Falling Awake

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Ellis shook his head. “I’m not buying that theory.”

  She chuckled. “Me either.”

  “So, bottom line here is that we still don’t know if animals dream.”

  “Nope. More to the point, there’s a great deal that we don’t know yet about the nature of our own dreams.” She wrinkled her nose. “Take lucid dreamers, for example.”

  “Funny you should say that.” Ellis reached out to turn down the lamp beside the sofa. “I was just thinking that there is one lucid dreamer that I would very much like to take right now.”

  Energy shimmered invisibly in the room. Isabel caught her breath. Her hand stopped moving on Sphinx. The world seemed to go into slow motion, taking on an all-too-familiar dreamlike quality.

  “I thought we were supposed to be working,” she managed.

  “I think we both need a break.” Ellis lifted Sphinx off the sofa. “Take a walk, cat.”

  Sphinx gave him an evil look, hoisted his tail into the air and stalked off toward the kitchen.

  Isabel smiled, her insides warming under the heat in Ellis’s eyes.

  He lowered himself onto the sofa beside her, removed her glasses and set them on top of the report she had been reading. She blinked a couple of times, refocused and touched the side of his face.

  He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, urging her to open her mouth for him. When she did, she felt the edge of his tongue gliding along her lower lip. With a soft little sigh, she gave herself up to the embrace, turning so that her breasts were comfortably crushed against his chest.

  He tugged her pullover off over her head and unfastened her bra. She unbuttoned his shirt with fingers that had started to shake.

  Ellis fell backward onto the cushions, taking her with him. He kept one foot on the floor and raised his other knee. She wound up draped along the length of his body, cradled between his thighs. Somehow her clothes melted away.

  “Tell me your dreams,” Ellis said against her throat. “The ones where we make love.”

  She could hardly breathe. “What do you want to know?”

  He slid his hand down the length of her spine and squeezed her derriere. “I want to know what I do to you in your dreams.”

  She was suddenly on fire from head to toe and it wasn’t from passion. She had never been so embarrassed in her entire life. He wanted her to tell him the details of her erotic fantasies. She had a feeling he was not talking about the costumes she scripted for him.

  “Tell me,” he coaxed, fingertips sliding up and down her spine.

  A series of vivid dream fragments flashed through her brain. Words failed her. She couldn’t talk about any of those things out loud.

  “Do I touch you like this?” He traced the curve that divided the twin globes of her bottom.

  She dropped her head onto his chest. “Ellis.”

  “Or like this?” His fingers moved lower. “You can just whisper the answer in my ear.”

  “Mmmph.” There must be something she could say that would sound more seductive, more sophisticated, something a tango dancer would say, but she was rapidly losing the ability to think, let alone speak clearly.

  “How about this?” He eased one finger slowly into her, probing gently.

  “Ellis.”

  “I take it the answer is yes?”

  She could feel the firm, solid shape of his erection through the fabric of his trousers. Reaching down she unzipped him carefully and took him into her hand. His breathing roughened perceptibly.

  She put her lips to his ear. “Definitely a yes.”

  “Keep talking,” he said in a voice that was starting to grow hoarse. “As you can see, I respond well to positive reinforcement.”

  “I noticed.” She tightened her grip on him. “That feels good.”

  “How about this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this?”

  “Oh my, yes.”

  And then she told him her dreams.

  Some time later, he told her his.

  28

  ellis emerged from the bathroom zipping his pants. He walked back into the living room where Isabel was still sprawled on the sofa, a chenille throw covering her hips.

  She yawned, opened her eyes and studied him through half-lowered lashes. “Is it morning yet?”

  “Not even close.” He finished fastening his pants. “Eleven-ten.”

  “Just as well, because I’m exhausted.”

  “I’m not exactly ready for a marathon, myself.” He reminded himself that he had work to do. But it was hard to resist the contented, relaxed sensation that had seeped into his bones. “Got to tell you, I thought my late-night fantasies involved some fancy gymnastics, but yours make mine look like a walk in the park.”

  “Hah.” She gave him a smug smile and curled herself into a more comfortable position, pulling the chenille throw over her mostly nude body. “After trying out a few of yours, I don’t think I could even take a walk in the park, at least not for another week or so.”

  He surveyed her from her elegantly arched feet to her tousled hair. She looked incredibly sexy lying there, still damp from their lovemaking. The scent of spent passion lingered in the atmosphere. He could feel himself stirring, growing hard again.

  He reached down and patted her bare shoulder. “The good news is that we’re both Level Fives. Between the two of us, we should be able to dream up plenty of interesting positions and techniques.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” she agreed demurely. “I haven’t even started dressing you yet.”

  He laughed. “You want me to get dressed before we do it again?”

  “Wait until you see the wardrobe I’ve been working on for you.”

  “Wardrobe?” He was getting curious now.

  “Never mind.” She stood, tightened the throw around her breasts and kissed him lightly on the mouth before sauntering off toward the bathroom. “I’ll explain everything when the time comes.”

