The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents 6)

It looked like the killer had been right about Cooper.

* * *

THE BLUE CONVERTIBLE squealed out of the lot just as Cooper reached the parking garage. Damn it, damn it, damn it! That interview had gone horribly wrong.

And now Gabrielle was just gone.

How had she found out about him?

He yanked out his phone. Waited with gritted teeth as the phone rang once, twice, then— “What’s wrong?” Dylan Foxx demanded.

What wasn’t? A killer was on the loose. The SOB seemed to be going right after Gabrielle, and now, his lover of less than four hours—four hours!—had just run from him as if he were the very devil.

To her, maybe he was. So much for playing the role of the white knight.

“We need containment,” he said, though he hated to utter those words. But there wasn’t a choice. He couldn’t let Gabriel

le run from him.

Someone had tipped her off about him. He had to find out just how much she knew.

With the killer targeting her, Gabrielle couldn’t just vanish.

He wouldn’t let her.

“Gabrielle’s on the move,” he said, aware that his voice snapped with fury. “Heading west from the Inquisitor, driving a blue convertible.” He gave Dylan the license plate number.

“Are you sure containment is what you want?” Dylan asked, his tone guarded.

“Those were my orders.” If he’d become compromised, if Gabrielle was put in too much danger...

He swallowed and tried to choke back the emotions filling him. “Make sure, absolutely sure, that no one hurts her in any way.”

He didn’t want her to be hurt. He didn’t want her to be afraid.

But, judging by the way she’d looked at him just before those elevator doors closed, Gabrielle was already both hurt and afraid.

She’s scared of me.

Because she’d learned the truth about him.

He was just as much of a killer as the D.C. Striker.

* * *

WHERE WAS SHE supposed to go? Back to the brownstone? Retreating to that place really wasn’t an option because Cooper lived there, too.

And she couldn’t go back to work—he was already waiting back at the Inquisitor. Scratch that safe spot from her list.

But she also just couldn’t drive aimlessly around the city all night.

Gabrielle braked to a stop at a red light. She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a pair of headlights approaching.

The red light changed. She turned left.

So did the car behind her.

Gabrielle took a right turn.