Ellie’s heart sank. She needed to leave now, not wait thirty minutes. “Actually, it’s no biggie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye. Thanks.”
Chapter 32
Ellie hadn’t taken two steps inside the door of the posh new apartment before Jake greeted her with: “Where have you been?!”
Daniel glared at her as if in tacit agreement that she’d been unforgivably AWOL.
“At ABTC.” Feeling both on edge and exhausted at once, Ellie dropped into a seat.
“Why?” Jake shouted. “Why did you take such a stupid risk?!”
“What did—”
“Because Natalie told me that one of the Alzheimer’s patients had flipped out,” Ellie interrupted. “He’d undergone the memory-restore procedure. I learned that three of the seven patients Ethan treated are suddenly incoherent and disoriented.”
“So the results are just temporary,” Jake said grimly.
“I think Ethan is drugging them with a hallucinogen,” Ellie said. “Maybe to test how their brains react, or to get you to—”
“You should have come back and told me about this ‘flipped out’ patient immediately!” Jake cried.
“Jake’s right,” Daniel said.
“Did you think you were going to catch Ethan in the act?” Jake continued. “Steal the syringe from him?”
“No,” Ellie fired back, “but it doesn’t matter what I was thinking. When I got there, an ambulance was taking Jennifer to District General Hospital. She’d collapsed.” Ellie took a moment to still her emotions. “Natalie’s mother, Lisa, told me that they have a new female coma patient. Lisa described her as ‘a young woman without a mark on her,’ but she wouldn’t tell me her name. I’m afraid that she’s been selected as the host body for Jennifer McGavin . . . and that the contents of Jennifer’s head are already loaded into a memory device, all set to go.”
Alarm registered on both men’s faces. Daniel asked, “How much did you tell Natalie about what’s really going on?”
“I just gave her the gist—no significant details. I tried to talk to her again after work, but she said she was going to wait for her mom and go home with her.”
“Great,” Jake grumbled. “Natalie’s going to repeat every word to her mother. For all we know, Nurse Stein has been working with the McGavins all along.”
“I’m sure she hasn’t.” She decided not to tell them about Natalie’s mom calling her Ellie. Daniel, meanwhile, took a seat at his computer on the living room desk. “At least one coma patient’s life is at stake,” Ellie said. “We won’t be able to save her without Lisa Stein’s help, though. We won’t even be able to get past security.”
Daniel was already looking something up on his computer. “Damn it!” he said. “There’s nothing about this on the police blotter—no report of any accidents or incidents involving a comatose woman.”
“Ethan’s probably already got Jennifer’s brainwaves digitized,” Jake said to him, ignoring the fact that Ellie had said the same thing a minute ago.
“Which means Ellie’s right.” Daniel rose. He raked a hand through his blond hair, then faced Jake, who remained standing as if he was too anxious to sit. “We have to get the coma victim out of there. Otherwise, McBitch gets downloaded into this patient. She’ll emerge from the coma and fake a case of amnesia.”
“Then Jennifer can transfer Ethan’s mind into a young male victim’s brain at ABTC,” Ellie said. “Both of them can pretend to be recovering coma patients. The McGavins will have concocted a romantic story for themselves—that they met as patients in a brain-trauma center and fell in love.”
“No!” Jake said. “We can’t barge into ABTC and kidnap a comatose patient. We’ll look like lunatics. We need to find out who this female patient is and make an appeal to her family. If they believe us, we’ll have a shot at getting the police on our side.”
“We can’t afford to wait, though,” Ellie said. “Ethan could download Jennifer’s memories into the patient any minute now.”
“Not while Jennifer’s still alive, he won’t,” Jake countered. “Her collapse today won’t have caught the McGavins by complete surprise . . . they’ve had time to agree upon a set course of action. Cancer patients sometimes rally from their death beds, and Jennifer would never tolerate the notion that two versions of her were alive at once. They would both want to kill the other.”
Daniel and Ellie exchanged glances. On Ellie’s part, the concept of two Jennifer McGavins made her queasy, although the image of them wringing each other’s neck had a certain appeal.
