Falling Awake

  “No. I would continue to contract for your services but you would be employed by another research lab. The situation would be similar to the one you had at the center.”

  He sounded almost bored, as if he were going through the motions, as if her decision was a matter of complete disinterest to him.

  “I see.” She thought about that for a moment and then decided to play a couple of her own cards. “Would this other lab by any chance be my former Client Number One? An unnamed government agency engaged in Level Five dream research?”

  Ellis’s brows climbed. “I take it you obviously know a lot more about your private clients than Martin Belvedere led us to believe.”

  He sounded impressed but not surprised, she thought, and certainly not alarmed. She got the distinct impression that he had already guessed that she knew a certain amount about her anonymous clients.

  Her confidence rose. She picked up the teapot. He watched her fill his cup and then her own as if the small ritual fascinated him.

  “After doing several dozen Level Five dream analyses it would be hard not to know something about my clients,” she said, setting down the pot.

  “I thought so.” He made himself more comfortable in the chair, turning slightly to study some wet-suited surfers who were paddling out across the bay. “I told Lawson—”

  “Lawson?”

  “Jack Lawson. He’s the director of Frey-Salter, Inc. Anonymous Client Number One to you.”

  “Ah.”

  “I told him that I would deliver his offer of a job. I’ve completed my assignment.”

  “No offense, but you didn’t do much of a sales job,” she said dryly.

  He smiled his cool, edgy smile and picked up his cup. “Just said I’d make his offer for him. Didn’t say I’d try to talk you into going to work at Frey-Salter.”

  “Just as well.” She picked up the small cup with both hands, holding it between her fingertips. “Because I’ll let you in on a little secret, Ellis. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Belvedere let me go. I’ve decided that I don’t want to go back into a lab setting.”

  He continued to concentrate on the surfers. “I know that the kind of Level Five dreams Lawson and I asked you to interpret were . . .” He hesitated and took a swallow of tea. “Disturbing.”

  “True. But it wasn’t the dreams that disturbed me the most. It was the way both of you withheld information from me.”

  That statement got his attention. He turned his head to look at her. “What do you mean? I can’t speak for Lawson, but I made my dream reports as complete as possible.”

  “Oh, sure, you both gave me narratives of the dreams, but you didn’t give me any context. I was never told anything about what was going on in the lives of the dreamers and even less about the subjects of the dreams.”

  His jaw tightened. “You must have figured out enough about the subjects to realize that they were extremely unpleasant.”

  “Of course. But that just made it all the more frustrating.” She spread her hands. “Because I never got any feedback on the results, either. Do you have any idea just how maddening it was to work that way?”

  He looked blank. “Feedback?”

  “I’m not stupid, Ellis. I may have been stuck in an office on the third floor at the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research for the past year, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you and the lab rats were doing.”

  “Lab rats?”

  She ignored that. “You and Lawson’s people are trying to use extreme dreams as investigative tools to solve crimes, aren’t you?”

  Ellis stretched out his legs and stacked his ankles, one on top of the other. She got the impression that he was doing some fast thinking, deciding how much to tell her.

  “In a sense,” he said cautiously.

  “In a sense, my left toe. That is exactly what you’re doing. Well, I did what I was hired to do to the best of my ability this past year. But not once during that time did either of you ever have the common courtesy to inform me of the results of any of the investigations I worked on with you. When I think of all the rush jobs, all the nights I spent on a cot in my office analyzing dreams because you had to have the answers as soon as possible, I could just spit.”

  He contemplated her for a long moment, comprehension building slowly in his expression.

  “Well, hell,” he said softly.

  “Time and again, I asked Dr. B. to request the results of those cases. Time and again he told me that my requests were denied.”

  Ellis exhaled deeply. “Sorry about that. Lawson is real big on confidentiality. The requests I got from Belvedere all involved special cases that I handled for Lawson. The files were classified. You know how it is when you’re dealing with government types. They aren’t happy unless everything, including the instructions for operating the office vending machines, is stamped TOP SECRET.”

  “All I wanted was some closure on a few of the really bad cases. Was that too much to ask?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t even have enough context to identify the most likely news stories on the Internet.”

  “Most of them weren’t big enough stories to hit the major papers. Even if you had found some of them, all you would have learned was that local law enforcement officials had made arrests. Lawson keeps a very low profile. He never has any direct contact with the cops.”

  “So how does he get the cases that he assigns to you and the others?” she asked, eager for every scrap of information.

  Again Ellis paused, evidently turning things over in his mind before deciding what to tell her. Then he shrugged.

  “As far as outsiders are concerned, the cases are handled by a private investigation firm named Mapstone Investigations. The owner of the firm is very close to Lawson.”

  “A friend?”

  “His wife. They’ve been together for about thirty years. They argue a lot but even when they’re mad at each other, they still work together. Lawson trusts Beth Mapstone more than he trusts anyone else in the world.”

  “Including you?”

  He picked up the small teacup. “Including me.”

  “I see.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Do you know how I work, Ellis?”

