“Which hotel?”
Fiona paused, and in that instant, Allie knew the answer. “The Benton Inn,” Fiona said, verifying Allie’s instincts.
“Where Melissa is staying?!” She felt like tearing her hair out. She scanned the hallway. Luckily, Melissa was nowhere in sight. Allie doubted she’d have been able to control her temper.
“That’s the closest hotel.” Fiona gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “He told me to explain that you guys need her help if you hoped to convict Jennifer.”
“That’s true, but he doesn’t need to move next door to Melissa in order to—” She broke off as the guy who used the locker next to hers arrived. They exchanged “Heys,” and Allie grabbed the books she need for the next two periods, using the moment to collect herself.
“Allie,” Fiona said quietly. “Jake’s still here, just a few miles away, and you’ll see him soon. Don’t miss the forest for the poison ivy. He told me to tell you he’ll be at the Pizza Shack at noon.”
Allie nodded, trying to shore up her flagging spirits. She managed a smile. “Thanks, Fiona. I owe you one.”
“Good. I like having my BFF indebted to me. It gives me a sense of power.” She pumped her arm to show her bicep.
At long last, the morning classes ended, and Allie dashed to the pizza place. It was across the street from the school and a couple of blocks down. Allie breathed a sigh of relief when she entered. Jake was waiting just inside the door.
He spread his arms and gave her that pure-Jake smile. She rushed into his embrace. “I got a little worried when you weren’t waiting outside,” she said into his chest.
He kissed her on top of her head, and they drew apart. “I didn’t want to get caught near your school, in case your mom’s doing drive-bys.” He led her to a table in the back corner, where he’d already placed two plates of pizza slices and two sodas. As they sat down, he said, “I’m sorry I took off on you like that last night. I sent you a text within a couple of minutes.”
Allie grimaced. “My mom confiscated my cellphone.”
“Yeah, I figured as much when you didn’t reply to my text.” He reached over the table and caressed her hand. “I asked Daniel to help us out. He photo-shopped a picture of me in front of a road sign near the District.”
“My mom told me about the photo. I’m guessing that, in return, my mom sent you a lengthy, apologetic note about how terrible she feels. Which wouldn’t stop her from demanding that you send an updated photo every day for the next two weeks.”
“You guessed right. But I’m the one who offered to send future photos before she could ask. That will be a breeze. Daniel will send whatever tricked-out images we need. Per usual, he’ll get us a handful of disposable cellphones.”
Allie hadn’t been able to call Daniel back last night, like she’d promised. But, considering that Jake had already filled him in, she had no worries that he’d misunderstood why she couldn’t call him. “We can’t afford to have him stay put,” Allie pointed out to Jake. “He wants to help. We need him with us.”
“Probably so.”
“Definitely so.” Allie took a bite of her pizza. Jake, too, started to eat his slice. Now that she was with Jake, her appetite had returned. So did her confidence and her energy, despite her sleepless night. As bleak as her predicament might be, Jake, Daniel, and she made a formidable team.
“We’re going to have to go to New York,” Allie began. “Jennifer’s trying to lure you into her web again. Just like when she conned you into working for her at ABTC.” Over a year ago, Jake and Allie had met at ABTC, Alzheimer’s and Brain Trauma Center, the research hospital that funded and staffed Wunderkind Jake’s secret, ground-breaking discovery. “Jennifer is trying to trap you into redesigning your memory device so that her mind transfer will become permanent.”
“For all we know, she’s already here in town, stalking us,” Jake replied with a nod. “Or else she’s hired another goon to keep track of us.” She’d hired a henchman last winter who’d shot and killed Ellie’s parents, grandmother, and Jennifer’s husband, Ethan McGavin. “Daniel says he hasn’t been able to track her whereabouts for the last two weeks.”
“We could start by searching her home for evidence. Daniel could help us plant bugs there.” She paused. “Or does he have the time to run surveillance for us?” Allie took a sip of her cola. “He’s probably busy with the summer courses at Georgetown.”
