“He’s acting strange because he’s getting memories from his physical brain. Just like I’ve been getting them from Alexis’s brain.”
“Which you’ve coped with really well. Why can’t he do the same?”
“Alexis Bixby was...is a nice person,” Allie explained, as patiently as she could. “Eric Sterling, whose body Jake’s occupying, isn’t.” This was all so hard to talk about—to reveal how she felt about sharing the brain and body of a girl that she’d never known in life. Sometimes Allie would find herself hesitating or rethinking an action while she had a flashback to something that Alexis—not Elony—had experienced.
“She and I are compatible,” Allie continued. “But poor Jake has been forced to share a brain with someone he doesn’t like.”
“So...doesn’t it follow that you might not like his...pod’s brain either?”
“Jake’s body is not a ‘pod.’”
“Whatever. All I’m trying to say is: Mike’s a great guy. Whereas Jake might not even be Jake any more. He could be mostly Eric by now. You haven’t seen him since spring break.”
“Don’t say that,” Allie cried. “I love Jake. He’s a complicated guy. He always was. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. And, deep down, he’s one of the best people I know. He—”
Allie broke off as a major realization struck her: Melissa couldn’t be “Ellie;” Jennifer McGavin didn’t have access to her brain’s flash drive; Jake did! He had stolen that device from the lab. Allie had asked him a couple of months ago where it was, and he’d replied that it was destroyed. Jake would never have double-crossed her.
She felt a surge of relief. Melissa had to be lying about being “Elony.” She might have been hired by Jennifer to spy on her and lure Allie into a trap. Or maybe Jennifer and her new husband, Mark Jones, put a second version of Jennifer’s brain patterns into Melissa’s body.
Which in turn means that Jennifer, the woman who killed both of my parents, is now trailing me!
Damn it! Every high school student in the entire country is worrying about stuff like finals and proms and being popular! While I’m scared to death about being stalked by a stranger who claims to be me, but might in fact possess the duplicated mind of a sociopath!
Melissa’s footsteps grew louder. Both Allie and Fiona turned. Is this a second version of Jennifer? Was Melissa once a comatose patient, like Alexis? Did she awaken with Jennifer McGavin’s memories? Despite trembling knees, Allie stood still, watching Melissa stride up to her.
Please don’t tell me that you’re me! Allie silently pleaded. That you, too, are Ellie Montgomery!
Melissa stopped and eyed them from her stance on the sidewalk a few steps away. “You’re Ellie Montgomery, aren’t you?”
Allie was so desperate not to acknowledge her worst nightmare that she heard herself babble, “No, I’m Alexis Bixby.”
“I mean before they did a mind transfer on you. Before you were the target of the lead doctors at the brain-trauma clinic in Washington.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Allie lied. Her cover was blown! If this skinny, blond girl was a minion for Jennifer or, worse, was Jennifer in a second new body, Ellie’s life was in extreme jeopardy. Jennifer would try to use her for whatever wild plan she’d concocted, then she’d kill her in order to keep her true identity hidden.
“My last memory was staring at the boots of the man who shot me,” Melissa said, “after shooting my father. I died as Ellie Montgomery, and I awoke in Melissa Cooper’s body.”
Fiona turned toward her. “What’s she talking about, Allie?”
“I’m not sure,” Allie lied, not wanting Melissa in on the secret that she’d entrusted to Fiona alone. “I need to—”
She broke off as a car pulled up to the curb. Allie’s heart missed a beat at the sight. Jake’s here! Allie wanted to run into his arms. Maybe if she could stay in his embrace long enough, Melissa would go away, and they could think all of this through together.
Grinning at Allie, Jake headed toward her, but he did a double-take at Melissa and froze. His expression was one of total shock. “Melissa?” he asked as if incredulous.
“Eric?” she asked in a whisper. She sounded confused, yet wistful.
As the weight of the fact that they’d recognized each other sank into Allie, she felt dizzy. She struggled not to sink to her knees in despair. She remembered now that Jake had once told her that Eric Sterling—Jake’s host-body—had a girlfriend named Melissa in West Virginia.
Desperately wanting to deny that her worst nightmare was growing inconceivably worse, Allie snarled, “He’s not Eric! He’s Jake!”
