Covert Threat (A Gray Ghost Novel Book 5)

by Amy McKinley

  Of course, we had your sister in therapy. The problem was, she is equally as bright, even though your fields are different. She is not one to underestimate. I love Anabella, but I am not blind to her faults.

  As you both grew, more and more accidents would happen that you would be the victim of. Many times, we could not prove your sister was at fault. You did trip and bump into things a lot as it was. My darling, I say this with love, but you are not the most graceful. Even as an adult, you have all sorts of mysterious bruises from when your head is in the clouds figuring out some problem or other. That wasn’t a concern. What was alarming was when Bella took things too far. The cuts on your arm were not self-inflicted.

  Your father and I will never forgive ourselves for the things that happened to you. There were times when Bella stayed in mental institutions. They never stuck. She fooled everyone, all the doctors, and there was no way we could convince them otherwise. But we knew.

  It wasn’t until shortly before we vacationed from our home in Italy and traveled through Europe to visit family that your father and I came up with a way for you both to have fulfilling and safe lives. We planned to part ways, each taking one of our daughters to raise. There would be no contact between the two of you.

  The day we were out on the boat and the storm hit, we knew it would be our chance. We’d been keeping a close eye on Bella. She’d get this mischievous look that almost always led to trouble for you. The accident that day was fate. We’d never thought two boats colliding would allow us to save you like it had.

  You went over, not from the other boat hitting ours, but because of your sister. That happened almost immediately after the boats crashed. When Bella shoved you overboard, your father grabbed her and held her against his chest. That’s when I jumped over the rail and went after you. Your head injury was from debris that fell into the water, knocking you unconscious. I was able to get to you and keep you afloat until help arrived.

  Your father kept Bella from seeing me go over.

  My sweet Juliana, your sister is alive. If anything happens that you cannot explain, it’s her. If accidents happen that people think are your fault, but you know for a fact are not, know that it’s your sister. Get help immediately. Bella must have found out where you are and that you did not die that day in the water. It pains me to say this, but she believed there should have been only one of you, that you were a genetic mutation. A mistake. A clone of herself that carried only weak elements but also stole what was rightfully hers.

  She’s sick, Juliana.

  Not knowing of your existence enabled her to live a normal life, but I fear that after your father passed of a heart attack last year (I’m so sorry you weren’t able to grow up with him in your life), she may one day find evidence that we are alive. Your father and I tried to be so careful, but secrets have a way of coming out. We’d hoped this one never would.

  I love you more than anything. Please be safe. Hire guards. Do everything you can to protect yourself. This time, when Bella comes for you, she will be determined to finish the job she attempted twice before—ending your life.

  Be safe, my beautiful daughter,

  Mom

  The letter dropped from my hands, and bile climbed in my throat. My mouth filled with saliva. I’m going to be sick. I pushed away from Trev and ran to the bathroom, where I fell to my knees. I emptied my stomach while my head splintered with resurfacing memories from the newly open door in my mind.

  God, Bella. I remember you. I suddenly remembered everything. Sobs wracked my body. Nothing would ever be okay again. Black spots bled the edges of my vision that would soon take over, leaving me unconscious after the shock of processing so much. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was coming for me.

  Clouds blanketed the sky, blocking the sun’s warm rays. The morning matched my mood. I understood why my mom had withheld the information about my sister—she’d wanted me to have a normal life. But knowledge was power. I should have disregarded her wishes and opened that letter a long time ago.

  There was no point in dwelling on what I should have done. Instead, I would focus on the best way to stay safe. After stirring in creamer, I took a fortifying sip of coffee then met Trev’s gaze across the table.

  After I’d passed out, he’d held me. We’d both read the letter, and he’d understood the toll it’d taken. The rest of the night, I’d spent alternating with sobbing in his arms and fitful, restless sleep. When morning finally came, I was ready to face it.

  Remorse and worry darkened Trev’s blue eyes. “None of us gave a second thought to finding out anything about your dad and sister. Since you said they died in Italy, it was a moot point, but one we shouldn’t have disregarded.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I pursed my lips.

  Reading my mom’s words had brought everything back. She hadn’t been kidding—what she’d written had been a virtual Pandora’s box. Maybe “key” was a better way of describing the contents, as they’d unlocked the door to every hidden memory that’d shielded me from my past.

  I recalled the time Bella had sliced open my arm in the bathroom. The mirror scare I’d had recently, where I’d thought the person staring back at me hadn’t been my face, was true—I’d seen my sister’s face superimposed over mine while memories leaked out. Only at the time, I couldn’t make sense of them.

  Suddenly, I could.

  She’d been so angry, and I’d been terrified. We were in the bathroom, and her fingers dug deep into the base of my hand as she held the kitchen knife. A dark gleam shimmered over her eyes as she growled, “You’re always in the way, taking what’s mine.”

  I’d cried out as she brandished the weapon. At the first dip of the blade, blood spurted from my severed skin, and I sank to the ground while she continued slicing.

  With a shake of my head, I forced the gruesome memory to fade. I understood why my mom hadn’t wanted me to remember, as there was so much that wasn’t pretty, even more than she and dad had known about.

