She was making notes on teaching the importance of identifying and focusing on one’s personal strong points and wondering how she could possibly connect that to creative dreaming when the light shifted in a subtle fashion.
She looked up and saw Ellis coming toward her across the terrace carrying paper cups emblazoned with the café’s logo. He wore black trousers and a khaki shirt. A narrow leather belt rode low on his waist. As usual, his eyes were concealed behind a pair of sunglasses. She was rather pleased that she happened to have her own shades in place. Two could play the guess-what-I’m-really-thinking game, she decided.
“Get any sleep last night?” he asked, setting the cups down on the table.
“Not much.” She pried the lid off her cup and discovered green tea. Perfect. “What about you?”
“Couple hours, max. He pulled out a chair, sat down and snapped the lid off his cup. “Spent a lot of time thinking and then I called Lawson.”
“Well?” She closed the manual very quickly and shoved it out of the way. Lawson and his mysterious agency were a lot more interesting than learning how to empower students. “What did he say?”
“He admits that Gavin Hardy’s death may be more than an amazing case of coincidence in action, but he’s skeptical. However, he has his own agenda in this situation.”
“And that is?”
“He desperately wants to learn the identity of Belvedere’s anonymous third client. So desperate, in fact, that he just hired me to investigate that angle.”
His cool, uninflected tone of voice made her curious. “That’s just what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean? You were planning to look into this mess anyway. Now you’ve got Lawson’s backing and resources. Not to mention you’ll get paid for your time.”
“The thing is, the situation is what you might call delicate.” The rock-solid line of his jaw worried her. “In what way?”
“Lawson thinks the third client is some honcho in another government agency that is engaged in the same type of Level Five dream research and is equally obsessed with secrecy.”
She frowned slightly. “I’ve heard there can be communication problems and even major turf wars between various government agencies.”
“After more than three decades in government work, Lawson is what you might call paranoid on the subject of his rivals, real or imagined.”
“In other words, he’s got his own theory about Client Number Three and it doesn’t align with yours.”
“He sure isn’t going for the idea that Vincent Scargill is Number Three or that Scargill was the one who murdered Hardy.”
She widened her hands. “So what if Lawson has his own theory about who killed poor Gavin? The bottom line is that he’s agreed to let you investigate.”
“Like I said, it’s not quite that clear-cut.” Ellis drank some tea and then lowered the cup with great care. “He told me to stick close to you because he thinks you’re our best lead.”
“Oh, wow.” Excitement spiraled up inside her.
He watched from behind the dark glasses. “On that point, Lawson and I happen to agree.”
“Oh, wow.” It was all she could do to stay in her seat and try to look professional. “I get to assist you with your investigation?”
He raised his brows. “You’re a lead, not an assistant.”
Her spirits plummeted. “Oh.”
“But I would very much appreciate your cooperation,” he added softly.
Be bold, she thought. This is your big chance. You’re a freelance dreamer now with a skill set to sell. You’re in a position to negotiate. But what if he calls my bluff?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, etc., etc., she reminded herself. You’re supposed to be a future Kyler Method instructor. Think positive.
“I could cooperate a lot more effectively if I were actively assisting you in your investigation,” she said, going for super cool.
His expression tightened. “Isabel—”
“I’m serious, Ellis. I realize I haven’t had any field experience, but I’ve got a lot of Level Five dream experience. Also, I know more about the inner workings of the center than you do because I was inside it for a year. And when it comes to Dr. B., I’ve got more context than you could possibly have. I worked side by side with the man for months. Face it, you need me.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about this situation.”
She spread her hands. “Okay, fine. So fill me in.”
He looked at her for a long time, not speaking. She knew he was once again deliberating how much to tell her. The habit was becoming annoying.
Seconds stretched out into a full minute of silence.
Isabel sighed, sat back and held up her hand, palm out. “That’s it, I’ve had enough of operating on a need-to-know basis, especially when I don’t agree with you or Lawson on what I need to know. Either start treating me like an equal and a professional or find yourself another Level Five dream analyst who is sufficiently familiar with this case to help you conduct an investigation.”
His brows rose above his dark glasses. “There is no one else I can substitute and you know it.”
She smiled grimly. “Yep.”
“You’re playing hardball again, aren’t you?”
She shrugged.
“Thought so. Getting pretty damn good at it, too.” Ellis went quiet for another few seconds. “You handled yourself well with the cops last night,” he said eventually.
She got the feeling that observation was important.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Another long moment slipped past. She realized she was holding her breath. And then Ellis inclined his head once, very deliberately, in acceptance of her terms.
“Right.” He extended his legs and braced his elbows on the arms of the chair, fingertips pressed together. “You are now officially assisting me in this investigation.”
She tried not to let her eagerness show. Composing herself, she folded her arms on top of the closed manual and assumed a serious, attentive expression.