  “Sure. Fine. I’m flexible.” He enjoyed the sight of her hips swaying seductively as she sashayed into the hall. “Just as long as this wardrobe you have in mind doesn’t involve any of those little leather thongs designed for the male anatomy or see-through briefs. I don’t do leather or see-through stuff.”

  She gave him a look of sultry innocence and seductive promise. “Let’s make it a surprise, shall we?”

  She vanished into the hallway.

  He smiled, recklessly allowing himself to savor this unfamiliar kind of intimacy. He should probably be worried about the sense of possessiveness that had taken root deep inside him but he didn’t want to think about it now.

  He crossed the room to the glowing computer screen and looked at the data that the highly specialized search program had collected while he was fooling around on the sofa with Isabel.

  The name of the Brackleton Correctional Facility had popped up three more times. Excitement pulsed through him.

  He heard the bathroom door open.

  “Here we go,” he said over his shoulder. “Gibbs, McLean and the others did time in the same prison. They weren’t there together, but it can’t be a coincidence that they’re all linked to that place.”

  Isabel emerged from the hall tying the sash of her robe. “What does that tell you?”

  “I don’t know yet, but it’s a connection and I’ve been needing one of those real bad.” He slid onto the chair and started hitting the keys. “Damn well should have seen it sooner.”

  “What now?”

  “I’m going to search for everything I can find that relates to Brackleton Correctional Facility and hope like hell I get something I can use.”

  She patted another yawn. “I’ll finish the rest of Dr. B.’s recent files.”

  half an hour later she picked up the next to the last folder in the stack. Sphinx, comfortably resettled on her lap, twitched his ears.

  Inside the folder she found five legal-sized pages filled with Martin Belvedere’s cramped, spidery handwriting. She flipped
through them.

  The phrase “head trauma” leaped off one of the pages.

  “Ellis?”

  “Yeah?” He did not look up from the screen.

  “Didn’t you tell me that when Vincent Scargill was admitted to that hospital emergency room shortly after the explosion he had severe head trauma?”

  That got his attention. He swiveled around on the chair. “Yes. Why?”

  She held up the paper she had just started to read. “I think these are rough notes for a case of impaired dreaming in a Level Five lucid dreamer who experienced severe head trauma.”

  Ellis was off the chair and moving toward her before she finished speaking. “Any dates on those notes?”

  She glanced through the five pages. “No. Maybe that’s why they were at the bottom of the pile.”

  “You can probably translate Belvedere’s hieroglyphs a lot faster than I can. Read me some of it.”

  “. . . Subject reports that prior to his injury, he regularly experienced extremely lucid dreams. Following the trauma subject describes his dreams as fragmented, uncontrollable and very disturbing. Subject’s use of the word ‘uncontrollable’ suggests that he was accustomed to exerting a considerable degree of control over his dreamscapes before the accident. . . .”

  She scanned the next couple of sentences and paused.

  “. . . Subject requested a private consultation. He brought a series of five recent dream reports for review and analysis. . . .”

  “All right, we know the subject was male,” Ellis said, his voice low with anticipation. “If it’s Scargill, it sounds like the injury he sustained in the explosion affected his extreme dreaming capability. He must have been desperate for help to contact Belvedere.”

  “Where else could he go? Besides, he had a personal connection with Belvedere, remember? Dr. B. was the one who first identified him and assessed his dream talent.”

  Ellis absently rubbed his injured shoulder and continued to prowl the room. “I take it Belvedere never called you in to consult on a head trauma case?”

  “No. I would certainly have remembered something as unusual as that.”

  Ellis nodded. “Belvedere may have realized that Scargill was dangerous and wanted to keep you out of it.”

  “If he thought Scargill was a menace, why didn’t he contact Lawson?”

  “Martin Belvedere was a noted eccentric and damned secretive in his own right, remember? In addition, from what you’ve told me, all he cared about was his research. Scargill probably looked like a really interesting case study.”

  “Can’t argue that point.”

  She went back to the notes, reading aloud.

  “. . . The series of dream reports suggests a consistent fear of being pursued and an inability to escape the pursuer. This is, of course, a common theme in many dreams, but there are some highly distinctive elements in this group. The image of the enormous red tsunami is particularly striking. . . .”

  She halted in mid-sentence. “Wait, I remember the tsunami dream. Dr. B. showed me a portion of the narrative and asked if I had any theories about what it might mean.”

  Ellis stopped, facing her. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his pants. “Well?”

  “I asked for more context, naturally,” she said very dryly. “Belvedere gave me almost nothing to work with although he allowed that the subject was an extreme dreamer who was having problems accessing the Level Five state. I assumed it was a narrative from someone in Client Number One’s group.”

  “One of Lawson’s people.”

  “Yes. I remember asking if it was possible it was a blocking image rather than a chase-and-pursuit dream. I suggested that the tsunami was an image the dreamer’s sleeping mind had created to prevent him from getting into the Level Five state.” She moved a hand. “But without more context, that was as far as I could go with the analysis.”

  “I’m betting that this guy with the head trauma is Scargill and that he’s the third anonymous client,” Ellis said. “It fits.”

