He helped himself to one of the mussels. “Did they consider you eccentric, too?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think they viewed me more as the office mascot. No one took me seriously. As far as the staff was concerned, I was only there because Dr. Belvedere wanted a personal assistant to help him organize his private research. He owned the place so he got to do what he wanted.”
“That attitude must have been hard to take at times.”
“It could be annoying occasionally.” She picked up a tiny fork and pried one of the clams out of the shell. “But for the most part my position at the center was what you might call a dream job for me.”
“How so?”
“Thanks to Dr. Belvedere, I learned I wasn’t the only person in the world who experienced what he called Level Five dreams. It was—” she hesitated—“reassuring to know that there were others like me out there, somewhere.”
“I know what you mean.”
“In addition, I got to actually use my abilities. It was frustrating at times because, as I told you, I never got context or feedback, but it was also the most satisfying work I’ve ever done.”
“Like I said, Lawson has found some other Level Five dreamers, but he still hasn’t turned up anyone else who can do what you do,” he said.
Her eyes widened a little behind the lenses of her glasses. “How does he find extreme dreamers?”
“He funds sleep research projects at various places around the country. The researchers and the subjects all think he’s doing neuroimaging studies. And he is, in his own devious fashion. But what he’s really looking for in the data are the brain wave patterns that indicate an ability to go into a Level Five dream.”
“Has he discovered a lot of Fives?”
“No, only a handful.”
“What does he do when he finds one?”
“Most of the people he has located have wound up working for him at Frey-Salter.”
She gave him a strange, wistful smile. “I don’t want to go to work in Lawson’s agency, but I must admit, there is one aspect of the job he’s offering that does tempt me.”
“What’s that?”
“Being able to meet and talk to other people who are Level Fives.”
It took him a beat to get the message. When he did, he was floored. “You’ve never even talked to another Level Five?”
She popped another mussel out of its shell and put it between her lips. “You’re my first.”
He stared at her, so suddenly and so violently aroused he was profoundly grateful for the low-hanging tablecloth. His mind went blank. He watched the faint, sexy movement of her throat as she swallowed the mussel and frantically tried to remember what they had been talking about.
“When did you first start experiencing the really intense stuff?” he managed.
“I’ve always done some lucid dreaming but things really picked up during my last two years in high school.”
“Same with me. I can remember having lucid dreams when I was a kid but they got stronger and clearer in high school.”
She nodded. “It makes sense it would happen that way if you subscribe to the new theory that dreaming is a function of cognitive development.”
“Meaning the brain gets better at dreaming as it develops?”
“Sure. Just as it gets better at logic and reasoning. In fact, a lot of the experts who buy into the cognitive development theory believe that dreaming is really just another form of thinking, but a rather passive version of it. The reason that we don’t recall most of our dreams is because we don’t usually pay much attention to them due to the fact that, duh, we’re asleep.”
“I’ve heard Lawson talk about that theory.”
“Dreaming might be very similar to the kind of zoning out you do when you get into a car and drive a familiar route that you’ve driven a hundred times before.” She smiled. “You know how it feels when you get out of the car at the other end with no sharp, clear memory of the drive itself?”
He looked at her. “No.”
She frowned. “You’ve never had that experience?”
“I like to drive,” he said simply. “I pay attention.”
She made a face. “Exceptions to every rule, I guess. As I was saying, it’s a reasonable theory.”
He smiled a little. “But it comes from the same experts who don’t believe there’s any such thing as a Level Five lucid dream, right?”
She laughed. “Right. But I give them credit for trying to conduct a scientific study of dreams. For years a lot of good researchers wouldn’t even touch the field because it was seen as very soft science at best.”
“They feared that any investigation would prove to be a slippery slope that started with fuzzy psychology and went straight downhill into the pits of psychic phenomena and mysticism.”
She shrugged. “You can understand the problem. How do you objectively study something that can’t be seen or measured? Furthermore, you’re completely at the mercy of your research subjects. They can tell you anything they want about their dreams and you can’t prove it or disprove it.”
“True.” He ate the last oyster. “Did you ever talk to anyone about your extreme dreams?”
She was amused. “Well, let’s see, I believe I mentioned them to a guidance counselor in high school. I was wondering if there were any special career opportunities for people like me. She concluded that I was on drugs and called my parents. A couple of years later I talked to a doctor. He suggested that my intense dreaming was a side effect of medication. When I told him I wasn’t taking any meds, he decided that I probably needed some.”
“I know the feeling. I talked to a couple of doctors my first year in college. Got the same diagnosis. They advised me to lay off the drugs. After that, I stopped mentioning the dreams to people. But a year later, I met up with Lawson.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “And you were so grateful to discover that someone actually understood your dream experience that you would have worked for him for free, if necessary, right?”
