Mind Echoes (Book 2 in the Body Shifters Trilogy)

by Leslie O'Kane

  After some rustling noises and the door shutting, she added, “While we’re on the subject of baggage, Ellie and Daniel must be listening in on us, since they aren’t with you.”

  “We agreed to go our separate ways. It was the only way I could insure that you couldn’t touch them. I don’t know where they are, and Melissa and I will go make new lives for ourselves.”

  While Jake continued to banter with the enemy, Allie sat in the passenger seat of Daniel’s sports car, trying to regulate her breathing so that she could regain her equilibrium. Intellectually, she knew that Jake was just feeding Jennifer a reasonable story about his taking Melissa and going their separate ways. The words stung even so, because they were so reasonable.

  Daniel snorted when Jennifer asked Jake how far along his design was that would “prevent this incessant return of our hosts’ memories.” Daniel shifted in the driver’s seat to look at Allie. “At least she isn’t wasting our time, playing dumb.”

  Jake told Jennifer that he and Daniel had been working step-by-step on the schematic and lied that they now needed to locate an electrical engineer to hone the design and build them a prototype.

  “Since when has your hacker friend gotten his double-E?” Jennifer asked.

  “He’s taking classes at Georgetown,” Jake replied.

  “He’s still in college? That hardly inspires one’s confidence.” Daniel was cursing at the radio as she continued, “But you’ll get me up to speed on the design today, and I’ll send your schematics to an engineer who can probably clean up your various...muddles.”

  “What’s the guy’s name?” Jake asked.

  “Li Chen. I assume that’s a guy. His voice was thin, and his accent was so strong, I couldn’t tell for certain.”

  “We cleared the first hurdle,” Daniel assured Allie. “We no longer have to worry about Jennifer having an EE other than Chen produce the chip, or of her ever getting her hands on anything other than the one prototype. Even if she bribed him with her every last dime, Chen’s determined to help us put a stop to Jennifer McGavin.”

  “You’re certain about that?” Allie asked, studying Daniel’s handsome features in profile.

  “One-hundred percent,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “His wife has Alzheimer’s.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “I know it’s early, and you’re exhausted, but there’s a flight I can get you on this morning to visit Aaron Croft this afternoon. You can get a return trip and be back in New York tomorrow.”

  “Where is he incarcerated?”

  “He’s in Lee County, Virginia, at the maximum-security penitentiary. Jake and I have been trying to get him to talk to us for a month now. We got as far as getting him to call Jake on the prison phone, but he said we were wasting our time...that he had nothing to say to either of us.”

  “So you never spoke to him in person at the prison?”

  He shook his head. “We spoke with the warden about getting permission for a visit. He’d said it wasn’t a problem—that we just needed Croft’s okay by his putting us on his visitation list, but as it turned out, he said no. He said he’d be more than happy to talk to you...that you’re hot.”

  “Eww.”

  “Exactly. We figured it wasn’t worth subjecting you to him.”

  “It is now.” She shuddered at the concept of sitting down at a table across from Croft. “I wouldn’t have to be in the same room with him, would I?”

  “No, we should be able to get the warden’s permission to schedule a Class Two visit...behind the glass and talking over the phones. Like one of those scenes you see in cop shows on TV.”

  Allie flew two hours to Charlotte, North Carolina, so that she could rent a car from the one company Daniel had found that rented to seventeen year olds. Then she drove four hours to the penitentiary in Pennington Gap, Virginia. She’d fly back to New York the next morning.

  Feeling terrified, Allie let the prison guard escort her to the visitation area at the penitentiary. She flinched every time one of the heavy doors clanged shut behind her. Her flashbacks to the sight of Croft in a ski mask shooting them seemed omnipresent. She was massively annoyed with herself for being this fearful; her role wasn’t half as dangerous as Daniel’s or Jake’s, who were confronting armed versions of Jennifer. Not to mention that Mellie was currently being held hostage.

