The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents 6)

“I told you, Marshall,” Judith snapped, sounding as furious as Cooper felt, “the boss is working! You can’t just barge in there!”

Yeah, he could. He had.

Mercer glanced up from his computer. “If you’re referring to Gabrielle Harper, she’s here, of course. Where else would she be? Especially since you’re the one who told us to pick her up.”

Cooper’s hands fisted. “I want to see her.” He ignored Judith’s attempts to pull him back. For a small woman, she was surprisingly strong. Just not strong enough.

Mercer glanced at his assistant. “It’s okay, Judith. I needed to talk with Cooper anyway.”

“Yes, well,” Judith stopped trying to drag Cooper out and she gave an annoyed sniff, “he needs to learn how to not barge into an office.”

She stomped away and slammed the door quite loudly on her way out.

Cooper didn’t move. “Gabrielle.” Ordering that containment on her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. He knew she had to be furious, had to feel betrayed. He needed to get to her and try to explain what was happening.

“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.”