Walk In My Shadow: A Gripping Romantic Thriller (Mirror Book 3): A Mirror Novel (4 page)

"All of Ethan's kills."

"I don't believe it." But she did, a little bit. He heard a small waver in her voice.

"When's the last time you heard from him?"

"It's been a while," she admitted. "Eight months or more."

She was lying. Granted, she was only leaving out a single phone call but if she was holding back on that…

She was smart. Maybe too smart for her own good.

According to the rest of her phone records, there were many calls from her phone to Ethan's, just long enough to be frustrated dial-ups with no answer and maybe even a voicemail or two in the beginning. At the moment, Vance knew Ethan's voicemail was full.

"I've told you the truth. You need to explain what this is all about," she said.

"I don't need to do anything but pay taxes and die."

"The latter can't come soon enough," she muttered.

"Is that a threat?"

"I look at it more as wish fulfillment."

He stared at her. "Tell me what you know about Ethan Graves."

* * *

T
he door slammed shut
behind Vance. Abby could pace, rail and rant, or she could conserve her strength for the next round of interrogation.

God, she wanted a shower. Fresh clothes. Her bed, her phone. Was Teige worried about her? Her sup? Had the CIA contacted him or was she just presumed missing?

Stop thinking. Sleep
, she barked at herself, and she did, until her cot vibrated her awake with a start.

"Must be nice to sleep while so many people are dead." Vance shoved his face close to hers. "Got a conscience, Abby?"

"An innocent one," she told him, and with that, he grabbed her roughly by the arm and half dragged her over to the table. She slammed her hip on it, gritted her teeth and sat, refusing to show pain. Because it was interrogation time again.

Since she was telling the truth, it wasn't hard. There wasn't much to mix up, since she didn't know all that much about Ethan…which actually made her feel like a dumbass who'd stayed in a long-distance relationship for five years in order to keep other people from getting too close to her.

The questions kept coming. He was shoving pictures in her face, hammering her for inconsistencies, and then it seemed like he'd given up, and she felt exhausted but slightly giddy with victory.

That's when the lights shut down with a hard thud. Her stomach dropped as the walls lit up with pictures of the dead girl that looked like her. Vance hadn't brought her up at all during the questioning. He'd actually taken the picture out of the pile and Abby had let her goddamned guard down. She'd fallen for it. She'd thought she was winning.

Vance was sizing her up. Tiring her out. He'd just been getting started, she realized when the woman's face splashed all around her, the photograph illuminated and multiplied to line her cell.

"Do you have a sister, Abby?" Vance demanded.

"No," she said through gritted teeth.

"Cousins? Anyone in your pretty little family gone missing?"

"No."

He laughed and it sounded maniacal. Maybe it only sounded like that in her head, because it echoed over and over again.

Her head continued to throb a steady beat. She'd already passed out a few times, mainly from exhaustion mixed with dehydration but she forced herself to wake up as soon as she could, swam through the murk in her brain to resurface.

Only to let Vance mentally torture her again. Because, to be fair, he never laid a finger on her.

Except when he'd been having sex with her. Which she reminded him. "Is fucking part of your normal investigation technique?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't on the case then."

"So that was one big coincidence." She licked her lips. She was so dry but she'd be damned if he asked him for more water. Or anything.

"It wasn't official at that point."

"But it is now. So the CIA doesn't care about little things like conflict of interest?"

"The CIA gives a shit about big things, like covering up murders," he shot back.

"I haven't."

He laughed, and she wondered how she'd let her guard down so easily, when her instincts had suddenly stopped protecting her. That hadn't ever happened to her, so either she'd majority screwed up or…

Or Vance didn't mean her any harm. Which she found very hard to believe at the moment. But her instincts were all she could count on, besides her brother and Jacoby, and neither of them were there to help her.

Concentrate, Abby. Trust yourself.

A
t first
, she counted the seconds and minutes that Vance left her alone, hoping to find some pattern. Occasionally she'd sleep, but he didn't come in to wake her up.

He didn't have to—she'd wake with a gasp after realizing she'd dozed. Talk about Pavlov's dog.

Obviously, Vance knew as much—or more—about Ethan as she did. He had intel and it was his job to find Ethan now, not to use her to do it.

I love it. I love killing the way I love you.

She shoved Ethan's final words to her out of her head. She planned to find Ethan on her own, not as a CIA lackey, because they'd use her up and spit her out without a second thought.

She'd seen it happen, had more than enough firsthand proof of her former witnesses getting screwed over by both the FBI and the CIA during and after cases—used up and spit out. Some of them got nothing more and nothing less than what was coming to them, what they deserved for the crimes they committed. Some would say they got off easy, but nothing about cooperating with the government was easy. She'd seen the alphabet agencies eat the witnesses for dinner and spit them out without a second glance, not caring what happened to the families that got destroyed in the process.

She'd be damned if she'd let the CIA do that to her, especially for a crime she had no part in. So she'd never admit to Vance anything about that final phone call with Ethan, or the package he'd sent her.

If Vance had proof, he could show her.

But he did show you…more than Ethan did.

Two days in, the lack of sleep and food and the interrogation techniques were starting to take their toll, forcing her mind to go in circles. Chasing her own tail.

Could she have slept with a killer and not have known it? Her instincts were superb but in Ethan's case, the constant separation ensured they'd be blunted by lust. Every time they saw each other was the "getting to know you" phase over and over. Groundhog Day. And since they were better friends than lovers, it became too painful to pretend otherwise.

"Ethan, what the hell did you do?" she whispered as she stared at the pictures in front of her.

"So you believe he did this?" Vance asked, almost sympathetically.

