THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (11 page)

“We have her on the fourth floor.”

His eyes widened. They had prisoner rooms on that floor. “Tell me that she’s not—”

“Easy.” Mercer lifted his hands. “She’s just in an interrogation room. Deuce is guarding the door.”

Guarding the door? Right. More like he was guarding
her
in order to make sure that Gabrielle didn’t try to escape.

“We don’t have a lot of options here,” Mercer said with a shake of his head. “I can’t have a reporter exposing the EOD.”

Cooper tried to keep his control in place. Hard, when he already knew it had fractured. Actually, his control had been weakening since the first moment he’d met Gabrielle. “Let me talk to her.”

Mercer’s brows rose. “Are you so sure she will want to talk with you? I think your charm might have run its course with the reporter.”

The fractures grew deeper. “I shouldn’t have made that a request,” Cooper threw back. “I should have said...I’m
talking to her.
”

Mercer stood then. He wasn’t quite as tall as Cooper, and even though Mercer had to be pushing his late fifties, he was still in top shape. “I think you’re forgetting a few things, Agent Marshall,” Mercer told him.

“I’m not forgetting anything.” He wasn’t going to let the EOD hurt Gabrielle.

“Yes, you are.” Mercer marched around the desk and came toward him. “It was the EOD who saved your hide in Afghanistan. My team who pulled
you
out. Otherwise, you really would have been dead. We went there to find you when you were being held captive. We got you out.”

“So now I owe you.” But what about Gabrielle? He owed her, so much.

She’s changed me.

Mercer’s eyes were narrowed as he studied Cooper. “You’re not the same agent anymore.”

He didn’t want to argue with Mercer. He just wanted to get down to the fourth floor.

Mercer sighed. “You can all fall so fast, and you don’t even see the danger until it’s too late.”

“She’s not a danger. I can convince her to keep the news about the EOD quiet. Let me talk to her, explain things—” She’d been running away before. He hadn’t known where she was going. He’d been worried that she might have other contacts in the press that she would talk with about her new discoveries.

He’d also been worried that the rogue would get her. Fear had burned like acid within him. Cooper hadn’t been able to stand the thought that Gabrielle was in the killer’s path, unprotected, vulnerable.

“I think you’re compromised on this one,” Mercer told him bluntly. “You aren’t the best agent for the job.”

“What?” There was no way he’d let Mercer bench him. “
I’m
the one who’s been monitoring her. I’m the one who kept the EOD out of the news. I’m the one—”

“—who slept with the reporter.”

Every muscle in Cooper’s body locked down. “How the hell do you know that?”

“You think that you were the only agent I had keeping tabs on her? Deuce has been watching her place. My agents always have backup close by.”

“Then I guess he got a real eyeful.” His control wasn’t fracturing. It was splintering.

While Mercer was his same old cold self. “Emotions cloud judgment. I know what I’m talking about here.”

“You mean your daughter?” They were alone, so Cooper decided to cut right to the chase. He’d worked closely with Mercer before, and he knew the man’s secrets. “You let your love for Cassidy compromise you—and you nearly got her killed.”

“I
did
get my wife killed,” Mercer shocked him by saying. Grief flickered in his eyes. “And when I realized how dangerous I was to those closest to me, I backed the hell off.” Mercer’s gaze turned shuttered once more as it drifted over Cooper’s face. “I backed away from the only family that I had left because I wanted to protect them.”

And what? He was supposed to follow in Mercer’s footsteps? Hell, no. Cooper would make his own way in this world, and he’d make his own choices. “If you think I’m backing away from Gabrielle, you’re dead wrong—”

“I backed away,” Mercer’s voice cut though his words, “because I thought I was protecting them. But it turns out, my leaving just meant that I wasn’t there when they needed me the most.”

Cooper blinked. Okay. Now
that
he hadn’t been expecting. “I thought you were going to say I should stay away from her. You said emotions compromise agents.”

“They do. So be aware of that danger, but, no, I’m not telling you to back away from her.” Mercer turned away and paced toward the window. “I had a sister. She was younger than me—ten years younger. So beautiful and sweet. After I lost my wife, I didn’t want to run the risk of losing her, too.”

