Falling Awake (17 page)

“Suit yourself.”

Las Vegas, here I come.

e
llis knew he was dreaming. There was nothing unusual about that. He was a Level Five lucid dreamer, after all. He even recognized this particular dreamscape. But there was something different about it tonight. . . .

He stands in the center of the circular room. The ceiling is transparent. He can see the night sky through it. High, gothic-style entrances to dozens of darkened halls ring the space.

Tango Dancer comes toward him from one of the many corridors. He wants to make love to her more than he has ever wanted anything in his adult life. But he is afraid that afterward she will walk away from him and vanish into one of the mysterious halls.

She glides into the circular room, smiling a feminine invitation that makes him ache with desire. She stops in the shadows.
Raising one hand, she beckons him with a graceful curl of her fingertips.

He does not move. He knows that if he stays where he is she cannot see him clearly. It is better that way.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “I’m afraid of wanting you this much.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he lies.

“Yes you do. You think that I will leave you.”

“Everyone leaves.”

“Will you let that stop you from touching me?”

“No.” But a great despair and anger well up inside him because he knows what will happen. She will demand more than he can risk giving her. She will want to see him, really see him. She will want to get very close and he cannot allow that. He has a rule about letting people get close. He put that rule in place a long time ago, when he was twelve.

She reaches out to him with both hands. “Come with me.”

He starts toward her because, in spite of everything, he cannot resist her.

But when he gets close enough for her to see his face, she turns and runs away, disappearing into one of the dark gothic passages . . .

The harsh jangle of the phone jarred him awake.

He sat up quickly, trying to ignore his erection and the tight, heavy sensation in the lower part of his body. The phone rang again.

He swung his legs out from under the covers, planted both feet on the floor and looked at the face of the radio alarm clock. Twelve fifty-three. It was the room phone. Not Lawson, then. Lawson always called him on his personal phone.

That left Isabel. At this hour? Adrenaline spiked. His pulse pounded.

He grabbed the phone. “This is Cutler.”

“Ellis?” Isabel hesitated. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I know it’s late, but—”

“What’s wrong?” He cut in before she could get out another word.

“Well, I want to ask you a hypothetical question.”

He glanced at the face of the bedside alarm clock again. “It’s almost one o’clock in the morning so I’m going to assume that this question is more than hypothetical. What is it?”

“It’s a little complicated.”

“Isabel—”

“All right, here’s the question. Do you think there are any serious laws against an honest citizen buying or selling e-mail addresses, at least one of which was created specifically for a government agency that doesn’t officially exist?”

h
e made it to her front door in fifteen minutes flat. She was waiting on the porch. The yellow lamplight gleamed on the glossy black, calf-length raincoat she wore. Her hair was drawn up into a careless twist at the back of her head.

She flew down the front steps, the black coat flapping around her, and yanked open the passenger-side door. She slid into the seat beside him and glared at him through the lenses of her black-framed glasses.

“I’m warning you, Ellis, I won’t let you threaten Gavin.”

“Fasten your seat belt.” He put the Maserati in gear and accelerated swiftly.

“Ellis, I mean it.” She fumbled with the seat belt. “He’s not a criminal. He’s got a gambling addiction.”

“Where is he?”

“The Breakers Motel.” She shot him an uneasy look. “Just outside of town on the old highway. I tried to call him back on his personal phone a few minutes ago but he didn’t answer. Gavin is having some financial problems with a casino. He sounded worried.”

“Trust me, he’s got a good reason to be worried.”

“I told you, all he wants is some cash.” She sat tensely in the seat, arms crossed beneath her breasts. “In hindsight, I can see that it was a mistake to call you tonight.”

“No, your mistake was in refusing to tell me where Hardy is staying unless I agreed to pick you up and take you with me to confront him.”

“I didn’t care for your tone of voice when I told you what had happened.”

“You didn’t care for my tone of voice? I don’t believe this. I was pissed when you wouldn’t tell me where Hardy was staying. How the hell did you expect me to sound?”

