She looked fascinated. “You live here?”
“I have an apartment just outside of San Diego.”
“Huh. I just assumed you lived back in the Raleigh-Durham area near the Research Triangle Park.”
“I did for a long time,” he said. “But about eight months ago I decided to move out here to California.”
This was not the time to tell her that he’d made the move because he knew she lived in California and he wanted to feel closer to her. It had all been part of his grand plan to nudge his way gently into her life and see if he could make a place for himself. But that had been before Vincent Scargill.
“I see,” she murmured.
He straightened a little in his chair, refocusing. “Getting back to Scargill, it turned out there was one major flaw in his game-playing routine. To maintain his pose as a hotshot agent, he had to wait until the case hit Lawson’s desk before he could go into his big act. That generally didn’t take too long, of course, especially with kidnappings. But in the McLean case, I was a couple of steps ahead of him.”
“How did you manage that?”
“I’ve been doing this work for eighteen years,” he said dryly. “There are some advantages to age and experience.”
She smiled slightly. “Such as?”
“Such as having good connections with some of Beth’s people. A couple of them owed me favors. Like I said, one of them alerted me to the McLean case because it fit the profile I had given him.”
“What did you do?”
“I enlisted the help of two friends at Mapstone, guys I’d worked with in the past and knew I could trust. We located McLean’s compound. In addition to McLean and his ex, there were a handful of other people on the scene. Future leaders of the new society. We created a major distraction for them.”
“How?”
“Set fire to one of the outlying storage sheds. Most of the men rushed to put it out. When they were occupied, I went in, grabbed Angela McLean and got out.”
“It was that easy?”
“There were a couple of complications.” Namely the two guards who had been left behind, he reflected. But there was no need to go into unnecessary detail. “But no major problems.”
“The wife must have been terrified.”
He smiled, remembering. “Angela turned out to be a real trooper. Gutsy and smart. She realized right away that I was there to rescue her and she didn’t panic. We made it out of the compound together. There was a lot of chaos and noise. People started shooting. I was still in the open at that point. That’s when I took the bullet in my shoulder.”
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that her fingers trembled slightly but she just nodded.
“I went down but I managed to get back on my feet. Beth’s people provided cover and half dragged me back to the SUV. We had just reached it when we heard the explosion. Later we found out that the ammo stored in one of the sheds had somehow ignited. Most of the members of McLean’s group survived but McLean and one of his aides died.”
“What about Vincent Scargill?”
Ellis watched the flash of light on the bay. “That’s where it all gets murky. I spent the days immediately following the incident in a hospital. I was not in good shape. The local police and news media got involved, of course. And Beth and Lawson conducted their own private investigation. You know what they say about too many cooks spoiling the broth. I gather it was mass confusion, a classic snafu.”
“Did Beth and Lawson find anything?”
“Sure,” he muttered. “Among other things they found evidence that Scargill was there at the compound that day.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“One of his shoes. There was a lot of blood on it. Got a hunch he’s the one who fired the shot that hit me.”
“But they didn’t find Scargill?”
“No. However, a few days later Beth’s people learned that a man answering the description of Vincent Scargill staggered into the emergency room of a mid-sized hospital about two hours from the McLean compound. He had suffered serious head trauma and was incoherent. He died that same day.”
“What about the body?”
“That’s the really interesting part,” Ellis said softly. “There was a mix-up in the hospital morgue. The computer records later showed that the body of the man Beth and Lawson think was Vincent Scargill was mistakenly released to a local funeral home. The attendants thought they were picking up someone else. They had instructions to cremate.”
She winced. “I think I know how this is going to end.”
He nodded slowly. “By the time the screwup was straightened out, the body that had been identified as Scargill was ashes. Scattered ashes, at that.”
There was a long silence from the other side of the table. He waited it out with a sense of stoic resignation. There was nothing more he could do. He had no proof to offer her that he had not dreamed up the entire story.
“So, no body,” Isabel said quietly.
“No body.”
She nodded once, very crisply. “Okay, I can see why you’re somewhat skeptical about the fate of Vincent Scargill.”
Ellis peeled off his sunglasses with a slow, measured motion and looked at her. He felt as if he were standing in front of her stark naked.
“You can?” he said carefully.
“Definitely.”
“In the three months since that explosion at the McLean compound there has been absolutely no indication at all that Vincent Scargill is still alive. Not unless you count the death of a woman named Katherine Ralston. Beth and Lawson don’t count it because the police are convinced that she was the victim of a burglar she happened to surprise in her apartment.”
“No convenient arrest in that case?”
He was impressed with the quick observation. “No. I have to admit that the Ralston murder doesn’t fit Scargill’s usual pattern.”
“Why are Beth and Lawson so sure Scargill is dead?”
“DNA evidence from some blood that was taken at the hospital where the records showed he died. It was a match for Scargill. The emergency room admission records made it clear that his condition was extremely grave when he arrived and it was no surprise to any of the doctors who reviewed the records later that he didn’t make it.”
“Beth and Lawson do believe that he staged the McLean kidnapping, though, right?”
