“You’re welcome, Elizabeth. But, really, it’s Dr. McGavin you should be thanking. That woman is a saint.”
Chapter 14
Quit trembling! Ellie scolded herself as she walked from the Metro toward ABTC. She was heading toward enemy lines. Was this the way all soldiers felt when they were about to enter combat? Or was it only the cowardly ones like her who felt half faint?
When she’d interviewed here last May, ABTC had looked like an ordinary building—unexceptional and box-like. Now it looked like a gray stone castle, with gargoyles that should be dripping blood. She entered through a glass door that she imagined was fortified at night by spiked iron bars. Her footsteps from her inch-high boot heels echoed as she crossed the glossy granite stone floor of the lobby.
The guard seated at the front desk smiled at her as he watched her approach. This was not the same receptionist who was here eight months ago. That had been a pudgy woman who’d reminded Ellie of her grandmother. Ellie fought to return the man’s smile, but she was so anxious that she felt nauseated. I’m Elizabeth Peterson, she rehearsed in her head. If she blew her own name, the gig would be up in a heartbeat.
“Can I help you?” the guard or receptionist or whatever he called himself asked.
“Yes. Hi. Um, I’m Elizabeth Peterson? I’m here for an interview with Ms. Beyers? Dr. McGavin’s assistant. Jennifer McGavin’s, I mean?” Why am I turning every statement into a question?
The prison guard/receptionist told her to sign in and asked for an ID card. Paranoid about the slightest chance of having her handwriting recognized, Ellie wrote with a deliberate slant. Meanwhile, the guard called someone and said, “Elizabeth Peterson is here for an interview.”
She handed her phony driver’s license to the guard. Instead of simply glancing at it and returning it to her, he started to put her license into some kind of lock box.
Oh, my God! Is he confiscating my driver’s license? “Is there a problem?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said with an easy smile. “I’m giving you a guest badge. You’ll return the guest badge to me when you leave, and I’ll give you your driver’s license.”
That hadn’t been the procedure when she had come here in May. She wondered if their tightened security had anything to do with Jake’s being on the lam. “I don’t have to get top-secret clearance to work here after school, do I?”
“No. I guess the head honchos just want to be careful with their visitor badges.”
Surrendering their IDs had to be awfully traumatic for Alzheimer’s patients and their visitors. “How is this building laid out? I mean . . . is there a separate entrance for patients and their visitors?”
“The in-patients’ rooms are on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. The east entrance is for the brain-trauma division. This entrance is for the Alzheimer’s division and everything else—the offices and general business operations, etcetera.”
His voice was still friendly, but she knew she was beginning to act a little too curious for the run-of-the-mill teen job applicant. She gave him a nod and took a seat opposite his desk. She flipped through a magazine in an attempt to appear at ease, but paid so little attention she didn’t even know if it was a medical journal or a fashion magazine.
Jennifer McGavin, dressed in a white doctor’s jacket over a simple, lilac-colored dress, entered the lobby. She promptly made eye-contact with Ellie. She looked different somehow than she had several months ago. Back then, the minor wrinkles gave her face character and authenticity. Now they made her look harsh. Her makeup now seemed to be much less-natural looking, and she’d lost too much weight, which robbed her of some much-needed softness. Ellie wasn’t sure if Dr. McGavin’s appearance had changed or merely Ellie’s perceptions had changed, now that her opinion of the woman had altered so drastically.
Ellie was startled to realize that Jennifer was heading toward her. She had taken it upon herself to come to the lobby and escort Ellie to her interview with Jennifer’s assistant. Was Dr. McGavin sitting in on her interview? Of a sixteen-year-old looking for an after-school job?
Dr. McGavin put on a professional-looking smile and approached Ellie. She tried to smile back, but she filled with dread. This is what I was afraid of! She’s earmarked me as a potential test subject again! She’s going to kill me!
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes?”
“Dr. Jennifer McGavin.”
Ellie rose and had another moment of forgetting that her legs were no longer short. They shook hands; Ellie was keenly aware of her own sweaty palms.