“I couldn’t let you confront him alone,” she said firmly. “I was afraid you’d scare the daylights out of him.”

“That would have been a good start.”

He shifted gears. The Maserati leaped forward so fast the change in speed slammed both Isabel and him back into the seats. He was accustomed to it. Isabel was not but she said nothing. She did, however, brace one hand against the dash and give him a quelling glare.

This was bad, he thought. They were in the midst of a major quarrel. Things had been going so well, too. They’d made it through a first date and a first kiss. And now he was blowing the whole thing because of his little obsession problem. At this rate she was going to conclude that he was a dangerous, unpredictable lunatic.

“Don’t you think you might be overreacting?” she asked.

He downshifted for a curve. “No.”

“For heaven’s sake, they’re just e-mail addresses.” She spread her hands. “Two of which you already know.”

“Let’s get something clear. I’m not real worried about what Hardy does with my e-mail address or with Lawson’s, either, for that matter. They’re both so well secured that I doubt if there are more than half a dozen people on the face of the earth who could trace them back to their sources. In any event, once I tell Lawson what’s going on, those addresses will cease to exist.”

“Okay, so it’s the third client you’re concerned about,” she said, amazingly calm.

“Yes.” He changed gears again, wondering what was going through her mind.

Still bracing herself against the dash, she angled her head slightly to study his profile. “I’ll admit I’m curious about the identity of Number Three, myself. The implication is that there is another Level Five dreamer out there somewhere who wants secrecy as badly as you and Lawson do.”

“That’s the implication, all right.”

“I can understand a degree of interest on your part,” she said patiently. “But would you mind telling me why you’re freaking out about it?”

He considered how much to tell her. She already knew a great deal about Lawson’s operation and if she was serious about contracting out her services to Lawson and him, she was going to learn a lot more.

Hell, she had a right to know.

“I am very, very wired about this third client because I think there is a possibility that he just might be the man I mentioned earlier at dinner, Vincent Scargill.”

“Maybe you better tell me a little more about him.”

“The only thing you need to know tonight is that Scargill is a Level Five killer.”

“Oh, my God.” Her voice went very soft as she absorbed the ramifications. “An extreme dreamer who is also a sociopath and a murderer would be—”

“Right. Your worst nightmare.”

i
sabel did not like the way she had been feeling since Gavin’s call. “Jittery” was the only word she could come up with to describe the strange sensation. Sitting in the seat next to Ellis for the past few minutes had done nothing to elevate her mood. It was a lot like sharing a den with a hungry wolf. All traces of the warm, sensual promise that she had experienced in his arms earlier when he kissed her good night had vanished. In its place was a steady, ice-cold intensity that was disturbingly familiar. She had sensed it often enough in his dream reports.

The news that a person like Vincent Scargill existed and was at large had made things a whole lot worse.

She was about to start asking questions, lots of them, when she was distracted by a myriad of flashing lights.

The sputtering neon sign that marked the Breakers Motel and the one that spelled out the words
BAR
and
LIVE MUSIC
were directly opposite each other. But neither of them provided the eye-dazzling strobe effects that dominated the scene. Those came from the emergency and police vehicles that sat at angles on the edge of the road, blocking traffic.

A number of people, most in uniforms of one kind or another, were visible. A gurney was in the process of being loaded into the back of the ambulance. The victim’s face and body were entirely covered.

“Accident,” Ellis said tersely.

Isabel watched the doors of the ambulance close. A chill whispered through her. “A very bad one.”

Ellis downshifted swiftly, slowing smoothly to a halt.

A police officer, flashlight in hand, walked across the pavement to the Maserati. Ellis lowered the window.

“Sir, the road is closed for an investigation. Hit-and-run. You’ll have to turn around.”

“I’m headed for the motel,” Ellis said.

“Okay.” The officer stood back and waved him into the parking lot entrance.

Isabel could not take her eyes off the ambulance. “Ellis.”

“Yeah?” He slipped the Maserati into a space close to room number eight.

