Falling Awake

  Ellis did not take his eyes off the photo. “A meek, lonely, nervous little spinster, huh?”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “She might be meek. She might be lonely. She might be a spinster. But whatever else she is, I seriously doubt that she’s the nervous type.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Hell, Lawson, given the kinds of dreams you and I have asked her to decode this past year, she must have nerves of steel.”

  There was a short pause on the other end. Somewhere in the midst of the long silence, Ellis became aware of an unpleasant, burning smell.

  The soy sausages. He had neglected to turn off the burner.

  “Damn.” Straightening suddenly, he seized a towel, wrapped it around the handle of the frying pan and whipped the singed phony sausages off the stove. Smoke wafted across the kitchen. Alarmed that it would set off the detector, he opened a window.

  “Everything okay there?” Lawson asked.

  “I just burned lunch.”

  “You still sticking to that mostly vegetarian diet you started a while back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t see how you can stand all that healthy green stuff. Doesn’t seem natural, you know?”

  “You get used to it after a while.” Sort of. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the fake sausages.

  “A man’s gotta have protein. How can you survive without the basic nutrients in good barbeque?”

  “I still eat a little fish. Could we get back to the subject of Isabel Wright?”

  “I was about to say that I’ve had a lot more experience with the research-oriented personality type than you have. Trust me, that kind can deal with stuff that would make a hardened agent shudder as long as they only have to look at it in a lab setting. Put them in the field and they fall apart, sure, but they’re happy as Santa’s little elves when they’re surrounded by their computers and their instruments.”

  Jack Lawson was right ninety-nine percent of the time when it came to judging other people, Ellis reflected. It was one of the things that made Lawson so good at his job.

  But one percent of the time he was wrong. When Lawson did make mistakes, they tended to be big ones.

  Ellis was pretty sure that Lawson was wrong about Isabel Wright. He had picked up enough telltale hints and nuances to know that when she decoded his dreams, she didn’t do it from some safe, detached academic place. He did not think she was immune to the violence embedded in the really bad dreams he sent to her to analyze.

  “What if Isabel Wright doesn’t want to work for you?” Ellis asked. “Got a fallback plan?”

  “Don’t need one. You’re going to convince her that Frey-Salter would be a terrific career move. Tell her about the medical benefits.”

  Absently Ellis rolled his right shoulder, trying to ease the dull ache. He’d already had two operations on it and the orthopedic surgeon was talking enthusiastically about eventually doing a complete joint replacement. The doctors had assured him that there was a high probability that arthritis would set in a couple of decades earlier than normal because of the damage done by the bullet.

  “Forget it, Lawson, you don’t want me to go into the details of Frey-Salter’s fabulous medical benefits. My viewpoint on that subject is a little skewed, due to the fact that I nearly got killed working for you.”

  “So push the retirement plan, instead. I don’t care what you have to promise her to convince her to come into Frey-Salter. Just don’t let her get away. I can’t afford to lose her.” Jack gave it a beat before adding, “Neither can you.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “Got to admit, she’s a business asset for me.”

  She was a lot more than that, but damned if he would admit it to Lawson. He was having a hard enough time acknowledging the truth to himself.

  “All right. I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But no guarantees. Got a new address for her?”

  “Beth faxed it to me a few minutes ago. Hang on a second. It’s here somewhere.” The sound of papers and files being pushed around on top of a desk filled the phone line for a time before Lawson spoke again. “Here we go. Town called Roxanna Beach, somewhere on the coast out there in California.”

  “I’ve heard of it. Never been there. Somewhere north of LA, I think.”

  “She’s got some family there. Sister and a brother-in-law. Beth says she’s renting a house. Here’s the address. Ready?”

  Ellis reached for a pen and a pad of paper. “Yeah.”

  “Number Seventeen Sea Breeze Lane.”

  “Got it.”

  “Get moving on this, Ellis. As things stand, Isabel Wright is a loose cannon. I want her back under control as soon as possible.”

  Ellis tossed the pen aside. “Uh-huh.”

  “Call me after you find her.”

  “Right.”

  He hung up the phone, folded his arms and contemplated the photo on the refrigerator.

  It was a picture of a slender woman dressed in a white lab coat. She had excellent shoulders and a proud, determined way of holding herself. She also had an interesting, intelligent face with big, mysterious eyes veiled by a pair of black-framed glasses. Her dark hair was pulled straight back into an elegantly severe twist that called attention to the delicacy of the nape of her neck.

  In the photo she was smiling joyously, almost glowing, as she examined a vase of orchids that sat in the middle of her desk. He had no trouble at all imagining the passion hidden behind the lab coat and the glasses.

  Definitely not a meek, nervous little spinster, he thought.

  Tango Dancer.

  5

  the auditorium was filled to capacity. Isabel sat in the third to the last row, notebook and pen on the small desk that extended from the arm of the plush, theater-style seat. She was watching the speaker onstage, concentrating so she would not miss anything Tamsyn Strickland said, when she felt a whispery, atavistic thrill stir the hair on the nape of her neck.

