockwood did have at least one picture.

She turned the frame over. Pieces of broken glass fell onto the bed.

Her light scanned over that photo. Her breath came faster. Her heart raced.

The picture was of Keith Lockwood. He was smiling in the picture, and he had his arm around a pretty, blonde woman.

Gabrielle easily recognized Kylie Archer. She’d seen plenty of pictures of that woman before.

What were you going to tell me about her? What? Gabrielle sure wished the dead could talk.

She backed away from the bed, still studying the photo. Backed away and backed into someone.

Someone big and strong.

Gabrielle opened her mouth to scream.

The scream never escaped because a hard hand covered her mouth. And even as that hand covered her mouth, an arm rose around Gabrielle and jerked her closer to—

“Easy,” that familiar deep voice told her, as Cooper’s breath blew against the shell of her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you, and a scream would just send the neighbors rushing to call the police.”

Because he’d scared her, Gabrielle elbowed him in the ribs. He let her go with a grunt.

Gabrielle whirled to confront him. “What are you doing here? This is a crime scene!” She aimed her light right at his face.

He winced. “Trying to blind me?”

She thought that might only be fair since he’d just tried to scare her to death.

“And, yes, I know it’s a crime scene,” he said, sounding aggrieved. “That’s why I wondered what the hell you were doing in here.”

“You followed me?” Her voice was a whisper. He must have followed her. There was no other explanation. But why?

He shrugged. “After last night, maybe I was a little worried about you.”

Oh. Wait. That was...nice.

The sneaking up on her part? Not so nice. “I didn’t even hear you.” Not so much as a sound.

“I’m used to sneaking in and out of places.”

His comment sounded a bit sinister.

“And speaking of out, we need to go.” But he was frowning now. “What are you holding?”

Her right hand gripped the flashlight. Her left still held the picture frame.

She took the light off his face and let it fall on the photo. “See how close they are? The way his hand is wrapped around her? I think Lockwood and Kylie Archer were involved.” Lovers. Their bodies rested so easily against each other. “And, judging by the way they were killed—with their throats slit and with no sign of defensive wounds on their bodies—I’m also suspecting that the same person killed them both.”

Silence.

She’d expected more after her big reveal. Gabrielle cleared her throat.

“How do you know there were no defensive wounds?” Cooper asked.

“Because I had time to check Lockwood’s body before the cops got here.” She also knew exactly what to look for regarding those types of wounds. “The thing that doesn’t fit for me is the broken lock. Kylie’s home didn’t have a broken lock. Her door was locked, from the inside, and the cops were the ones to break their way inside.”

Again...more silence. She wasn’t really used to working with someone else on her stories, but she expected him to say something.

“Uh, Cooper?”

“Leave the picture. We need to go now.”

“But I want to search some more. I need to—”

“When I parked, I saw a cop car coming down the street. I double-timed it up here to you, because I was worried the officer might be coming in for a sweep.”

Her eyes widened. She dropped the photo to the floor. Mostly in the same spot. “We need to go now.”

She grabbed his hand and rushed down the hallway.

She dodged the squeaky floorboard.

So did he.

She paused. He hadn’t stepped on the squeaky floorboard when he’d first come in the apartment, either. The squeak would have alerted her to his presence. “How did you—”

“Hurry.”

She kept going. She slid under the police tape, hustled into the hallway.

And heard footsteps.

Gabrielle darted to the edge of the stairs, and she saw the cop. Lucky for her, he was looking down, not up, so he didn’t see her.

Cooper wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her back. “Come on.” He pulled her with him.

Lockwood’s apartment was the only one on that floor. There weren’t exactly a ton of places for them to hide.

“Storage,” he muttered, moving toward a narrow, white door.

She hadn’t even seen that door at first.

He opened it and pushed her inside.

It was the size of a closet. A very small, very overstuffed closet. Her body plastered against his.

“Not a sound,” Cooper barely breathed the words.

She gave a jerky nod. Gabrielle could hear the footsteps then. The cop going to the apartment, going right past the storage closet.

But what if he comes back?

The closet smelled of ammonia. It had to be where the cleaning supplies were kept for the building. It was pitch-dark in there, so she couldn’t see anything, and Gabrielle wasn’t about to turn on her light.

There was silence in the hallway.

She figured the silence meant that the cop had entered the apartment.

If Cooper hadn’t gotten me out of there, the cop would have walked right in on me.

Explaining her way out of that situation wouldn’t have been easy.

Cooper still had his arm around her. Her hips and derriere pressed against him. Her back was to his chest. She could feel the steady rhythm of his breaths.

He didn’t seem shaken. Not even a little.

