Doppelganger

This is a response to the April 2011 challenge on a JaSam board, but I thought I would post it here too.

Summary: Jason returns home to find that Sam has been kidnapped in an attempt to draw him into a twisted killer's game. Confusion arises, however, when Sam seemingly returns home with no memory of her life. As the killer still claims to have Sam and offers proof, the game gets even trickier. Can Jason find out what's going on before it's too late?

Rating: Mostly R maybe a little more in some graphic chapters. I'll post additional ratings if that's the case.

This story starts out all kinds of disturbing but I in no way will be going gory or trying to shock with violence – most of this story will focus on the angst of trying to find out which Sam is the real Sam and saving the one that is still in harms way.

As always there is a promo video on my Youtube account which you can find on my profile page.

Chapter One

"Does the soul's memory find a place for love?"

Fear couldn't have choked harder as the strangled gasp that escaped Damian Spinelli's throat in one faint heartbeat. He was trying his best to push himself back to his feet, but he couldn't get enough traction, couldn't find some way to escape the slip and slide of coppery nightmare. He wasn't sure when he managed to get to his hands and knees, but even denim knees couldn't seem to help him brave the river of blood that had become the upstairs bathroom.

He wasn't sure he could call it luck, hell he wasn't even sure that he could string two coherent thoughts together as he scrambled out the bathroom door and into the hallway of his and Jason's penthouse apartment, still scarred by the ragged bloodied quote that was carved into the wall as if it somehow was meant to make sense. It seemed an eternity before he could move, before he could make some trembling half crazed attempt to get to the phone downstairs.

When he got there he stared at the black offending object his blood covered hand hovering inches above it as he tried to remember what it was used for, who he could call.

God, whose blood was that?

It couldn't have been from one person, could it?

Spinelli was trying to force his brain to respond, but he was stuck in some stutter of shock. His hand finally wrapped around the receiver as he closed his eyes and tried to remember where Sam and Jason were.

Sam – survelliance...right...investment banker...undercover...right he should call Jason...or the cops, no not the cops, Sonny, no Jason...Jason would be done with the shipment by now...

Spinelli picked up the phone and dialed Jason's cell, shaking like a leaf. "Pick up, pick up, pick up..."

ZZZZZZZZZZ

Jason adjusted the rear view as he drove, darkness settling the need to keep the bright lights of head light beams from being mirrored into his field of vision. He was bone tired after two straight days of fielding shipments and wanted to just get home and spend some time with Sam. He knew she'd been just as busy as the case she was working on had hit a few road blocks that had taken her undercover, but she'd promised to be home by midnight if at all possible.

They needed the time.

They both been working circles around each other for months and it was starting to get to them, tearing at their relationship, tearing at their demeanor, He could admit that he'd been quick tempered as of late and it wasn't too much of a stretch to say that she was a little more than cranky. So they'd both promised to make the effort, to get things back on track, to spend more time with each other, making the necessary sacrifices in their businesses to put each other back on top as priorities.

Jason heard his muffled cell ring from his pocket, letting him know that someone was calling from the apartment phone and he felt a hint of a smile playing at his lips as he imagined Sam already there, impatiently waiting for him. He answered professionally on the off chance that it wasn't her. "Morgan."

"Stonecold..." Jason lost any traces of the smile the moment he heard the raw terror in Spinelli's voice.

"What's wrong?" Jason was instantly accelerating, pushing the car to the limits to make it home faster, trying not to entertain the imaginary scenarios that his brain could come up with in favor of staying in control.

"The Jackal arrived home to our abode to find a most..." For once Spinelli was struggling to find the right words. "A sinister force has been at work."

"What happened, Spinelli ?" Jason asked, trying to inflect the importance of him conveying the information sooner rather than later.

"Most of the fortress of solitude was left alone, but the most intimate lavatory has been..." Jason furrowed his brow hearing Spinelli fighting gagging. "There is biological waste covering everything, the walls, the floor, the bathtub, toilet. There was a quote chiseled into the walls but it seems cryptic at best. 'Does the soul's memory find a place for love?'"

