The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents 6)

A dog tag?

A military dog tag. Its chain was broken.

When the killer cut his neck, he cut Van’s dog tag right off him.

“Stay with me,” she said again, but this time, she was begging because this man—he was the key. He could tell her the identity of the killer. He could solve all the crimes.

If he just lived.

* * *

THE BEDROOM WINDOW had been smashed. The shattered glass had fallen—a bit inside the room, but most had flown outside.

Cooper tried to lift the window.

Stuck.

So the killer had just improvised. When he heard Gabrielle at the door, he’d busted his way to freedom.

Cooper shoved his head outside and glanced below. There was no sign of the killer. He’d gotten away.

Again.

Van McAdams. They’d worked a case together over in Paris. Van was a good guy, quick to smile, slow to anger. Always cool under fire.

And now he’s dying.

“Cooper!” Gabrielle yelled.

He knew what that yell meant. Cooper raced down the hallway as fast as he could, but he was too late. He’d been too late from the beginning. By the time that the glass shattered, the killer had done his work.

Gabrielle looked up at him, tears glinting in her beautiful eyes. She was crying for a man she’d never met before that night.

His guts were tearing open because he knew Van. They’d laughed together, talked about their lives, women.

Van had been hoping to...

Marry. He’d had a girl that he’d been seeing for years.

Cooper put his hands on Van. He worked frantically to try and bring the guy back.

My girl...she hated all the traveling that I did, the secrecy. But things are going to change. I’m gettin’ out of the EOD. I’m going to have a life. With her. Van’s Mississippi drawl had rolled through the words and so had his determination to have his happiness.

But he hadn’t gotten his life and that happily-ever-after dream.

“She was his girlfriend, wasn’t she?” Cooper asked, his voice flat. He hadn’t been able to find a link between Melanie Farrell and the EOD, because there wasn’t a link. Not anymore.

Van had left the organization for her. So no one at the EOD had known about her.

His gaze fell on the message that had been written in blood. Every muscle in his body stiffened.

No, someone at the EOD knew. Someone damn well knew.

His boot slid out, smearing the blood and hiding the final message that Van had left behind.

Footsteps thundered outside of the apartment.

Help had finally arrived.