“I’m sure he’d be willing to find the time. He studies late at night. Probably hitting the coffee at the same time as his books. It’s not as if...”
He continued to talk about Daniel’s work habits, but Allie was too distracted by the sight of Mike Burns, her would-be prom date, entering the restaurant to listen to Jake. To her embarrassment, she realized that she’d forgotten about Mike completely since she first learned Melissa Cooper’s true identity. The poor guy had probably had to learn through the Gayla grapevine that Jake was in town.
Mike started to head toward the counter and glanced in her direction. A look of painful surprise flashed across his features, and his step faltered for an instant. Allie felt a pang of empathy. She remembered all too well how this felt, from when she was the ordinary-looking Ellie, watching the guys that she liked fall head over heels for the pretty girls.
To Mike’s credit, he straightened his shoulders, put a grin on his face, and approached their table. He wasn’t especially good looking with his wide-set eyes and pointy chin, and his frame was soft in the wrong places, but he was a great guy. It hurt Allie to see him so obviously hurt, thanks to her own insensitivity.
“You must be Jake,” Mike said, holding out his hand to shake Jake’s.
The kind and semi-dorky gesture of shaking Jake’s hand, despite how hard that must be for him, made her feel even worse. She quickly said, “Jake, this is Mike,” as they shook hands.
“Ah,” Jake said, smiling at Mike. “You’re Allie’s friend, who’s taking her to the prom on Friday.”
“He was,” Allie quickly interjected once again before Mike could respond. “I’m really, really sorry, Mike. I’ve been grounded.”
“For the prom?” Mike asked. “What on earth did you do?”
“I skipped dessert so that Jake and I could go on a date.”
“Her parents think I’m a bad influence,” Jake explained.
“You do look dangerous,” Allie teased. An instant later, she regretted her remark; she was being flirtatious with Jake, right in front of Mike.
“Sorry to hear that you can’t go,” Mike said to Allie.
“Not as sorry as I am to cancel on you like this. You should ask Melissa Cooper,” Allie blurted out before she could stop herself.
In the corner of her vision, she saw Jake’s eyes flash.
Mike visibly shored himself up. “Maybe I will,” he said, with a tone of defiance. “She’s my lab partner in Physics. She’s pretty cool. Especially considering that she’s been through a lot.”
“Oh?” Allie said.
“Yeah,” Mike replied. “Her father was killed last December. A car accident.”
A tsunami of raw emotions washed over Allie. She’d used the same ruse herself last winter when she’d needed to hide her identity from the McGavins.
“Yet she always smiles at me in class and stuff,” Mike continued. “I asked how she coped with everything, and she said her dad always told her to cry her eyes out for five minutes, then concentrate on something that made her happy.” Mike shook his head. “You’ve really got to admire someone who can do that.”
“Yes. You do,” Allie said, blinking away her own tears at the memory of her father’s face when he’d given her that gentle advice.
I’m not as good of a person as I used to be.
Chapter 8
Mike and Jake exchanged a few more words of small talk, then Mike got a slice of pizza and a soda to go. When Allie told Jake her idea about feigning headaches to ditch the rest of her school year, Jake said, “I don’t feel right about offerin
g you advice.”
“But I want your opinion,” Allie objected. “I don’t want to hurt my parents, and I want to finish out my junior year, but my last day of school is a week from Friday. We can’t wait that long to take action. We have no idea what Jennifer’s up to right now. Including how many more people our age she might kill in the next twelve days.”
Jake arched an eyebrow. “You’re being melodramatic. The answer is ‘zero.’”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can surmise that. She’s not a random killer; she kills to suit her purposes. And her purposes are to remain youthful and healthy forever, while going scot-free for all the people she’s hurt or killed. The only hurdle she’s facing right now is that Suzanne Anderson’s memories are returning. So she wants to keep on living in Suzanne’s body, but refresh her memory download such that Suzanne’s original memories will be permanently erased. Ergo, she isn’t running experiments on coma patients. The only lab tests that could help her reach her goal can only be run after she gets a redesigned memory-transfer device from me.”