  “You wouldn’t have found much,” I said. “When my mom and I came to America, we did so under her maiden name. We had new identities.”

  “Bella has your father’s last name?”

  “I’d assume so. It was DeLuca.”

  Trev stood and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He paced the kitchen. “Chris. Run a check and facial-recognition locator for Anabella DeLuca, Jules’s twin sister.”

  I tuned out the rest of his conversation, preoccupied by remembering a life where my family had been whole, or as much as it could have been. I’d loved my sister. She’d hurt me. At the time, she was my world, aside from my parents—she was my identical twin.

  I vaguely recognized Trev approach, off his cell, before another ping came through. He would be able to find Bella with the facial-location software by ruling out where I was. Maybe we could put the nightmare behind us before someone else was hurt.

  But I hadn’t been the only target. I gasped as all the air left my lungs. Fran. The way she died suddenly made sense, as did the time freezing on my clock. Horror filled me at the realization of what Bella had done and what she was capable of. We had to stop her.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Trev disconnected the call then tapped out a text.

  I shook my head.

  Pounding at the door mirrored the jackhammers going to town in my head. I stood to answer it, but Trev stepped in front of me, shielding me from whoever was there.

  Blue and red lights flashed as he opened the door, his right hand obscured from the view from outside, at his side with his gun drawn and pointed at the floor. “Can I help you?”

  My heart thudded in my chest, and I placed my palm flat against his back. I needed his strength. It had to be about Fran. I rested my forehead against his tense muscles, just above my hand. An ominous wave washed over me as I heard the officer ask if I was home. This won’t end well.

  “I am,” I spoke from behind Trev before he could incriminate himself trying to protect me. An
d he would’ve—I could feel it in the way his body went from tense to rock hard.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped to the side and faced my fate.

  “Dr. Juliana Moretti.”

  My shoulders went back, and I tilted my chin up. “Yes.”

  “You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Carl Alderidge.”

  “What?” Carl? My mind went numb.

  They read me my rights. As I was getting in the squad car, Trev assured me that he’d get me out right away, and then we were pulling out in a blaze of flashing red and blue.

  A tear tracked down my cheek. Bella. I closed my eyes, remembering all the nights we’d lie in bed across from one another, back before she’d changed and we shared a room… Before she hated me. The shift came more often as she shied away from her version of our shared name, Ana, taken from Juliana and Anabella. My thoughts sifted through memories until one burst into clarity.

  “Ana.” Anabella stretched her hand across the space between our twin beds. “Matt pushed me on the swings.”

  I grinned and clasped her hand in mine. “Are you gonna marry him?”

  “Maybe. But if I do, you have to marry his brother.”

  “Ew. I’m not marrying Louis, Ana.” I scrunched my nose. “Yuck. He’s mean.”

  “You have to. We’re the same. We can’t be apart.”

  “Then you marry Louis. He doesn’t try to trip you.” I hated Matt’s brother.

  Anabella refused to listen to me. She always wanted her way. “That’s not how it works.” Her eyes narrowed, and I cried out as she dug her fingers into mine. “Tomorrow, we’ll play tag with them.”

  The scary shift in the way she spoke sent chills up my arm. I didn’t like it when she talked to me like that. I jerked my hand back and rolled over. “I’m tired,” I said. “’Night, Ana.”

  I bit my lip and waited, wondering if she would be mad. She’d been getting angry with me lately, and I didn’t know why. I missed my sister. She’d wanted to use our shared name less and less. Sometimes she was Bella and I was Jules, instead of both of us using Ana. I didn’t want her to go away.

  “’Night,” Anabella mumbled, and I let my eyes drift shut.

  “Ma’am.”

  I jolted from the memory while the officer hovered over me. Bella and I had been six years old, and things hadn’t become horrible yet, but they were getting there. Bella, no longer Ana to the rest of the world, began to use our shared name to get me in trouble, pretending she was me.

  The officer stood outside the open car door. “Please get out.”

  Chaos swirled in my head, testing then rejecting possible variables behind what my sister would gain from impersonating me. My legs buckled, and the officer held me up. Could this be her kindest way yet of getting me out of the way? Locking me away from the world, rather than ending my life?

  When I’d leaned over the squad car door before the officer shut it, it had taken everything in me to stay calm. Jules was on her way to the police station, and the fact that I hadn’t been able to prevent her from going there in the first place ate at my conscience. We should have caught the issue with her sister. Instead, we’d focused on the man who’d attacked her twice, not a hidden threat within her family.

  I’d have her out in a few hours, tops. Fuck. I can’t believe this happened. First things first, I needed to contact Rich while coordinating with my team—thankfully, Mike was available when I sent him a text telling him to get the lawyers on it immediately.

  I ground my teeth as the phone rang once, twice, three times. Pick up, dammit.

  “Rich Stevens.”

  I skipped the greeting. He had caller ID. “I need your help.”

  “You’ll have to give me more to go on, Trev.” Papers shuffled on his end, then a door closed.

  “The woman you volunteered me to guard.”

  “Carl Alderidge’s scientist, Dr. Moretti? What about her?”