“Yes. But they think I’m experiencing some sort of post-traumatic stress and that I have become obsessed with the deluded belief that Scargill plotted the entire incident at the compound to get rid of me. My theory is that I was supposed to die that day, not Scargill, and that when the investigation was complete, it would appear that I was the one who had set up the kidnapping.”
“But you lived,” she said quietly. “And everything went wrong for Scargill.” She reached up and removed her own dark glasses. Her dreamer’s eyes were as bright and magnetic as the light on the bay. “Under the circumstances, I’d say you’ve got a right to be obsessed until proven otherwise.”
He started to breathe again. “Thanks, I needed that.”
“Hey, we extreme dreamers have to stick together.”
She said the words easily, as if it was only natural that the two of them should be bound together somehow, just because they were Level Fives. Probably would have been happy to form an alliance with any other extreme dreamer. He reminded himself once again that maybe that was all that was going on here.
She had said it herself, yesterday, he thought. She’d been working in the dark for her entire life, never had a chance to meet or talk to another Level Five, let alone go to bed with one. She was curious. Try to keep some perspective here.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the caveats and warnings he gave himself, he couldn’t resist the surge of need and desire that swept through him. Nothing wrong with satisfying a lady’s curiosity.
“What do we do next?” she asked with the boundless enthusiasm of the amateur sleuth. “I can’t wait to get started.
”
He stifled a groan. Amateurs were always problematic. They made mistakes. They got carried away. They did things that could get them killed. Priority One here was to keep his daring little Tango Dancer safe.
“I’m thinking that there are a couple of places to start looking for answers,” he said cautiously. “It might be useful if you called a few people back at the Center for Sleep Research and find out if there’s any in-house gossip going around about Gavin Hardy. No one will think it strange if you ask some questions. After all, Gavin was on his way to see you when he was run down. Naturally you’re concerned and curious.”
“Okay, I can do that.” She looked pensive. “I’ll start with Ken Payne. I’ve been meaning to get in touch with him, anyway.”
He wondered if Ken Payne was an old boyfriend. Sometimes it was better not to ask. “Fine.”
“What else?”
He reflected for a moment, trying to come up with safe jobs for her. “Might be worth taking a look at those papers and notes that Belvedere’s lawyer sent to you.”
She made a face. “I think there’s about three decades’ worth of research in those boxes.”
“We’ll start with the most recent files and work back.”
“Makes sense,” she agreed. “We can start this evening.”
Her eager excitement was almost infectious. He had to remind himself that he was a jaded old pro with a dangerous obsession about a dead guy.
“Okay,” he said.
She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run off to a class. Why don’t you come to my place for dinner? I’ll make my phone calls and we can start work on Belvedere’s research together.”
Nothing personal, he chanted silently. Nothing personal. Just dinner and some research files.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said.
20
sphinx, the world as we know it has just shifted yet again beneath our feet,” Isabel announced at five o’clock that afternoon. “I can tell for sure that, whatever else was going through Ellis’s mind last night when he kissed me, he is definitely all business now.”
Unfazed by this news, Sphinx heaved his bulk up onto the faded cushion of the chair in front of the window. He folded himself into a large, furry bundle and went into Zen mode.
“For the moment, at least, he is one hundred percent focused on finding Vincent Scargill.” She set the heavy grocery bags down on the granite counter that divided the kitchen and living area. “Sadly, I’m afraid that having hot sex with me is no longer at the top of his to-do list.”
Sphinx moved his tail restlessly. Maybe he was bored with the conversation. More likely the topic of human sex embarrassed him, she thought.
“The thing is, if I want to impress him, I’ve got to be just as cool and professional as he is.” She removed the plum tomatoes from the grocery sack and set them on the counter. “I want him to take me seriously. No more batting my eyelashes and showing a lot of thigh. When a man is concentrating on catching a bad guy, he’s not going to be interested in romance. That comes later. Maybe. I hope.”
The throaty rumble of the Maserati’s high-powered engine sounded outside in the street. Sphinx pricked his ears.
Isabel’s pulse kicked into high gear. “Oh, my gosh, he’s here already.”
Hastily she yanked the remaining items—a log of goat cheese, two large bunches of fresh spinach and a package of frozen, uncooked puff pastry—out of the sack.
Sphinx bestirred himself to get down from the chair and amble toward the front hall. Obviously he had already learned to recognize the sound of Ellis’s car.
“I’m not trying to impress him with my cooking,” she assured the cat, pulling the bottle of hideously expensive California cabernet out of the sack. “A man on a mission isn’t going to pay much attention to food. This is just simple fare. I would have made a tomato-and-goat-cheese tart and fixed a lovely spinach salad tonight regardless of whether or not I was expecting a man for dinner.” She froze, assailed by a sudden wave of horrified doubt. “Oh, jeez, that’s not real macho food, is it? What was I thinking? I should have bought some salmon and grilled it with asparagus and maybe some sourdough bread. I should have done potatoes. Men like potatoes. Oh, jeez. I’m making a goat cheese tart. This is a disaster, Sphinx.”
