Walk In My Shadow: A Gripping Romantic Thriller (Mirror Book 3): A Mirror Novel (16 page)

He'd turned it down and told them he was taking a long leave first.

They hadn't been happy to hear that, but they also hadn't wanted to lose him, so they reluctantly dropped it—with one caveat—he looked into Ethan's girlfriend. On behalf of the Whitelist.

Since that suited his goals as well, he'd agreed.

They told him that Ethan had been actively recruiting Abby for years.

Vance didn't know what to believe anymore. "After this is done, I’m not going back to the CIA again," he said roughly.

"Does the CIA know that?"

"I've told them repeatedly since I interrogated you. They refuse to retire me. Keep giving me leave and telling me to 'Take your time thinking it over.'"

"Do they think you're pulling a power play?"

"I stopped trying to figure out what they think a long time ago." He thought about the list she'd made of alternate career opportunities and laughed, because his wouldn't look much different, or any less ridiculous. "Look, there's more you need to know."

"Am I going to need a shot in this?" She pointed to her coffee.

"I'm thinking yes." He was motioning to the waitress, waited until she poured some Irish whiskey into Abby's cup. "You can leave the bottle," he told her. When she giggled at him, he winked.

When she walked away, Abby said, "You do have a way with women."

"You were as hard to handle as I am," he told her.

She took a couple more sips of the liquor-infused coffee. "Hit me."

"For the Whitelist…we're not supposed to know we're on it, but there's no way around it sometimes, like if your parent is famous in his or her field." Vance gave a quick glance in her direction and the realization hit her like a physical blow.

"Me?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. When he gave the briefest of nods for confirmation, she swallowed hard. "Because of my father? And Teige?" Another nod from Vance. "Did Teige know?"

"You'll have to ask him."

Her brother must've, but he'd never let himself get completely drawn into that world. He'd always remained one foot in, one foot out…

Until Kayla. She'd saved him as much as he'd saved her. And because of that, Teige had finally gotten out completely. Broken away from working for any agency. He worked for private clients, sometimes in conjunction with the agencies, but he wasn't beholden to any of them.

She asked Vance now, "Have I been watched—followed—by whoever holds the Whitelist?"

"Yes, but they were cautious with you."

Abby didn't bother to ask why. She'd almost been killed. Watched her father die. And then she'd purposely avoided profiling, which would be a natural choice for her, since she wasn't in a nuthouse.

Really, it could've gone either way. She'd learned that about most survivors. They either hid from the world or went into it full force to prove they'd won.

She'd gone halfway on that point, avoiding the FBI like the plague. The CIA hadn't even been on her list of possibilities, so it didn't make sense. And she told the man in front of her so.

"Because, Abby, you have abilities we look for in agents. And we certainly don't want to lose you to the FBI. We're quite competitive."

"Did Ethan know about this? Was he trying to keep me out of the CIA on purpose?"

"I don't know, Abby," he said honestly. "Unfortunately, we might never know that."

"Then we'll have to learn enough to make up for that," she said fiercely.

He leaned in and clinked the bottle to her cup.

"
I
found her
," Jacoby announced with little fanfare after he closed the door of Abby's house. Of course, he entered without knocking and almost gave her a heart attack. "Why are you pointing your weapon at me? I need a beer—got any?"

Abby just stared at him and lowered her gun. "Found…her. Mary?"

"Isn't that the chick you asked me to find? Beer in the fridge?" he asked as he walked by her and headed to the kitchen.

She got up and followed. "Jacoby, she's a federal witness."

"Yep. You told me that." His tone was unconcerned as he hit the beer bottle against the counter to pop the top expertly.

"I can see why Ward wants to kill you a lot of the time," she muttered darkly, and that only earned her one of Jacoby's most endearing smiles. A very non-innocent one at that. "Again, I need Mary back."

"You really didn't specify that."

"You're with the FBI, right? The same FBI who's on my ass about sending my witness running into the night," she reminded him.

"Rings a bell, yes. I try not to get bogged down with labels." He finished the beer and set the bottle down and got serious. "Look, she'll testify. She's cool with that now. She got spooked. And she wasn't the one who taped your conversation. The same person who fucked with you fucked with her. Wrote her a note that you were going to betray her and that her life, and Josh’s, would be in danger if they didn't run. So, they ran."

"Shit." She sat down heavily in a kitchen chair.