  “Belvedere said that, essentially, you study a dream report and then you create a Level Five lucid dream of your own that incorporates the details of the subject’s dream. You then analyze the subject’s dream using your own extreme dreaming capabilities.” He paused. “In other words, you walk through other people’s dreams.”

  “Close enough. Now, given your personal, no doubt extensive experience with high-level lucid dreams, can you use a little imagination and figure out what never knowing the outcomes did to my own personal dreams? Did it ever occur to you that the lack of closure might give me a few Level Five nightmares?”

  Grim understanding followed by something that looked a lot like genuine remorse drew his face into a stark mask.

  “Shit.”

  She cleared her throat. “Yes.”

  “I figured analyzing the dreams wasn’t pleasant, but it never occurred to me that they might affect your own, personal dreamscapes. Belvedere sure as hell never said anything about that. I guess I just assumed that you took a detached, academic approach to the process.”

  “I have a very vivid imagination, Ellis. Goes with the territory. Fragments of those nightmares hung around for weeks sometimes. And I had no context and no closure to help me get rid of them.”

  “Trust me, if I had been free to do so, I would have been happy to fill you in on the results of my cases. But Lawson wouldn’t allow it.”

  “In my opinion Lawson is a control freak.”

  His mouth curved slightly. “You may be right.”

  “And since you are willing to work for him on his terms, I have to wonder about you, too.”

  He put down his cup, frowning. “You think I’m a control freak?”

  She raised her chin and prepared to play what
Gavin Hardy would have called her really big card.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think of you personally,” she said smoothly. “What matters is that, as I mentioned, I have been doing a lot of thinking about my future in recent days and I have made a decision.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I am tired of being used like a convenient piece of office equipment. From now on, if you or Lawson or anyone else wishes to utilize my extreme dream analysis services, you will have to contract with me directly. Furthermore, you will have to meet my requirements. Naturally I will guarantee client confidentiality. But I will also demand more context and feedback on each case.”

  He took a swallow of tea and looked fascinated. “Oh, man. Lawson is gonna be real upset about this.”

  “Then he can find himself another Level Five analyst.” She held her breath, aware that she was risking everything with the move.

  “You’re the only one he’s been able to identify,” Ellis said. “Believe me, he’s looked. Until you came along, he had to handle all the analyses and interpretations in-house, and there were a lot of mistakes made. Some of the symbols and metaphors in Level Five dreams are beyond weird.”

  Satisfaction made her almost giddy. She had been right, after all. Lawson didn’t have anywhere else to turn. He needed her. So did Ellis Cutler.

  She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. “As I said, you and Lawson are quite welcome to sign a contract with me.”

  “Oh, man,” he said again, almost under his breath. “This is going to be fun.”

  “I fail to see anything that is the least bit amusing about this situation,” she snapped. “This is business.” Committed now, she plunged recklessly ahead. “If I discover that a client fabricates any of the information concerning context or the final resolution of the various cases submitted to me with the intention of deceiving me or with the expectation of shutting me up, said client will no longer be eligible for my services.”

  “Understood.”

  “You think I’m joking?”

  “No, Ms. Wright.” His mouth jerked upward at the corner. “I can see that you are damn serious. You’ll get no argument from me but I don’t think Lawson is going to go for this new arrangement.”

  “If he doesn’t like my terms, he is free to search for another analyst.”

  Ellis whistled softly. “You play hardball, Isabel Wright.”

  Gratified by that statement, she uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. “I’ve been taking lessons from some experts for the past year, namely you and Lawson. As I said, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in recent days. I won’t go back to working in the dark.”

  He tilted his head slightly, angling his gaze to watch her through the dark glasses. “In addition to freelancing for Lawson, I’m a business consultant, specifically a venture capitalist. I look at a lot of business plans. Speaking professionally, I feel obliged to point out a couple of negatives in yours.”

  She gripped the strap of her purse. “What negatives?”

  “It’s true that there are not a lot of people who can do what you do. But it is equally true that there also isn’t a lot of demand for your services.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “You had a grand total of exactly two clients while you were at the center, right?”

  “Right,” she said, a little uneasy now that she could see where he was going with this.

  “If Lawson doesn’t agree to your contract terms, that will leave you with only one viable client. Me. Problem is, I get my special cases directly from Lawson, so if he doesn’t want you involved, I won’t be able to use your services.”

  She swallowed. “I understand.”

  “Think you can make a living without Lawson and his cases?”

  “I don’t know.” She forced another Desperately Professional Smile. “Lucky for me I’ve got my new day job.”

  That made him go still again. “What’s that?”

  “I’m not here at Kyler to take a course of motivational seminars, Ellis. I’m going to work here.”

  “You’re joking,” he said, voice very flat and sure.

  “Nope. I’m taking the instructors’ course. On Monday I will begin teaching a series of seminars titled ‘Tapping into the Creative Potential of Your Dreams.’ ”

  He smiled. The smile stretched into a disbelieving grin. “Are you serious?”