“My assistant was going to conduct this interview, but she’s out of the building.”
“Did you want me to reschedule?” Ellie asked.
“No, let’s not bother. This will just take a couple of minutes.” She scanned her badge then opened a heavy metal door. “Your guidance counselor already vouched for you,” Jennifer continued. “And, let’s face it . . . we’re not hiring a surgeon, just someone to give oral tests to our Alzheimer’s patients.” As the door shut behind them, the double-click of the latch sounded disturbingly like a shotgun pump. She began to usher Ellie down a long corridor.
“Oral tests?” Ellie repeated.
“Yes. You’ll ask the patients a series of personal questions that test for long- and short-term memory. These are innocuous questions, such as the names and ages of family members, where they spent last Christmas, what they had for breakfast. You’ll be able to measure their accuracy according to corroborating information from their family members, and you’ll log a report.” That’s all there is to it.” She touched Ellie’s arm and grinned. “As I said a moment ago, it’s hardly brain surgery.”
“That does sound pretty basic,” Ellie said, mustering a smile. She remained on edge, resisting the urge to peer into the occasional open doorway that they passed, half expecting to hear screams.
“Here we are,” Jennifer said, opening the door of a corner office. They entered a surprisingly pleasant room with lacy white curtains. A modern metal and glass desk managed to look feminine amidst the apricot-painted walls. “Have a seat.” Jennifer steered her toward the sitting-room half of the room—a cushy-looking sofa and wingback chair.
Ellie started to head toward the sofa, but Jennifer gestured at the wingback. “You know what? I need to put my feet up. Go ahead and take my chair, Elizabeth. You’ll feel like a princess on a throne.”
Ellie obeyed and sat on the wingback chair, feeling more like a rabbit who’d wandered into a wolf’s den than anything else.
Jennifer, meanwhile, took a seat on the sofa and removed her two-inch heels. “These new shoes are killing me. They looked so nice in the store, though.”
Ellie supposed she should make small talk about shoes, but when she glanced at her own black boots—she still had on the clothes she’d worn to school today: jeans and a tailored white blouse—she thought: These aren’t even my own feet, thanks to Dr. McGavin!
Jennifer crossed her legs and leaned forward, lacing her fingers over her knee. “Tell me about yourself, Elizabeth.”
Ellie rattled off her memorized facts about the invented Elizabeth Peterson growing up in Chicago and how she came to be living with her half-brother just outside the Beltway. Originally she and Daniel had wanted to make her background as unexceptional as possible so that she could blend in at Mason High School. Afraid that anonymity could turn her into a victim again, Ellie now realized that she needed to augment the story, but she was too anxious to think straight.
Ellie paused and concentrated on taking a slow breath. This is okay. I’m supposed to be sixteen at my very first interview. It’s natural to be nervous.
Jennifer shook her head as if in empathy. “You must feel so alone. You’ve just lost your parents, and now you’ve been isolated from all your friends in Chicago.”
All of which makes me a perfect target to be victimized once more! “I make friends easily,” she lied. She needed to sound high-profile, as opposed to being an out-of-town
er no one would miss—with only the guidance counselor to link “Elizabeth Peterson” to ABTC. She also wanted Jennifer to think that many people would recognize “Elizabeth’s” likeness. “Plus, my mom used to be a news photographer, so she took a zillion pictures of me growing up. I got used to posing in front of cameras.”
What does that have to do with anything? Ellie asked herself in desperation. “I’ve done quite a few modeling jobs as a result.” It’s a job interview so I’m giving work experience. She needed to make her off-the-cuff fabrications sound cohesive. “In fact, the New York Times called me a couple of hours ago. A reporter there is doing a story about kids coping with tragedy. So I told him how my parents had always advised me that the best way to help myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed is to focus on helping others. Then I mentioned my interview at ABTC, and how I hoped to be working with Alzheimer’s patients.”
“Ah. Good.” Jennifer arched an eyebrow, and Ellie hoped the expression meant that Jennifer was inwardly cursing at the thought of a possible human-interest story tying “Elizabeth Peterson” to ABTC.