“Assuming you’re right about Jennifer,” Daniel began, looking at Jake, “that—”
“I am right,” Jake interrupted.
“That means it’s a good bet that they’ve already selected Ethan’s body-donor, too. Right?”
“Right, but he might not be comatose yet,” Jake said. “Ethan will want to lower the risk of atrophy as much as possible.”
Ellie shuddered. No one spoke for a minute. It was going to be a big enough challenge to rescue the female patient at ABTC, let alone to prevent Ethan from hiring John Deere—or some other goon—to put some preselected man into a coma.
“If Ethan’s given a life sentence, we don’t have to worry,” Daniel said.
“Aside from his getting out on parole, or bail,” Jake said, “not to mention—”
“Follow the money,” Ellie said, voicing a thought that, once again, was in Alexis’s voice.
“What?” Jake asked.
She paused. She must be growing so accustomed to Alexis’s voice that she was hearing it in her head. That was similar to how she could think in French sometimes. “Like you said, Jake, the McGavins have been plotting this ever since they first learned that Jennifer had cancer. They don’t want to wake up from comas and start from scratch . . . walk away from the wealth and prestige they’ve built.”
“They wouldn’t be starting from scratch,” Daniel said. “They can breeze through med school and make new names for themselves . . . as the young couple that met at ABTC, fell in love, and decided to pursue careers in medicine.”
“Ellie’s point is that they’ll leave their money to the two patients that they’ve preselected as body donors,” Jake explained on Ellie’s behalf.
“Exactly,” Ellie said. “They’re wealthy. They’re not going to want to leave that money to charity, as opposed to being able to bankroll the new lives they’ve stolen for themselves. All they have to do is to name their future identities as their heirs.”
“Wouldn’t that be a huge giveaway?” Daniel asked. “Having two anonymous patients listed as their heirs?”
“Giveaway of what?” Jake scoffed. “Do you think the McGavins should be afraid that their lawyer will realize they’re planning to occupy their heirs’ bodies?”
“Oh, right,” Daniel muttered. “For a moment there, I forgot that we’re the only people who know about this . . . the ultimate ‘identity theft’.”
Chapter 33
Jake looked at Daniel. “You’re the son of a lawyer. And our expert on documents.”
“At procuring passable fakes,” Daniel replied, “not at sneaking a peek at someone’s will.”
“Should we hire a consultant from ‘White-Collar Crimes Are Us’?” Jake asked.
Daniel glared him, but then said, “We have to start by learning the lawyer’s name. He’ll have a copy on file. Then we have to rely on human weakness, or gullibility, in order to see a copy of it.”
“There’s a chance that I can find out the lawyer’s name,” Ellie said, deciding not to point out to Daniel that he’d leapt to the conclusion that the lawyer was a man. “Tyler Behuniak . . . the jerk who works with me . . . mentioned that his father was a lawyer. On Friday, I overheard Ethan say to him: ‘Tell your father I said hello.’”
“You think this kid’s father represents the McGavins?” Jake asked.
“Not necessarily, just that Tyler’s father is likely to know their lawyer’s name. I’ll see if I
can goad Tyler into giving me the name. I don’t know Tyler’s number, but there can’t be all that many ‘Tyler Behuniaks’ in the immediate area.”
Daniel did a computer search and got a phone number for Tyler. Ellie dialed the number on her cell. She recognized his voice.
“Hi, Tyler. This is Elizabeth Peterson from ABTC.”
“Who?” he asked, his voice snide.
“It’s Elizabeth.”
“Why are you calling me? Is your school having a Sadie Hawkins’ Dance? Are you desperate for a date?”
As if! “No, I just need your help. I need to know the name of the private attorneys for Ethan and Jennifer McGavin.”
“Did you get caught stealing drugs from ABTC, or something?”
“Of course not.” Aggravated, she retorted, “I just want to check out their lawyer’s win-loss record before I bring them up on charges of giving alcohol to a minor.”
There was a satisfying pause. “Ethan or Jennifer McGavin gave you alcohol?”
