The more she ran Jake’s last statements through her head, the more certain she was that Jennifer was controlling them as surely as if they were puppets on her strings. Jake was working on a design to permanently obliterate all traces of himself from his current brain. He’d played directly into her hands! Jennifer might be able to take Jake’s design to an engineer with the directive to change the circuitry to work in reverse—to preserve the newly established neuro-pathways and delete all others.
She rehashed last evening’s conversation with Jake. She’d told him that Alexis and Eric were incompatible, just as he was contemplating becoming Eric for good. No wonder he’d driven off without a word of goodbye!
The teacher called on her, asking her a question in French. “Pardon?” Allie asked.
He repeated the question, and she fudged her way through the answer.
It’s going to be okay, Allie told herself. When I talk to Jake, he’ll realize that I’m right about Jennifer. That he has to come up with a second design to strengthen his own memories and get rid of Eric’s.
The bell rang. As she was about to leave the room, the teacher asked her in French if everything was all right. She explained in French that she’d learned during lunch that a friend was having problems, and she was distracted.
“That’s understandable. I hope everything works out.”
“Me, too.” She paused. She might as well at least try to salvage her grades this semester. “Is there any way I could take my final exam after school today? Or tomorrow? I know it’s an unusual request and that—”
“Another student asked me the same thing,” he interrupted cheerfully. “Are you also enrolling in the same summer program at Columbia?”
“With Melissa Cooper?” Allie asked, taking an educated guess; with slightly different circumstances, she too would have come up with a story about a summer program at Columbia.
“Yes. Both of you are amazing French students. Honestly, Alexis, there’s no need for you to take the final. You’ve gotten a perfect score on every test you’ve ever taken from me. Just be sure to get me whatever paperwork you’ll need from the office.”
“No problem,” she said with a smile that belied her thoughts. “Thank you so much.”
“It’s my pleasure to help a budding French scholar, Alexis.”
Allie waited behind the bleachers, so anxious that she felt ill. She couldn’t lose Jake. He had to listen to reason. He had to see that if he went ahead and let Jennifer use his new invention on him, he would have no way to ensure that Jennifer would actually use it on herself. He would be sacrificing his own existence for nothing.
But what if Eric was calling this particular shot? Her eyes misted at the very thought.
Someone was approaching her. Allie perked up, but her emotions did a one-eighty as soon as she saw that, not only was this not Jake, but rather, the last person she wanted to see—Melissa Cooper. Allie considered the irony behind the adage about treating someone the way you’d like them to treat you. That should be easy under these circumstances, yet now it was the hardest imaginable thing to do.
Melissa said nothing when their eyes met and kept her face still. “You cut your last class, too?” Allie asked her.
“I saw you heading out here through the window. I told my teacher I wasn’t feeling well.”
“I’m meeting Jake.” Allie couldn’t bring herself to meet Melissa’s eyes.
“I figured as much. But we need to talk.”
“Only for a minute.” Allie felt more uncomfortable with Melissa than ever. Melissa couldn’t even begin to guess how bad she felt about Jake’s plan to wipe himself out of Eric’s memory banks. “Jake’s got to keep a low profile. In case my mom decides to pick me up. She thinks he’s left town. If she finds out he hasn’t, she’ll freak and call the cops on him.”
Melissa nodded. “I’ll split when he comes.” She sat down next to her on the bottom row bleacher. A few kids were running around the track that ringed the field, but otherwise they were alone. “We have to team up, Allie. I think we’ll need Dr. Jones’s help in order to get evidence that his wife kidnapped me. But I can see why you would be unsure about his trustworthiness. I’ll defer to your judgment.”
Allie snorted. “We both know we essentially share the very same ‘judgment.’”
“Not really. Judgment is continuously influenced by our individual experiences. Your experiences with Dr. Jones are very different than mine.”
“True. And so here I am...losing an argument with my more-naïve self. To answer your question, no, I have good reason to believe that we cannot trust Dr. Jones any more than we can trust his wife.”
