Falling Awake

  “I’ll drop you off at Kyler on my way out of town,” he said. “I should be back this evening before the reception ends. I’ll pick you up.”

  She paused in the act of pouring more tea. “But I won’t have my car available. I’ll need to come home and change for the event.”

  “Pack a bag.” He forked up some eggs.

  “Ellis—”

  “Honey, I don’t want to have to worry about you today, okay? I’ll be a lot more comfortable if I know you’re surrounded by people you know at Kyler while I’m out of town.”

  She looked first startled and then she grew thoughtful. “You told me yesterday that you didn’t think I was in any real danger because if anything happens to me it would cause Lawson to reopen the inquiry into Scargill’s death.”

  His stomach clenched but he kept his expression casual. “That’s my working theory and I think it’s solid. But I don’t want to take any chances. With Beth and Lawson out of the loop for now, I don’t have any way of arranging protection for you until tomorrow or the next day at the earliest. I’ve got a feeling I can’t let things sit that long. Promise me you’ll stay at the Kyler offices until I return, all right?”

  Her expression said she was not pleased, but she nodded. “Okay.” She headed for the bedroom. “I’ll get the things I’ll need to change for the reception.”

  He reached out and caught her wrist when she went past him.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes softened. “Promise me you’ll be careful today.”

  Breakfast with a woman was not the only novelty he was experiencing with Isabel, he thought. Having someone worry about him like this was new, too.

  “Promise,” he said.

  the fog that had rolled in during the night was still clinging to the old highway when they drove into town a short time later.

  “I need to get some things from my room,” he told Isabel. “The inn is on this side of town. I’ll pick up my stuff and then take you to your office at Kyler.”

  “Sure.”

  The parking lot of the Seacrest Inn was almost empty. He stopped the Maserati in a space near the entrance, got out and reached back inside for his briefcase.

  It struck him as he walked around the rear of the car that Isabel might have a few qualms about being seen with him at such an early hour. The implication that they had spent the night together at some location other than the inn would be fairly obvious to even the dimmest front desk clerk.

  Before he could ask her if she wanted to wait outside, she had her door open and her seat belt unlatched. She did not look like she was at all worried about what the desk clerk would think, he noticed. That made him feel good for some reason. He took her arm. Together they walked into the lobby.

  The clerk, whose name tag read “Jared,” did give them an interested look when they came through the glass doors but he merely nodded politely at Isabel before he spoke.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cutler,” Jared said cheerfully. “Your business associate arrived late last night. I put him in the room across the hall from yours, as he requested.”

  Ellis felt Isabel’s sudden tension. He squeezed her elbow lightly in silent warning.

  “Thanks,” he said to Jared. “Appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” Jared said.

  Ellis guided Isabel to the stairs. She waited until they were on the second floor before she asked any questions.

  “What business associate?” She was definitely worried now.

  “Not Scargill.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s too well trained to make the mistake of asking for me in person in a small hotel like this, let alone pretend that he’s a business associate.”

  “One of those ex-prisoners he’s been using?”

  “I don’t think so. If I’m right, this guy’s another amateur, like you.” He opened the briefcase and reached inside for the pistol. “But we old pros prefer not to take chances.”

  She looked at the gun with somber eyes but said nothing.

  He released her arm. “Wait here until I make sure.”

  He walked to the door directly across from his own, stood just out of range of the peephole, the pistol alongside his leg, and rapped sharply.

  “Room service,” he declared.

  He heard footsteps inside the room and knew that the occupant was attempting to get a look at him through the peephole. Then he heard the chain lock being released.

  The door opened.

  “But I didn’t order—” Dave Ralston began. Then he got a good look at Ellis. His mouth fell open.

  “Relax,” Ellis said, moving into the room before Dave could recover from his shock. “It’s complimentary.”

  Dave stared at the gun. Fear made his mouth tremble a little. But he faced Ellis with rage and defiance.

  “Are you going to kill me the way you did my sister?” he asked.

  “I hate questions like that.” Ellis put the pistol back into the briefcase. “There’s no good answer.”

  31

  isabel’s first reaction was enormous relief. Ellis had been right, the man in the room was not Scargill or one of the ex-cons. Then she saw the anger and uncertainty in Dave Ralston’s face and her heart went out to him.

  “Ellis told me about Katherine,” she said gently. “I’m so sorry, Dave.”

  He sat rigidly in the chair at the small desk. When she had entered the room a moment ago, she got the impression that he planned to stick with the name-rank-and-serial-number approach to the formalities. But the mention of his sister’s name made him flinch. He stared hard at Ellis, who was lounging against the wall.

  Ellis returned the stare from behind the impenetrable shield of his dark glasses.

  “Yes, I know you suspect that Ellis might have killed Katherine.” Isabel went to the small counter that held the in-room coffee-maker, picked up the glass pot and filled it from the faucet at the small wet bar. She did not feel like a cup of coffee. She disliked the stuff. But the tension level in the room needed to be reduced as rapidly as possible. In her experience nothing could achieve that goal as quickly as the serving of food or drink. “But I can assure you that he didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?” Dave burst out.

