Callum (Blue Halo Book 7)

Liam took the stairs two at a time. Jenny’s apartment building wasn’t just in the worst part of town, it was also the worst fucking building amongst the dumps—peeling paint, a musty, moldy smell thickening the air. Tyler was on his way as backup, but Liam was impatient. The second that address had come through, he’d wanted to check it out. If the woman was targeting Fiona, he needed to know now.

When he reached the third floor, he moved down the hall. Sounds pricked his ears from behind closed doors. TVs. Dishes clattering in water. A person in the shower. Behind one door, he heard the raised voices of a couple arguing.

He ignored all of it, stopping in front of Jenny’s apartment and knocking. He waited exactly five seconds, listening for any movement on the other side. When there was nothing, he pulled a glove from his pocket and slid it over his hand, then turned the handle, easily breaking the lock.

He stepped into a dark apartment. Every curtain was pulled closed, every light switched off. The space was small, with a kitchenette to the left, a couch and TV to the right, and a small dining table separating the two spaces. The musky smell didn’t end in the hall. If anything, it was thicker in here.

Damn, the place was a mess.

Dishes were piled up in the sink. The carpet was riddled with stains and appeared to have not been cleaned for months. There was an open door that he could already see led to a bathroom at the end of a hall, and two closed doors on either side.

He was just closing the door to the hall when his phone rang. He already knew who it would be. Callum was anxious to learn what he’d found—as he should be.

“I’m in,” Liam said quietly, scanning the messy kitchen counter. The scurry of movement from inside a cupboard had his head shooting around. It sounded again, and he looked away. A rat or some other rodent.

“See anything?”

“The apartment building’s a dump and her place is a mess.” He shuffled around the stuff on the table. There were a lot of takeout coffee cups and paper bags. Napkins. He paused on a couple of printed receipts, eyes narrowing. “There’s a receipt for a tattoo.”

“A tattoo?” Callum sounded as confused as him.

Liam lifted another two receipts. “There’s a receipt for a locksmith, and she also paid for some online acting courses.”

“The key…” Callum breathed. “If she was the one who entered Fiona’s house, it could be for that. She’d have access to Fiona’s bag all day. Maybe she made a copy of the library back door key too. And acting classes?”

Yeah, sounded fishy as hell. A bad feeling began to churn in Liam’s gut. “I’m going to check the bedrooms.”

He moved to the room on the left to find a large bed centered the space, but similar to the living room, there was shit everywhere. The bed was unmade. Clothes covered every inch of the floor. And there were more takeout containers.

He moved to her dresser, checking each drawer but finding nothing that shouldn’t be there…until he reached the last drawer.

“Did you say it was a red sweater Olivia stole from Fiona and wore with Freddie?”

“Yeah, why?”

Liam’s fingers tightened on the material. “I found it in her dresser.”

There was a long, thick silence, then Callum let out a string of curses.

It was pretty good evidence that this woman was involved, but it also wasn’t enough. Fiona and Jenny were friends. Lots of women bought similar clothing. “There’s one more room. I’ll see what’s in there.”

He moved out of the bedroom and tried the last door. His brows slashed together when it wouldn’t open easily. She’d locked it? A room in her own apartment? He gave the knob one sharp turn, breaking the lock as he’d done to the front door.

The second he flicked the light, every muscle in his body turned to stone.

It took a lot to surprise Liam. You didn’t go through deployments, then Project Arma, without seeing a shitload of messed up. But this?

His inhale was sharp.

“What?” Callum growled.

“It’s her. It’s fucking her, Cal. Jenny is Olivia.”

Another thick, dangerous beat of silence. “What do you see?”

He ran his gaze over the images plastered on every inch of the back wall. All of Fiona, and all in different places. In some she was alone, in others she was with Callum. Some of the photos had notes on them.

Right side of mouth higher than left.

Squint eyes when smiling.

His gaze shot to the closet to the right of the back wall. It was open, with women’s clothing inside. Fiona’s clothing? Or replicas? There were also wigs and makeup. Boxes of contact lenses.

His blood burned through his veins like acid as he moved to a computer that sat on a small corner desk. “She’s taken photos of Fiona and stuck them on the walls. There are hundreds of them, Cal. Clothing, contact lenses, and wigs too.”

“I want to kick my own ass. She’s been under our damn noses this entire time.”

Liam lowered to the seat in front of the laptop and tapped some keys. He expected to be stopped by a locked screen, a password he didn’t have. Instead, the computer woke to what she’d last been doing.

Two images sat side by side. At first glance, they looked identical, but on closer inspection he saw slight differences. The whites of the eyes in the photo on the right weren’t quite so bright, and there were darkish circles that shadowed those dark eyes.

He moved the mouse, minimizing the photos and finding a folder full of images, some labeled “Fiona,” the others labeled “replica.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face and leaned back. “She’s been practicing Fiona’s expressions.”

“I’m gonna kill her,” Callum growled.

Liam clicked into another folder, his chest tightening when he saw videos inside. He opened the first one and his stomach soured. “She put cameras in Fiona’s house. They date back to a couple months ago.”

This woman hadn’t just been studying Fiona. She’d put all her time and resources into being her.

The second Callum hung up, he wanted to punch something. Throw his fist through a damn wall and let the pain drown out the frustration. The raw fucking anger.

