Falling Awake

  “You probably knew him better than anyone else.” Ward shrugged. “But my employer wants me to ask a few questions. I’m supposed to talk to some of the people who were working here the night he died. Just routine stuff. The sooner I file my report, the sooner the company pays off. Any objections?”

  “Not at all. I’ll make sure that my secretary alerts the staff. Feel free to talk to anyone you like. You’ll soon find out that I’m telling you the truth. My father did not commit suicide.”

  Ward stood and picked up his briefcase. “Got a hunch you’re right about that.”

  33

  good news, Farrell, I think I’m going to make at least one of your dreams come true.” Isabel closed the door of the inner office and sat down in one of the leather chairs. “I’m quitting.”

  Farrell looked up from the papers he had spread out on the desk, blank-faced with surprise. “Why?”

  “Because I have no talent for this work. None whatsoever. I just came from my first lecture and I can tell you that it is a miracle that half the class managed to stay awake.”

  “I see.” Farrell sat back, thoughtful now. “Leila won’t be happy to hear this.”

  “Yeah, well, my family has never approved of my career choices, you know that.”

  “Probably because you’ve never actually had what anyone would call a real career.”

  “Enough about me,” she said evenly. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be paid for the time you put in as a trainee instructor.”

  “I’m not worried about my paycheck. Well, I am, of course, but that’s another issue. At the moment I’m a lot more concerned about you and Leila. I told myself I should stay out of it.” She sighed. “But I just can’t seem to help myself. What’s wrong?”

  He stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, Farrell, it’s been clear to me from the start that you only hired me because Leila and Tamsyn put pressure on you.”

  His mouth thinned. “I admit I wasn’t real keen on the idea of a creative dreaming seminar. Sounded a little too metaphysical and New Agey for the Kyler Method.”

  “There’s more to it than that. You’ve been trying to avoid me ever since I got here. When we do come face to face you act like you have an appointment elsewhere. On top of that, my sister is very unhappy. What’s going on, Farrell?”

  “Keep your voice down.” Farrell glanced toward the closed door. “I don’t want Sheila to overhear you. We try to maintain a positive, businesslike image around here. The last thing I need is a major scene in my office.”

  “I’ve got news for you; if you don’t tell me what’s going on, you’re going to get a full-blown family quarrel right here in your executive suite.”

  Farrell studied her speculatively for a few seconds. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you?”

  She straightened her shoulders. “Yes, I would.”

  “You’re right, you know. This is none of your business.”

  “I love Leila and I care about you. We’re family. What do you expect me to do?”

  “Try to fix things, of course.” He shoved himself up out of his chair and went to stand at the window. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Give advice to other people?”

  The bitterness in his words made her go very, very still.

  “Farrell?” she prompted gently. “Are you seriously ill? Because if that’s the case, you must know that Leila loves you and would want to be there for you, just as you would be there for her.”

  “I’m not ill.”

  “Thank God.” She relaxed slightly. “But I don’t understand. What else could possibly be so terrible that you would be afraid to talk it over with Leila?”

  He stared glumly out the window at the elegant lines of the lobby of Kyler headquarters. “It’s all coming apart, Isabel.”

  “What is coming apart?”

  “Everything I’ve built during the last four years. That dream I had, the one you and Leila convinced me to make real, has become a nightmare.”

  She watched him uneasily. “Define ‘nightmare.’ ”

  “I’m overextended financially. I’ve got some big loan payments coming up in three months and I don’t have the cash reserves to make them. Kyler, Inc., is headed straight into bankruptcy. I’m on a runaway train and I don’t know how to stop it.”

  “Are you telling me that this is just a business problem?”

  He swung around to stare at her. “Just a business problem?”

  “I was afraid it was something really serious.”

  “For your information, this is about as serious as it gets. But I guess I can’t expect you to see it that way, can I? You’re the one member of the family who isn’t interested in success, the one whose idea of investing is to buy thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture, store it in a rental locker and drop the insurance, the one whose big, long-term goal is to set herself up as a psychic dream consultant. Sure, I can see why you wouldn’t be overly concerned about a little thing like bankruptcy.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m going to let that go for now because, well, because you’re sort of right. But neither my current financial situation nor my career objectives are the issue here. And, no, I’m sorry, Farrell, but I don’t think your business problems are anywhere near as serious as your marriage, and I can guarantee you that Leila will take the same point of view. Why haven’t you told her you’re in trouble?”

  “Don’t you understand? I’m supposed to be Mr. Perfect. The man her daddy approved of right from the start.” He jabbed at his chest with his thumb. “I’m the guy who goes on television talk shows and tells people that if they follow my method they can become successful, just like me.”

  “You can’t possibly believe that Leila only married you because you’re a success and Dad gave his approval.”

  Farrell exhaled deeply. “I know that’s not the sole reason she married me. But I’m also damn sure she wouldn’t have looked twice at a guy who dug ditches for a living.”

