Page 8 of Double Take

He took a sip. “Whatwouldit take to convince you I’m telling you the truth?”

“A DNA test?”

He shook his head. “Our DNA are the same. I’m a genetic replica.” He stroked the cat, who closed his eyes and basked in the attention. Rusty’s behavior seemed to support the outrageous contention. Animals had avoided Mark, instinctively recognizing a threat. They were a lot smarter than she had been.

“So, you have no proof.” Nerves jangling, she took another sip of tea. Enjoying a cup in her cozy cottage at the end of the day relaxed her. Unfortunately, her late husband’s return from the dead was a problem neither whiskey nor tea could fix. “Why are you here? It’s been five years.”

“At the risk of being repetitive, I’m not Mark Hammond.”

“Right,” she said sarcastically. He did relish his mind games. Love bombing, backhanded compliments, guilt-tripping, gaslighting—she’d fallen prey to them all until she wised up. “For the sake of argument, let’s say you are John Bragg. Why seek me out at all?”

He glanced away. A muscle ticked in his cheek. He met her eyes again. “I needed to see you…to know that you’re okay.”

“Why?”

“Why did you take down your Cosmic Mates profile?”

She blinked. “You know about that?”

Rusty vacated his lap and sauntered away. Mark-John finished his tea in a single gulp. His gaze shifted to the scotch. He set the cup in the saucer with a finality. “Dark Ops kept tabs on you.”

“Dark Ops?” She arched her brows.

“The branch of government Hammond worked for, that I work for. The branch that cloned him.”

“He was an accountant.”

Although he’d lied about working for UH & M, his university diploma with his bachelor’s in accounting had hung on the wall in his home office. He had a couple of T-shirts he occasionally wore at home. One had said, “Accountants work their assets off,” and the other had read, “Accountants never die. They just lose their balance.” How prophetic the latter had been.

The times she’d called him at Underwood, Herr, and McCullough, the receptionist had put her through to him, until that last day when she’d been told nobody by the name of Mark Hammond had ever worked for the firm. In hindsight, she realized that although he’d shared anecdotes about his colleagues, she’d never met any of them. If he didn’t work for UH & M, where had he gone every day? What were his business trips?

“I’ve never heard of Dark Ops,” she said.

“You aren’t supposed to. Only those with a need-to-know are aware of its existence. Even the president doesn’t know.”

That got her attention. “The president doesn’t know?”

“It allows for plausible deniability. Dark Ops can work outside the law, and the chief executive can claim ignorance and deny involvement.”

“Then who provides oversight of the agency?”

He spread his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

This tall tale was the kind of bullshit a man looking to get laid would tell a girl at a bar. I’d tell you what I do—wink,wink,but then I’d have to kill you.Of course, he’d be a brain surgeon-spaceship pilot-movie producer.

She folded her arms. “So, this top-secret government agency that the president isn’t aware of cloned my husband, and you’re him.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Hammond was a skilled operative with critical connections in the underworld. People hated him, but they feared him.”

Had he ever realized that was how she felt?

“Dark Ops planned for a backup in case something happened to him.”

“And you’re telling me this because…”

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