Chapter 30
Jack had been watching the footage from the boutique for a few hours. He was able to pull up the phone logs from earlier, but the call the sales rep made was blocked and unlisted, so he couldn’t track it.
He used his facial recognition program to look up the salespeople. Nothing was raising a red flag on them. No overachievements made up for fake resumes. It said they had each worked there for several years.
Jack looked up the building itself. He looked into the owner and the bill of sale of the building.
Nothing was pointing at WITSEC. Either he was wrong—which was rare—or they were going out of their way to conceal their identity.
There was still the possibility it was a cover for Andrea to meet with buyers, but he hadn’t seen her arrive or anyone of interest ping on his system.
The cameras covered the outside, the boutique as well as the hallway he had been caught in, but nothing upstairs. He was going to have to find a way to get in upstairs to check it out.
Jack pushed away from his screen, rubbing his tired eyes.
After little sleep this morning and staring at a screen for hours, he was tired.
He probably should have gone to Andrea’s earlier like he’d said he would, but he had to get something on this case before Nick got tired of waiting and pulled him.
Jack glanced down at his phone when it rang. It was Barry. Even better than Nick’s harassment or Luke’s teasing. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Slow, tell me you got something.” He had sent the security footage from the bar last night. Hopefully, Barry was calling him with some good news.
“I did, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.” Now Barry had his interest piqued.
“I was able to ID the guys that cornered your girl. They work for a arms dealer based out of Brazil. They are on the list of possible buyers for government intel and weapons.”
“Are they connected to the base attacks?”
“Unknown, but these aren’t the type of people to mess with.”
And they had been looking for Andrea. They had looked around for her and cornered her.
“If Andrea was stealing intel from the recent base attacks, she could be selling it to them.”
“She didn’t look happy to see them. There could be another reason. Maybe they were trying to get her to do a job for them.”
“Look, man, I know you’ve been dragging your feet there, but if these types of people are hanging around her, you need to get whatever you need from her and quick. Before the intel dies, or she runs.”
“Maybe they mistook her for someone else,” Jack tried to reason, but he knew it was a lame excuse. He wanted to believe they had the wrong person, but now they had evidence that she was connected to arms dealers.
“These kind of people don’t make mistakes. You know that, and I know that. I’m sorry, man,” Barry said sounding apologetic.
“Not your fault. Thanks for the assist.”
“Anytime.” Barry hung up, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts.
He didn’t have a choice but to get a confession from her. His stomach turned at the thought of having to beat it out of her. He had to act now. Barry would tell Nick what he’d found, and if Jack didn’t do it, someone with less scruples would.
Hopefully, they had built up enough trust, she would tell him without any pain involved. Jack grabbed the shopping bag with the scarves and made his way across the street. It was getting late, but he knew Andrea was still home. She had some time until she had to go to work.
Jack knocked and waited a moment for her to answer. Her hair was down, curling over her shoulders. She wore a tank top that showed off the top swells of her breasts and displayed her slim body he had worshipped several times with his hands and mouth.
“Well, you aren’t the delivery man,” she husked, her eyes drinking him in.
“Hey, babe,” Jack greeted and stepped closer. He gripped the back of her head and pulled her in for a deep kiss. She was the enemy, but damned if he didn’t love kissing her. Plus, he had to keep up the pretense that all was right. Yeah, that sounded good.
Instantly, he realized something was wrong. This wasn’t Andrea. But who else could it be? She looked like her, but she didn’t smell like her, she didn’t feel like her, and she definitely didn’t kiss like her.
Jack pulled back and looked at her. She was a doppelganger to Andrea, but he could see a subtle difference.
The nose was different. Andrea’s was higher.
The eyes were a different shade. This woman’s were more brown where Andrea’s were golden.
Even the hair was different. Andrea’s was longer and a darker shade of brown.
“Well, that’s one hell of a greeting.” Fake Andrea fanned herself.
Another tell it wasn’t her. Even the mannerisms were different, but it still didn’t answer who she was. “Who are you?”
