Falling Awake

and his operation. Tonight she intends to use all of us—you, me, Ellis and even poor Yolland—to do that. What’s more, she’s going to make sure we’re all dead by morning because she can’t afford to leave any of us alive.”
    “You’re wrong,” Scargill snapped. “This is all about proving to Jack Lawson that Cutler has gone rogue. Lawson trusts that bastard. He won’t listen to the facts. Cutler has convinced him that I was the one who went bad and kidnapped and killed a bunch of people. That’s why I’m playing dead. I’ve got to stay out of sight until we get Cutler and the proof we need to show Lawson.”
    “She lied to you, Vincent. I told you, that’s what she does. She lies. She is also very flexible.” Isabel paused, gathering her thoughts, aware that she had only one chance to try to convince him. “Let me go back to the start. Amelia’s first scheme involved seducing Lawson in an attempt to gain control over him and, through him, the Frey-Salter dream labs. That plan failed when Lawson ended their affair and transferred her to another agency.”
    “But—”
    “Ever resourceful, Amelia promptly came up with Plan B. She decided to go after a privately owned sleep research lab and, inessence, set herself up in competition with Lawson. But to be successful, she knew she would need at least a couple of Level Fives. They aren’t easy to find, as you well know. So she set out to steal one from Lawson.”
    Scargill leaned heavily against the counter, clearly struggling to keep himself upright.
    “That would be me?” he asked, his disbelief clear.
    “Yes. She suckered you into thinking that you were solving all those kidnappings on your own and then she played on your pride and sense of competitiveness, feeding your ego. When the time was right, she was going to convince you to resign from Lawson’s operation on the grounds that you were underappreciated.”
    “And then put me to work for her?” he concluded skeptically.
    “Uh-huh. After she got kicked out of Lawson’s agency, Amelia set her sights on gaining control of the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research. She knew enough about the facility to realize that if she got it, she would also get a second Level Five.”
    “You?”
    “Yep. With the two of us, plus her own talents, she could give Lawson some major competition, maybe even bring him down. She could become the most important researcher in the field of extreme dreams. Who knows what she could accomplish? But there was a major problem.”
    “Cutler.” Scargill breathed deeply and tried to straighten his trembling shoulders. “The doc said he was jealous of me.”
    “He wasn’t jealous, but he also wasn’t buying your brilliant dream sleuthing. Amelia knew he was suspicious, and after a yearat Lawson’s agency, she also knew that he wasn’t going to give up and go away. She realized that she had to get rid of him before he discovered that she had orchestrated the kidnappings and murdered a few people in the process.”
    “No,” Scargill muttered. “No, damnit.”
    “It wasn’t going to be easy. She was well aware that Lawson and Ellis had been friends for a long time. If anything happened to Ellis, Lawson was sure to conduct an investigation. She decided to have Ellis die in the line of duty.”
    “If you’re talking about that day at the survivalists’ compound when everything went to hell . . .”
    “She staged that whole event knowing that Ellis would recognize another suspicious kidnapping and try to intervene,” Isabel said quickly. “She intended for him to die in a firefight with the people at the compound, even if she had to pull the trigger, herself. Who would know the difference afterward?”
    Scargill was shivering more violently now. He huddled in on himself, gun clutched in his hand. “I don’t understand. Damnit, I can’t think. There’s something wrong with me. I’ve got a splitting headache. I can’t even think straight .”
    “Things went wrong that day at the compound when the ammo shed exploded. Amelia tried to kill Ellis but failed. You, her only major asset at that point, were badly injured.”
    “The explosion,” Scargill whispered. He rubbed his temples with one hand.
    “Amelia grabbed you and got you to the hospital. Later she changed all the computer records to make it appear that you haddied. Then she took you, along with plenty of stolen CZ-149 to control you, and split for California. There she seduced Randolph