“Why not?”
“They could be the very same person. Jennifer has to have an assistant to perform the medical procedure to strengthen her memories and get rid of her host’s. Putting herself in a man’s body could have given her the ultimate partner in crime. She’d have created another version of herself who would have gender confusion to keep that Jennifer-version less willing to fight for his own self-interests. She could keep ‘him’ under her thumb.”
Melissa sighed. “I don’t like the way you talk to me. With a tone of disdain in your voice.”
“I’m sorry.” It was Ellie’s turn to sigh. “I hate the way Jake looks at you.”
“That’s immaterial. You’re the one he loves. He and I have no history whatsoever. We’ll both keep it that way. You know me better than anybody, obviously. You know I’d never go after another girl’s boyfriend.”
“Not if you’re Elony, you won’t.”
“We already established that I am,” Melissa snapped.
Allie couldn’t blame her for adopting the same snarky demeanor that she’d been maintaining. “It isn’t that simple.”
“Right now it is. Except for my vaguely recognizing Eric, I’m not having any of Melissa’s impulses, memories...whatevers. By the time I start having them on a regular basis, I’ll be long gone.”
“Where? Where will you go? West Virginia, to live as Melissa?”
She shrugged. “Probably. I’ll just have to endure a couple extra years of high school, then I’ll work my way through college. Our only viable option is to work together and do whatever it takes to stop Jennifer, then we’ll both go our separate ways.”
“That sounds wise. Did you discuss it with Jake yet?”
“No. We haven’t talked since he drove me to the hotel, when I filled him in on Mark Jones’s attempts to keep his wife away from me. Later I saw him checking into a room at my hotel. We just waved at each other, is all.”
She nodded. She wondered how Jake would feel about the idea of Melissa being back in Eric’s hometown. He was probably planning to do the same thing. Unless she could figure out some miraculous way to stop this train wreck that Jennifer had set in motion, Jake would be Eric all too soon.
“I’m never going to hook up with Jake, Allie.”
Allie looked into Melissa’s eyes. She somehow caught a glimmer of herself, yet that was as if she was looking into a funhouse mirror that distorted her own reflection. “I believe that you believe that.”
Melissa rolled her eyes in frustration.
“Sorry. I want to be nice to you,” Allie said. “I mean, I know you’re me, six months ago. But I feel this terrible misery seeping into me whenever you’re near. I know you must feel similarly when you look at me. And I’ve had an extra half year to heal. No wonder you wouldn’t talk to me.”
Melissa pursed her lips and averted her eyes. Allie recognized the facial expression as her own.
“I can see this from your perspective, Melissa,” Allie continued. “But your very existence is a constant reminder that my self-image and my every dream are dead and gone.”
“Wow. Well. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, too, Allie.”
Allie laughed, and Melissa did, too. Momentarily, at least, the tension was broken. “You realize our laugh is identical,” Allie said.
“If one of us becomes a
big celebrity, the other can earn a living doing spot-on impressions,” Melissa joked. “Although one of us should probably follow through on our dream of becoming a doctor.”
“True. So becoming a celebrity-impersonator duo will be our Plan B.” They smiled at each other. “Nice job with the ‘summer studies at Columbia’ ruse.” Allie said.
“Is it too soon to say that I’m surprised you didn’t think of it yourself?” She wiggled her eyebrows to make it clear that she was teasing Allie.
“I’d never be able to get away with it. My parents would never sign a fake permission slip, and the school secretary calls my mom to verify extended absences.”
“That’s harsh.”
Allie shrugged. “I had to skip town to go to DC with Jake last winter.”
“It’s pretty easy for me to be absent,” Melissa replied with a shrug. “I hired a middle-aged employee at the Benton Inn to pose as my mother when I registered at Albany Central. Her last name happens to be ‘Cooper.’ Lucky coincidence.” She paused and studied Allie’s features. “So, what do you say? Can we join forces against Jennifer?”