"Biological waste...Spinelli what does that mean?" Jason wasn't sure what sort of biological waste he meant and not that any of it was really appealing. Not to mention that quotes on the walls conjured up memories of the sick and twisted, serial killers like Franco and that wasn't boding well.

"Coppery life force..."

"Blood? Our bathroom is covered in blood?" Jason parked the car and made it out into the parking deck heading at a run for the elevator. "I'm on my way up. Has Sam come in? Have you talked to her?" He could tell that Spinelli was still in shock so he wasn't about to ask him to try and investigate how this asshole got into their apartment. What he needed more than anything, though was to know that Sam was alright.

"The Goddess is undercover, I thought it best to..." Jason cut him off with a growl and suddenly hung up on him as he got into the elevator and quickly dialed her number. Ring after ring teased his heart to the tempo of a run away train until he closed his eyes in frustration when he he heard the beep of her voice mail picking up. Jason almost hung up, thinking to call her back after he checked over the apartment but he paused when he heard that her receiving voice mail message had changed. Instead of Sam's sensual voice asking for someone to leave a message a mechanical voice said the following.

"Visit ." Jason felt icy tendrils of terror cascading through his veins as he exited the elevator and hurried to the front door, quickly checking for signs of a break in on his way inside. There were none. As if Jason wasn't scared enough from the creepy voice mail message once his eyes combed over Spinelli he felt his heart taking a screaming nose dive into the pit of his stomach. Spinelli was covered from head to toe in blood. And the rest of the apartment bore the inflection from his encounter with it. There was blood tracked down the steps and all through the house from his panicked escape from the bathroom.

Jason didn't have time to take pity on him. "Get cleaned up, or change clothes or whatever you need to do but I need you to hurry. I need you to check out this web site. ."

"I'm on it." Spinelli stuttered out as he looked up the stairs wearily a moment before heading reluctantly in that direction to get changed. Jason was on his heels needing to see the damage as he was already dialing Sonny. Jason had seen a lot in his line of work, but there were somethings that made even a professional squeamish. He was listening to the ring of Sonny's phone as he pushed open the bathroom door and his mouth dropped in horror.

Spinelli hadn't been kidding. The whole bathroom was red, the shower, the tub, the sink and toilet, floor and walls. There had to be blood from twenty different bodies here. The only bare spot was the place where the animal had left enough space to leave the quote and for the life of him he didn't understand what it meant. What scared him though is that he would soon know...and he was quite sure he didn't want to.

"Yeah." Sonny's voice snapped him out of his horror and Jason turned away from the sight in the bathroom, fighting gagging on the scent. This was a lunatic at work and by God he better not have Sam. Jason was trying not to entertain what it meant that her voice mail message had been changed.

"I need a heavy guard detail at the penthouse." Jason was on the move again, sticking his head in Spinelli's room in time to see Spin pulling a sweat shirt over his head. Jason needed to see if any of the current guards were even still around, what he was afraid of though, was they they were part of the mess in his bathroom. Jason swallowed tightly, closing his eyes. "I need you to see if you can find out where Amos, Roy, Harris, and Justin are..."

"I thought they were guarding your place, Jason, whats going on?" Sonny asked worriedly.

Jason watched as Spinelli got his laptop open and he watched as he talked, looking over his shoulder to see what this web site was. "Someone broke into the penthouse and painted the upstairs bathroom in blood. I think my guard detail is dead. Sam's missing and the outgoing message has some reference to a web page. I've got Spinelli checking it out right now."

Sonny was quiet for a long moment as they were both reeling from the shock. In their business it became a survival trait to see what was coming, but when things like this happened, nightmares in shades of shock, there was no amount of planning that could prepare a person. "An enemy?" Sonny wasn't sure where to start on the suspect list as no one he could think of would operate like that.

"It's got a serial feel, Sonny, reminds me of something Franco might pull, but something about it doesn't seem like him..." Jason didn't want to even think about the possibility of being a target of another mad man, hell even if it wasn't Franco it could still be his work, maybe he sent someone else after him, to toy with him.