  “I am very, very serious. I need a steady paycheck while I get started in my new Level Five dream consulting career. My brother-in-law, Farrell Kyler, has kindly offered me gainful employment. I have accepted that offer.”

  Actually, she had thrown herself on Farrell’s mercy and begged for the job but she saw no reason to go into the sordid details with Ellis. It was probably not a good idea to let a potential client know that you had financial problems.

  Ellis was still smiling. “Teaching a motivational class on creative dreaming? I don’t believe it. Everyone knows this motivational seminar stuff is a racket.”

  “No, not everyone knows that,” she said, spacing each word very precisely. “A lot of people take the power of positive thinking quite seriously and with good reason. Motivational seminars work for people who are motivated enough to make them work.”

  “There’s something a little circular about that reasoning.”

  His amused disdain infuriated her.

  “You know what most folks would call a man who gets paid by a secret government agency to solve crimes in his dreams?” she asked very sweetly.

  “A sharp con artist with a really good racket?”

  “You got it. I don’t think you’re in any position to call my brother-in-law’s business a scam, do you?”

  “Point taken.”

  She inclined her head a fraction of an inch. “Let me know if you decide you want to become a Wright Dream Analysis client.”

  He smiled again, very slowly and very deliberately. It did odd things to her insides.

  “Don’t worry, Isabel. I’ll get back to you.”

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  6

  tango Dancer.

  She had turned out to be exactly as he had imagined. Sexy, smoldering, mysterious, fascinating. Just the way she appeared in his dreams. Maybe it was those green-and-gold dreaming eyes.

  He needed to report to Lawson. He also needed to do some thinking. He could feel everything in his carefully ordered world starting to shift and change. It was like being in the middle of a Level Five dream that had taken an unpredictable turn.

  He’d had a plan when he moved back to California eight months ago, a plan that definitely involved Isabel Wright. But it did not include this shattering reaction to Isabel in the flesh.

  Ellis walked out of the lobby of Kyler, Inc., got into the Maserati and drove a couple of miles beyond the Roxanna Beach city limits to the abandoned amusement park. He had discovered the fenced and gated collection of aging thrill rides, funhouses and concession stands the day before, when he turned off the main highway to take the old road into town. Amusement parks never failed to resonate with something deep inside him.

  Roxanna Beach Amusement World was situated on a bluff above an empty stretch of windswept beach. It was a relic of a bygone era. There had been a time when small boardwalks and amusement parks with their roller coasters, Ferris wheels and carousels were common features along the California coast. But few had survived into the twenty-first century. The huge theme parks had come to dominate the thrill market.

  He halted the Maserati in the empty parking lot, got out and walked across the cracked pavement to get a closer look at the skeleton of the roller coaster. He stood there for a long time, listening to the surf pounding the beach and tasting the salt-laden air.

  The memories of his first roller coaster ride stirred the way they always did when he saw one of the scream machines. It had been a blustery spring day. He had to stand on his toes to make it past the sign that specified how tall a kid had to be to ride the coaster. His father
bought the tickets, much against his mother’s wishes. She watched anxiously, afraid that Ellis was much too young for such a major thrill ride.

  “It will give him nightmares,” she said in low tones to Ellis’s father.

  “No it won’t, he’s a big boy. Besides, I’ll be right there beside him. He can handle it. Isn’t that right, son?”

  “Sure, Dad. I’ll be okay. I’m not scared.”

  He insisted on sitting in the front car. When the safety bar was lowered into place he felt a thrill unlike any other. He could still feel that first lurch and hear the ominous clank-clank-clank of the chain lift as it carried the train of cars to the top of the first hill. He could also hear his father’s warning.

  “There’s no going back now.”

  He had loved every second of that wild ride. Ellis threaded his fingers through the chain links, remembering. The feeling of being scared witless while knowing all along that he was perfectly safe because he was strapped into his seat and his dad was right there with him was the most exhilarating experience he’d ever known.

  Later the three of them had eaten cotton candy and popcorn and played some games in the arcade. He went home stuffed and happy. Contrary to his mother’s fears, he did not have any nightmares. In fact, he entertained himself for quite a while reliving the exciting ride in one of the startlingly clear story dreams he was just beginning to learn how to create.

  That first ride had set the pattern for all future Cutler family vacations. He and his father researched roller coasters from one end of the country to the other, selecting the most exotic and most exciting scream machines, and then planned trips around them. They became experts on the subject.

  Together they savored the differences between the classic woodies and the elaborate steel roller coasters. They compared the amount of “airtime”—those glorious moments when you came up out of the seat and floated—delivered by the various machines. They discussed and charted the nuances of twister designs with their shrieking, high-speed turns and the out-and-backs with their steep hills and valleys.

  And then, one afternoon when he was twelve years old, he was called out of class to face a small room full of very serious adults. They told him that both of his parents had been shot dead by a madman who walked into the restaurant where they were eating lunch and randomly murdered seven people before turning the gun on himself.