Falling Awake(11)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Most of all she wondered if Client Number Two, otherwise known as Dream Man, would miss her when he discovered that she was gone.

3

FREY-SALTER, INC., RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NORTH CAROLINA

you’re still worrying about Ellis, aren’t you?” Beth asked.

“Yeah. He’s not getting any better. Worse, in fact.” Jack Lawson absently registered the familiar squeak in the government-issue desk chair when he leaned back to plant his heels on the aged government-issue desk.

The squeak had come with the chair. Both had been new some thirty-odd years ago, when he was assigned to establish Frey-Salter, Inc., the corporate front that concealed his small, very secret government agency and its highly classified dream research program.

Frey-Salter was located in the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina, an area conveniently situated in the heart of a triangle formed by Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The park was home to a heavy concentration of cutting-edge pharmaceutical and high-tech enterprises. Frey-Salter went unnoticed among the large assortment of companies and businesses that operated there.

It wasn’t only the chair that had been new three decades ago, he thought. He himself had been new back then. Young and eager and ambitious. He had also been madly in love with Beth Mapstone, the woman on the other end of the phone connection.

A lot of things had changed in the past three decades. The chair was getting old and so was he. His youthful zeal had taken on a cynical edge, although he still believed passionately in the importance of his work. He was no longer ambitious, either. He had built his empire. His goal now was to hang onto it until retirement and then see to it that the program passed into good hands.

Technology had changed a lot over the years, too. He was proud of the way he had adapted. The fancy, high-tech phone he was using today with its specially designed scrambling and encryption software was a far cry from the telephone that had come with the desk thirty years ago.

But one thing had not changed. He was still in love with Beth. Nothing could ever alter that. She had been his partner right from the start. He could still recall their first meeting at Frey-Salter’s pistol range as though it were yesterday. Her hair was cinched back in a cute ponytail and she wore a pair of jeans that fit her so tightly he wondered if she’d used a shrink-wrap machine to put them on that morning. She outshot him by a country mile. He knew he was in love before they reeled in the paper targets.

“His fixation with the notion that Vincent Scargill is still alive has turned into some sort of obsession,” he said. “It started with the incident at the survivalists’ compound. Some kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome maybe. Hell, he damn near died that day.”

“I know,” Beth said quietly.

“Whatever it is, I don’t like what’s happening to Ellis.” Lawson picked up a tiny hammer and struck the first of several small, gleaming, stainless steel balls suspended in a row on his desk toy. The first ball struck the next one in line, which clanged into a third. The effect rippled down the line of balls and then reversed. He always found the ping-ping-ping sound soothing. “I ordered him to talk to one of the shrinks here at Frey-Salter.”

“Did he do it?”

“No. You know he doesn’t take orders well. Never did. Always been a lone wolf.”

“He needs a distraction,” Beth said, sounding thoughtful. “Something to take his mind off Vincent Scargill.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Jack watched the silver balls bounce gently off one another. “Got an idea. A situation has developed out in California. Belvedere collapsed and died a few days ago. Heart attack.”

Beth sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Belvedere was a strange duck and not exactly Mr. Personality, but his lucid dream research work was far ahead of the curve. Too bad it went unrecognized in his lifetime.”

“Tell me about it. Anyhow, as it stands now, Belvedere’s son, Randolph, has taken over the Center for Sleep Research.”

“Don’t worry, even if he discovers that there is an anonymous Client Number One, he won’t be able to trace you or Frey-Salter. I made sure of that when I set up the e-mail contact system between you and Belvedere.”

“I’m not worried about Randolph locating me,” he said impatiently. “The problem is that one of his first official acts was to fire Isabel Wright.”

“Damn. Not good. You’d better not lose her, Jack. You need her.”

“Hell, I know that. Seems to me the best way to handle this now that Belvedere is gone is to bring her back here to Frey-Salter and tuck her away in a nice, quiet little office.”

“Makes sense. You’ll have better control over her that way.”

“So here’s the plan.” Jack drank some coffee. “I’m going to send Ellis to bring her in. You said he needs a distraction, right? Let him play recruiting agent.”

“Good idea. Just might work, too. I’ve had a feeling for a while now that he’s rather intrigued by her. In fact, if this thing with Scargill hadn’t blown up, literally, a few months ago, I’ve got a hunch Ellis would have looked up Isabel Wright on his own by now.”

Jack smiled, pleased with himself for having impressed her. “Maybe I’ve got some heretofore undiscovered matchmaking talent.”

The instant the words were out of his mouth, he cringed, mentally kicking himself. That had been a stupid thing to say under the circumstances.

“You’re good, Jack,” Beth said coolly. “But when it comes to figuring out relationships, you’re as dumb as a brick.”

He rocked back and forth in the squeaky chair a couple of times, gathering his nerve. “Are you ever gonna forgive me, Beth?”

“I still can’t believe you slept with that woman,” she muttered.

“I still can’t believe you actually went to a lawyer to see about a divorce. Give me a break, Beth, you’ve never pushed it that far before. I thought you had left me for real that time. I was a basket case. I was cracking up inside. I was vulnerable.”

There was a short pause.

“Vulnerable?” Beth repeated, sounding as if she had never heard the word before. “You?”

“I read one of those advice books for people who are involved in failed relationships. It said that people are vulnerable when a mate walks out. They’re inclined to do dumb things.”

“You actually bought a book about relationships?”