  “That’s not fair. She loves you, Farrell, and it’s not because you’re successful. It’s because you’re the person you are—a good man with some big dreams. Okay, so maybe some of the dreams aren’t working out. So what? That doesn’t change the important things.”

  “It’s not that simple, Isabel.”

  She pushed herself to her feet. “Listen up, brother-in-law. My sister is sinking into a deep depression because she thinks Kyler, Inc., has become more important to you than having a family. Trust me, finding out that the reason you’ve been acting weird lately is because you’ve got financial problems is going to come as an enormous relief to her.”

  Farrell hesitated, desperation in every line of his body. “How do you know that?”

  “I know my sister.” She went to the door. “But try to remember that Leila has a few dreams of her own and that they all involve having a full-time husband who cares about his family. You might not be able to make every dream come true, but you have the power to make that one real, don’t you?”

  She went out into the hall and closed the door very quietly behind her.

  34

  bruce Hopton dropped the heavy, leather-bound logbook onto the desk and flipped it open. “This is the sign-in sheet for the night the old man died. Need anything else?”

  “One thing.” Ellis set his briefcase on the floor and pulled out a notebook. “I’d like to talk to someone who can give me a little background on every member of the staff who worked that night.”

  Hopton rested his bulky frame against the edge of the counter, watching Ellis closely. “I’ve been head of security here at the center since day one. I know everybody.”

  “You’ll do,” Ellis said.

  It took them fifteen minutes to go through the list of people who signed in and out on the night of Belvedere’s death. As promised, Bruce recognized them all.

  Halfway down the list, Ellis put his finger under Isabel’s name.

  ??
?Ms. Wright often worked nights,” Bruce said. “Sure miss her. She was a real nice lady.” He paused. “You ever hear of a condition called sleep paralysis?”

  “Yes.” Ellis glanced up, curious about the change of topic. “It’s a sensation some people get occasionally when they’re transitioning from the dreaming state to the waking state. They suddenly feel paralyzed and they are because the brain hasn’t yet switched off the mechanism that keeps them from moving around during a dream.”

  Bruce nodded, very serious. “Ms. Wright explained it. She said that mechanism is what protects the sleeper from falling out of bed at night or worse. But occasionally the switch doesn’t get turned off when it’s supposed to and you wake up still frozen. You can’t move. Can’t speak. Whatever dream you’re coming out of gets tangled up with the paralysis and you hallucinate. Very scary stuff.”

  Ellis wondered where this was going. “Some researchers think that sleep paralysis may explain the stories of alien abductions. People who report that kind of thing usually say they felt paralyzed. Other cultures have other metaphysical or supernatural explanations for the experience.”

  “My grandson was experiencing sleep paralysis once or twice a week,” Hopton said soberly. “Had terrible hallucinations and nightmares. Got so the kid was terrified to even go into his bedroom. Tried to stay up all night just so he wouldn’t fall asleep. His folks thought at first that he was just being difficult. Then they started to wonder if he had some kind of mental illness, you know?”

  Ellis understood. He smiled slightly. “So you told Ms. Wright about your grandson’s dreams and she explained what was going on.”

  “Yep. She talked to the kid. Reassured him that he was okay. She also gave my daughter and son-in-law the name of a doctor who was familiar with that kind of thing. Turned out the sleep paralysis was being triggered so frequently because of some medication that my grandson was taking. When they switched meds, he stopped having the experiences.” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t know how long the poor kid would have gone on suffering if it hadn’t been for Ms. Wright.”

  “I see.” Isabel at work, Ellis thought. Fixing things. He moved his finger to the next name. “What about this person?”

  “That’s Dr. Rainey. She’s been on the staff forever. Works in the sleep lab so she spends a lot of nights here, too.” Bruce drew his busy brows together. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “That’s funny. Thought Dr. Rainey was out of town for a couple of days that week. I remember she said something about going to visit her son and his wife in Mendocino. She must have got home early and decided to come in to work that night.”

  The familiar, icy trickle of adrenaline slithered through Ellis.

  “I’d like to talk to her as soon as possible,” he said, keeping his voice very even.

  “Sure. No problem. Belvedere said you could talk to anyone you want.” Bruce glanced at the clock on the wall. “I saw her earlier today. She’s probably upstairs in her office now.”

  Dr. Rainey was in her mid-sixties, short, stocky and impatient with the interruption.

  “There must be some mistake,” she snapped, glowering over the tops of her reading glasses. “I was out of town that night. Didn’t get back until the following day. I remember what a shock it was to come back and hear that Martin had died.”

  Ellis opened the sign-in log. “Is that your signature, ma’am?”

  Dr. Rainey scowled at the scrawled name. “No, it is not. My handwriting is bad, but it’s not that bad.” She removed her glasses and peered more closely at Ellis. “I don’t understand. What is this all about?”

  “I think someone signed in using your name that night,” Elis said.

  “Why on earth would anyone do that?”