“Not yet.” Ellie reminded herself that her intention was to get information, not to best him at verbal sparring. “Look, Tyler. I just want to know the name of their lawyer, for reasons of my own. If you can’t find it out for me, that’s fine. I’ll get it from someone else. Natalie might be able to help me.”
“If she could have helped you, you’d have called her, not me.”
“I need a favor from you, Tyler. I’ll owe you one. We can agree on the terms next time I see you.”
He made a noise that was halfway between a “Hah” and a snort.
Ellie grimaced then said, “I’ll pretend to be wildly into you at your school’s local hangout.”
“Every Friday and Saturday for a month,” he replied.
“The first weekend in February and on Valentine’s Day,” Ellie countered.
“Hang on a minute.” There was a thud that Ellie took for his deliberately dropping his cellphone.
“You’re going to go on a couple of dates with a nerd turd?” Daniel asked.
“No, I’m banking on getting killed or incarcerated by February first,” Ellie replied. “I think he’s going to get me the lawyer’s name. I’ll put the phone on ‘speaker’.”
After a minute or two, Tyler said, “Elizabeth?”
“Yes?”
“Their attorney is Michael Morton, with the firm: Morton, Ackerslee, and Bernstein. I’m assuming you’re doing something monumentally stupid, so you didn’t hear the name from me.”
“Thanks, Tyler.”
“I’m only letting you trick me into dating you because I feel sorry for you,” he said.
“You feel—” She saw on her screen that the call had ended. Ellie rolled her eyes. “He hung up on me.”
“Charismatic guy,” Jake muttered. He looked at Daniel, who was skim- reading his computer screen. “Can you take things from here with the lawyer?”
“Already on it,” Daniel said. “I have to find a susceptible-to-influence underling at the lawyer’s office. We’ll need to get lucky.”
“Try bribery,” Jake said. “A gym bag of money should be highly persuasive to an office clerk.”
“If you think it’s that easy, by all means . . . grab the reins back,” Daniel scoffed.
#
The next morning, Ellie felt groggy and disoriented when she arose in her four-star hotel-like bedroom. She felt like a bigger impostor than ever in these glitzy environs. Elony Montgomery didn’t belong here; neither did Alexis Bixby nor Elizabeth Peterson. She was blanking on the name of her new identity. All she remembered was she was supposed to be Jake’s sister from Montreal. In any case, she suspected she lacked the wardrobe.
She emerged from her bedroom just as Daniel was emerging from his. He was wearing black slacks and an extraordinarily dashing sports jacket that had obviously been hand tailored for him. His eyes were vacant and his expression was as grim as if he was on his way to a funeral.
“You’re looking sharp,” Ellie told him.
“I sure don’t feel sharp, though.” He yawned. “I was up half the night. I finally found the law firm’s weakest link—a legal secretary who’s likeliest to be vulnerable.”
“Recently dumped by her boyfriend?” Ellie asked.
“I wish,” Daniel muttered. “I’d feel less like pond scum that way. Her brother died three months ago. Melanoma. We were the same age and look vaguely similar. And we both went to U.C.L.A.”
“I thought you went to the University of Chicago.”
“Not while I’m playing my newest role: male whore.”
Ellie wanted to wish him good luck, but the words felt inappropriate.
#
The hours crept past. Ellie distracted herself by helping Jake to organize his research files before sending them to the AMA and a professor he said he trusted at Johns Hopkins. He declined her offer to make a sandwich for him, but after some prodding on her part, she got him to answer some questions about his invention. His original design had assisted the patient’s brain to locate and establish healthy pathways and cells, which allowed memories and cognitive functions to be reassigned from Alzheimer’s-ravaged areas.
His mannerisms and voice grew more and more animated as he spoke. Suddenly she realized that she was grinning and nodding as she listened to him. An instant later, she was staggered by the thought of what it must have felt like when he awoke in a coma-patient’s body—betrayed by the McGavins—the victim of their disgraceful subversion of his brainchild.
“. . . which allows the LTP in the hippocamptus to—” He broke off and averted his gaze. “I’m boring you . . . rattling on and on endlessly.”