  “She was arrested a few minutes ago for allegedly putting Carl in the hospital. We have an alibi, but not one that will hold up against attempted murder or against the charges that are sure to follow regarding the death of her former assistant, Fran Jones.”

  “Carl is injured?”

  “He’s at the hospital and in a medically induced coma. They haven’t been able to get any information from him yet. The evidence we have is from the doorman, who confirms that the picture of Jules matches the woman who was last seen visiting Carl. He was unconscious when he was found by his cleaning lady earlier this morning.”

  “Why did the police suspect Jules enough to show a picture of her to the doorman?”

  “Some colleagues of Jules confirmed that they’d gotten in a disagreement, and it was enough for them to be suspicious, I guess.” The whole thing had become a giant headache.

  “What do you need from me?” Carl asked.

  I filled him in about Anabella and how we’d messed up by not doing a full-scale background check and finding out about her. I pinched the bridge of my nose. The job had seemed like a cut-and-dried babysitting gig at first. I wanted to punch something.

  With a push of a button, I switched to speaker then forwarded the picture I’d taken on my phone of Jules’s mom’s letter. My cell was pinging like crazy while I talked to Rich, and pounding resumed on the front door. I let Connor in, waved him to the table, and continued my conversation. “They’re going to take their time at the station. I wasn’t able to get them to release what they have on Jules to hold her.”

  “What have you done so far?” The click of a door sounded, and Rich asked his assistant to get the police chief on the phone.

  “I texted Mike to get the lawyers over there so we can find out what they have on Jules. I have a feeling it’s DNA evidence, but that shouldn’t hold her there, as we’re bringing new information that they won’t have about identical twins to their attention.”

  “You want a mouth swab test done?” Rich guessed.

  “God, yes.” That one only took a few hours and could determine the DNA differences between twins. “The other method would take too long.” The standard one was expensive and required sequencing of the entire genome. Subtle or rare variations took a month to analyze, and we didn’t have that luxury. The swab test used a chemical that would target DNA points—differences between twins could easily be determined that way. “I need you to use your connections to make that happen. You should have grounds to expedite, as she was due to fly to Washington DC today to administer the next batch of injections to your military program.”

  “I agree. That’ll help cut through red tape, especially when she was going to use a new vector. Carl being in the hospital puts us at a severe disadvantage.”

  I couldn’t even think beyond using any advantage we had at our disposal. I didn’t care if he was listing off gains for him rather than concern for Jules. I wanted her out of there.

  When she was released, I would be able to protect her, and I wouldn’t leave her side. In there, she had to be scared and stressed. I hated that I couldn’t get to her—although Anabella couldn’t, either.

  I clasped Jules’s hand in mine as we exited the police station. I slipped my thumb under the cuff of her shirt and caressed the base of her scar. I wasn’t sure which one of us I comforted by anchoring us by touch—maybe both of us.

  Rich and our team of lawyers had come through, and Jules had held firm during questioning, stating she’d never set foot in Carl’s lakefront penthouse. Several hours later, the swab test revealed that what she’d said was true. She hadn’t been the one at Carl’s home. And with that, they had no reason to hold her.

  “What about Fran?” Tension clung to Jules’s question.

  I squeezed her palm, ushering her into my vehicle. Rounding the side, I got in and pulled into traffic before answering. “They’ll reopen her case. The incision that matches the one on your arm and what your mom said in the letter is proof enough to cast doubt on your sister.”

  “They’ll find traces of B
ella there. It destroys me that Fran was murdered—but knowing that if she woke, she would have thought it was me? God, I…”

  “She had to have known something didn’t add up. You would never have hurt her.”

  “I hope so.”

  As she turned to stare out her window, I clenched my teeth, counting silently to ease my spiked blood pressure. I wanted to fix it for her and to make everyone who’d hurt her suffer. Minutes ticked by until Jules faced me once more.

  “That day you said we were on a boat during work hours”—her face contorted in a grimace—“it wasn’t me. You took Bella out.”

  Goddamn. Bile rose in the back of my throat. She hadn’t been acting like herself. Thank God I didn’t sleep with her sister. I told Jules as much.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Her sad eyes met mine. “I wouldn’t have held you responsible. My sister… She thinks I’m a mistake and that I shouldn’t have been born. She wants everything that’s mine, and she’ll take or destroy whatever she has to have it. I can’t guess her motivation, aside from the disillusioned thought that whatever I have is meant to be hers. But I’m so grateful she didn’t hurt you.”

  “The more I think about that day, the more I remember how often I thought your—well, her—behavior wasn’t consistent with what I knew of you.” I turned onto her street, and silence fell between us. Her exhaustion was palpable. I needed to get her safely inside her home.

  My phone buzzed. After parking, I pulled it out. Connor would arrive in an hour. He had information from Chris, and apparently, it was something I needed to see.

  My hands curled around the mug of coffee Trev handed me. The heady scent of cinnamon and cream helped to soothe my dragging spirit. The warmth of the mug further relaxed me, and I sank into the couch next to him. It was late in the afternoon and not long after we’d left the police station. There was no way I could even think of work. The rest of my time today would be spent at home, with Trev.