  “Inmate Croft will be here any moment,” the guard told Allie as he led her to the visitor station. As Daniel had described, she could sit behind a counter with a thick, glass barrier and talk on the phone to Aaron Croft, better known to her as John Deere.

  Just as she took a seat on the ugly green vinyl chair, she saw him enter with a guard. He was wearing tan-colored coveralls. He sat down across from her and stared at her with a smirk as she picked up the phone. When he picked up his, she said, “I’m Ellie Montgomery. You killed my family.”

  “I know who you are. I never forget a face. I remember both of yours real well. You should be thankful for the upgrade.”

  Allie gritted her teeth. His last remark was so infuriating that she now found it a little easier to stare unflinchingly into his pig-like eyes—while she was inwardly hurling every swear word she knew at him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you on some sort of religious mission, or a psycho-babble twelve-step program?”

  “No, I’m trying to get out of danger so that I can live a normal life. I’m trying to get Jennifer McGavin out of my life.”

  He shrugged. “You already cheated death once. You’re living on borrowed time.” He ogled Allie. “And you got quite a bod, there, girlie. You were nothing special before.”

  Once again Allie glared at him in silence, envisioning digging her nails into his face.

  “Whoa,” he said with a chuckle when he saw her expression. “That was a compliment.”

  “I’m not here for a chat. I need some real evidence that I can use to convict Jennifer McGavin.”

  “Good luck with that.” He snorted. “She’s got the perfect alibi. She’s dead. “

  “No. She shifted herself into another woman’s body. She’s still alive.”

  In an obvious show for Allie’s benefit, Croft flexed his biceps, which were covered in tattoos. He was muscle-bound, and Allie didn’t know if he was trying to impress or intimidate her. “So what? You think there’s a single judge and jury on the planet willing to convict a dead defendant? You’re supposed to be a big-deal brainiac. How come you can’t get a clue?”

  He leaned forward, waiting for Allie’s response, but she held her tongue.

  “It’s time get that smoking-hot little ass of yours the hell out of Dodge. Move to Mexico. Or Canada. Wherever.” He sat back and chuckled, as if amused by his lame remarks. “Oh, hey. On second thought, I got a good suggestion for you. Get yourself arrested. You’ll be safe from that McGavin chick when you’re in the cage. Let me tell you, I ain’t going nowhere.”

  “Yet you’re content to let the mastermind who plotted the murders go scot free?”

  “I ain’t content. I wouldn’t’ve done any of this if I’d’ve known I was gonna get caught. Since I’m rotting in jail, thanks to her lousy job planning, she should be, too. It’d be a hell of a lot more fair that way.”

  Allie averted her eyes, needing a moment to bite back her urge to curse at him for talking about fairness after he’d slaughtered her family for a fee. “Tell me what evidence you have to put her in jail.”

  He snorted. “Ah, hell. They’ve got all the evidence they needed to convict that broad. I already told ‘em she was guilty of hiring me for the killings. Take a look at the trial transcripts. The only trouble is, again, Miss Smart Ass, Jennifer McGavin’s dead.”

  Allie gritted her teeth but urged herself to keep her temper. “I need evidence to prove that Jennifer put herself into Suzanne Anderson-Jones’s body.”

  “She didn’t. That Mark Jones doctor guy did that. But I can prove that she hired me to kidnap that Anderson woman. Miss McGavin was with me at the time.”<
br />
  “She was?”

  “Yep.” He chuckled. “She told me she had to keep an eye on me. She didn’t trust me not to rape her future body when she was unconscious.” He lifted a palm as if offended that Jennifer would have thought so badly of him.

  “Did you tell the police that Jennifer assisted you?”

  “Course not. I never kidnapped nobody. For the record. That would only add to the police’s laundry list.”

  “So, I suppose that means you can’t help me,” Allie said. “But you can help yourself, by talking to a District Attorney. And turning state’s evidence, in exchange for shortening your sentence. Right?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah. Like, I never would’ve thought of that all on my own. You smart bitches think you need to run the world for us regular schmucks.”