  “Good question.” He looked at Bruce. “How hard would it be for a person to sign in under someone else’s name?”

  Bruce did not look happy. “Not hard at all. Got someone on duty around the clock downstairs but the sign-in log just sits out on the counter. No one checks the names against the faces or bothers with ID unless the person signing in is a visitor or a new member of the staff.”

  “In other words, one member of the staff could sign in under someone else’s name.”

  Bruce scratched his bald head and appeared even more uncomfortable. “Sure, guess that would be possible. As long as the guard recognized the person as a member of the staff there would be no reason to see what signature was actually written down on the log. I mean, you’d just assume it would be the right one. What would be the point of one employee signing in under another’s name?”

  Mass confusion and plausible deniability in the event anyone ever questioned who was in the building on the night of Belvedere’s death, Ellis thought.

  He walked out the front door of the center a short time later and got into the driver’s seat of the Maserati. He left the door open and sat at an angle, one foot inside the car, the other on the ground.

  It was almost two o’clock. He needed food. He also needed to talk to Isabel. Of the two basic necessities, Isabel was more important.

  He took out his phone and called her number.

  She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Congratulations. You have just graduated from amateur sleuth to professional. You were right. It looks like someone probably did murder Dr. Martin Belvedere.”

  “Good grief.” She sounded shocked, in spite of the fact that it was her idea in the first place. “What did you find out?”

  “Among other things, I confirmed that Belvedere met with Scargill or someone matching Scargill’s description on at least two occasions.”

  “Dr. B. mentioned two meetings in his notes,” she said thoughtfully.

  “In addition, it looks like a member of the professional staff signed in for the night shift on the night that Belvedere died. Whoever he was, he used another staff member’s name.”

  “Wait a second. If it was a member of the staff, it had to be someone the guard recognized. That means it couldn’t have been Scargill.”

  “True.”

  “Whose name did the person use?” she asked, curious.

  “Dr. Elizabeth Rainey.”

  “Rainey? Whoever signed her name must be a woman, then.” She hesitated. “Or maybe not. Those guards never check the signatures if they recognize you. A man could have signed Dr. Rainey’s name.”

  “Either way, it still leaves us with the fact that it wasn’t Scargill.”

  “You sound annoyed.”

  “Looks like he’s using someone else again.” He rested one arm on the wheel. “It complicates things.”

  “Well, I doubt that this new assistant, whoever he or she is, will turn out to be a former resident of the Brackleton Correctional Facility or a graduate of the behavior modification program they operated there.”

  He watched people coming and going across the parking lot. “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “The center runs routine employment background checks. Granted, they are fairly superficial but I’m sure Hopton’s people would have picked up on a conviction and prison time.”

  “Anyone who could change computerized hospital morgue records could probably change a prison record without too much trouble.”

  “Good point,” she conceded. “Well, the upshot is that it looks like Dr. B. was probably murdered by a member of the center’s staff, one who was in the building that night.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I was just down the hall,” she whispered.

  The self-recrimination in her words worried him. “Stop it. Don’t even think of going there, Isabel. There was nothing you could have done.”

  She said nothing.

  He wanted to reassure her, but he was far away and the feeling that time was running out was riding him hard.

  He looked at the notes he had made. “At least I’ve got a list of suspects. That’s a start.”

  “I just realized that, technically speaking, I?
??m on that list.”

  “We’re not speaking technically,” he said. “I seriously doubt that we’d be able to prove murder in any event, even if we exhumed the body.”

  “Because the drugs that were used probably wouldn’t show up in a toxicology report?”

  “Right. Those scans are very limited.”

  “What’s your next stop?”

  He checked his notes again. “I’m going to talk to the guard who was on duty that night. Dick Peterson. Know him?”

  “Of course. I remember he was one of the people I called after I found the body. You’re in luck. Dick knows everyone at the center and he’s got an excellent visual memory.”

  He tapped the notebook against the steering wheel. “I’ll let you know what he says. Everything okay on your end?”

  “Well, no, to be honest. I handed in my resignation to Farrell this morning after my first and only class. I was a disaster.”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. Just increase your consulting fees. Lawson and I can afford it.”

  “Oh, sure, easy for you to say. I still don’t have signed contracts with either of you. But that’s not the really bad news.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Farrell told me that he’s facing bankruptcy in three months,” she said.

  “Oh, man. That’s gotta be tough to handle. It’s obvious he’s put his heart and soul into Kyler, Inc.”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about his situation.”

  “Yeah?” He flipped through his notes, making a mental list of questions he wanted to ask the guard.

  “Maybe you could help him.”

  “Help who?” He blanked for a few seconds. “You mean your brother-in-law?”

  “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Consult for entrepreneurs and investors? Show them how to make their businesses profitable?”

  “In my other life.” He closed the notebook. “Look, Isabel, I’m a little busy at the moment.”

  “I know. But when this thing with Scargill is finished, maybe you could sort of consult for Farrell.”