"I know. And none of this clears you, Abby. I mean, hell, if Mary mentions she got spooked by someone who's stalking you…"

"Right. Can't have a marshal who's being clocked all the time."

"Besides that, you still fucked up with what you told Mary," he pointed out.

"You're being so helpful right now. Any more helpful, I'll be overflowing," she told him. "I think you should go."

"I've got Mary and Josh under special protection. I've smoothed things over with the feds—"

"You are a fed," Abby said exasperatedly.

"Whatever. You're still on suspension but at least you didn't totally fuck yourself over."

"You're just a ray of sunshine."

"Isn't he?" Ward's voice boomed from behind her.

She jumped and turned. "How do none of you make any damned noise?"

"Years of practice, babe." Ward gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry—we've done what we can to get you out of trouble. But honestly, this time off is for the best. We're not mentioning your stalker to the marshals, but sooner or later…"

"I know," she agreed tiredly. "And thank you both for your help with Mary. I'm just glad she's okay. But I need you to know…if I had to do it all over again, I'd tell her the same exact things I did."

"I know, Abby. That's why we love you," Jacoby reassured her.

"Says the poster child for discontent," Ward added. "Say goodnight, Jacoby."

Jacoby rolled his eyes, but didn't argue. Instead, he gave Abby a tight hug and whispered, "Don't let the man win," in her ear.

As the men left, Abby heard Ward telling Jacoby, "You realize you are 'the man,' right?"

She laughed out loud.

* * *

L
eila was waiting for him
. In his bed.

Knox leaned against the doorjamb and gave her a lazy smile. "Wasn't expecting you today."

"You don't seem disappointed.

“Didn’t say I was.”

"Anything I can help you with?" she asked, propping on an elbow. "Naked or not, I owe you. Think of it as stress release."

She did owe him, but not with this kind of payback. He'd saved her ass years ago when someone from her own agency tried to kill her. Since then, she popped up every now and again, sometimes here, sometimes in different parts of the world.

Long limbed, dark-haired beauty, she'd been a fantastic operator. She still was, but she was a free agent now.

He'd never called in any favors from her—the heat that sprang up between them during the rescue was purely a physical need that they both agreed to slake. The fact that they hooked up every time they saw each other? The perfect friends-with-benefits situation and they were friends.

He lay back on the pillow for a second, guilt washing over him again. Because he shouldn't be thinking about anything but helping his friend.

H
e was haunted
by his dreams that night. Abby was calling to him, and so was Barbara. And he was running through the dark, trying to follow their voices, until he heard that familiar, bone chilling, maniacal laughter.

He sat straight up in bed, sending his phone, books and the remote control flying, and it took him several moments to remember he was at Abby's, with her next to him in her bed.

"Fuck." He slid out from the bed and prowled, knowing no one was in the house but compelled nonetheless to check anyway. He paused at the front door, resting his forehead against the wood, his eyes screwed shut, shoulders heavy with the weight of failure.

"Perceived failure," the department shrink would correct him, and he'd nod and agree, do anything to get through the mandated sessions unscathed. Wouldn't tell her about the repeated dreams of what happened.

Barbara's voice, on his voicemail. Pressing the button innocently to hear what she said before calling her back, figuring there'd be her usual sweet message on there. Sweet and sometimes a little dirty, depending on her mood.

The surprise he'd gotten was something he'd never ever get over. He wasn't sure anyone could.

"Vance? Vance! You have to answer. No, please…please…don't. Stop. Vance, I need…he says if you answer he'll stop. Please help me. Vance, if you can hear this…oh God. No. Let me call again. Please. Vance—he's not stopping. I'm sorry. I can't—"

And then the screams, the inhuman, unholy, cut through your soul kind that would echo in his mind for as long as he lived.

She'd suffered. The killer had seen to that.

He could erase the message from his phone but he'd never erase it from his brain, would replay it over and over, telling himself he was listening for clues. But that was only a partial truth—the other was self-flagellation, and he knew Barbara would never have wanted that.

"Vance, are you okay?" Abby was on the steps, wearing just his T-shirt, as she'd taken to doing. She looked rumpled and gorgeous in the half light. "I think you had a bad dream."

Leave it to her not to tiptoe around anything. "Yeah," was all he said. He didn't make a move toward her, because the more distance he kept, the less he had to think about telling her, bringing her even more into his world.