  At least he had spoken to her. That was progress. “Because I know him very well. Far better than you do, certainly. Ellis is not the type who would kill in cold blood, especially not a woman.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Dave demanded.

  She glanced at Ellis. He was making no attempt to get involved in the conversation. She got the impression that he was content to step back and let her deal with Dave. Just a couple of amateurs, in his view, she reflected. But, hey, everyone had to start somewhere, right?

  She considered how to proceed while she got the coffee going.

  “Ellis is an extreme dreamer,” she said. “I assume you know what that means?”

  Dave’s eyes slid away from hers. “Katherine told me that they did a lot of weird dream research at Frey-Salter. All that Level Five profiling stuff.”

  “Ah.” She flipped the switch on the machine.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dave muttered.

  “Nothing, just that I get the impression that your sister talked to you about her work.”

  “We were twins,” Dave said quietly.

  “I see, well, as I was saying, I also work for the same agency indirectly as a sort of consultant.”

  “Yeah?” Dave was clearly dubious. “What kind of consulting do you do?”

  “I specialize in interpreting the dreams of people like Ellis here, who are very strong lucid dreamers. I probably interpreted some of your sister’s dreams this past year, although none of the individuals from Frey-Salter were ever identified in the dream reports so I can’t be certain of that.”

  “What are you?” Dave asked. “Some kind of shrink?”

  “I do a lot of counseling,” she said smoothly. “But th
e point here is that I’ve had a great deal of experience analyzing Ellis’s dreams. That’s why I feel that I know him well enough to assure you that if he had murdered someone in cold blood a few months ago, I would have sensed it in his dream reports.”

  “Bullshit.” Dave made a disgusted sound. “Why would he have told you about a dream that would have incriminated him?”

  She listened to the drip, drip, drip of the brewing coffee.

  “After you’ve analyzed a lot of Level Five dream reports from one person over a span of time, you can’t help but pick up a good, working knowledge of his or her personality and character,” she said.

  “Yeah?” Dave gave Ellis another wary look. “What if he was real careful about what he included in his reports?”

  “If Ellis had taken to doctoring his dream reports in order to scrub out any references to an act of cold-blooded violence, I would have sensed that something was wrong.” She shrugged. “Granted, I might not have known precisely what he removed from the narratives, but I would almost certainly have realized that he was trying to disguise some aspect of the dream.”

  “You’re that good?”

  She smiled. “I’m a Level Five, too. Dave, listen to me. Ellis didn’t kill your sister. He’s trying to find the man who did.”

  Dave said nothing, but she could feel his certainty wavering.

  The small coffeepot was full. She removed it from the burner and poured the contents into the two cups emblazoned with the logo of the Seacrest Inn.

  “Let’s try this from another angle,” she suggested, walking across the room to hand one of the cups to Dave. “What makes you believe that it was Ellis who murdered Katherine?”

  Dave reached out automatically to take the cup, but his hand was shaking so badly he nearly spilled the contents.

  “I think maybe he killed her because she found out that he was stealing Frey-Salter secrets and selling them. Maybe he’s the one who killed her lover, too.”

  There was a short, stunned silence. Isabel looked at Ellis, waiting for his denial. He said nothing. If possible, he looked even more bored.

  Dealing with the male of the species sometimes required an astounding degree of patience, she thought. She more or less shoved the second cup of coffee into Ellis’s hand. He frowned, but he took it.

  “Ellis didn’t kill either of them,” she said.

  “What did Katherine tell you about her lover?” Ellis asked.

  “His name was Vincent Scargill,” Dave said slowly.

  Ellis nodded. “That fits.”

  Dave’s expression tightened. “She said they had to keep the affair quiet because she was afraid she might get fired if Lawson found out about it. She said it was always the woman who lost her job when workplace relationships came out into the open. She had seen it happen at Frey-Salter when Lawson himself got involved with a member of his staff. When the affair ended, the woman was forced to transfer to another position in some other agency.”

  Ellis grimaced. “Have to admit, Katherine might have had a reason to be concerned after that incident, although I can’t see Lawson firing any Level Five. He hasn’t got enough of them as it is.” He drank some coffee and slowly lowered the cup. “Here’s what I think happened, Dave. I believe that Scargill faked his own death. Afterward, he contacted Katherine secretly and got her to bug Lawson’s office phone. When that was done, he killed her to keep her quiet.”

  Dave’s gaze switched back and forth between Isabel’s and Ellis’s face. Isabel sensed that he was finally starting to listen and process the information they were giving him.

  “Why would Katherine take the risk of bugging Lawson’s phone?” Dave asked. “She worked for the guy and she liked her job.”

  “She liked her job but she loved Vincent Scargill,” Ellis said. “My guess is that he probably gave her some story about being set up. Maybe told her that he needed proof that I was the bad guy so he could take it to Lawson. He asked her to help him.”

  Dave put the coffee cup down hard on the desk. “I’m not buying any of this yet. I need more proof that you’re telling me the truth.”

  Ellis hesitated. “I found something in your sister’s apartment. I want to show it to you.”