She studied Jake’s features. She needed to see that same old self-assuredness in his expression and the same love in his eyes.
Instead, it was Eric that she saw staring out of those eyes. At Melissa. Their arch enemy, Jennifer, must have managed to pull off the cruelest mind-switch imaginable. She had taken Eric’s girlfriend from West Virginia, transferred her own mind into the girl’s brain, and came to Albany, New York, insisting that she, like Allie Bixby, was now also Elony Montgomery.
“You’re Jake,” she repeated, battling tears.
Chapter 3
Fiona tugged at Allie’s arm. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” Numb, Allie allowed herself to be dragged a few steps away from Melissa and Jake. “Allie,” Fiona whispered, “what on earth is going on here?”
“She’s claiming to be me, Ellie Montgomery, before I was put in Alexis’s body,” Allie muttered, miserable.
“Yeah, I gathered that much. But why is she calling Jake ‘Eric’? She’s only got your memories up until December when you...morphed into Alexis. Right?”
Allie nodded.
“So how could she possibly recognize Jake’s host body? Did you know Eric Sterling back when you were Elony?”
Allie shook her head. “Melissa must have known Eric. Her brain has stored memories of him that her synaptic pathways haven’t accessed yet.”
“But you told me that Jake’s body was from West Virginia, or something like that.”
“He is.” Which meant either that Jennifer had coerced Melissa to come here and take part in this ruse, or that she’d stolen Melissa’s body the same way she’d stolen several youthful, healthy bodies. Including Eric’s and Alexis’s.
Too upset to explain that to Fiona, Allie headed back toward Jake and Melissa. She needed to talk to Jake alone. He was waiting for her in silence, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. It was as if he was trying to hold his brain together, or to squeeze Eric out of his skull. “Jake, let’s—”
“Melissa, you’re not from Eric’s hometown, are you?” Fiona interrupted.
“I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m from.” She seemed sincerely confused as she took a step back from Jake. “I...don’t know you,” she said to Jake, looking dazed. “We’ve never met. I don’t know how I knew your name. It just kind of...popped into my brain.”
“You recognized me,” Jake said with a sigh. “You called me ‘Eric.’ You and I...I mean, you and Eric Sterling—the body my mind now occupies—used to date.”
Despite the muggy heat, Allie was shivering, and her stomach was in knots. If Jennifer had somehow managed to get ahold of Elony’s brain’s flash-drive, Allie was doomed. She studied Jake’s eyes. In the last several months, the inner “Jake” had become partly Eric, and that part of him was in love with Melissa. How could she hope to compete with herself inside his host-body’s girlfriend? But that couldn’t be the case, Allie assured herself. Jennifer didn’t have access to Ellie’s flash drive.
“Could you please give us a minute?” Allie asked Melissa as nicely as she could. Melissa could well be Jennifer herself, trying to pull the ultimate hoax on her.
“Um, sure thing. I’ll just...go stand in the shade.” She walked toward an elm tree a short distance away.
“Do you want me to keep an eye on her?” Fiona asked quietly.
“Tha
nks,” Allie said with a nod, unable to force a smile. This was the story of her life now—always dragging anyone who got close to her into a terrible battle. She could trust Fiona, though, to try to glean information from Melissa, all the while without divulging any of Allie’s secrets.
Last winter, she’d dragged Daniel Peterson down with her, too. She missed him. He’d willingly risked his life to save her, even before they’d gotten to know each other. She’d intended to ask Jake about how he was. Daniel was Jake’s roommate in Washington, and she and Jake could never have escaped from the McGavins without him. Asking about Daniel seemed so trivial now. It felt as though her entire life had changed since the final bell rang at Albany Central less than half an hour ago.
Allie saw Jake watching her with those beautiful, soulful dark brown eyes of his. She loved those eyes. She loved his body, his mind, his soul. Even though his body once belonged to Eric Sterling. And, by association, to Melissa Cooper.