Mercer had
never
gotten this personal with him. As far as Cooper knew, Mercer didn’t get personal with anyone.

“I didn’t want one of my enemies to get close to my sister,” Mercer said, gazing out of that window. “I had—still have—so many folks who’d love to hurt me, and they’d do it in an instant by taking out the ones I care about in this world.”

Like a sister.

Mercer’s shoulders were stiff and straight, his spine tense. “But it wasn’t an enemy who took her.” Sadness deepened his tone. “Cancer did that. It came in an instant. It took her from me too soon. I blinked, and she was just—gone.”

Cooper rubbed his chest, pushing at the ache that was always there when he remembered his mother. “I’m sorry. My...my mother died of cancer.” He could understand the pain Mercer felt.

“Did she?” The sadness deepened in Mercer’s voice. “I’m sorry for your loss, too, son. So sorry...” Mercer’s voice trailed away. He didn’t look back at Cooper, but stared straight ahead. Cooper could see Mercer’s reflection in the window’s glass. “We do our best in this world. We try to protect those we love. We try to make a difference, but, in the end, we can still fail. We can still hurt. And we can still lose....”

I don’t want to lose Gabrielle.

“There’s one lesson I’ve learned. If you want to be happy in this world, then you need to find the one thing that you care about the most. When you find it, you move heaven and hell and you do
anything
you can to protect that thing.” Mercer finally turned toward him. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

He did. Mercer wasn’t pulling him from the case. He was clearing him to do anything necessary—
to protect Gabrielle.
He hadn’t expected that response from Mercer. Cooper had thought that he’d have to fight in order to stay at her side.

“Go on, get down to that fourth floor. And remember, if you need anything...day or night, you call me. You can count on me to be there for you, Marshall.”

Everyone was wrong about Mercer. He wasn’t the cold, emotionless director.

Cooper spun for the door.

“Annalise should’ve had a different ending.” Mercer’s words were a low mumble.

Yet Cooper heard him clearly, and he froze. “How do you know my mother’s name?”

Silence. Then, “Do you really think you’d get an offer to join the EOD without me reviewing every single detail of your life?”

So Mercer had already known about his mother’s cancer
before
he’d told his own story. Maybe that was why the director had revealed his past to Cooper.
He knew I’d understand.

“The fourth floor’s waiting,” Mercer reminded him.

Cooper didn’t want Gabrielle waiting any longer.

* * *

T
HE
DOOR
CLICKED
shut behind Cooper.

Mercer glanced down. His hands were shaking. When he’d been talking with Cooper, the old pain had come back. The hurt, for what he’d lost.

Annalise.
He hadn’t needed to dig into Cooper’s past to learn about her.

He could just close his eyes and picture sweet Anna. That long blond hair. Her wide smile and glinting eyes—the same shade as Cooper’s.

She should’ve had a perfect life. A long life.

“I’m doing my best to protect him,” Mercer whispered. By staying away, he’d missed out on being close when Annalise needed him.

So he’d made sure to keep a good eye on Cooper. When the man had been taken in Afghanistan, Mercer immediately ordered his agents to sweep in for a rescue mission.

Cooper had a love of danger—a love that put him in too much jeopardy.

If Cooper could love something more than that wild rush of adrenaline, if he could love
someone
else more...

Then the man might actually have a chance of living the life Annalise would have wanted for him.

Cooper just had to feel a deep connection for someone else. He had to
need
someone more than he needed the next mission.

Judging by the rage and fear that Mercer had seen in his eyes, the reporter was making Cooper feel that connection, all right.

Now, the trick was going to be actually keeping her alive—and convincing Gabrielle Harper that Cooper deserved a second chance with her.

Luckily, Mercer had plenty of resources at his disposal.

Besides, if Cooper was anything like his mother had been, the boy should be able to work his charm.

Mercer would just see how that charm worked on Gabrielle.

* * *

T
HE
DOOR
SQUEAKED
OPEN
.

Gabrielle’s head lifted. Her eyes locked on the man who’d just entered her little prison.