Ellis tapped his fingers together once. “I told you last night that Vincent Scargill is supposed to be dead.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“No.”
She waited.
“The first thing you need to know about this case is that Lawson and Beth think I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession,” Ellis said neutrally. “They believe I’m suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress syndrome and that it has affected my Level Five dreaming capabilities in such a way that I’ve created a fantasy version of what really happened to Vincent Scargill.”
“I’m listening.”
He fixed his gaze on the bay. “You know how Scargill came to work at Frey-Salter.”
“Dr. B. found him and sent him to Lawson.”
“Scargill was twenty at the time.” The corner of Ellis’s mouth turned up slightly in a humorless smile. “He reminded me of myself at that age. Young and eager. Excited as hell to find someone who understood what he could do with his dreams. Downright thrilled to be working in a real-life super-secret government agency. Couldn’t wait to prove himself.”
“Go on.”
“Scargill followed the usual training path at the agency. He did some assisting, practiced with mock cases and took the weapons and self-defense classes. He got his first big case a few months after he started. It was a kidnapping that was referred by one of the Mapstone Investigations affiliates. Scargill did a Level Five dream and solved it very quickly. The victim was rescued and the kidnappers were apprehended. As usual Beth’s people got the credit. That’s how it works.”
“There’s never any mention of Lawson’s agency or the work his people do.”
“No. But back at Frey-Salter, Scargill was definitely a rising star. Lawson was very, very pleased with him.”
“And?”
“Scargill liked being a star. But on his next assignment, things
didn’t go so smoothly. No big surprise. He hadn’t had much experience, after all. But he was furious when Lawson called me in to take over the investigation.”
“I think I’m getting the picture here. Young, eager recruit doesn’t like having his case turned over to the old pro.”
“I prefer to use the term ‘pro’ without the qualifier,” Ellis said dryly.
“Right. Sorry. Pro it is, not old pro.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. As it happened, neither Lawson nor I realized just how intense Scargill was when it came to showing the boss that he was the number-one dream hunter.”
“Is that what Lawson calls his agents?”
“No. Lawson calls his agents agents. Dream Hunter was Vincent Scargill’s somewhat romanticized description of his job.”
“Got it.”
“About six months ago Lawson figured Scargill was ready for another case. He gave him a kidnapping. The situation was similar to the first one that Vincent had solved so spectacularly a few months earlier. Lawson had a theory that Scargill might have a special aptitude for that kind of crime.”
“Do the agents specialize in certain kinds of crimes?” Isabel asked curiously.
Ellis nodded. “Some of them do. They develop a feel for a type of criminal activity just as criminals develop a certain pattern and style in their crimes. In any event, Scargill did a dream and solved the case almost immediately. Lawson was impressed and gave him another assignment. Scargill came up with the answers overnight. He was on a roll. Within a three-month period he racked up half a dozen successes. He didn’t even need any assistance when it came to analysis and interpretation.”
She thought about that. “So I didn’t see any of his dream reports?”
“No. Like I said, the guy seemed to be a natural.”
“And you began to get suspicious?”
“It just seemed too good to be true,” Ellis said. “When I heard about Scargill’s track record, I told Lawson there was something wrong. He didn’t want to believe me. He was convinced that Scargill had a unique type of talent.”
“What did you do?”
“I went into an extreme dream and came up with a few leads. I checked them out on my own because I knew Lawson wasn’t interested and I didn’t want to alert Scargill.”
“What did you find?” she asked, intensely curious.
“Information that indicated that Scargill had staged at least some of the crimes that he later pretended to solve.”
“Oh, jeez.” She swallowed. “Are we talking serious crimes?”
“Kidnappings and abductions. He seemed to specialize in them.”
“You said he solved the crimes. I don’t get it. If he was the perpetrator, who got the blame for committing the abductions?”
“That was the really clever part,” Ellis said softly. “Because the cases were always successfully closed. Problem was, a pattern started to appear there, too. In the last four the bad guys all wound up dead. They all conveniently took their own lives before they could stand trial.”
A cold feeling descended on her. “Scargill murdered innocent people and made it look as if they were the ones who committed the crimes?”
“That’s just it, they weren’t innocents. They actually did commit the crimes. What’s more, they all had long-standing criminal records coupled with long-standing mental health problems. I think Scargill must have had some way of identifying the kind of people he could set up. Then he worked on them individually, taking advantage of their dangerous, unstable natures to prod them into the kidnappings.”
She drew a deep breath, a little stunned. “And afterward, no one was surprised to learn that those people had gone off the rails. Probably not surprised by the suicides, either.”
“It was a brilliant piece of game playing on Scargill’s part.”
“But didn’t the law enforcement authorities see the same patterns that you did?”
“No,” Ellis said, “because the cases were scattered all across the country. The police in Arizona had no reason to compare notes with the cops in Kentucky or California.”