But Abby wasn't the kind to be deterred. She walked over to him and tugged him toward the couch. He sat and she tucked her legs under her and sat close enough to him to rub the back of his neck in a massaging caress.

"The dream was about Barbara. She was killed when I was in the military," he said finally, knowing his words were vague enough to ensure more questions, hearing his own breathing quicken again.

"Who was she?" Abby asked, her voice holding zero pity and enough empathy for him to answer, "The first girl I loved."

"I'm so sorry." She continued to rub the back of his neck until his breathing calmed. And then he shuddered at the memories that came, fast and hard. "Come here."

She put them both under a blanket she grabbed from the back of the couch and then she made him lie down so she could curl up onto his chest, still managing to hold him and make him feel like he was the one holding her.

In a way, that was the truth about their entire relationship. They were both holding each other up, both affected in ways no other human being could truly understand.

Abby didn't know that about him. Now she would. "Her name was Barbara. We went to high school together."

"Ethan knew her."

"Yes. She was three years behind him and a year behind me in school. She was a senior when I first went into the military. I didn't bother with college. It was definitely more Ethan's thing."

"What happened, Vance? Tell me. Please."

He closed his eyes and saw her as he did that last time. She'd been a junior in college and he'd been on his third year in the military. He'd been about to go OUTCONUS for six months or more, and they'd planned to meet up halfway between New York and Virginia.

In the end, he'd driven all the way to New York because she'd been sick. Neither knew it at the time, but she'd been slowly dying. It was only discovered during her autopsy but that wasn't any comfort at all to know she'd only had a few more months to live. Because she hadn't been given that choice.

She'd looked pale but beautiful. Dark hair, waved to her shoulders, deep brown eyes that had circles under them, but her smile was just as bright. She was funny. Kind. Deeply intense about everything.

She'd told him she planned on staying with him for the long haul, even after he admitted that he might end up recruited by the CIA. It didn't scare her. Nothing did.

Not until that night. "We saw each other before I went overseas. I talked to her every night. She wrote me letters. And about a week before I was supposed to head back to the States…" He paused. Swallowed. "She called. I was finishing paperwork and I let it go to voicemail so I could. When I checked the messages…she was on there. Screaming. Whoever killed her had forced her to dial my number so I could hear her die."

"Jesus." Abby hugged him. She'd been there, a firsthand witness to her father's murder and almost her own twice over. They had something in common, a bond he might never have with another human.

"They never caught him. Unsolved, to this day. Lots of theories but…" He couldn't finish that sentence. He didn't have to.

Abby was thinking the same thing he did. "We'll get him, Vance. I swear to you, we'll find him and take him down."

"We have to. The police gave up trying. Not that they ever really tried in the first place."

"Why?"

"When the police got to the scene…it looked like a suicide." When Abby raised her head to stare at him in horror, he had to break her gaze and look at the ceiling instead, just to get through it. "I knew it wasn't. I had the recording."

"So when you played it for the police, what did they say about it?"

"They thought she might've been looking for attention."

"I don't understand—"

"There's someone laughing in the background. Like a fucking evil villain—it's chilling. And I hear it, Abby. I hear it in my mind and I can't get rid of it." Abby hugged him hard, and then she tensed. "What's wrong?"

"Do you have a copy of the call?" she asked.

"I'm not letting you listen to it."

She shook her head. "I don't want to. I don't want you to either. But if I can get Ethan's imposter back on the phone and we record it—"

"We can see if we can get a voice match," he said slowly. He'd never thought of that. "I only have him laughing."

"I'll get him to laugh like that again. Somehow. Technology is sophisticated—maybe it's not that hard,” Abby reasoned. "I know you believe it's the same man. I do too. But I think if we have proof, we'll know how far back this goes."

Vance nodded, the words dying in his throat.

* * *

A
bby couldn't believe
that the man stalking Vance had been doing so since he’d been a teenager. That Vance had lost a first love, and then his brother…

"About Barbara," she started, then stopped, unsure of how to frame her question delicately.

Vance stepped in and saved her the trouble. "She and Ethan died in a similar fashion, based on their autopsies."

She didn't want to ask how, didn't want to know that much. "Why wouldn't…I mean, if the phone call was part of his MO…"

"You'd assume he'd have called me when he was with Ethan. Except Ethan was a trained agent. It might've happened more quickly. Maybe Ethan refused to scream." He stopped. Shuddered.

"God, I'm sorry." Her throat tightened.