Allie knew that Melissa’s proposal was completely reasonable and beneficial. It was just that she suspected Jake was now more “Eric” than even he realized. Working with Melissa would only make it more likely that Jake would choose to become Eric. “Maybe. I don’t know, Melissa.”
“I hate having to answer to ‘Melissa.’ You know that isn’t my name.”
“Fine. I’ll call you Mellie. You can keep calling me Allie. Our problem is that there’s nothing Jennifer won’t do to get what she wants, Mellie. She’ll try to kidnap one of us. That’s how she operates.”
“So we’re sitting ducks if we stay here.”
Allie nodded. “Knowing Jennifer, she’ll send some goon after us. For all we know, he’s already here. She’s brilliant and paranoid, and she’s got the upper hand—always—because unlike any of us, she doesn’t care who she hurts. Or how badly. Furthermore, she’s filthy rich. She can hire as many goons as she wants to track us down.”
“So you’re saying it’s hopeless?”
Allie grunted. “Nearly hopeless, and you’re more of a liability than you realize.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jake insists this won’t matter, but I’d bet my last dollar that Jennifer implanted her own mind into Melissa’s brain prior to implanting mine. That would be a logical thing for her to do, and it could cause you to respond with her instincts, as opposed to mine or Melissa’s.”
“Eww! What a terrible thing to say! So you think I could behave like a sociopath?!”
“Like I said before, Jake says overlaying her mind before mine would have no effect on you. I’m just not so sure.”
Two guys were approaching. Allie shielded her eyes from the sun to make sure she could believe her eyes. She could, and her heart leapt. “Here comes Jake. And Daniel.”
“Wow,” Melissa said as she watched Daniel. “Who’s Daniel?”
“Daniel Peterson. Jake’s roommate.” She knew at once that she didn’t want to lose Daniel to Melissa, either. But she couldn’t be that selfish. “He’s the reason we managed to defeat Ethan McGavin, at least, if not Jennifer. He’s a great guy. You two will really like each other,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.
As she saw Melissa studying her eyes, Allie realized that Melissa understood completely. Melissa squeezed Allie’s hand in empathy and, together, they waited for Daniel and Jake to cross the park.
Chapter 10
“Hey, Allie.” Jake gestured at Daniel with his chin. “Look who showed up at my hotel.” Jake smiled at her. She had the feeling he was intentionally avoiding Melissa’s gaze. In the corner of her vision, Allie could see that Melissa was gazing at Daniel as if she was seeing her favorite celebrity in the flesh. Allie could hardly blame her. She was certain she’d worn the identical expression when she’d first met Daniel.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Allie said to Daniel as he pulled her into a hug. Their embrace was probably a little tighter and longer-lasting than it should have been, but these were unusual circumstances. She wanted to ask Daniel if he knew about Jake’s suicidal plan. She decided to wait until they could talk in private. Jake cleared his throat, and they drew back from each other.
She introduced Daniel and Melissa, remembering to call her “Mellie.” Allie realized, though, that she would always prefer to think of her as Melissa. The two of them said hi, and Allie continued, “Daniel’s the third member of our team that put the gunman behind bars. As Mark Jones probably explained, by the time we knew that Jennifer had taken over Suzanne’s body, she’d created the perfect alibi by dying of cancer.”
“It was nice of you to help Allie,” Melissa said to Daniel.
“Allie gets into unusual fixes,” he replied to Melissa, but then winked at Allie. “Sorry I held up Jake so long. I was helping him to post-date some photos in Washington to keep your mom off our tracks.”
“Can you afford to take this much time away from your classes? Aren’t you in summer session at Georgetown?”
“I dropped them. The classes weren’t my style.”
Allie decided to let that go. She knew he was just being gracious, that he’d dropped his summer classes in electrical engineering strictly in order to come to her rescue once again. “Thanks for helping us out like this. My mom’s going to totally freak if and when she finds out that Jake’s still here.”
Daniel grinned at Melissa. “So, your self-identity is of being Ellie?”