As Jake’s words sank in, Allie could feel her pulse rise. His logic was flawless, and it was leading to a conclusion that could ruin Allie’s life.
Jennifer was going to have to run an experiment on somebody to insure the device that she wanted to force Jake to design for her was safe. There were only two people in the universe she could test it on: Jake or Allie! Melissa wouldn’t do; she didn’t have enough memories from her host.
“Okay. So here’s what we do,” Allie said, trying to quash her fears and portray a bravura that she in no way felt. “We know that Jennifer is going to force you to develop a new device. You can claim that you were already working on it, to resolve your own issues with Eric’s memories. Meanwhile, what the device really does is the exact opposite of what she wants; it weakens the new neuropaths so that she’ll revert to her original brain map. Preferably, after giving her the temporary sensation that she’s one-hundred percent Jennifer McGavin. That way, she’ll inadvertently turn herself into Suzanne Anderson, and all we’ll have to do is destroy all of Jennifer’s memory chips, once and for all.”
To Allie’s stark disappointment, Jake averted his gaze. Her plan had been excellent, so that could only mean she’d stumbled onto the truth: Jake was already planning on being Jennifer’s guinea pig. He wanted to make the ultimate sacrifice to get rid of Jennifer—to turn himself back into Eric Sterling in order to fool Jennifer into having a procedure that would actually turn her back into Suzanne Anderson.
“Yeah,” Jake replied, “that’s an excellent idea. I’ll have to give that some thought.”
Allie had lost all semblance of an appetite once again. She shivered despite the humid, pizza-scented hot air. Jake was beyond brilliant, an uber-genius. He was a lousy actor, though.
She felt as if the room was closing in on her. Just last night Jake encouraged me to take heart that I’m merely gaining Alexis’s memories, when all the while, he planned to rid himself of his memories of being Jake. Two girls at the nearest table were watching them.
She rose. Her knees were shaking. “We have to leave. We need to go someplace more private.”
“But your mother might—”
“I don’t care,” Allie said. “If she sees us, she sees us.” Allie strode through the room and out the door without hesitation. She headed toward the alley behind the pizzeria, where the odors were sufficiently rank as to make it an unlikely spot for her fellow classmates to loiter. She could hear Jake’s footsteps behind her.
“Allie, if your mother or father spot me in town—”
She whirled around to face him. “Jake. I know you too well. You already thought about redesigning your brain-storage chip. Back in March, when you first realized that Jennifer had found the hiding place for my brain-storage chip. And when you also realized how awful it was to share a brain with Eric Sterling.” She started to cry softly. “You’ve been secretly working on the design ever since.”
Jake’s pained expression verified her every word.
“And now you’re planning on tricking Jennifer into thinking the device works one way, when it actually works the other way. You’re going to let her test your new invention on you, aren’t you?” Allie asked, tears running down her cheeks. “You’ve designed some sort of time delay, so that your initial MEG brain scans will match Jake Greyland’s...but then you’ll become Eric Sterling. By that time, she’ll have already undergone the procedure, never realizing that you tricked her into reverting to Suzanne Anderson.”
Jake made a couple of false starts on replying. Despite her tears, Allie held his gaze. Finally, Jake grimaced and shook his head with a small grin. “It’s the only way to stop her, Allie.” His own eyes looked unconscionably sad.
He took both of Allie’s hands in his. “I love you so much, Ellie Montgomery.” He was struggling to keep his voice even. “I always knew one of these days, I’d pay the price for falling in love with my intellectual equal. You can always figure out what I’m thinking.”
She yanked her hands free from his grasp. “You can’t do this! You’d be killing the man I love!”
“Together, Eric and I are schizophrenic. One of us has to go. And I’m the interloper. Furthermore, my plan could be a permanent way to rid the world of Jennifer McGavin.”
“You can come up with a second design, Jake! One to get rid of Eric from your head, and one to get rid of Jennifer from Suzanne’s body.”