“I gather Melissa is Eric’s...your host’s...old girlfriend,” Allie said, hating how whiny her voice sounded.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’ve never contacted her, or anyone else from West Virginia. I let everyone in Eric’s life think he was dead. Just like you had to mislead all of your friends and—”
He paused, and Allie knew that he’d deliberately stopped short of saying: “family members.” Jake Greyland still had a family. The McGavins had killed all of Ellie’s family members. That was a pain that never left her—the realization that her parents and her grandmother were dead, just so that the McGavins could cover up their hideous crimes.
“Jennifer,” Jake continued, “must have downloaded your memory device into Melissa’s brain. That bitch is so twisted, she probably did this to torture us both.”
“How did she get her hands on my memory device?” Allie asked, getting angry in spite of herself. “You told me you’d destroyed it.”
Jake winced. “I thought it was destroyed.”
“What do you mean ‘you thought it was’?!”
Jake shifted his weight on his heels, looking guilty. “After I downloaded your mind into Alexis Bixby’s body, I hid the device and left town. I figured, that way, if anything had gone wrong with your memory-transfer procedure, I could always retrieve it and try again. Or if the McGavins captured me, I could maybe get a message to a neurologist, revealing where the device was. I figured the last place the McGavins would think to look for it was a room in a fleabag hotel in Albany, New York. So...I pulled off a section of baseboard in my room, carved a hole into the wall, and hid it there. I tried to refasten the baseboard to cover up the hole, but it’s not like I had a hammer or anything. The spot wasn’t perfectly hidden, but still....”
He let his voice fade. He searched her face, as if pleading for her reassurances that he’d taken every reasonable precaution. Right now Allie was busy trying to keep herself from erupting. He’d claimed that the device had been destroyed. Melissa Cooper’s existence at Albany Central could be a lethal blow to Allie, or to her and Jake’s relationship.
“When I came out to see you in March, I planned to rent the room again and destroy the device,” Jake continued. “They had a fire. The entire hotel burned to the ground.”
“Oh my God, Jake! Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”
“The hotel was such a rat trap it seemed likely that the wiring wasn’t up to code. I...thought the fire was a coincidence.”
“No, you didn’t! Be straight with me, Jake! We both know that Jennifer was a step ahead of us the whole time. Including when you escaped from having been a comatose patient at her research hospital. The goon she hired probably knew your exact location at every given minute, starting from back in November!”
That had been a month before Allie’s horrid ordeal with a gunshot from the hired gunman had begun. Allie and Jake had joined forces in January and tried to gather evidence to get the McGavins jailed for their crimes. Back then, they’d had no way to know that Jennifer was planning to kill her husband and frame them for the murder.
Jake raked his hand through his hair. “I screwed up. I wanted to fix it before you...I didn’t want you to panic.”
The only way she could be driven to “panic” was by doing exactly what Jake had already done: allow her out of the blue to be confronted by her mind-clone! She didn’t want to point that out to him. She didn’t want to get into a huge fight with him. They hadn’t even touched each other since he’d arrived, let alone shared a kiss hello.
Jake looked miserable. She felt worse than miserable.
“Maybe the fire was just a coincidence,” Allie said, hoping to buoy their spirits. “Melissa could be putting on an act that Jennifer’s hired her to perform. Jennifer’s been in her new body long enough now to have her host body’s memories return like ours have. For all we know, she might have transferred her own mind into Melissa and is pretending to be me. Regardless, she’s probably trying to lure you into a trap so she can force you redesign your invention, letting her rid herself of her host’s memories.”
“If you think about it, this is the worst, most vindictive thing she could have done,” Jake said, ignoring Allie. “Daniel and I have been keeping tabs on her from a distance. Her new—”
“Wait,” Allie interrupted, stunned. “What do you mean? You never told me you were keeping tabs. What happened to your telling me that we all had to get on with our lives? That you were sure she and Mark Jones would stay put in Aruba after her honeymoon?”
Dr. Mark Jones was the handsome young ER doctor that Jennifer had married, after she’d assumed the identity—as well as the gorgeous young body—of a twentyish woman named Suzanne Anderson.
“I wanted to shield you,” Jake said with a sigh. “I was wrong about Aruba. That’s...part of why I came to see you.”
“Don’t ‘shield’ me, Jake,” Allie demanded. “And don’t decide what’s going to make me ‘panic.’ You’ve known for months that she might have her hands on my uploaded memory banks!”