“Yeah, and I’d lost more than four months by the time I awoke in Melissa Cooper’s body.” She was still all dreamy-eyed as she gazed at Daniel. Now Allie worried that she must have worn a similar star-struck expression and had come off as a complete dork to him when they’d first met. “In April,” Melissa added.
She saw Jake scowl at Melissa, as if annoyed at her doting attention on Daniel. His jealousy of the Adonis-like Daniel was still there, despite their friendship. Allie was hardly one to criticize, though; she also felt a smidgen of jealousy at how Daniel was looking at Melissa.
Jake caught Allie’s eye and said, “By the way, Allie, I saw that friend of yours, Mike, on our way over here. We were going opposite directions on State Street.”
“Are you sure it was Mike? It’s not like him to cut a class.”
“Positive. He was swerving a little on his bike, and I was going to honk and razz him about it, till I saw his face. Poor guy was crying.”
“You broke yet another heart, Allie,” Daniel said, shaking his head in fake scorn.
“Mike was head-over-heels for Alexis long before I came into the picture.” That didn’t really absolve her of all guilt, though, Allie told herself. She’d led him on. She should have declined his invitation to the prom. Maybe she should go over to his house and explain face-to-face again that, although she knew he was a great guy, her heart was already taken. On second thought, maybe she only wanted to tell him that in order to ease her own conscience. It might be best for Mike’s sake to say nothing. Allie decided she’d call Fiona later and ask for advice.
Allie was so lost in her own thoughts that she’d tuned out Daniel and Melissa’s chitchat. Now she noticed that Jake was staring appreciatively at Melissa. “Our team has a fourth member,” Jake said, touching Melissa’s arm, “unless anyone objects.”
Allie couldn’t help but widen her eyes at Jake’s unexpected announcement. Melissa was looking right at her and caught her reaction. “I’m uncomfortable about this for obvious reasons,” Allie said. “But I’ve realized from the start that we need to team up with Melissa.”
Jake waited a moment and, when no one else spoke up, said, “Fine. It’s decided then. But, Melissa, the three of us know what we’re up against. You don’t. If Jennifer gets her way, she’ll kill all four of us the moment she’s gotten what she wants from me. If I thought it would spare your life, or that you’d listen to me, I’d insist that you to walk away from t
his and go start a new life.”
“You’re right,” Melissa said. “I’m not going to follow that advice.”
“Rings a familiar bell,” Daniel muttered, giving Allie another of his charming grins.
“This is serious,” Jake snapped. “If I can avoid having to erase my existence from my brain, I’ll be thrilled. So we need to try to come up with a better plan.”
“What do you mean erase your existence?” Melissa asked.
He and Allie exchanged glances. “I’ll explain later,” Jake said to Melissa.
“Jake,” Allie said, “the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m certain that you’re playing right into Jennifer’s hand. She can wait indefinitely to use the design on herself, and she can take your schematics and device to an engineer to analyze its function. Meanwhile, once you test it on yourself, she’s dispensed with her worthiest adversary. She’s won.”
“I’m taking that into consideration,” Jake snapped.
Melissa clenched her fists in obvious frustration, then said, “Allie told me she suspects Dr. Jones is working with his wife. He knew I was coming here to look for Allie. He said the last time I saw him that he’d help us try to implicate his wife.”
“Implicate her?” Daniel repeated.
“Get us evidence to arrest her,” Melissa added.
“Even though he’d be implicating himself?” Allie said. “He helped her with the whole plot of her taking over Suzanne’s body. He’s the one who shifted Jennifer’s conscience into her.”
“The woman doesn’t have a conscience,” Jake grumbled.
“Figure of speech,” Allie muttered. Starting to feel exposed with the four of them standing out in the open by the bleachers, she scanned their surroundings. Nobody appeared to be blatantly watching them.
“Allie’s right,” Daniel stated. “There’s no way we can trust Dr. Jones. It’s too likely that he’ll lead McBitch right to us.”
Mind Echoes (Book 2 in the Body Shifters Trilogy) Page 7