“I was grateful,” he said dryly. “But not that grateful. Let’s just say that we negotiated a deal.”
“Is Lawson a Five?”
“No, but he’s probably a solid Four on Belvedere’s scale. High enough to sense the possibilities and certainly curious enough to try to figure out how to make a Five useful.”
The waiter returned to remove the empty appetizer dish. When he was gone, Isabel sat forward and lowered her voice.
“Lawson ran some experiments with drugs to see if he could enhance dreaming, didn’t he?”
“How did you know that?”
“I got some really bizarre Level Five dreams from him several months ago. I could tell there was something off. I asked Dr. B. if the subjects were on drugs. He said he wouldn’t be surprised.”
“It was a short-lived experiment,” he admitted. “Lawson didn’t pursue it because the results were unpredictable. The stuff was something called CZ-149. It was originally developed as a drug designed to enhance dreaming but it had some unpleasant side effects.”
“What kind of side effects?”
“In regular subjects it produced a kind of hypnotic trance. In Level Fives the results were extreme dreams that were so real the subjects could not distinguish them from waking life. It made them highly suggestible.”
Her brows snapped together in a disapproving frown. “I hope you didn’t let him experiment on you.”
“Not a chance. I’m too old for that kind of thing.” He tore off a chunk of crusty sourdough and dipped it into the little bowl of olive oil. “I leave the experiments to Lawson’s new recruits. They’re young and eager.”
She gave a mock shudder of relief. “I’m very glad to hear you didn’t fool around with that CZ-149.”
“How did you find Belvedere?” he asked.
“He found me.” Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “He called the Psychic Dreamer Hotline one night when I was on duty. Turned out he called it every f
ew months just to see if, by chance, they had accidentally managed to hire a Level Five. Naturally I thought he was just another kook at first. But we talked. One thing led to another. We met. He tested me and then offered me a position at the center. I grabbed the opportunity.”
The waiter returned to set down the entrees.
“Belvedere wasn’t a Five, was he?” Ellis asked.
“No, like your friend Lawson, I suspect he was a strong Four. But he developed the lucid dream scale and postulated that it probably went as high as five.”
“So, in all the time you worked for Belvedere he never brought another Level Five into the center?”
“Not while I was there.” She hesitated. “But he said something once or twice that made me think he had located another extreme dreamer a few months before I arrived. I got the impression that the person was a male. Later I worked it out that he had probably referred him to Client Number One.”
A cold chill settled in his gut. “Scargill.”
Had to be, he thought. Lawson had brought Vincent Scargill into Frey-Salter a little over a year ago. He had said something about Belvedere having come across him online.
Isabel paused, fork in midair, and gave him a politely inquiring look. “I beg your pardon?”
“I think the name of the dreamer was Vincent Scargill,” he said aloud.
“Did you work with him?”
“Not exactly.”
“Is he still with Lawson’s operation?”
“He’s dead. Or so they say.”
She lowered the fork. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a long story.” He picked up his knife. “It is also one of Lawson’s biggest secrets. He’d have my head on a platter if he knew I’d even mentioned Scargill to you. Do me a favor, pretend you never heard the name, okay?”
“Okay. But I have to tell you that when I found out I’d missed having the chance to work with another Level Five because Dr. B. had turned him over to another lab, I got a little depressed for a while. Martin Belvedere treated me well enough in his own way but he was always off in his own world. There was no one else I could talk to about my work. It was rather lonely at times.”
Ellis looked at her and felt the blood turn to ice in his veins. She had come that close, he thought, to having a killer as a colleague.
He sent up a silent message of gratitude to the spirit of Dr. Martin Belvedere. It had very likely been nothing more than chance that had caused the old man to send Scargill to Frey-Salter rather than bring him into the center. Or maybe the old man had had some qualms about Scargill. Whatever, it had been a near thing. The world of high-level dreamers was a very small realm.
12
the fast-moving winds had blown themselves out by the time Ellis bundled Isabel back into the Maserati two hours later. Rain continued to fall in a soft, steady pattern that transformed the lights of Roxanna Beach’s boutique commercial district into colorful jewels.
He drove the six-block strip of restaurants and shops, trying to think of a way to delay the inevitable. He did not want to take Isabel home but he sure as hell could not invite her back to his room at the Seacrest Inn. That would be way too tacky on a first date.
First date. There, he’d finally admitted it to himself. He had been thinking of this evening as a date since the moment he decided to ask Isabel to have dinner with him.
“What made you decide to leave Lawson’s agency?” Isabel asked.
He considered his answer while he turned a corner and drove onto the road that would take them back to her place.
“I was with Lawson full-time for over ten years but it was what you might call an accidental career. I still think of it as a sort of sideline. My real interest has always been in business and investing. My father founded a software company that was very successful. Guess it’s in my blood.”
“What do you like about the business world?”