“What about Mapstone Investigations? You said Lawson always gets his cases from that source. Didn’t someone there notice that something was wrong?”
“Scargill was very good at setting the stages for his crimes. He loved to play computer games. I think that’s where he got some of his ideas. There were patterns, of course. Hell, the patterns are always there if you know where to look for them. But he managed to keep them concealed for months.”
“What happened?”
“There was one final kidnapping about three months ago,” Ellis said. “It ended with me getting shot up and Scargill supposedly dying as the result of an explosion.”
19
so that’s what happened to you,” Isabel whispered tightly. “I knew you had been hurt. I could see it in your dreams. That loud roller coaster sound in your gateway. Did you take all those vitamins and mineral supplements I told you to get?”
The concern in her voice made him smile slightly. He had still not gotten beyond the novelty of having someone worry about his health and well-being.
“In the past three months I’ve spent a fortune in health food stores,” he assured her.
“What about the acupuncture? Did it help?”
“Yes, although when I got a close look at all those little needles I almost walked out of the treatment room.”
“I’m glad you went through with it.” She pressed her lips together, evidently not entirely satisfied but willing to let it go for now. “Okay, tell me about that last case involving Scargill.”
“The kidnapper was another typical Scargill choice, a real nutcase. His name was McLean. He was one of those survivalist fanatics who was convinced that he had been appointed to found a new society based on a theory of government invented by him. His wife, Angela, had shown the good sense to divorce him. He was enraged when she left. I don’t know how Scargill found him, but he was perfect. Probably didn’t take much effort at all to talk McLean into kidnapping his ex.”
“What did he do with her?”
“He took her to the remote mountain area where he and his idiot followers had a small compound. I heard about the case from a friend of mine who works at Mapstone Investigations. I knew right away that it was destined for Vincent Scargill. It had all of the earmarks.”
“You decided to look into it yourself?”
“Yes. I didn’t tell Lawson because I figured Scargill would find out.”
“Did you dream?”
“No, I just did some old-fashioned detective work. McLean and his friends were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They had bought so many guns and so much ammunition in such a short period of time that anyone could have followed their trail.”
“So why didn’t the cops follow it? Why did the case end up on Lawson’s desk?”
“Because the ex-wife’s relatives were afraid to go to the police,” he explained. “I told you, Scargill staged every aspect of his little games very carefully. It appears that he always hired a woman to pose as a psychic right after the kidnappings occurred. The fake psychic would contact the families, telling them she’d had a vision. She always warned them that their only chance was to avoid the cops and call Mapstone Investigations, instead.”
“How could he be sure Mapstone would refer the cases to Lawson’s agency?”
“Scargill knew what Lawson looked for in a case. He made certain each of his kidnappings had some aspect about it that ensured that it wound up being referred to Frey-Salter.”
“Sounds like Scargill is not only very smart, he learns fast.”
Ellis tapped his fingers together again. “I think that was one of the reasons it took Lawson so long to realize he had a problem. He kept seeing Scargill as just another promising young recruit with real dream talent but no particular street smarts. He had a hard time comprehending that the bastard could outwit him. In fairness, though, I have to admit that Lawson was so
mewhat distracted at the time.”
“By what?”
“He and Beth had had another one of their big blowups. It happens regularly. They’ve been married for years but they have a hard time living together. Probably because they’re too damn much alike. They go along fine for months and then, wham, they have a flaming row. In the normal course of events, Beth moves out for a few weeks. Eventually they both cool down and go back to bed. But while they’re apart, Lawson is not only more bad-tempered than usual, he doesn’t always focus well.”
“So the situation with Scargill occurred while Lawson was upset because of the problems in his marriage?”
“Yes,” Ellis said. “And unfortunately the breakup was an unusually bad event this time. In fact Beth and Lawson are still living apart. But that’s Lawson’s fault. He made a very, very big mistake right after Beth moved out.”
“Let me guess. He had an affair?”
Ellis raised his brows. “How did you know?”
She shrugged. “Seemed obvious from what you’ve already told me.”
“Lawson was very depressed. He thought his marriage was really over for good this time around. He allowed himself to get drawn into an affair with one of the members of his staff. Word got back to Beth eventually, of course.”
“Who was naturally enraged because Lawson broke one of the unwritten rules of their marriage.”
“Hadn’t thought about it in those terms,” Ellis said reflectively, “but that pretty much sums up the situation. The net result was that Lawson was not paying as much attention to his job as he should have been for a couple of months and that’s when Scargill went rogue.”
Isabel whistled. “Good grief, I had no idea there was so much melodrama going on back there at Frey-Salter. But it’s not all that surprising, is it? Lawson’s agency may be a secret government organization but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s just another workplace environment where men and women are put together in close quarters under pressure. Bound to be some excitement.”
“Trust me, the day Beth confronted Lawson with the affair, I heard the explosion all the way out here in California.”