“And I don’t expect to remain a nobody at my new high school for very long,” she blathered on. “Not after my mom’s photography book comes out next month. She took dozens of black-and-white photos of me and my dad, and she put them all together and titled it: Daughter and Dad.”
“Excellent.” Jennifer’s smile was looking less genuine by the moment. Ellie wasn’t sure if that was because Ellie had succeeded at depicting herself as someone with too high a profile to be turned into a guinea pig, or because she was now sounding too self-absorbed to work at ABTC.
“I can work as often or as infrequently as you’d like,” Ellie said. “My class schedule’s easy. I don’t even have any classes my final period. I could be here from three to six, and any time on weekends.”
“That will be perfect,” Jennifer replied. “Let me introduce you to the scheduler. She’ll take you on a quick tour of the building and can answer any questions you might have. You’ll report directly to her.” Jennifer rose, and Ellie followed suit. Jennifer looked at her diamond-studded silver watch. “She should be back at her desk by now.”
Ellie sighed with relief. She’d gotten the job. And she’d clearly circumvented Dr. Jennifer McGavin’s notion of using her in another experiment. I can do this; I can lie through my teeth and kiss up to the McGavins. Everyone else will feel so sorry for me, the Poor Orphan Girl, they’ll answer my questions without giving my curiosity a second thought.
A tall, white-haired, slightly stooped-over man who Ellie guessed was in his seventies was standing in the doorway. Ellie was startled to realize that this was Ethan McGavin. His picture on the ABTC website must have been taken at least fifteen years ago. Back then he looked like a prototypical, graying-at-the-temples doctor. “Are you ready for our consult?” he asked Jennifer.
“Almost. I was just about to show our newest employee to Ms. Beyers’s office.” That was the name of the assistant who was originally supposed to interview her. “This is Elizabeth Peterson. This is my husband, Dr. Ethan McGavin. We’re co-directors of ABTC.”
The elderly man studied her features. She felt a chill as their gazes locked. “It’ll be wonderful to have a new fresh face here.” He reached out his hand, and as they shook hands, he said, “Welcome to ABTC, Elizabeth.”
Chapter 15
Later that evening, Daniel, Jake, and Ellie, were seated in the living room of Daniel’s apartment, eating Thai takeout. Although they’d been together for less than a week, they’d established a dinner routine. As usual, they were hunched over the water-stained oak coffee table, Daniel and Ellie perched on the sofa, Jake on the upholstered chair at Ellie’s side, as far away from Daniel as he could get while still able to face the TV screen. Daniel was channel surfing periodically, but for the time being he’d settled on some cop show.
Back in Philadelphia, Ellie and her friends Liz and Angie had followed a couple of TV shows, never allowing a new episode to go by without a group analysis. Already Ellie could barely remember which days of the week the programs had been on, or what had happened in the last episode she’d seen. That all seemed so pointless now—another life, another human being. She wondered if her friends were still watching those TV shows and felt her absence. Ellie supposed they did. She wondered what her mom would do with her old bedroom. Or with their house, for that matter. Ellie might never see anybody or anything she loved ever again.
No. I can’t think about this or I’ll die on the spot!
She looked at Daniel, who’d turned toward her, but she realized he was looking at Jake. He snorted.
“What?” Jake muttered.
“You look like crap, dude.” Daniel chuckled. “You haven’t shaved since you got here. Your eyes are bloodshot. What are you trying to do? Let yourself go?”
Ellie was about to tell Jake that he did look a little bleary-eyed, but Jake glowered at Daniel. “I’ve been cooped up here for days on end. I never venture out of here during daylight. I’m living like a bat. I know you’re used to that. But I’m not.”
“Of course you aren’t ‘used to it,’” Daniel replied. “You’re in someone else’s body.”
Jake sneered at Daniel. “Thanks for reminding me. As if I could possibly forget.”
“Hey. No problem.”
Determined to lighten the mood, Ellie said, “This curry is really good.”
