Falling Awake

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?”
    “I didn’t know what else to do. I was desperate.” He banged the first ball on the desk toy so hard the steel spheres crashed into one another. “Look, Beth, I didn’t know there was a rule against sleeping with someone else once your wife has gone to alawyer. That sounded like the end to me. Thought we had split up for good. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
    “You thought it was okay to have an affair with Maureen Sage just because I’d consulted a lawyer?”
    “Like I said, I thought it was really the end for us that time. I was trying to drown my sorrows with Maureen, so to speak. It was a mistake, okay?”
    Beth fell silent. He dared to hope.
    “Go call Ellis,” she said finally. “I’ve got a full schedule this morning. I’ll talk to you later.”
    She ended the connection.
    He sat there for a while, glumly gazing through the window that separated his office from the main lab and work areas. On the other side of the glass two agents were meeting with a couple of white-coated members of the research staff. Elsewhere people were busy at their computers. There was an air of purposeful activity about the place. Important work was being done. Crimes were being solved. Lives were being saved. Cutting-edge science was happening.
    His empire, Jack thought. And he had built it with Beth’s help. If he didn’t get her back, the rest of it would cease to be important.
    He hit the phone memory code that would connect him with Ellis.

4
    S AN D IEGO , C ALIFORNIA
    w e’ve got a very big problem,” Jack Lawson announced from the other end of the phone. “Martin Belvedere dropped dead of a heart attack several days ago. His son has taken over the Center for Sleep Research. One of his first official acts was to fire Isabel Wright. She’s gone.”
    The news hit Ellis with the shock of a small earthquake. Okay, he thought, get a grip here. This isn’t the end of life on earth as we know it. But it was a hell of a jolt.
    Tango Dancer was gone. He cradled the phone between ear and shoulder and set the frying pan down on the stove with such force that the two frozen soy sausages he had been about to cook bounced a couple of times from the impact.

    “Everything okay there?” Lawson asked with casual concern. “Sounded like something fell on that end.”
    “Just put a pan on the stove.” He was careful not to allow any indication of his reaction to the news show in his voice. Lawson was already worried enough about his mental state as it was. “It’s lunchtime out here in California, remember?”
    “Yeah, sure,” Lawson said vaguely. “Forgot.”
    Lawson was fifty-seven, wiry and compact, with a completely bald head, a gravelly voice and the haggard, drawn features associated with lifelong smokers and marathon runners, although he did not smoke and never moved any faster than absolutely necessary. Ellis thought about him sitting in his cluttered office deep in the bowels of Frey-Salter, several time zones away in North Carolina.
    “That’s because you have no life outside Frey-Salter,” Ellis said. Ignoring the soy sausages, he leaned against the counter and looked