Meanwhile her own breath seemed to heave out far too loudly.

She didn’t move, didn’t try to ease away from Cooper. She was too afraid she’d stumble onto another piece of flooring that would creak and give away their position.

After a seeming eternity, the cop’s footsteps sounded in the hallway again.

The footsteps faded away as he descended the stairs.

Her shoulders slumped. She tried to pull away from Cooper.

“Not yet. Let’s give him a chance to get good and gone.”

She stilled. Tight, dark spaces weren’t so high up on her list of favorite things. Actually, they were dead last on that list. But she wasn’t alone right then. That was something.

Cooper. Why did she feel so safe with him? A man she barely knew?

Because he just saved you and you’re going to owe him now.

“Can you try...” He whispered in her ear. She shivered as he continued, “Can you try to avoid committing any more crimes for the next few days?”

“No promises,” she whispered back. “My computer crashed, and I’m back to square one on this case.” Not totally true. She had backup files.

Not an amateur.

His hold eased. “I think we’ve waited long enough. Let’s just head out, nice and slow, okay? Follow my lead.”

Right. She could do that.

He opened the door, looked to the left and the right. He went down the stairs first. Cooper kept a tight hold on her hand when they escaped from that building.

Then they were outside. The night air was muggy and thick, and it felt like heaven after the ammonia-filled confines of that closet.

“Thanks,” she began with a weary smile, “I needed your—”

His eyes had been over her shoulder, on the street, but he suddenly grabbed her and yanked her close.

Cooper kissed her.

It wasn’t some easy, getting-to-know-you kiss. Not tentative. Not light.

It was hot. Hard. Openmouthed.

Toe-curling.

Fantastic.

His arms wrapped around her. He lifted her up against him, and Gabrielle’s toes barely skimmed the ground.

His tongue licked across her bottom lip then thrust into her mouth. He tasted her. He claimed. He—

“The cop was still here,” Cooper growled against her lips. “I didn’t want him suspicious.”

He was kissing her for a cover.

Had she moaned? She’d definitely sunk her nails into his shoulders. She’d even arched against him.

“I—I know,” she lied. Their mouths were barely an inch apart. “The kiss was a good idea.”

A car cranked. The engine growled.

“I’m guessing that’s him,” Gabrielle said as she kept her hands on Cooper. But she did retract her nails. “Pulling away?”

He nodded. “I’m not letting you go until he’s gone.”

His body was so warm.

The kiss had been a fake.

Humiliating. Maybe she’d played it off, though. Maybe.

They stood there, embracing, mouths so incredibly close, and in that moment, Gabrielle realized a very important fact.

Cooper was aroused.

If she hadn’t been so distracted a moment before, she would have been keyed in to that situation sooner. She was so focused on the hot feel of his mouth she hadn’t realized until now that the hips thrusting against her—

He freed her.

Gabrielle stopped feeling quite so humiliated. He had been affected by the kiss. Mr. Dangerous had gotten just as caught up as she had in the heat of the moment.

“We need to get home,” he said in that deep rumble of his. “Come on, my bike’s waiting.”

Her phone vibrated, jerking in her pocket. She’d turned the ringer off before her little stint of B&E. “Hold on,” Gabrielle told him. She yanked out her phone and recognized her boss’s number at the Inquisitor.

“Gabrielle...” Cooper gritted out.

“It’s my boss. Calling after midnight. I have to take this.” Because there was only one reason Hugh Peters would call her this late.

A story.

“What is it, Hugh?”

“I just heard on the police scanner...” Excitement thickened his voice. “They got another vic. A female. Same MO as Archer.”

Her fingers tightened around the phone. “Where.”

He rattled off the address.

The address was close, just a few blocks away. She could jog there.

She would jog there.

“You get there and you find out what the hell is happening, got it?” Hugh said. Before she could answer, he continued, “Three kills? This mess is starting to look like the work of a serial.”

His words chilled her. “We can’t know that, not yet.”

Cooper’s gaze was on her.

“Get there and find out,” Hugh ordered.

She shoved the phone back into her pocket. “Thanks for the offer of the ride, but my night’s not over yet.”

No wonder the cop had rushed away. She tilted her head and heard the wail of sirens in the distance.

Cooper stiffened. “What’s happened?”

“Another woman has been found with her throat cut.” She spun away from him. It was a good thing she jogged regularly. “I’ll see you later, Cooper. Thanks for the help!”

He grabbed her wrist. “You’re racing to a murder scene?”

“It’s what I do.” He was slowing her down.

Cooper shook his head. “Going on foot isn’t the way. I can get you there faster.” He pointed to his waiting motorcycle. “Just give me the address, and I’m there.”