“Thanks for putting it on plates,” Daniel said, summoning his customary charm when he was talking to someone other than Jake.
“You’re welcome,” Ellie said, returning his infectious smile, “but it really wasn’t much effort.”
“It is for me. I normally just eat straight out of the box. It’s an upgrade when I even use a fork. Or chop sticks.”
Ellie laughed.
“I hope you didn’t suddenly triple your order at the Thai restaurant,” Jake interjected in a surly voice. “That would draw someone’s attention. Which is the last thing we need right now.”
“It’s self-serve from a combo grocery-deli. Nobody pays that much attention.”
Jake maintained his blank stare at the TV screen. He took a last bite of curry and rice and shoved his plate away.
No one spoke for several minutes. Ellie felt sandwiched between two walls of gloom—the lone non-squabbling member of their makeshift family.
“They’re harvesting their own Jane and John Does, you realize,” Daniel said in a grisly non sequitur.
“At ABTC?” Jake asked.
“Yeah.” Daniel gestured in Ellie’s direction. “We know they selected Ellie as a ‘brain-contents donor,’ or whatever you want to call it, because she couldn’t be traced to ABTC. When you connect the dots, you’ve got to figure that they use a similar method to choose their brain-contents recipients. I’ll bet they’re targeting untraceable victims—runaways and loners, whose friends and families won’t raise a stink when they go missing.”
Daniel paused long enough to take another bite of Pad Thai, then continued, “I’ll bet the McGavins choose young, healthy victims, then they stage brain-trauma accidents. Which probably consist of being smacked upside the head, then put into a medically induced coma.”
Ellie felt sickened by Daniel’s suggestion, even though she’d also suspected that this was how the McGavins got their coma-patient guinea pigs. “Is that a possibility?” Ellie asked Jake.
He grimaced and nodded. “As long as they limit it to just a couple of patients to blend in with their legitimate-coma patients. The Center has a history of rapid turnover in staff, which means nobody is keeping an eye on the McGavins or on their patients over the long haul.”
“Which kind of makes you wonder . . .” Daniel eyed Jake. “Do you know anything about whose body you’re in, Jake?”
Ellie winced, knowing from personal experience how painful that particular issue would be to Jake.
Jake glared at him. “No, I don’t, and quit baiting me!”
“Hey.” Dani
el lifted his palms as if in innocence. “I’m not trying to get a rise out of you. I was just curious.”
“Well, you’re ‘curious’ about a subject that makes me feel like crap about myself. So shut the hell up about it! Meanwhile, you’re the computer boy genius! If you’d spend more time hacking into ABTC’s computers and less time yakking with Ellie, we’d all be better off!”
Now Ellie felt not just like a buffer zone between two warring factions, but as if she was going to get swallowed up in the fray. “We’ve made good progress in the few days since we got here,” Ellie offered.
“But we don’t have a shred of evidence,” Jake retorted. “We don’t even know if there is any evidence.”
“If you look at things positively, though, I started playing the part of Elizabeth Peterson today without a hitch. I’m enrolled in the high school. I got hired at ABTC, and I’ll start working there tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be able to plant the electronic bugs that Daniel got for us. The McGavins don’t suspect a thing. Everything’s going as well for us as possible at this point.”
“Yeah. It’s all awesome. Except that both of you hate me. And that ABTC probably killed some poor kid so that they could stick my mind into his brain. Ultimately, I’m to blame for his death, because of my freaking invention. Plus, you believe I personally killed Alexis, which makes me a double murderer.”
He stood up. He hesitated for a moment and balled his fists, and Ellie was afraid he was about to put a fist through the wall behind him, but instead, he punched his palm. “All I wanted to do was help people who are like my grandfather. To slow down their Alzheimer’s.” He strode over to the coat closet and flung open the door.
“Jake, come on,” Daniel said, “bellyaching isn’t doing anybody any good.”
The Body Shifters (Book 1 Body Shifters Trilogy): A Novel (The Body Shifters Trilogy) Page 10