Fake Andrea tensed. “You showed up at my door and kissed me, and you don’t know who I am? Ass.”
“You’re not Andrea.” Which left, who was she?
“Of course, I am.” And like a ton of bricks, it hit him.
A sister. Andrea had a twin sister who obviously no one knew about it.
Or if they did, they hadn’t told him. Though he suspected it was the first reason, otherwise he wouldn’t have spent the past two weeks watching Andrea instead of this woman. “Do you need your eyes checked?”
Jack smiled. “Of course, you are, sweetheart. It just feels like it’s been forever since I last saw you that I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Fake Andrea relaxed. He also noticed she kept most of the door shut so he couldn’t look into the house. A clear sign he wasn’t welcome inside. “And you missed me so much, you came to my door at night and had to steal a kiss.”
“I’d steal more if you’d let me.” It turned his stomach flirting with a woman who wasn’t Andrea. He’d always been able to flirt with any woman, it didn’t matter. Now he only wanted to flirt with Andrea.
“Don’t tempt me, or I’ll take you up on that.” She giggled incessantly. If she was trying to convince him she was Andrea, she was failing now. Andrea didn’t giggle. “Now, besides a kiss, what are you doing here?”
Well, he had planned on surprising Andrea with his gift and getting a confession out of her.
Maybe when she saw the boutique logo, she’d recognize the gig was up.
“I told you I’d be by after my work thing.
It took longer than I thought, but to make up for it, I brought you this.
” He held up the gift bag, showing the boutique emblem on it.
“Oh.” Fake Andrea looked back into the house as if waiting for the real Andrea to come out any moment. “That is so sweet of you. Thank you,” Fake Andrea gushed and took the bag.
“Does that mean I’m forgiven?” He watched her carefully for her reaction.
“Completely,” she answered without blinking.
“Can I come in and watch you open it?” He wanted to be out of eyesight when he took down the real enemy. There were too many nosy neighbors.
Fake Andrea looked panicked again. “Sorry, now isn’t a good time. Work emergency. I actually need to call them back, but thank you for the gift.”
“Of course. Sorry to bother you, darling.”
“Not a problem. Under normal circumstances, you can knock on my door anytime. Gift or not.”
“Don’t tempt me, or I’ll take you up on that.” He fired her earlier words back at her. “Night.” Jack walked away, feeling Fake Andrea’s eyes on him the whole time until he went back into his house.
As soon as he closed the door, he called Nick. “We have a problem.”
“What?”
“I’ve been watching the wrong woman.”
“Impossible. We had visual confirmation. It’s her.”
“No, Andrea Burns has a twin sister. That’s our real target.”
“Fuck,” Nick hissed. Jack concurred. Two weeks of surveillance wasted. Though to be fair, he hadn’t done that much surveillance lately. However, he had spent the past two weeks getting close to the wrong woman. “How? Doesn’t matter anymore. Does she suspect you know?”
“Negative.”
“Good, can you get close to this one?”
“Not without compromising myself. They are staying at the same location. I already spent two weeks getting close to the other one. I don’t want to get in between two sisters.”
“I don’t blame you,” Nick muttered before speaking up.
“She must be on the run. Keep an eye on the house and be on the lookout for any activity.” Jack peeked through his blinds to look at Andrea’s house.
Her blinds were shut, but he could see shadows moving.
Two people were in the house. Andrea and her sister.
Shit, he should have expected something like this.
When things weren’t adding up to make Andrea the suspect, he should have guessed there was another person.
There had been so many red flags. No pictures in the house. Avoiding conversations about her family. Andrea must be getting a laugh out of him for pulling one over on him. He wouldn’t put it past her; Andrea knew about the base attacks and was protecting her sister.
“What about the building?”
“I couldn’t find anything on it. No one flagging the system. It could have been a ruse to throw people off if they found it.” But why put that many cameras and unlisted numbers for it to be a dead end?
“Put your focus on the house. This is our first big break; we can’t lose her.”
“I won’t let her get away, sir.” He didn’t care if it upset Andrea. He was going to bring her sister to justice.