Falling Awake

starting to recede at the temples.
    He frowned as though not quite certain what to make of her. Then he sat forward with a solemn air and folded his hands together on top of his desk. “I have been going through my father’s files. I must admit, I am confused about just what it is that you do here at the center, Ms. Wright.”
    “I understand,” she said quickly. “Dr. Belvedere deliberately kept my job description vague. The clients who contracted with him for my services are very keen on confidentiality, you see.”
    “I noticed,” Randolph said dryly. He unclasped his hands and opened the file folder. “There appear to be exactly two clients who routinely request your services, Ms. Wright. They are identified only by numbers. Client Number One and Client Number Two.”
    “Yes, sir. Dr. Belvedere did his best to honor their requests for anonymity.” She cleared her throat.
    Randolph’s brow furrowed. “Mrs. Johnson informs me that there are no copies of the contracts my father signed with these two anonymous clients. She says that all of the business arrangements were handled verbally and that no written records exist.”
    “I’m sorry, I can’t give you any information concerning thecontracts,” Isabel said. “I can only tell you that Dr. B., I mean Dr. Belvedere, took care of all the business issues relating to them personally.”
    “I see. Did you ever have any personal contact with either of these two clients?”
    “No, sir.” Mentally she crossed her fingers. Did dreaming about Client Number Two count as some sort of personal connection? What about attaching little tidbits of advice to the dream interpretations she wrote up for him? And then there was that glorious bouquet of orchids he had sent to her after she completed one particularly difficult report. Was that a form of personal contact? Probably not as far as Randolph was concerned, she decided. The bottom line here was that she had never met or spoken with either of the anonymous clients.
    “You must admit that this arrangement between my father and these two clients was highly unusual, Ms. Wright.”
    “I don’t understand, sir. Is there a problem with the anonymous clients?”
    His jaw flexed. She finally sensed the anger that had been seething just beneath the surface of his distinguished facade and her spirits plummeted.
    “Yes, Ms. Wright, there is a problem with both of them. I have no idea who these clients are. I can’t locate any billing information. I can’t even contact them to find out what the hell is going on because there are no phone numbers or e-mail addresses in the files for them.”

    She seized on that last statement. “I’m sure there must be e-mail addresses. Dr. Belvedere mentioned on several occasions that he corresponded with both clients that way.”
    “If that is the case, he managed to delete or destroy all of the correspondence on his office computer.” Randolph’s mouth twisted derisively. “Just another one of his little eccentricities, hmm?”
    “I’m not sure what—”
    “Come now, Ms. Wright. You worked with my father for several months. You must be aware that he was pathologically secretive and paranoid.”
    She suddenly understood the anger she had sensed a moment ago. Randolph Belvedere had father issues. No surprise there, she thought. Dr. B. had probably not been what anyone would call a great dad. All the old man had ever cared about was his research.
    “Dr. Belvedere was very concerned with confidentiality, but in part that was because those two anonymous clients demanded it,” she said warily.
    “Tell me precisely what you did for these two clients,” Randolph snapped.
    “I performed a special kind of analysis for them on those occasions when the dreamers had difficulty interpreting the symbols and images that appeared in their dreams.”
    “I am aware that there are still some psychologists and psychiatrists who believe they can use the patient’s dreams to help uncover repressed issues. But the field of clinical psychology has moved well beyond Freud and Jung in that regard. Very fewproperly trained therapists put a lot of stock in old-fashioned dream analysis these days. In any event, you do not appear to have been practicing therapy. You never even met your clients, did you?”
    Okay, that had been a major problem, she thought, one she had complained about frequently to Dr. B. I need context, she had told him time and again. I’m working in the dark.
    “I