“No, Jake. It’s not that. It just occurred to me that this is your brainchild, which you’ve dedicated your life to. The McGavins not only stole it from you, but they turned it into a horrible monster.”
He grimaced and averted his gaze. “Yeah, that sums it up.”
“Except, in reality, it’s much worse. Your ‘brainchild’ could have improved the lives of millions of people.”
He snorted. “That makes me sound heroic. I’m anything but. Furthermore, the Alzheimer’s has quite possibly already recurred in three of the seven test-study patients.” He shook his head as if in disgust. “My ‘invention,’ which involved my standing on the shoulders of other scientists and doctors before me, was going to require another twenty years minimum of research. Twenty exhaustive years, by teams of doctors with extensive facilities at their fingertips. ABTC cuts so many corners, the entire block gets obliterated, let alone its corners. I knew that during the very first minute of my job interview with the McGavins. I threw in with them, even so. Their promise of finite results in one tenth of the time that—”
The deadbolt turned. They both looked at the door. Daniel entered. He locked the door behind him, then faced them. His expression was inscrutable. “Success,” he said. “I discovered that the McGavins made a recent change to their wills. They leave their money to each other. If their spouse precedes them in death, or they die at the same time, Jennifer is leaving all her money to a woman named Chelsea Bothwell. Ethan is leaving his money to a man named Mark Jones.”
“Did you get their contact information?” Jake asked.
He shook his head. “Not even their respective states of residence. I couldn’t get an actual look at the wills. First and last names were all I could pry out of the secretary.”
“They’re probably a pair of runaways,” Ellie said. “They might not even have addresses. We have to report this to the police.”
“No,” Jake and Daniel said in unison.
“The police are not going to investigate our insane story,” Daniel said. “But they will arrest me for supplying us all with fake IDs.”
Ellie punched her thigh in frustration. She glanced at the clock on the TV. It was 2:32. “I can’t just sit here like a couch potato.” She stood up. “I’m going to Mason High to catch Natalie before she leaves school. Then I’m going to beg her to ask her mom if the name o
f the comatose woman is Chelsea Bothwell.”
“Ellie, for God’s sake,” Jake snarled. “You can’t just keep hurling yourself at ABTC! You’re going to get yourself killed!”
“I didn’t say anything about going to ABTC.”
“Does that mean you won’t?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. It depends on what Natalie says. All I know is—this has to stop. Today. The McGavins killed my dad. They killed my mom, and my grandmother. They killed me. I’ve got to try to at least distract them till we’re ready to take action against them.”
“No!” Daniel growled. “You’re putting yourself in the gunman’s crosshairs!”
“You’re the one who lectured me on teamwork,” Jake declared. “Now you’re refusing to listen to us!”
“Neither of you are listening to me, either! Of the three of us, I’ve got the best chance of finding out if Mark Jones and Chelsea Bothwell are already comatose in ABTC. If I can convince Natalie to call her mom and ask, we won’t have to leave the Mason High school grounds. And in the meantime, you two can get busy doing—” She paused, realizing she had no idea what to suggest. “—something more helpful than getting in my way!”
She stormed out the door. Neither Daniel nor Jake tried to stop her.
I might be putting Natalie at more risk just by talking to her at Mason High! Ellie thought, anguished. Maybe I should turn myself into the police and tell them I’m Alexis Bixby.
Chapter 34
Ellie waited in vain for nine or ten minutes for a subway car to arrive. The uptown Metro line had some sort of a power outage or train breakdown. The crowds at the stop was enormous, and this wasn’t even rush hour. If a train didn’t arrive soon, this would be a mob scene. Ellie gave up; she was never going to be able to catch Natalie at school at this rate.
She started walking in the direction of her school, her thoughts roiling as she walked block after block. She called Natalie and got no answer. Natalie was probably already in the subway. The way Ellie’s luck was going, the trains running downtown were probably operating without a hitch.
The Body Shifters (Book 1 Body Shifters Trilogy): A Novel (The Body Shifters Trilogy) Page 22