The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents 6)

Should have known Hugh would be more resourceful. Somehow, he’d managed to get access to sealed records. Hugh had contacts in all the right—and wrong—places.

She leaned forward as she read the service details. Cooper had joined the Air Force the day after he graduated from Yale. She scanned through the file, noting the commendations, the awards.

There’d been so much training for him. The notations were seemingly endless. Combat Dive School. Army Airborne certification. Military Free Fall Parachutist. He’d been on a special tactics team, and even gone in for Advanced Skills Training.

Her fingers trembled as she clicked the mouse. No wonder the guy could move so soundlessly. He was some kind of super soldier.

Then she saw that Cooper’s service ended five years ago. Ended...with an annotation that said Cooper Marshall had been killed in the line of duty.

Her breath choked out.

Killed?

Of cour

se, he hadn’t been killed. He was alive and well, and right down the hall in the conference room.

But Hugh had scanned a death certificate. It was right there for her to see, plain as day.

According to those files—files that clearly had a “Confidential” stamp on top of each page, Cooper Marshall was a dead man. There was even a picture of him included. A younger version of Cooper, but definitely him.

She pulled the cursor down and reached the last page of the file.

Hugh had written a note to her.

According to my source, Cooper Marshall is a ghost. Watch your back with him. This story—these murders are all about the EOD.

You’re the reporter covering the kills, and all of a sudden, Marshall is shadowing you. He lives in your building, he has access to you...

I think your “guard” knows a whole lot more than we do. Be careful with him.

He was connecting dots that she should have connected herself.

But she’d been blind.

Sometimes, you couldn’t see the enemy that was right in front of your face.

Or in your bed.

She scrolled back up and read the details of his “death” one more time. Cooper Marshall had been attempting to rescue a downed pilot behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. He’d gotten that pilot to safety, but Cooper had sustained extensive injuries. He’d died before making it back to base.

Gabrielle’s fingers rubbed together as she remembered the scars that marked Cooper’s stomach and chest. He had been injured, grievously. But he hadn’t died.

“Look, I get that you’re into her,” Penelope’s sharp voice called out, “but give the woman a minute of privacy. I told you already that Gabrielle is going to join us—”

She shut the file and jerked out that flash drive. Her heart raced in her chest as Gabrielle shot up from the chair.

And came face-to-face with a dead man.

Chapter Nine

To be dead, he looked incredibly good. Damn him.

But she had to look shaken because Cooper frowned at her. His hand came up and skimmed her cheek. “What’s wrong?”

Have you been lying to me?

She should have put the puzzle pieces together sooner. Gabrielle felt like a fool as she stared up at the man she’d made love with just hours before.