Jason watched as a Spinelli's screen danced to black and then...Loud clacking like a typewriter accompanied letters rapidly filling the darkness in shades of crimson to match the bathroom.

"Would you like to play a game?" the computer finally spelled out and two boxes appeared on the screen. There was a place to click 'yes' and a place to click 'no'.

"I'll get the guards on their way and check on the ones scheduled to be there tonight. Have you considered calling Dante in?" Sonny asked in wonder.

"I need to know more before I make that decision. Thanks about the guards." Jason got off the phone and looked at the screen. Spinelli was looking over his shoulder, fear dancing behind his eyes as he seemed to be silently asking Jason what he should do.

"Tell him, No." Jason licked at his lips, nervously. He wasn't sure he was doing the right thing, hell he wasn't even sure there was a right thing. Spinelli clicked 'No' and the screen went black a moment before the clicking sound began again and they watched in wonder as the screen spelled out "Wrong answer."

Jason swallowed tightly as there was suddenly a flash and he felt bile rising in his throat as he saw Amos appear on the screen via real time video feed, the man begging for his life to no avail. A single gun shot fired from off camera felled him in an instant.

"God, no!" Spinelli didn't look away fast enough and Jason couldn't tear his gaze from the screen, his fist balled at his side. What sort of sick freak would do something like this?

"Would you like to play a game?" The screen rushed back to black and the red letters mocked him as the boxes appeared for 'yes' and 'no' once more.

"Click, Yes." Jason's voice was choked with emotion as he'd just watched his friend and co-worker murdered right before him all because he'd picked the wrong damn button. The screen faded to black once more and Jason waited on pins and needle praying that it was the right choice even as he hated that he felt like he had none.

"Excellent, lets start with a choice..." The letters spelled out.

Jason wasn't sure where this was going but he felt a gnawing ache in his chest as he fought the bile rising in his throat, disgust heavy in his features. More video feed flashed onto the screen and Jason felt his breath hitch in his chest as his agonized gaze washed over Sam, beating a door to no avail, screaming in mute. A number 1 flashed onto the screen. Another flash and there was more video feed, this time of Sam dressed differently, sitting across from the door with her knees pulled into her chest. The number 2 flashed onto the screen.

"Choose who will be lost...and I will give you a chance to save the other..." Jason didn't understand what this mad man was asking.

"Those were both in real time..." Spinelli sounded as confused as he felt.

"They can't be." Jason shook his head. "There's only one Sam, could he have faked it, or maybe the clarity's off. He doctored the footage."

"It's streaming live, Stonecold, the probability that any tampering could have been made it miniscule." Spinelli explained.

"Choose who will be lost..." two boxes appeared under the prompt one containing a '1' and the other a '2'.

"What the hell does that mean?" Jason felt so damn helpless. He couldn't even begin to think of how to pick which one was real and which one wasn't. He didn't even know what she had been wearing earlier that evening. "Spinelli, do you recognize either of the outfits?"

"I didn't see Fair Samantha today." Spinelli shook his head. "I...I don't ...I don't know..."

Jason ran a hand over his mouth and chin in desperation as he leaned in closer. This asshole had already killed a man in front of them. Now he was asking him to pick one of the Sam's to be lost, did that mean killed? Jason slammed his fist through the wall to his left and then kicked it until a bleep from the lap top had Spinelli trying to reel him back in.

"He's posted a time limit!" Spinelli cried in horror and Jason looked back to see a clock counting down from 30 seconds.

"Dammit!" Jason close his eyes and made the most heart wrenching decision of his life. His reasoning was simple and horrible. Sam was a fighter and on the short lived glances he had of both of them he decided that she was the one pounding on her cell door. "Pick 2, 2 to be lost, whatever the hell that means." He choked on the words realizing that he most likely just sent someone to their death as he prayed that it wasn't Sam. God he wasn't sure how he would live with himself...