She hadn't heard him come back in but was too tired to show surprise or chagrin at being caught. Instead, she admitted, "I don't know what to believe," heard the exhaustion, fear and regret in her own voice. Hated herself for it. "If Ethan didn't do this, he's leading you to whoever did. And right now, none of it makes sense."

"He's leading me," Vance repeated. "First time you've seen these photos."

"Yes," she lied.

He nodded. Slowly. "I think it's time for a lie detector test."

She'd never been able to beat one, no matter how hard she'd tried. Teige and Hoss had both tried to teach her but she'd been resigned to the fact that in order to do so, she'd have to hurt herself. The physical pain would cause her body to produce the false adrenaline rush associated with lying on the test, and her lies wouldn't stand out. "Fine," she said, as calmly as she could.

He walked out and she readied herself, although she forced herself not to move a muscle. She just went over her plan in her mind, over it and over it until her body reacted without thought when he walked in the door.

She threw herself at him. He was holding the machine under his arm and she arched her torso in order to connect her ribs to the machine itself. She knew he'd react by slamming the arm holding the machine against her—it was all he'd had time to do.

The blow to her ribs felled her. She blacked out for a brief second from the pain.

"Figured I'd have my hands too full, Abby? That you'd push past me? Throw me off-balance?" Vance taunted as she sat on the cold floor.

She didn't answer, wanting him to think that.

But he was so much smarter. She'd needed to give him more credit. He opened the door and threw the machine into the hallway. She heard it hit the cement. And then he closed the door. "You just told me more than that test ever would. Thanks for saving me the time. I hate doing that shit. It's boring."

Dammit.
She fought for breath, gingerly held her side as if to cradle the bruised rib. She'd refused to hurt her arms or legs—those were her source of protection and retreat. "The bodies…" she managed.

"Men with records. Men who'd been on an FBI watch list but cleared. Pedophiles and rapists, many of whom escaped prosecution. The woman wasn't innocent either. The fact that she looks like you might've been a bonus to Ethan—I'm sure that will give you nightmares for a while. As it should. Seems your ex took the law into his own hands."

She'd been right not to feel sorry for those brutally murdered men in the color pictures. But that wasn't the point. Ethan, on a rampage, taking the law into his own hands, was.

She shook her head hard. "This doesn't make sense."

"Then make it make sense, Abby. Or else you'll be looked at as his accomplice."

"And how would you manage that?"

Vance smiled viciously. "Consider it already done."

* * *

T
here was
a short visit from a female doctor who was no doubt also an agent playing 'good cop.' She gave Abby a wink, telling her that "Ribs always hurt like a bitch, but I've always loved that expression. No one can hurt quite the way a bitch can make you hurt. Keep it up, Abby," and she brought
pain meds for her ribs, which made her feel slightly woozy but able to breathe.

After that and many more hours of interrogation, Vance suddenly stood and said, "You can go."

She blinked up at Vance who held her bag, wanted to ask "Why now?" or at least punch him, but she didn't give him a chance to change his mind. She bailed, past him and out the door, following the winding hallway until she found an exit door and hit nighttime air.

Free. She was free. In intense pain, but free.

She rifled through her bag until she found her phone and realized she had no idea where she was. She looked up and saw a waiting cab, courtesy, no doubt, of the CIA. She walked over to it and got in, gave her address and barely breathed for the entire hour's ride home.

Along the way, she checked her phone, predictably overflowing with messages, concerned ones from Teige and Jacoby who claimed they'd called Carl, her supervisor with the marshals, and discovered her vacation but didn't believe it. A brief, "Hope you're enjoying your vacation" one from Carl. A quick, "Your witness Mary is a total bitch" from Sarah, the marshal who'd been chosen to fill in for her.

Three days had passed. It felt longer. It felt like she’d been away for a lifetime and she was groggy, like she’d woken from a long nap.

She texted Teige and Jacoby with a bullshit
Where I went they had spotty phone service and my plane just landed
and then she turned it off.

As the cab pulled into her driveway, she was relieved to see the lights remained off at Teige's house. It was after two in the morning, although coming home in a cab would coincide with her "I was on vacation" lie.

"I'm assuming the tab is paid," she said absently, even as she handed him a twenty for a tip. "Thanks."

Maybe the driver was always going to tell her. Maybe he felt that one good tip deserved another. Because after she'd gotten out and began her walk to the house, the driver opened his window and told her, "Ethan Graves is dead, ma'am. He was killed in the line of duty eleven months ago," before he pulled out of her driveway and down the street faster than she could catch him.

It didn't matter—he'd given her what she'd needed to know. Nothing more, nothing less.

Those fuckers.

As she let herself into her house, she checked the alarm and walked every room, sweeping for agents and bugs as her mind backtracked to the last time she'd seen Ethan in person. Since then, it had been one grainy FaceTime after another and short phone calls. Nothing new—SOP for them.

Until they'd broken up.

Are you seeing people already, Abs?

There'd been no mistaking the hurt in his voice the first time they'd spoken, post-breakup. "Ethan, I told you I'd never do that without telling you."

"Then if there's no one else, what's the problem?" he'd demanded.

"The problem is that I don't feel the same," she'd told him. "We always promised we'd be honest about that."

"It's just the distance."

"Just?" She recalled laughing at the absurdity of his comment. She hadn’t taken their decision to break up lightly. It broke her heart. She'd been confused as hell at the time.

Ethan Graves is dead, ma'am.

Now she understood what had happened. Between their last time face to face and that next phone call, Ethan had been killed. She'd been right that things weren't the same, because she hadn't been talking to Ethan… but was the man she'd spoken to during that call the man who'd actually
killed
Ethan?

Or had she broken up with a killer who wasn't taking it well at all?