She didn’t want to waste time arguing. She called out the address even as she climbed onto the bike. Seconds later they were racing away.

* * *

“IT LOOKS LIKE the same MO,” Cooper said into his phone. He’d backed away from the crowd, found the best cover of shadows, and now he watched the chaotic scene with a careful gaze. “One of the cops said that the victim was a woman named Melanie Farrell.”

“She’s not one of ours,” the clipped voice on the other end of the line responded. That voice belonged to Bruce Mercer. Cooper’s boss. A man who knew where every single secret was buried in D.C.

Mostly because his job was to bury those secrets.

“You sure about that?” Cooper pressed. “She was found in her apartment, with the doors locked. Her throat was slit, and there were no signs of a struggle.”

A low whistle. “You sure learned a lot on this one, fast.”

His gaze tracked over to Gabrielle. She was currently talking quickly to a uniformed cop. The cop looked nervous. Since Gabrielle was grilling him, the guy should be nervous. “I had a little help.” She’d been the one to get all of those details.

“The reporter.” A long sigh slipped from Mercer. “I thought you had her contained.”

Containing Gabrielle was a bit of a challenge. It was a good thing that he liked challenges. “I can use her. The cops tell her more in a few minutes than they would ever reveal to me.” He had the P.I. cover for a reason, but Gabrielle’s resources were proving to be far more useful.

Gabrielle eased away from the cop and gazed up at the building.

Trying to find a way inside, aren’t you?

She edged toward the left, moving near the alley that he knew snaked behind those apartments.

“Melanie Farrell is not one of our agents.” Mercer was adamant. “She shouldn’t be targeted by our rogue.”

The rogue—the EOD agent that Cooper was hunting.

“Kylie Archer wasn’t an agent, either,” Cooper said, going with his gut.

“Who?”

“She was killed a few months ago. Again, same damn MO.”

“Our guy has been busy.” Anger heated Mercer’s words.

Our guy. Because they did think it was one of their own. One who’d tried to attack Mercer by going after his daughter and now...

“I found out that Kylie was romantically involved with Keith.” Well, Gabrielle had found that out.

He couldn’t see her now. Cooper’s body tensed.

“The guy tried to get at you by taking away the one person who mattered,” Cooper said.

Mercer’s daughter.

“He couldn’t get her, so maybe he decided to attack other agents by going after the people they valued.” It was a theory that he was just developing, but so far, the pieces fit.

“That idea only plays,” Mercer said slowly, “if we can link Melanie to an EOD agent.”

“Sydney can find a link.” If anyone could, it would be here. Sydney Sloan Ortez was in charge of information retrieval for the EOD. When it came to computers, no one was better. She could dig into any person’s life with her machines. Could, and had.

“I’ll get her started,” Mercer promised. “In the meantime, you keep tracking this rogue. He knows our agents, he knows us, but I’ll be damned if he’s going to get away with these attacks on my watch.”

Mercer hung up. Cooper pushed the phone into his back pocket. Gabrielle had slipped into the alley, and she’d never glanced back to see if anyone was watching her.

She should learn to pay attention to what—who—was behind her.

He’d sure gotten the drop on her easily enough in that apartment. If he had been the killer, she would have died.

His back teeth ground together as he stalked toward the alley. He’d had no idea that his neighbor was so drawn to danger.

Just like me. But he knew why he liked the thrill that came from danger. That burst of adrenaline made him feel alive.

What drew Gabrielle into the darkness?

* * *

THE FIRE ESCAPE led all the way up the side of the building. Gabrielle studied that fire escape, considering the options. It would sure be easy enough for the killer to slide through a window in the victim’s apartment then flee down the fire escape.

Was that why the front door was locked? Did you get out this way?

She slipped deeper into the alley. The voices were muted here. Her shoe brushed over a discarded aluminum can. The acrid odor of rotten garbage was strong in that alley.

Gabrielle glanced to the left. A green garbage container sat to the side. The alley snaked away a bit then opened to another street.

Since there were no lights in that area, it would have been easy enough for the killer to hide down there.

“You’re in the wrong place.”

The whisper drifted to her. When the words sank in, Gabrielle froze.

“You shouldn’t be here, all alone...”

She whirled around. That voice was coming from the shadows near the garbage container. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

Laughter. Low and chilling. “Not yet...not yet...”

Goose bumps rose on her arms.

“Gabrielle!”

That was Cooper. A shout had never sounded more wonderful.

Before she could call out to him, something—someone—grabbed her and shoved her into the brick wall of the alley. Her head hit the bricks, hard, and her body slumped.