What he did know for sure was that this guy was going to die and he was going to be the one to kill him.

"The choice has been made. You have 12 hours to find my next site. We'll be in touch..." The screen flashed to the cell for Sam number 2 and Jason couldn't tear his gaze from the screen, terrified that he was about to watch the murder he'd ordered. He wasn't prepared for the cell door to simply pop open, for Sam to walk right through in confused wonder.

And in a breath it was gone...the video, everything...

"What happened?" Jason asked in panic. "What was that? What site? A computer site? Find him!"

"The Jackal is trying!" Spinelli screamed back, his voice cracking under the strain off all this. "I don't have any more information than you, Stonecold, but I infer that he is referring to another site as this one is no longer operational."

"You get me something! Anything!" Jason was already dialing Sonny back as he bolted out of the room and down the stairs. Sonny didn't even really get a breath out before Jason started talking. "This guy is an animal. He shot Amos right in front of me and Spinelli on some sort of live video feed. I don't even know if he has Sam," Jason really didn't. The bastard had her phone that was for sure and he went through a lot of trouble to make it look like he had Sam, but Jason couldn't be sure. They both looked like her and he knew there couldn't be two Sam's. Except that in the back of his mind he knew there could be...Alicia.

"Alright, alright, calm down." Sonny soothed. "If this guy is like Franco there is chance that he's in some law enforcement data base, I can either call Dante to check on it or you can see if Spinelli can hack in and see."

"Spinelli's busy with something else. Call Dante, but he's got to keep this quiet. I can't turn the penthouse into a three ring circus. We won't be able to do what needs to be done when the time comes." Jason grabbed a bag from the closet down stairs and pulled a gun out, needing to feel the security of another ones company.

"I'll see what I can do." Sonny promised.

"I need another favor." Jason close his eyes as he breathed in deeply, trying to find any sort of calm to balm his frayed nerves.

"Name it."

"I need you to see if Alicia Montenegro is still in prison." Jason felt like he was reeling, trying his damnedest to put this together in some context that made sense, but that was a tall order with no more that they had to go on and it was obvious that this guy wanted it that way. "If not I need a last known. This guy could be using her as a double for Sam. I just need to know if it's a possibility or not." Jason explained as best he could. If this guy really was using both Alicia and Sam, which one had been released, if that was truly what had happened. Jason had no real way of knowing that whoever hadn't just been let out to their death.

It just didn't feel right. He'd had no qualms about killing Amos on screen, it seemed like if he planned on killing Sam or Alicia or whoever that he would have done it on screen as well. Then again something about the use of the word 'lost' instead of 'dead' or 'killed' was offsetting – nothing added up yet.

"I'll check into it, you should have guards in about 10 minutes. I'll get back to you." Sonny hurried off the line leaving Jason in a mess of trying to sort through his addled brain. They would have to get a cleaner here for the bathroom, but he couldn't even start to think about that yet. What had happened to the Sam he'd chosen?

Jason still didn't have an answer to that question ten minutes later when the guards arrived. Jason got them set on a routine and headed up the stairs to see if Spinelli had found anything, he wasn't half way up the steps when there was a short knock before, Max peaked his head in.

"Sir," Jason turned just in time to see Max gingerly walking the Sam he'd seen released from the cell into the living room. "She was wandering in from the street. Seemed lost." Max was eying her worriedly.

Jason raced back down the stairs praying, hoping, that he'd been wrong, that this was Sam, his Sam, that his choice had found her released and back in his arms so easily. He stopped an arm length away from her, combing over her as he looked for any indication that she wasn't his Sam. When he didn't find one he was almost daring to hope. Until he met her eyes. Jason felt all hope sinking away as he read the fear and uncertainty, the nonrecognition as she looked at him.

"Alicia?" Jason asked with a tight swallow.

She didn't answer right away, but when she did Jason finally understood what the man meant by lost.

"Do you know me? Do you know who I am? I can't remember anything..." She whispered in choked fear, eyes pleading with him for an answer that he couldn't give her.