  “Wasn’t anyone interested in what you had to say about Jennifer?”

  “Nope. And it was such a simple, believable story, too...that she’d switched bodies and double-crossed her husband by paying me to kill him after she died. Now...why wouldn’t the police believe that? It was all so damned wild, she got away with setting me up.”

  “She framed you?” Allie asked, curious, even though she told herself she shouldn’t be at all surprised.

  “Duh!” he said, gesturing at his surroundings with his free hand. “The bitch convinced me to go along with the whole plan. She said I’d get off with an insanity plea if we made it look like I was a nut job who was stalking her...and then killing her husband and employees in a psycho rage once I learned that she was dead from cancer.”

  “The jury wouldn’t go for it?”

  “Who knows? My dumbass lawyer wouldn’t even try. Not after all you witnesses testified to how the shootings went down.”

  “You intended to kill all of us!”

  He shrugged.

  “You’re going to want to help me, Mr. Croft. Daniel hacked into Jennifer-Suzanne’s computer. She’s searching for someone who can pay off an inmate here to kill you. So it’s in your best interest to help us take Jennifer-Suzanne out, as quickly as we possibly can.”

  His face flushed for a moment, then he chuckled and shook his head. “You’re lying.”

  “Fine. Try me. If I never get Jennifer McGavin behind bars,” Allie stated firmly, “at least I’ll get the satisfaction of knowing that the gunman who shot my father and me died painfully in prison.” She hung up her handset and rose.

  Croft held up his palm. She slowly returned to her seat and picked up the handset.

  “Here’s the deal,” Croft began. “I recorded the whole thing. All my conversations with Jennifer. Including the one where she’s with me as I kidnapped that Suzanne Anderson babe. Left a CD of the recordings at my mother’s house.”

  “I don’t believe that for an instant,” Allie retorted. “No such evidence was produced at your trial. If an actual CD existed, you’d have directed your lawyer to get you a retrial, on the basis of new evidence.”

  “My lawyer was an idiot. He had a copy of my CD. He claimed it only made things worse for me—more crimes that could add to my total years in prison. As a result, the genius got me sentenced to three hundred years. I ain’t gonna see the light of day, no matter what happens with that recording.”

  “Where exactly is the CD,” she snarled.

  He gave her an address for a trailer park in Boone, North Carolina, then said, “She told me she’d keep it safe. I told her to give it to the person who comes to the door with the password.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m not saying another word till you strip.”

  “Still not worth it to me.”

  “Then you ain’t gettin’ the disk.”

  “And after you get done rotting in jail, you’ll rot in hell. While Jennifer McGavin is lolling in one young-woman’s body after another on pristine beaches across the world.”

  “Big fat ass,” Croft growled.

  “Nice talking to you,” Allie snarled, starting to hang up her handset.

  “That’s the password,” he said.

  “So I’m going to knock on your mother’s door and say ‘big fat ass’ to her? Really?”

  He laughed. “What’s the matter? You expecting me to feel sorry for you for having to use bad language?”

  “Time’s up, Miss,” the guard said.

  Once again, Allie found herself having to screw up her courage before she could do what needed to be done. She’d driven to Aaron Croft’s mother’s dilapidated trailer. Now she needed to knock on the door and give that offensive password to some woman she’d never met.

  The drive itself had been pretty, with rolling hills and lush greenery. Now it was horribly humid, despite the evening hour. She walked up to the trailer door and knocked, trying to decide what she’d do if Croft’s mother wasn’t home.

  A plump seventy-something woman with angry eyes opened the door. “Ms. Croft?” Allie asked.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Your son, Aaron, told me you had a CD relating to his arrest that might help me out.”

  She eyed Allie from head to foot and back. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Jill Jenkins,” Allie lied, not wanting to give anyone associated with her father’s killer her real name. “I was victimized by a doctor who...allegedly hired your son.”

  “I don’t know you. I ain’t got nothin’ for you.”

  “He told me you’d give me the disk if I told you the password.”

  “Oh, yeah? A password?”