"Don't be. You deserve to know this—all of it. You're up to your neck in shit because of it."

"I've been there before," she reminded him. "I'm still standing."

Vance's hand moved under the collar of her T-shirt to rub the scars that ran along her shoulders, souvenirs from both killers who'd tried to hurt her. "You're so fucking brave, Abby. Most would've broken."

She couldn't disagree with him. "Teige thinks it made us stronger. Like how broken skin forms a thick scar, which is actually more protective."

"I think I'll like Teige, although I can't say he's going to feel the same about me."

Abby knew there was truth in that statement. She also knew she and Vance would have to pull him into this, sooner than later. "I think you two will get along fine. After this is all over," she added quickly.

"How does he deal with everything that happened?" Vance asked.

"He's got a lot of guilt—I know that. But it wasn't his fault that he got out." She could've followed Teige into the military and left earlier. Both her father and Teige would've accepted that. She didn't so much buck Teige's orders, because she did trust him, far more than her father.

After their mom died, everything got worse. The curse of her family, something Jacoby understood so well. He felt the same and so did his husband, Ward. Did like seek like, sniffing out ordinary and discarding it so as not to ruin an innocent? Abby needed to find someone already messed up.

Ethan had been. Even though she'd thought him the normal one, she'd been pretty wrong. She should've guessed that when he didn't blink at her past. At the time, she'd attributed it to his second sight and figured he'd had time to absorb the shock.

Now, she continued, "The military was a perfect escape for Teige. New last name and he was hidden. Safe." She gave a short laugh. "I'm not sure anyone's ever called the military safe but compared to the Black Magic Killer? For sure."

She heard a low snort of agreement from Vance as he rubbed her arm and cradled her against him.

It was nice being in a world where her circumstances were freakishly ordinary instead of just freakish.

"No military for you?" he asked.

"Too many rules. And I'd already lived under Dad's rules forever." Rules to keep them safe. Regular check-ins. No going anywhere by herself, because the BMK had gotten her picture and knew where they lived. As threats mounted, year after year, their houses became armed fortresses.

After a while, they all got compliant. The rules were followed and were obviously working, so there wasn't an issue.

But the BMK was a patient man.

She vividly recalled the first time her father talked about the BMK. He'd never done that before, never brought his work home, even if that meant sleeping at the office to do so.

But that night, everything changed.

"Must've been some conversation," Vance said quietly.

"You have no idea," Abby agreed.

Her father was serious. Stern. Her mom's eyes were red but she managed to be stoic and comforting, squeezing Abby's arm as they sat around the kitchen table as they had so many nights before.

The kitchen was warm, filled with a lot of her mom's works and finds from antique shops—it had a very country feel, although the rest of the house was more formal. It was what Ryan Daniels had grown up with, Mom explained, although Abby's grandparents on both sides were deceased before she'd ever really gotten to know them.

Dad's family had money. She didn't understand what that meant until she got older. Although that meant she and Teige inherited money, neither of them had touched it as of yet. It felt like blood money, connected to the BMK and their past.

"Dad wants to talk with us about something important," Mom said quietly.

"What's wrong?" Teige asked immediately, and Abby waited for her parents to say, "What makes you think something's wrong?"

Instead, they exchanged a pointed glance at each other across the round oak table before her father started in.

"I've been given a big case at work. I've been on it for a number of years already as part of the team, but now, I'm in charge of that team. And the case is getting…" He paused in search of the right words, as if there were such a thing. Finally, he settled on, "Complicated."

Complicated
was the word Abby always used when someone asked about her father's involvement with the BMK.
It's complicated
became her mantra and allowed her not to think about how
shitty
and
scary
it all was. How her father involved their family because of his own obsession, because he couldn't break away from his job for their safety.

His job was his life. His everything. His family was treated like the job should've been treated, the thing he had to do. His obligation.

"It wasn't always like that," Mom would tell her. "He wasn't always like that. But jobs of that nature? They eat away at you until one day you wake up and realize you've got nothing left. By then it's too late."

"I thought you said it was never too late to change?" Abby whispered sleepily.

Her mother's expression changed—sad around the eyes but she maintained a small smile. A wistful one. "Sometimes things carve us so deeply they become a part of us. And sometimes that part is so big and important that it takes over all the other things."

"Dad did good things."

"So many, baby." She hugged Abby tightly. "He just let the monsters in too close. Promise me you'll never let the monsters get too close."