“There are no lights on in Gavin’s room,” she whispered.

He glanced at her, frowning slightly as he shut down the engine. “Probably trying to keep a low profile.”

“Maybe.” She gripped the edge of the seat on either side of her knees, staring hard at the ambulance. “But he said he was going to walk back to his room from the bar. You don’t think that . . .” She trailed off, not wanting to put her fears into words.

Ellis turned to look at the scene on the road.

“Damn,” he said very softly. “Stay here.”

This time she did as he ordered, mostly because she did not want to hear the news that she felt certain he would bring back.

Ellis got out of the car and walked through the rain to where the nearest cop stood directing traffic. There was a short conversation.

When he returned to the Maserati, he leaned down to speak to her through the open window. His expression was grim.

“It’s Gavin Hardy, all right. Hit-and-run. He’s dead. No witnesses. I told the cop that you knew Hardy because sooner or later it’s going to come out.”

She swallowed hard and looked past him. Two officers had detached themselves from the main group and were coming across the motel parking lot.

“I suppose those cops want to talk to us?” she said.

“Good guess.”

“What do we tell them?”

“The truth. No more, no less. Hardy wanted to sell you some contact information for some of your former clients. You agreed to meet with him to discuss it. When you got here, you found the accident scene. That’s all you know.”

The cops were closer now, only a few strides away.

“What about the connection to Jack Lawson’s operation?” she whispered urgently.

Ellis raised his brows in a politely quizzical expression. “Who’s Jack Lawson?”

“What about your suspicion that one of the e-mail addresses belongs to that killer, Vincent Scargill?”

“Guess I forgot to mention one small fact. Vincent Scargill is dead.”

t
he following afternoon Isabel sat with Tamsyn at one of the terrace tables outside the café at Kyler, Inc. The rain had stopped shortly before dawn, leaving a day that jarred and strained Isabel’s exhausted senses to the point of pain. The sky was too blue. The sun was too bright. The surface of the bay glittered as though it had been sprinkled with shards of broken mirrors. And then there was Tamsyn, vivid and energetic as ever, her expensive centerfold cleavage on display in her carefully styled Kyler blazer.

It was all somewhat overwhelming after the long, depressing night, Isabel thought. A person could be expected to endure only so much bright stuff. In self-defense, she removed her regular glasses and reached into her purse for her prescription sunglasses. She positioned them firmly on her nose and immediately felt much better able to deal with Tamsyn and the overbright day.

“I’m so sorry about your friend,” Tamsyn said. “What a horrible thing that must have been for you, coming across the accident scene the way you did.”

“He wasn’t exactly a friend. He was a coworker at the center.”

“If he was just an acquaintance, why did you feel you had to go visit him at one o’clock in the morning?”

Good question, Isabel thought.

“He said he was having financial troubles,” she murmured. With an effort of will, she picked up a fork and stabbed a slice of the avocado on her plate. There were a lot of valuable nutrients in avocados. She was in desperate need of nutrients today. “I felt sorry for him.”

“And Ellis Cutler went with you?” Tamsyn asked, her voice a little too smooth.

“He wasn’t spending the night with me if that’s what you’re asking. He was asleep at the inn when I called him. I didn’t want to go out to see Gavin Hardy alone at that hour.”

“But you felt you could ask Cutler to accompany you?”

“We had dinner together earlier in the evening,” Isabel said tensely. “We’d talked. I felt comfortable asking him, yes.”

Tamsyn nodded but she did not look satisfied with the answer. “What are the cops saying about the accident?”

“Not much. No one saw the car that ran down poor Gavin. But they figure that the force of the impact caused a fair amount of damage to the vehicle. They’re hoping for a tip, maybe from an auto repair shop. Meanwhile they’ve got nothing.”

All things considered, the interview with the police had gone
amazingly well. It was fascinating how far one could go with the truth and yet keep secrets if one wished to do so. In the end she and Ellis had been able to answer every question honestly without any references to a clandestine government agency or a dead man named Vincent Scargill.