The knock on the front door interrupted her in mid–panic attack. Pull yourself together. You’re a professional. You have got to be cool, woman.
She made herself walk to the front door and fling it open. Sphinx padded outside to greet Ellis, who was coming up the steps with a briefcase that looked as Italian and as expensive as the Maserati.
He halted in front of her, politely quizzical. “Something wrong?”
Wrong? What could be wrong? The man of her dreams was standing right in front of her and she was in a state of sheer, unadulterated anxiety because she was going to fix a tomato-and-goat-cheese tart with puff pastry, for Pete’s sake, instead of something manly like grilled salmon and potatoes.
“No, of course not,” she said, pleased with the blithe, breezy way it came out. “Come on in. I’ll open the wine. We can talk about our plans while I fix dinner.”
Maybe he would be so intent on his manhunt that he wouldn’t notice the puff pastry.
ellis set the briefcase down beside the chair in the small living room and took a quick look around while Isabel made herself busy in the kitchen. He hadn’t had a chance to examine the place the night before and he was deeply curious.
The furnishings looked as if they had come with the house. The sofa, chairs, coffee table and lamps were all nondescript and well worn, veterans of a lot of years of summer rentals.
He was mildly surprised not to see more evidence of Isabel’s personal style and tastes in the room. He had figured her for the kind of woman who would put her stamp on her environment. Why the bland backdrop? Probably hadn’t had time to do any interior design.
The collection of volumes in the plank-and-glass block bookcase proved to be the exception to the generic feel of the place.
He glanced at a few of the titles and smiled. As he had expected, it was a mixed lot that ran the gamut from serious academic dream research to the bogus television psychic stuff. G. William Domhoff’s The Scientific Study of Dreams sat side by side with a collection of Jung’s essays on dreams and a popular book that purported to tell people how to interpret the symbols that appeared in their dreamscapes. Freud’s groundbreaking work on the psychological analysis of dreams was juxtaposed with Stephen LaBerge’s experimental reports on lucid dreaming. The legendary sleep studies conducted by Dement were wedged between copies of the elaborate Hall/Van de Castle dream coding system and a volume containing Patricia Garfield’s theories on the same subject.
This was where Martin Belvedere had hoped to see his work shelved, he thought, right next to Freud, Jung, Domhoff, LaBerge and the others. He wondered if Isabel would someday make the old man’s dream of respect and recognition come true. One thing was for sure. Belvedere had been right to entrust his papers to her. If anyone would take on the responsibility of getting him published posthumously, it was Isabel.
“Wine’s ready,” she announced cheerfully. “And I’ve got some hors d’oeuvres, if you’re hungry.”
“You don’t have to call me twice.”
He crossed the living area and took a seat on one of the high-backed swivel chairs at the counter. In spite of the seriousness of the situation and the knowledge that Isabel probably would have fixed dinner for anyone who showed up on her doorstep, he could not ignore the bone-deep satisfaction he was feeling. There was an inexplicable sense of rightness about this cozy domestic scene. It was as if some part of him were trying to tell him that this was where he belonged, what he had been waiting for all these years.
Or maybe the problem was simply that he could not remember the last time anyone had cooked dinner for him.
Isabel set a glass of wine and a small dish containing an assortment of olives, tiny strips of carrots and crunch
y pale jicama, together with some cheese and crackers, in front of him.
“Here’s to our future as dream analyst and client,” she said cheerfully, raising her glass.
He was thinking of a much more intimate relationship but he figured this was not the time to mention it.
“To us,” he said, wondering if she was so intent on having him as a client that she was no longer interested in having him as a lover.
The phone in the living room shrilled an irritating summons just as Isabel took a sip from her glass.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Hastily she put the wine down and rounded the far end of the counter.
He swiveled on the chair, one heel hooked over the bottom rung, and watched her scoop up the phone.
“Hello?” she said. Surprise flashed across her face. “Dr. Belvedere. I wasn’t expecting . . . Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m doing very well. Did you hear about poor Gavin Hardy? Yes, he was killed by a hit-and-run driver last night. It was tragic. . . . What’s that? Oh, I see.”
Ellis watched her closely, wariness gathering inside him. What the hell was this about?
“That’s very nice of you, but I’ve made my decision,” Isabel said politely. Her eyes met Ellis’s. “I don’t want to go back into a lab setting. . . . Yes, that’s right, I’m going to open up a consulting business. . . . What?” She frowned and held the phone a short distance from her ear. “Sir, you’re getting a bit loud.”
Ellis could hear Belvedere shouting at her all the way across the room. He couldn’t make out the words, but there was no doubt about the tone. Belvedere was furious.
“No, I most certainly did not know that the contracts prohibited me from working with any of the three anonymous clients,” Isabel said coldly. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen any contracts. If you’ve got proof of such a clause, I will, of course, want to show it to a lawyer. . . .” She paused again. “No, I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have that information.”
She broke off abruptly and then put the phone down very gently. “He hung up on me.”