  “He said it was ‘big fat ass.’”

  She laughed with a phlegmy rattle, then shut the door. Allie stood there on the woman’s stoop, not knowing if that meant she didn’t have the CD, or that she had it but wasn’t willing to give it to her, or if she expected Allie to wait there until she returned, disk in hand.

  After waiting for at least a minute or two, she turned away. Just as Allie was heading down the crooked porch steps, the woman reopened her door. She had a CD in her hand.

  “You found it,” Allie said with a smile.

  “And you can keep the damn thing,” she grumbled. She handed Allie the CD. As she was shutting the door, she said, “And, by the way, that ain’t no password. He was pulling your leg, and you fell for it. My son outsmarted you. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” The slammed the door shut.

  Chapter 24

  Allie was relieved to see Daniel waiting for her at LaGuardia the following morning. He looked exhausted, but he mustered a smile as their eyes met.

  “Any word from Mellie?” she asked as she allowed him to grab her carryon. “Or Kathleen?”

  They’d spoken on the phone before her flight had departed. “‘Fraid not. Jake’s still biding his time at Jennifer’s labs, consulting over the phone with Li Chen and using Jennifer’s data from previous test patients to fine-tune the design.”

  “Do you think he has the pressure switch design?” Allie asked. “The one that will erase Eric’s memories with the initial use, and erase Jennifer’s memories with the second use?”

  “I sure hope so. But I’ve got some good news. I located the apartment building where I think Kathleen’s got Mellie stashed away.”

  “Where Dr. Jones took her after he got her out of their clinic?”

  “Yeah. Plus I tricked a clerk at the Marriott in Albany into telling me over the phone what type of car Kathleen drove. I spotted it on the same block.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “I pretended I was afraid to book my wife there when some maniac could park in their lot, walk down their hallway, and shoot a guest without so much as a security camera capturing their image. She, of course, objected to the inaccuracy of my statement. Then I badgered her into saying Mark’s killer had been driving a silver four-door sedan with Georgia license plates. Must have been a rental car...and we got lucky, in that the plates were from Georgia and not the typical northeastern state.”

  Allie nodded. They had been slightly lucky to be able t
o tentatively identify Kathleen’s rental car. Daniel ushered her outside, where the air was uncomfortably warm, but the air at least felt less muggy than in North Carolina. He warned that their trek to the car in the airport parking lot would be a long one.

  “Have you checked out any of the apartments in the building?” Allie asked him.

  “Not yet. I’ve been watching the windows, hoping to spot one of them in the window, but no luck. We’ll have to do a floor-by-floor search next. Have you been able to listen to the CD you got from Croft’s mother?”

  She nodded. “It more or less verifies everything we knew she was doing...how complicit she was in kidnapping Suzanne Anderson....and why. Along with Croft’s claim that she had assured him, worst case, he could get off with an insanity plea. But, frankly, I don’t know if any of it would hold up in court. It’s such a can of worms...to incarcerate the human being who was actually the victim of her own kidnapping, but is now controlled by the perpetrator...and kidnapping yet more victims. I don’t know what a judge or jury would do with that.”

  “That disk might save our asses as we’re trying to stop Jennifer. And maybe we can get some sort of court injunction to have a consortium of neurosurgeons who could vet Jake’s latest brainstorm, and legally force Jennifer to undergo a procedure that will erase Jennifer’s existence from Suzanne’s brain.”

  Allie stared at Daniel for a moment, at once both startled that she hadn’t thought of that and devastated by the ramifications. She, too, after all, was an interloper in Alexis Bixby’s body. She saw Daniel’s reaction to her pained expression.

  “That isn’t what should be done to you and Jake, Ellie.”

  “Allie,” she corrected. “I’m legally and ethically Alexis Bixby, Daniel.”

  “No, you were right before. You’re Allie now. And Jake is...Jake Eric. The two of you are innocent. The court shouldn’t order the death of innocent people’s minds, just of the cold-blooded killer’s mind who killed their original bodies.”