Falling Awake

flexible.” He enjoyed the sight of her hips swaying seductively as she sashayed into the hall. “Just as long as this wardrobe you have in mind doesn’t involve any of thoselittle leather thongs designed for the male anatomy or see-through briefs. I don’t do leather or see-through stuff.”
    She gave him a look of sultry innocence and seductive promise. “Let’s make it a surprise, shall we?”
    She vanished into the hallway.
    He smiled, recklessly allowing himself to savor this unfamiliar kind of intimacy. He should probably be worried about the sense of possessiveness that had taken root deep inside him but he didn’t want to think about it now.
    He crossed the room to the glowing computer screen and looked at the data that the highly specialized search program had collected while he was fooling around on the sofa with Isabel.
    The name of the Brackleton Correctional Facility had popped up three more times. Excitement pulsed through him.
    He heard the bathroom door open.
    “Here we go,” he said over his shoulder. “Gibbs, McLean and the others did time in the same prison. They weren’t there together, but it can’t be a coincidence that they’re all linked to that place.”
    Isabel emerged from the hall tying the sash of her robe. “What does that tell you?”
    “I don’t know yet, but it’s a connection and I’ve been needing one of those real bad.” He slid onto the chair and started hitting the keys. “Damn well should have seen it sooner.”
    “What now?”
    “I’m going to search for everything I can find that relates toBrackleton Correctional Facility and hope like hell I get something I can use.”
    She patted another yawn. “I’ll finish the rest of Dr. B.’s recent files.”
    h alf an hour later she picked up the next to the last folder in the stack. Sphinx, comfortably resettled on her lap, twitched his ears.
    Inside the folder she found five legal-sized pages filled with Martin Belvedere’s cramped, spidery handwriting. She flipped through them.
    The phrase “head trauma” leaped off one of the pages.
    “Ellis?”
    “Yeah?” He did not look up from the screen.
    “Didn’t you tell me that when Vincent Scargill was admitted to that hospital emergency room shortly after the explosion he had severe head trauma?”
    That got his attention. He swiveled around on the chair. “Yes. Why?”
    She held up the paper she had just started to read. “I think these are rough notes for a case of impaired dreaming in a Level Five lucid dreamer who experienced severe head trauma.”
    Ellis was off the chair and moving toward her before she finished speaking. “Any dates on those notes?”
    She glanced through the five pages. “No. Maybe that’s why they were at the bottom of the pile.”

    “You can probably translate Belvedere’s hieroglyphs a lot faster than I can. Read me some of it.”
    “. . . Subject reports that prior to his injury, he regularly experienced extremely lucid dreams. Following the trauma subject describes his dreams as fragmented, uncontrollable and very disturbing. Subject’s use of the word ‘uncontrollable’ suggests that he was accustomed to exerting a considerable degree of control over his dreamscapes before the accident. . . .”
    She scanned the next couple of sentences and paused.
    “. . . Subject requested a private consultation. He brought a series of five recent dream reports for review and analysis. . . .”
    “All right, we know the subject was male,” Ellis said, his voice low with anticipation. “If it’s Scargill, it sounds like the injury he sustained in the explosion affected his extreme dreaming capability. He must have been desperate for help to contact Belvedere.”
    “Where else could he go? Besides, he had a personal connection with Belvedere, remember? Dr. B. was the one who first identified him and assessed his dream talent.”
    Ellis absently rubbed his injured shoulder and continued to prowl the room. “I take it Belvedere never called you in to consult on a head trauma case?”
    “No. I would certainly have remembered something as unusual as that.”
    Ellis nodded. “Belvedere may have realized that Scargill was dangerous and wanted to keep you out of it.”
    “If he thought Scargill was a menace, why didn’t he contact Lawson?”

    “Martin Belvedere was a noted eccentric and damned secretive in his own right, remember? In addition, from what you’ve told me, all he cared about was his research. Scargill probably