He thought about it for a moment. It was a question he had never asked himself.
“I get a rush out of playing for high stakes,” he said slowly. “I like to use my dreaming talent to spot patterns and trends in the economy. I like catching the wave before anyone else even knows it’s there.”
“But you still work for Lawson.”
“Like I said, it’s a sideline.”
“Why do you do it?”
“The money’s good,” he said carelessly.
She watched him from the shadow. “You don’t do it for the money.”
“No?”
“I think you do it because hunting bad guys in your dreams is your way of doing the right thing. It’s your contribution to society. You help make the world a little safer.”
Damn. She thought he was some sort of hero. He could feel himself turning a dull red. He was very grateful for the pool of darkness that filled the small space inside the Maserati.
“Don’t get the wrong idea here,” he said. “I work for Lawson a few times a year because I owe the guy and because I can always use additional investment cash.”
“Those are not the only reasons you do what you do,” she said quietly. “Don’t forget, I’ve read a lot of your dream reports.”
Her absolute certainty shook him.
“You’re the one who pointed out earlier this evening that people can tell you anything they want about their dreams and you have no way of proving that they’re lying,” he reminded her.
She smiled a little. “If you had lied to me consistently in your dream narratives, I would have sensed it. Tell me, how did your family react when you took the job with Lawson?”
“I lost my parents when I was twelve.” He kept his voice completely neutral, the way he always did when he talked about the past. “They were victims of some crazy who had a bad case of workplace rage. My folks were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Ellis.” She turned abruptly in the seat to look at him. “What happened? Who raised you?”
“The State of California.”
“Foster homes?”
“Yeah.”
“My God. Talk about a nightmare.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her start to reach out as though to touch him. Her pity was the very last thing he wanted.
“They weren’t all bad,” he said, putting a lot of ice into the words because he wanted her to get the message. “Some were better than others. In any case, I was only in the system for three years. No worse than being sent away to boarding school.”
“Oh, sure. Just like boarding school. Give me a break.” She paused. “How come you were only in the system for three years?”
“I left the last home when I turned fifteen.”
“You ran away? How did you survive on your own at that age?”
The anxiety in her voice almost made him laugh. “How do you think I survived? I went into business for myself. I told you I’ve always had a knack for turning a profit.”
She cleared her throat. “What kind of business could you get into at that age?” She paused. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Well, I gave considerable thought to entering the illegal substances market,” he said, keeping his tone mockingly serious. “But I guess I’ve always been a strategic thinker when it comes to business. I took a good, hard look at the profit-risk ratio and decided that the long-term prospects in that particular field were not very good.”
“Come to think of it, you don’t see a lot of successful drug dealers over the age of thirty, do you?” she murmured. “They’re either dead or in jail. Then, too, I suppose the competition is rather fierce.”
“The competition is only part of the problem. Maintaining a core market share is very difficult. Your best customers tend to die on you.”
“Okay, so you were too smart to sell drugs on the street.” She leaned her head back against the seat. “How did you make a living?”
“Online.”
She sucked in her breath in startled surprise and then laughed. “Of course. Should have thought of
that.”
“I started out buying and selling for other people. Took a commission on each trade. Then I moved on to buying some products in bulk and reselling them at my own website.”
“You really are a born entrepreneur.”
“I continued to dabble a bit in high school and managed to graduate. Decided to try college. In my second year, I signed up as a research subject in one of Lawson’s sleep studies, and the rest is history.”
“You know,” she said after a while, “your decision to become a venture capitalist is as appropriate as the work you do for Lawson.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re a major dreamer, right? By making it possible for other people to start up their companies, you’re helping them to pursue the great American Dream.”
He laughed. “You know, you may be cut out for the motivational seminar field, after all. You sure know how to put a positive spin on things.”
She folded her arms. “Do you use your Level Five dreaming capabilities in your venture capital work?”
“Frequently. The process is very similar to the dreaming I do for Lawson. I look for patterns and clues. The difference is that when it comes to the business dreaming I’m working with the financial markets and the personalities of the entrepreneurs and investors who are involved. I generally have a fair amount of information in those situations so I don’t require so much help with interpretation. That’s why I haven’t sent you any of those dream narratives to analyze.”
He saw the turnoff for Sea Breeze Lane coming up on the left and reluctantly slowed for it. The temptation to keep going into the night was almost overwhelming. Maybe, if he drove fast enough and hard enough, they could outrun the dawn.
“Something wrong?” Isabel asked.
“No.” Yes. I don’t want to leave you tonight.
But he made the turn and drove slowly along the street of weathered beach cottages until he came to the one with the yellow porch light.
He parked in front of the rented house and pocketed the keys. Would she ask him to come inside for tea or a nightcap?
“Sorry, I don’t have an umbrella,” he said.
“It’s not raining that hard,” she said.