Falling Awake

that file.”
    Webber handed it to him. “It’s an extremely sophisticated financial setup. I had to dig deep to understand it.”
    “My father was not at all sophisticated when it came to business.” Randolph slapped open the file. “He couldn’t have done this himself.”
    Webber nodded thoughtfully. “Then it must have been the clients who went to such extraordinary lengths to conceal the payments.”
    “But why would they want to hide the fact that they were contracting with the center? It makes no sense.”
    “I don’t know. I can tell you that one of them is a fairly small player. But the other, Client Number One, has obviously dropped some big bucks into the center over the course of the past several years. As you can see, the amounts got even larger in the last twelve months.”
    Randolph stared at the figures on the page in front of him. “Forty-seven percent of the total operating budget of the center has been coming from Client Number One for two decades?”
    “The figure shot up to fifty-seven percent of the total income this past year.” Webber leaned over the desk to point to another row of figures. “You will notice that Client Number Two came onboard about a year ago. He doesn’t do anywhere near the same volume of business as the other one, but he is definitely a significant account.”
    “This is unbelievable,” Randolph whispered. “B–between the two of them, these two anonymous clients accounted for over s–sixty percent of the center’s gross receipts for the past year.”
    “Right. The rest of the income appears to come from a mix of small grants from some nutritional supplement manufacturers, sleep research foundations and a couple of small-time inventors who hired Belvedere to test various types of sleep aids.”
    “Th–th–this is a disaster.” Randolph sagged into his chair. “Over sixty percent of the center’s funding is coming from two unknown sources. It doesn’t make any sense. What services was my father providing to them?”
    Webber cleared his throat. “I’m still working on that. The records are all very vague. But as far as this past year goes, I did discover that the bulk of the billing for both accounts appears to have been connected to one particular department here at the center.”
    Randolph’s stomach knotted. “Which one?”
    “The Department of Dream Analysis.”
    Amelia’s jaw clenched.
    A great sense of impending doom settled on Randolph. He could almost hear Amelia saying I told you so. He made a fist with one hand to stop the tremor.
    “Isabel Wright,” he muttered. “I c–can’t believe it. Who would pay that kind of money for some silly psychic dream analysis?”

    Webber raised one scrawny shoulder in a mild shrug. “The pharmaceutical companies are rolling in cash. Maybe a couple of them decided to spend some of it on dream research. It might explain the secrecy. They’ve got a lot at stake when it comes to protecting their proprietary R and D data.”
    Randolph shook his head. “No sane, sensible corporation that has to show its shareholders a p–profit would throw several million dollars at a low-profile research facility like the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research just to fund investigations into my father’s ridiculous psychic dream theories.”
    Webber pursed his lips and canted his head an inch or so to one side. “I suppose one or both of the anonymous clients might be wealthy eccentrics or religious cults with a thing about dreams.”
    “I told you there was something strange going on with the funding here, Randolph.” Amelia stopped in front of the window, her brittle tension clear in every line of her body. “And I told you that it probably had something to do with your father’s personal research interests. I also told you that meant that the extremely healthy cash flow was very likely connected to that ridiculous Department of Dream Analysis. Didn’t I tell you that?”
    He knew she was angry but he was, nevertheless, taken aback by the impatience and raw fury he saw in her face. They had been lovers for weeks. In the bedroom Amelia was far and away the most inventive woman he had ever met. But in the days following Isabel Wright’s departure from the center, she had shown another side of her nature.
    When he had refused to believe that Isabel Wright and theDepartment of Dream Analysis might be important to the long-term financial future of the center, she had insisted on bringing in a forensic