  He straightened and bent over the briefcase. Alarmed, Dave gripped the arms of his chair and started to get to his feet.

  “It’s all right,” Isabel assured him. “He’s not reaching for the pistol.”

  “What, then?” Dave did not take his eyes off the briefcase.

  “This.” Ellis removed a magazine from a manila envelope. “It was in Katherine’s living room. Something about it seemed wrong at the time but I couldn’t figure it out. All I knew was that it didn’t fit into the scene. I tried a Level Five dream but that didn’t help.” He gave Isabel an ironic look. “Probably because I didn’t have enough context. But it did reinforce my hunch that it was important.”

  “You stole that from her apartment?” Dave snatched the magazine out of Ellis’s hand and flipped it over to look at it. For a few seconds he just stared at the photo on the cover with an uncomprehending expression.

  Isabel looked over his shoulder and saw a picture of a cobra. “Ugh. Snake.”

  Dave’s face became even more grim and desperate. Slowly he raised his eyes to look at Ellis. “Where, exactly, did you find this?”

  Somewhat to Isabel’s surprise, Ellis slipped off his dark glasses before replying.

  “On the floor,” Ellis said. “Very close to where Katherine was found. I think what bothered me was that this was the only issue of the magazine in the place. There’s no subscription label so I assume she bought it at a newsstand. Was Katherine interested in nature and wildlife? I didn’t see any other books or magazines on that subject in her place.”

  “Oh, shit,” Dave whispered in a strangled voice. He could not seem to take his eyes off the cobra. He appeared to have been transfixed by the creature. “Oh, shit.”

  Ellis watched him closely. “Talk to me, Dave. Is it the magazine or the snake that interests you?”

  “The cobra.” Dave’s stunned expression gradually transmuted into anger. “That was the symbol of his avatar.”

  “Explain,” Ellis ordered.

  Dave put the magazine on the desk very carefully, as though he feared the cobra might strike. “Katherine played one of those big, online fantasy world games, the kind that thousands of people can play at any given time. They call them massively multi-player games.”

  “Go on,” Ellis said.

  “The one Katherine liked involves a world of towns and cities. The players have various powers and skills. They compete to rule the urban zones. Each player gets an avatar.”

  “An avatar is a computer-generated character in the game?” Isabel asked.

  “Right.” Dave did not look away from the cobra. “The players give their avatars whatever personality traits or quirks or temperaments they choose. They also select symbols or heralds for their banners and shields. You know, like the knights and nobles did in medieval times.”

  Isabel shuddered. “Talk about a setup that allows people to act out their repressed side.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “It’s supposed to be a game of strategy but a lot of the players go overboard. They really get into the life they create online. It’s like an endless Level Five lucid dreamscape.”

  Isabel noticed Ellis’s brows climbing at that comment but he kept silent.

  “I’ve read about that syndrome,” she said to Dave. “Some players don’t play the game just to win, they play it to have a life. Through their avatars they form relationships with other players.”

  Dave swallowed visibly. “Sometimes people get really intense, all right. That’s what happened to Katherine about three months ago.”

  “After Scargill’s death,” Ellis said quietly.

  Dave nodded. “Yes. I tried to tell her that she was getting way too involved but she wouldn’t listen. She had introduced Scargill to the game when they were datin
g, you see. It was one of the things they did together. I guess playing the game after his death was her way of hanging onto his memory. But one day a couple of weeks before she was killed—” He broke off abruptly.

  “What happened, Dave?” Isabel asked.

  “She suddenly sounded a lot better. More like her old self. I thought she was coming out of her depression. I figured maybe she was seeing someone new.”

  Ellis’s expression sharpened. “Did you ask her?”

  “Sure.” Dave looked at the photo of the cobra. “She said she wasn’t seeing anyone new but that things were definitely looking up. She said she didn’t want to talk about it on the phone but she promised to tell me everything the next time we got together.” He exhaled slowly. “I never saw her again. Two weeks later she was dead.”

  Isabel touched his shoulder gently. For a moment no one spoke.

  After a while Ellis reached out and took the magazine from Dave’s grasp.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “You’ve confirmed some of my own conclusions and you’ve given me some useful information. Now I’ll tell you what I know and what I think I know.”

  Dave’s throat worked but Isabel could see that he had himself under control.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “Technically speaking, some of what I’m going to tell you comes under the heading of classified information,” Ellis said quietly. “At least as far as Lawson is concerned. But you already know a lot more than you’re supposed to know about the work that’s done at Frey-Salter so I’m not going to worry about it. In any event, you’ve got a right to be informed about what is going on.”

  “You mean, what you think is going on,” Dave said.

  Ellis’s mouth curved faintly. “Yeah. What I think. Okay, here’s how I see it.”

  He gave Dave a quick, concise summary of events. As far as Isabel could tell, he left nothing out.

  “Everyone except me is satisfied that Scargill is dead,” Ellis concluded. “They think I’m obsessed with a dead man. But my theory is that Scargill is still alive.” He pointed at the cobra. “And you’ve just given me a little bit of proof that supports my version of events.”