She’d been right there the entire damn time, and no one had suspected her.

He scrubbed his hands over his face as he heard the shower turn off upstairs. Now, he had to go tell Fiona that her best friend was actually her twin sister. Was attempting to steal her damn life. Hell, the tattoo was likely the damn birthmark.

Fuck.

He shoved his phone into his pocket and moved up the stairs. His steps were slower than they should be because he was dreading the coming conversation.

He stopped at the closed bedroom door, frowning.

Fiona never closed the door.

He turned the handle and stepped inside to find Fiona pulling a shirt over her head. She looked up and smiled at him. “Hey. What should we have for dinner? I’m starving.”

He frowned in surprise. “You still want takeout?”

She paused. “Oh, yeah, of course. Sorry, I’m exhausted.”

He took a couple more steps into the room. “I need to tell you something, and I think you should sit down while I do.”

Her brows rose. “Oh, um. Okay.”

She moved to the bed and perched on the edge, and again, he was hit by that feeling he’d gotten downstairs. Like something was different about her.

“Jenny’s not who you think she is,” he said quietly.

There was a beat of silence, where Fiona’s lips parted, and she just looked at him. She finally shook her head. “What?”

“Liam didn’t like the way she was looking at you today, so I did a search on her and found she’s been using someone’s else’s identity. Liam then went to her place. He found pictures of you and surveillance videos. Even acting-class receipts.”

Fiona covered her mouth. “Oh my God!”

Callum studied her. Was it just him, or was there something almost…disingenuous about her reaction?

A bad feeling began to churn in his gut, something he had no fucking clue how to even navigate. She looked and felt…different. And now her reaction didn’t feel authentic.

“I don’t know what to say,” Fiona said, shaking her head.

“Did you suspect anything?” Callum asked carefully, studying every part of the woman in front of him as she answered.

“I mean, I’ve only known her for a few months, so it shouldn’t surprise me. But she was my friend.”

Her voice…that was different too. He heard it now. He’d been distracted before, with the phone calls and the need to get home away from the crowd, but now that he really focused on her, it was like each word was carefully said in a certain tone. Too carefully.

“Well, at least I have you guys to protect me,” she said, before touching the bridge of her nose with her forefinger.

It took him half a second to realize what she’d just done.

She’d tried to push nonexistent glasses up the bridge of her nose. Only, Fiona didn’t wear glasses.

Jenny did.

His stomach dropped, his skin turning stone cold in utter disbelief at having his suspicion confirmed. The woman’s hand lowered slowly, like she realized her mistake.

He took a step forward to grab her, but she quickly pulled a gun from beneath her discarded towel on the bed. She stood and aimed it at his chest.

“After the way you looked at me downstairs, I knew I needed to keep this close. Just in case.”

Her voice was different now. Raspier. Colder.

“Where the fuck is Fiona?” Callum growled, the shock now twisting into a suffocating mix of fear and rage. Fear for his woman. That she was somewhere else. Possibly dead already. That he’d figured this out too late. And rage that this fucking imposter had done something to her.

“He would have taken her by now. Doesn’t really matter, though. Soon she’ll be dead—just like you.”

His hands fisted. “Where. Is. She?”

“It’s a shame I have to kill you. You would have been a fun boyfriend. For a while.”

“You have five seconds to tell me before I force the words out of you.”

He’d never hurt a woman in his life, but this person wasn’t a damn woman. She was a fucking monster. And she was the only thing standing between Fiona and safety.

“I’m holding the gun, Callum, so I’m in charge. But if you really want to know, I have enemies. And they may have received a tip on Olivia’s location. Maybe even a photo of her new appearance…”

He was so fucking close to snapping, his muscles twitched, but first he had to get information from her. “So you sent the assholes you stole from to the library?”

She scoffed. “You think I’m that stupid? I couldn’t have the bitch dying here in Cradle Mountain and exposing me. I was actually going to drive to a location the other day, when I convinced Rick to send her to the store. Then that idiot Freddie followed us. And of course you found us and ruined everything by refusing to leave her side. So, I had to get creative. Decided Freddie could be useful. I went to visit him at the lodge. Told him who I was, that I planned to kill Fiona. Him too. But if he agreed to help me, I’d let him live instead, and in addition, he could take Fiona and keep her for himself. Win-win.”

If there was anything that could put even more gas on the fire of his rage, it was the knowledge that Freddie had agreed to take part in this.

“He’s totally obsessed with her, if you haven’t guessed. Of course,” Olivia continued, “he doesn’t know that the second he reaches the little house he’s rented, he’s going to get a not-so-friendly welcoming committee.”

Callum took a small step forward, not caring about the gun pointed at his chest. “Give me the location of the house.”

She laughed. “Why? So you can know where she’s going to die? I don’t think so. Any last words?”

“You messed with the wrong fucking guy, Olivia.”

“Did you forget what I said? I have the—”

He dropped and kicked a leg out. The second she hit the floor, he rolled her to her stomach, grabbed the gun, and pressed it to her head, her own hand still on the weapon. “Give me the location.”

Her breath wheezed from her chest. “No.”

He grabbed her other hand and pressed the muzzle of the gun to the center. “One fucking second. That’s what I’m giving you to tell me before I shoot. And believe me when I tell you, I will keep shooting until I have the information I need.”