Betrayal stabbed in her gut. She jumped to her feet, but the cuff around her left wrist—the cuff that was currently attaching her to the table leg—prevented her from charging across the room at Cooper.

He stilled. “I didn’t realize... I’ll get that cuff off you.”

He’d better do a whole lot more than just that.

Cooper turned back around toward the door. The dark-haired, green-eyed agent—the one who’d called himself Deuce—stood behind Cooper.

“Give me the keys,” Cooper demanded.

Deuce whistled as he rocked back on his heels. “Are you sure that you want to do that, man? She’s likely to go right for your throat.”

“The keys,” Cooper gritted, and he opened his hand.

Deuce tossed him the keys. “It’s a good thing you had combat training.” His stare swept toward Gabrielle. “I’ll just...ah...leave you two alone.” He backed out of the room.

Cooper hurried toward her.

She was so furious Gabrielle didn’t even know where to start. She had to bite her lip to hold back the furious yells that wanted to erupt.

His fingers closed around her wrist. His touch was warm and solid and— “You really do look good for a dead man,” she told him, her eyes angry slits.

The cuff clicked open. He didn’t let her wrist go. Instead, he lightly rubbed the flesh. She knew he had to feel the frantic race of her pulse beneath his fingers.

“How did you find out?” While her voice had been heated, his was soft.

“Sources, Cooper. Sources. I have them, you know.” She wasn’t about to throw Hugh under the bus. It was a good thing she’d taken the liberty of hiding the flash drive in Penelope’s car. Otherwise, she would’ve lost that evidence during her little confinement time. That flash drive was her ace in the hole. It was her—

“They found the flash drive,” Cooper told her. “And, soon enough, I
will
have the name of your source.”

Could the night get any worse? “I guess you like going through my things.” She snatched her hand back from him. “I figured it out, you know, that mysterious crash of my computer days ago...that was you, right? You and your EOD buddies.”

She wanted him to deny it. To tell her that she was wrong. He hadn’t really snuck into her house and sabotaged her system.

But he nodded.

Gabrielle took a step away from him as she sucked in a deep gulp of air.

“Let me explain,” Cooper began. To the right, a large mirror stretched along the wall and threw their reflections back at them. She looked tired and scared and angry.

And he, damn him, looked strong and determined and too handsome.

The fact that he looked so controlled just increased her fury. “Explain? I’m a prisoner! This shouldn’t be happening to me. I’ve got rights, but those rights were ignored when your buddies dragged me in here.” She tossed her hands into the air as she backed away from him. “I wasn’t Mirandized—”

“—because you aren’t charged with anything,” he muttered, yanking a hand through his blond hair.

“This is kidnapping.” She wondered if she could run past him and make a break out of the door. They’d blindfolded her before she was brought into this building. She had no idea where she was—or even
if
she was still in D.C. They’d seemed to drive around for hours in that car.

And she’d been terrified every moment.

Cooper exhaled. “Believe it or not, you’re here for your protection.”

A bitter laugh escaped her. “I’ll go with the ‘not’ option on there. I’m here because I found out your secret and you don’t want me telling the world what I know.”

He stalked toward her.

Coward that she was, Gabrielle backed up even more. She backed up until there was no place left to go, and she hit the wall.

Cooper kept coming.

His hands rose and flattened on either side of her head, caging her between him and the hard wall. He wasn’t touching her, a very good thing, because his touch just twisted things within her even more.

“This isn’t about me,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes. “It’s about the agents in the field. About the work that they do that requires secrecy. You can’t print what you’ve learned about the EOD. You do that, and you compromise their lives.”

“And what if the EOD is killing? What then?” She threw her accusation at him. She wanted to hurt him as she was hurting.
I trusted you.
More, she’d started to fall for the guy when he’d just been playing her.

She and Lane hadn’t worked out because he wanted to put her in a glass bubble and stop her from doing everything that she loved. They’d crashed and burned fast because she hadn’t wanted to give up the person who she was in order to please him. The breakup had hurt, but—

With Cooper, the pain was worse. So much worse. She’d really thought that he’d been on her side. A true partner, an equal. She’d believed that he supported what she was doing.