  The computer beeped.

  Ellis took two long strides to the counter and checked the screen. Satisfaction emanated from him in waves of fierce energy.

  “Honey, you and I are on a roll tonight,” he whispered.

  She eased Sphinx’s big head off her lap and jumped to her feet. “What did you find?”

  “Each of the six men involved in the crimes Scargill orchestrated not only did time at Brackleton Correctional Facility, it says here that each one agreed to participate in an experimental project conducted at the facility in exchange for a promise of early release.”

  Isabel leaned closer to read the words on the glowing screen. “The project used a combination of behavior modification techniques and medication to teach the inmates ways of coping with the stress of the outside world after their release.”

  Ellis gripped the counter with one hand, his face hard and intent. “But there’s nothing yet that connects Scargill with Brackleton or this prison therapy project.”

  Isabel hugged herself. “Looks like the next step is to find out more about that special prison behavior modification project.”

  Fifteen minutes later Ellis gave up in disgust.

  “Blank wall,” he said. “The project was officially terminated due to lack of funding a year and a half ago. The rest of the records have vanished.”

  “They say nothing ever vanishes entirely once it’s put on the Internet,” Isabel stated.

  “Maybe not, but it can sure disappear as far as I’m concerned. I know my limitations. I’m a damn good dreamer and a pretty fair venture capitalist, but I’m not a magician when it comes to the Internet. We need one of Beth’s wizards, and that means I need Lawson to authorize the expense.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s three in the morning back in North Carolina. I’ll call him in a few hours and fill him in on what’s going on here.”

  “Are you sure he’ll help?” She frowned. “I thought you said he was solidly against your investigation.”

  “He is, but he owes me a few favors,” Ellis said evenly. “I’m going to call in a couple.”

  “Does this mean we get some sleep now?”

  “It means you get some sleep.” He wrapped one hand around her nape and kissed her. “I’m going to do some serious dreaming.”

  29

  he went into the guest bedroom, closed the door and turned off the lights. It was always easiest to slide into his gateway dream in the dark. He had a hunch that was because he had developed the skill during the endless, lonely, very scary nights following the loss of his parents. In those days his rapidly developing lucid dreaming talent had offered a sanctuary. He had used it to create dreamscapes where he could forget his fears and loneliness for a while.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, took off his shoes and lay back against the pillows. For a few minutes he focused on all the various bits and pieces of information he had accumulated, trying to let go of all previous assumptions and conclusions. The whole point of looking at a case in an extreme dreamscape was to come at it from an entirely different angle. The dreaming mind was not bound by the same rules of logic that governed the waking mind.

  Lawson was convinced that Level Five dreaming was essentially a combination of a natural talent for self-hypnosis and lucid dreaming. Beth speculated that it was a form of active meditation. Martin Belvedere had concluded that it was a psychic talent.

  Whatever the case, he had gotten very good at putting himself into a state of consciousness somewhere between the waking and sleeping worlds. It was a state in which he could manipulate and control the dreamscape and yet remain open to suggestions from his unconscious mind in a way that was not possible when he was fully awake.

  When he was satisfied that he was ready, he closed his eyes and climbed aboard the roller coaster.

  The cars lurch into motion, ascending the impossibly high lift hill slowly, inevitably, taking him up to the highest point on the track. He is the only passenger. The sound o
f the chain lift is a steady drumbeat in his head that takes him deeper into the dream state.

  Clank, clank, clank . . .

  The front of the train reaches the top. He is sitting in the first seat so he has a clear view of the dizzying drop below. For an instant he hovers there, looking down at the track that spirals away into the darkness.

  The cars shoot over the top of the lift hill. The world falls away and he plunges into his own, private dream world.

  isabel curled up in a corner of the sofa, covered her bare feet with the hem of her robe and listened to the silence from the guest bedroom. She had turned off all the lights except for the one on the table beside her. A few minutes ago she had been feeling quite drowsy but now her brain was racing.

  Sphinx emerged from the kitchen, padded across the living room and heaved his bulk up onto the sofa. He butted his head against her hand.

  “Hi there, big guy,” she whispered.

  Sphinx sprawled on his side next to her and closed his eyes. She rubbed his ears. He switched on his internal engine, purring so heavily she could feel him vibrating.

  “Our lives have certainly changed since Dr. B. died, haven’t they? I’ll bet you never imagined you’d lose that cushy setup you had at the center, did you? I guess I took it for granted, too. That’s why I bought all that furniture and started looking for a house. Oh, well, that’s the way it goes.”

  Sphinx twitched his ears but did not open his eyes.

  She continued to pet him absently and thought about how he had awakened her the night Martin Belvedere died. For a time she let her mind drift, recalling the shock of opening the door of the office and finding the body.

  Opening the door . . .

  She reached up and turned off the one remaining lamp in the room. The bulbs in the porch fixtures still burned but the glow she could see through the cracks in the curtains had the eerie, luminous quality that occurred when light was reflected off mist. At some point during the last few hours fog had rolled in off the sea, enveloping them in a ghostly vapor.