  Following an instinct that was probably as old as the species, she turned her head to look back over her shoulder to see who or what was closing in on her.

  A man had entered the dimly lit chamber. He stood in the shadows behind the last row of seats. It was difficult to make him out clearly because of the low level of illumination but she could see from the way he stood that he was not interested in what was going on at the front of the room. Instead he took off a pair of dark sunglasses and examined the group of seminar attendees the way a large hunting cat studies the crowd gathered at the watering hole. Selecting his prey.

  His gaze locked with hers. That was when she knew he had been looking for her.

  Adrenaline splashed through her veins. She could have sworn that she heard energy crackling in the room. She was amazed that there was no flash of lightning.

  What was going on here? Alarmed, oddly excited and somewhat dazed, she turned quickly around in her seat and forced herself to pay attention to the lecture.

  Onstage Tamsyn Strickland, pointer in hand, launched into her closing remarks.

  “Tapping into your personal creative potential is the focus of the Kyler Method,” Tamsyn declared. Exuberance bubbled up through her words. “That is the skill that we will teach you, and believe me, you will learn it well. What’s more, you will see the positive effects of the method at work in your personal life within the first twenty-four hours.”

  The audience was riveted. No surprise there, Isabel thought. Tamsyn was a charismatic speaker. She believed wholeheartedly in the Kyler Method, and when she was onstage, she could make the audience believe in it, too.

  She was in her early thirties, attractive, divorced and zealously committed to her new career as an instructor here at Kyler, Inc. Tamsyn had found her calling in motivational lecturing.

  Isabel gave it a few minutes and then, unable to resist, risked another glance over her shoulder to see if the stranger was still standing in the shadows at the back of the room.

  He was
there, all right. And still watching her. He inclined his head in a small gesture that signaled his recognition and let her know that he was waiting for her.

  Isabel caught her breath and turned around again, very quickly. She had never seen him before in her life. She was positive of that. No woman would ever forget a man like that. How could he possibly know who she was?

  “This is only an orientation session.” Tamsyn paused at the front of the stage and spread her hands in a graceful rising motion. “The hard work comes later, in the seminars and workshops that you will attend over the course of the next five days. But I promise you that when you walk out of this room today you will know that your journey has begun. You will learn how to organize, manage and control your life in a way that will increase your personal satisfaction and prosperity. You will learn how to tap into your own creative potential. Your life will never be the same.”

  Tamsyn gave the audience one last megawatt smile and, with an actor’s sense of timing, vanished from the stage through a gold velvet curtain.

  The room exploded into applause. The spectacular art-glass chandelier that had been designed especially for the expensively decorated auditorium brightened gradually. The warm light that radiated through the translucent abstract sculpture revealed the room’s paneled walls and rich, plush carpeting.

  The massive chandelier was typical of the over-the-top design features that were incorporated into all the public spaces and classrooms at the headquarters of Kyler, Inc. Isabel knew that her brother-in-law, Farrell Kyler, president and CEO of the motivational seminar company, had spared no expense when he commissioned the architect and designer to construct the campus.

  The crowd thinned out quickly. She realized that she was the last person still sitting in a seat. She could not delay this any longer.

  She picked up her notebook and pen and dropped them into her shoulder bag. Very deliberately she adjusted her glasses on her nose and slowly rose to her feet.

  Maybe he would be gone by the time she got to the entrance of the auditorium.

  Maybe the sun would not rise tomorrow.

  She made her way to the end of the row of seats without looking toward the door. But when she reached the aisle, she had no choice but to look straight ahead.

  He was waiting, one shoulder propped against the wall, arms folded, watching her come toward him. He wore a dark blue shirt that was open at the collar, the cuffs rolled up on strong forearms. The shirt was paired with charcoal gray trousers. Both had the close fit and elegant, masculine drape that only came with hand tailoring.

  She was acutely aware of her own attire, which consisted of a Kyler red jacket, complete with a little crest on the left breast, and a pair of Kyler tan trousers. She was a walking ad for the Kyler Method.

  When she was a few steps away he straightened and lowered his arms. Technically, he was not exactly blocking the exit, she thought. But it certainly appeared that way.

  “Isabel Wright?”

  She took a deep, steadying breath. His voice was as interesting as sin and, in the wrong hands, probably twice as dangerous.

  “Yes.” She gave him the Desperately Professional Smile she had tried to perfect at the Center for Sleep Research. “Have we met?”

  His answering smile was not much more than a faint curve of his hard mouth but there was an intimate, knowing quality to it that sent a frisson of excitement along every nerve ending in her body.

  “Ellis Cutler,” he said. “I believe you knew me as Client Number Two when you were associated with the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research.”

  Dream Man.

  The world stopped for a couple of seconds. So did her breathing. This was Dream Man.

  She managed to hold out her hand. “How do you do?”

  Ellis’s fingers closed around hers, firm and strong. She sensed the power in him but she also knew that it was under cool and complete control. Just like in his dreams, she thought.