“Yeah, but I sure as hell didn’t know she’d downloaded them into Eric’s girlfriend!” Once again, he pushed on his temples. “I’m sorry. I can’t rewrite the past. All I can do now is tell you what little I know.”
Allie nodded, vowing to hold her tongue.
“Daniel and I found out Jennifer’s living in Manhattan,” he continued. “Her marriage to Mark Jones has already fallen apart. They’re living in separate apartments. It’s her nature to blame someone else for anything that’s gone wrong, then to lash out...to seek revenge. That means she’s taking aim at me and you. She’s calculating that putting your mind in Melissa’s body will cause us so much friction, we’ll split up.”
Jake paused and glanced over at Melissa and Fiona. Allie followed his gaze and gritted her teeth. There was suddenly enough friction between them to bring her entire world to a screeching stop. Melissa, meanwhile, took their looking at her as an indication that their private conversation was over. She began to head toward them, with Fiona a step behind.
“If Jennifer implanted my mind into Melissa,” Allie said to Jake, “she’s handing us another Ellie. Jennifer knows that you, Daniel, and I are onto her, but that we didn’t have enough evidence to go to the police. Why would she risk roiling things up and sending us a fourth teammate?”
“Because it isn’t enough for Jennifer to be youthful and alive in Suzanne’s body. She won’t be satisfied till she beats us to a pulp for daring to stand in her way.”
Melissa was close enough now to hear his every word. “The three of us can help one another,” she interjected. That struck Allie as really nervy, if not downright arrogant. She hated the thought that Melissa could possess her personality, memories, conscience, and be in love with her boyfriend.
Fiona, still a step behind Melissa, winced as if in sympathy for Allie.
“I’ve been piecing things together.” Melissa shifted her gaze to Jake. “I overheard you say ‘Suzanne’s body.’ Dr. Jones told me his estran
ged wife, Suzanne, had a digitized duplicate of my—of Ellie’s mind last winter, and that Jake had swiped that flash drive, and put our mind into Alexis Bixby’s body. And that Jennifer had hired someone to kidnap this body that I’m in now.” She looked at Allie. “I asked Dr. Jones to tell me where you were. It took him a while to find you, but he had been copying personal files from his wife’s computer ever since they started having problems. Apparently, she’d been tracking your whereabouts for a few months.”
Allie glared at Melissa. Until now, Allie had not fully noticed how striking Melissa’s blond hair and blue-green eyes were, and how the constellation of freckles on her nose and cheeks gave a girl-next-door sweetness to her appearance that might be completely undeserved.
Even though it was possible that she and Melissa were indeed possessing the identical mind, Allie was battling an irrational hatred for her. “That’s Mark Jones, right?” Allie asked. “A tall blond guy? Looks like he could’ve been an athlete?”
“Yes.”
“And his wife is a young blonde who claims to be named ‘Suzanne’?” Allie asked. “Who’s probably going to med school by now?” And who is really Jennifer McGavin, a fifty-ish doctor whose body died of ovarian cancer, Allie added silently.
“I never met Suzanne...or Jennifer, or whatever you want to call her. Mark said he started a private practice in Brooklyn, where, until they broke up, Suzanne was working while she’s in med school at Columbia. But I never saw their medical offices. I awoke in an apartment in Queens, furnished with hospital equipment. Dr. Jones said he’d secretly rented it to keep me safe from her.” Melissa’s eyes welled with tears. “Allie, I don’t have a single memory of Melissa’s.” She shifted her gaze to Jake. “Mark must have told me that your host body’s name was Eric. I couldn’t possibly have remembered it on my own.”
“Yes, you could,” Jake said. “I invented the brain-memory device, so I know precisely how it works. It wasn’t designed to download minds into other people’s brains, but rather to refresh an Alzheimer’s patient’s own memories. It doesn’t erase the brain before it downloads; it reassigns healthy pathways into healthy brain cells, which means many of the brain’s memories are overlaid. Therefore your carrier-body’s memories return slowly, over time. I’ve lived for eight months now in Eric’s body. For me, it’s like I have two full sets of childhood memories, but my memories of being Jake are much stronger than of my being Eric.”
Mind Echoes (Book 2 in the Body Shifters Trilogy) Page 2