Jake raked his hand through his thick, dark hair. “Easier said than done. Theoretically, at least, I’ve been able figure out how to nullify the brain-mapping that the original device created. You can snap the new device onto the original memory device that was already used, and that will basically...undo the original process.”
“There’s no way you can do what Jennifer wants, and erase the original brain map?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t believe you, Jake. As you explained it to me, your original invention helped the brain to locate and form new healthy pathways. Logically, then, it would be easier to erase all the existing pathways and start over, like Jennifer wants, rather than to ferret out and delete only the newly formed ones.”
“Probably. But I’ve devoted most of my waking moments for the last six months to this design. I think it will work. It will save Eric’s life. And, if I can figure out how to trick Jennifer into using it, it will save Suzanne’s. Along with all the lives she’ll destroy to fulfill her own sick fantasies in the future.”
“And what about Alexis? Aren’t you going to save her from me? From Ellie Montgomery?”
“She’s not suffering, Allie. You’re healthy and happy this way.”
“No, I’m not, Jake,” she cried. “Maybe I was yesterday, but I couldn’t be any more miserable today. You can’t leave me in a world with just me alone, knowing what it feels like to shift bodies.”
“You have Melissa now.”
“Melissa!? I have Melissa now!?” Allie had never been this angry at Jake before. “She’s my worst nightmare!”
He took her in his arms and said, “Allie, this is the only chance we’ve got.”
“No, it isn’t. We can collect incriminating evidence. Jennifer needs a trustworthy medical assistant, to replace Mark Jones, who can do the procedure on her. We need to find that person, and prevent her from testing out your device on either of us. We can figure out how to bring Jennifer down without having you sacrifice yourself like this. Maybe Mark Jones will help us. Maybe he can prove that she kidnapped Melissa. There has to be a way. I can’t stand the thought of living in a world that doesn’t include you.”
Jake sighed. “We don’t need to decide this right this minute. It’s going to take time till my prototype is built. You might as well go back to class. I have to get back to work.”
“On designing the device? The one that’s going to kill off your mind and your soul?”
He grimaced. “I’ll meet you for lunch tomorrow.”
>
“No. We’ll meet today at two o’clock behind the football bleachers. I’ll cut my last class.”
“I’m trying to keep a low profile for the next two weeks. I’m supposed to be in D.C., according to your parents.”
“Staying under my parents’ radar is the least of our worries. Jennifer’s going to track down Melissa and find us.”
“She told me that Mark had covered her tracks and made it look like she’s in Montreal,” Jake countered.
“Melissa’s already been here for almost two months. How far behind can Jennifer possibly be?”
“Not very,” Jake conceded. “I’m sure we’ve all been unknowingly marching to the drum she’s been beating. “She only waited this long in order to give Melissa plenty of time to contact you. Then she figured I’d come running to your rescue, and that jealousy over her being Eric’s Melissa would rip us to pieces.” His eyes were fiery. “I have to stop her, Ellie. Nobody else can.”
“We can stop her together.”
He shook his head. His eyes were brimming with tears. “The only way out is for me to lead Jennifer into killing herself off from Suzanne’s brain. I can die in peace and leave Eric alone. I’m sorry, Ellie. I know it’s not what you want me to do. I know that you think my dying would be your last straw. But you’re stronger than you think. Unlike Eric and I, you and Alexis are compatible. Furthermore, you were an innocent bystander in all of this. You just happened to be so intelligent, you fit her profile of test subjects—someone whose brilliant mind she could test in Jane Doe’s ordinary brain. Meanwhile, I can’t keep warring with Eric in my head like this, knowing that Jennifer is perverting my invention, maybe for all eternity.”
“Don’t say that, Jake!”
He pivoted and marched toward his car in the parking lot.
“Stop, Jake! We need to talk about this!”
He got into his car and drove away.
Chapter 9
Allie returned to school in time for her next class, which was third-year French. She couldn’t concentrate. It was pointless to be here in school, taking classes. There was no way she could stay in Albany for another two days, let alone two weeks.
Mind Echoes (Book 2 in the Body Shifters Trilogy) Page 6