Read Online THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Cynthia Eden - Free Book Online Page B

he told her. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. She didn’t want to look anywhere else. Everything is gone. “I’ve got a team coming over here. If the SOB left any prints, any evidence, we’ll find him.”
    That seemed...odd to her. “You didn’t call Carmichael?”
    “He’ll be informed.” His fingers curled around her arms. “Right now, I want you to come downstairs with me. You’re going to be staying at my place tonight.”
    His place. Her eyes widened. “What if—what if he did this to your apartment, too?”
    “I don’t think—”
    She pushed past him and ran down the stairs. Cooper was working with her now. What if the intruder had realized that? What if he’d destroyed Cooper’s place, too?
    Breath heaving, she staggered to a stop at Cooper’s door. He was beside her. Always, moving so fast. He unlocked his door. Hit the lights.
    Untouched.
    The intruder had just gone after her. He’d just destroyed her home.
    “I’m glad,” she whispered as her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t want him hurting you...because I pulled you into this mess.”
    He swore and tugged her closer to him.
    “I know it’s related, it has to be,” she said. She wasn’t going to ignore the facts, even though they terrified her. “It’s him. The killer. He knows I was at McAdams’s place. He could have been there, watching us from the outside when the police arrived.” A crowd of people had gathered on the street.
    He could have been right there.
    Her heart pounded in a double-time rhythm. “He knows who I am, where I live. And getting hauled into the station by Carmichael tonight...” She swallowed. “That just might have saved my life.”
    Because maybe the perp’s knife wouldn’t have just been used on her furniture and clothes.
    He could have used it on me.

Chapter Five
    Cooper shut his apartment door. Gabrielle was inside, showering, and he had a few minutes to spare.
    Rachel and Dylan Foxx were already waiting outside for him—along with a sweeper crew. He jerked his head, and the crew hurried upstairs. If the killer had left evidence behind, they’d find it.
    “The local cops?” he asked. Because Carmichael would find out about tonight’s events, sooner or later.
    The EOD wanted that discovery to be later.
    “Our team won’t leave evidence behind. The detective will be called in once we’re finished,” Rachel said smoothly.
    Because before the local authorities took over, they had to make sure nothing had been left to implicate the EOD.
    His hands clenched into fists as his gaze met Dylan’s stare. “He’s targeting her.”
    “That doesn’t fit.” It was Rachel who replied. “He’s going after EOD agents—”
    “Their girlfriends,” Cooper said flatly. “He kills the girlfriends, the lovers, first. Then he goes after the agents.” It was the rogue’s pattern. “He knows these men, knows them better than we do.” Because he was hiding behind the mask of a friend. “And maybe he thinks that Gabrielle saw something, that she knows something about him, because that SOB destroyed her home.”
    He wouldn’t even allow himself to think about what might have happened if Gabrielle had been home when the rogue attacked.
    “Are you sure,” Dylan asked, voice quiet and gaze steady, “that she doesn’t know more? She was the one who found out about Van, right? Long before anyone in-house knew he was connected to Melanie Farrell.”
    “Someone in-house knew.” He hadn’t been given a chance to reveal this yet. “The last thing Van did was leave a message for me, in his own blood. EOD. That’s what he wrote.” McAdams had just been confirming what they already knew—
    The killer terrorizing D.C. was one of their own.
    “Did the cops see that message?” Dylan demanded as his face tensed.
    “No, I took care of it.” And that didn’t sit well with him. He’d destroyed evidence. “But Gabrielle saw it.”
    Rachel and Dylan shared a long look.
    “What?” Cooper