  “Sorry to show up here unannounced,” he said. “Took me a while to track you down after we found out you’d left the center.”

  “We?”

  He raised his brows. “Client Number One was also interested in locating you.”

  “I see.”

  “I’d like to talk to you. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  It was all very polite and innocuous. He was even trying to quietly reassure her by offering to have the conversation in a public venue. Nevertheless, she had a hunch that he would not politely and innocuously disappear if she refused to speak with him.

  “Certainly.” She tightened her grip on the shoulder bag and kept the Desperately Professional Smile in place. “There’s a café outside on the terrace. It has a nice view of the beach.”

  “Sounds good.” He took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

  They made their way through the high-ceilinged lobby. The large space was lightly crowded with a sprinkling of late arrivals checking in for the week-long series of seminars. Isabel could feel a few curious glances coming from the staff at the reception desk. She ignored them. They were, she was quite sure, aimed at her companion, not her. Ellis Cutler appeared to be oblivious to the attention they were drawing but she was pretty sure he was aware of everything that was going on around them.

  “Got to say I was a little surprised to find you here.” Ellis leaned around her to open one of the heavy glass doors. “Never pictured you as the type to sign up for a course of motivational seminars. Always had the feeling that you were already very motivated.”

  She stepped out onto the long, wide terrace that fronted the sleek, modern facade of the seminar wing. “The Kyler Method is not just about developing a positive, motivated attitude,” she said crisply. “It is also about tapping the creative side of your nature. It’s about exploring options, seeing things in a different light, opening up your personal horizons.”

  “That sounds like a direct quote.”

  “Page one of the The Kyler Method: Ten Steps to Reinventing Yourself.”

  “By Farrell Kyler, your brother-in-law. The book spent five months on the major best-seller lists.”

  “I see you’ve done your research on me,” she said coolly.

  “You’ve been analyzing my dream reports for a year, Isabel. You probably know me well enough by now to realize that I always do my research.”

  It was a simple statement of fact but it sent another small thrill of alarm through her. He was acknowledging that there was a strong, personal connection between them.

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  All of her senses felt sharp and acute. She was intensely aware of the brisk breeze off the bay and the warmth of the summer sun. The sea was an electric blue mirror that dazzled her eyes.

  She led the way to the far end of the terrace, where several tables shaded with colorful umbrellas had been set outside. There were only a handful of people in the vicinity. They sipped frothy espresso-based drinks or drank expensive water from bottles that bore labels printed in a variety of foreign languages.

  Ellis indicated a table situated some distance from the others, offering a measure of privacy. The low, muted roar of the surf at the foot of the bluff provided a level of white noise that made it possible to talk without being overheard.

  Isabel sat down in the shade cast by the red-and-tan umbrella. Ellis took the seat across from her.

  A waiter dressed in a signature Kyler red polo shirt, tan shorts and high-end running shoes hurried over to take their orders.

  Isabel smiled at him. “Green tea, please.”

  “You got it.” The waiter looked expectantly at Ellis.

  “The same,” Ellis said.

  If the waiter thought green tea was a wimpy drink for a man, he was too smart to reveal it. He dutifully noted the order on his pad and hastened off toward the glass doors of the café.

  Ellis looked at Isabel. She could feel the intensity of his gaze right through the heat shield of his midnight dark glasses.

  Pay atte
ntion, she warned herself. You’ve been inside his dreams. You know how clever and subtle he can be, even when he’s in the middle of a nightmare. Keep it cool. Keep your distance.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked on impulse.

  So much for keeping her distance.

  Something about his absolute stillness told her she had caught him off guard. He recovered almost instantly.

  “Much better, thank you,” he said in a mockingly grave tone. “Haven’t had red meat in months. Taking my vitamins. Drinking plenty of green tea. Renting classic screwball romantic comedies. Haven’t actually gone out and bought a romance novel yet, but I’ll get around to it. Been a little busy lately.”

  His obvious amusement disconcerted her. She blushed and hastily sat back in her chair. “What can I do for you, Mr. Cutler?”

  “Make it Ellis.”

  “Okay, Ellis.” She waited.

  “I understand you’ve left your job at the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research.”

  “I was fired.”

  He showed his teeth in a brief, soft laugh. “I’m not exactly a student of the Kyler Method but the next time the subject comes up, I suggest you put a more positive spin on why you left.”

  “How can you be positive about getting fired?”

  “Try saying that you resigned to pursue other interests.”

  She pursed her lips, considering the phrase closely. “Resigned to pursue other interests. It does have a more positive ring, doesn’t it? Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Usually I charge a lot of money for advice like that.”

  “You do?”

  Before she could question him further, the waiter returned with a steaming pot and two ceramic cups. He set the tea things down and departed.

  “I’m here to offer you another job,” Ellis said in a surprisingly offhanded fashion. “Good pay. Good benefits. Guaranteed retirement plan.”

  Excitement swept through her. She tried not to let it show. “Working for you?”