Free Falling Awake by Jayne Ann Krentz Page A

phrase closely. “Resigned to pursue other interests. It does have a more positive ring, doesn’t it? Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome. Usually I charge a lot of money for advice like that.”
    “You do?”
    Before she could question him further, the waiter returned with a steaming pot and two ceramic cups. He set the tea things down and departed.
    “I’m here to offer you another job,” Ellis said in a surprisingly offhanded fashion. “Good pay. Good benefits. Guaranteed retirement plan.”
    Excitement swept through her. She tried not to let it show. “Working for you?”
    “No. I would continue to contract for your services but youwould be employed by another research lab. The situation would be similar to the one you had at the center.”
    He sounded almost bored, as if he were going through the motions, as if her decision was a matter of complete disinterest to him.
    “I see.” She thought about that for a moment and then decided to play a couple of her own cards. “Would this other lab by any chance be my former Client Number One? An unnamed government agency engaged in Level Five dream research?”
    Ellis’s brows climbed. “I take it you obviously know a lot more about your private clients than Martin Belvedere led us to believe.”
    He sounded impressed but not surprised, she thought, and certainly not alarmed. She got the distinct impression that he had already guessed that she knew a certain amount about her anonymous clients.
    Her confidence rose. She picked up the teapot. He watched her fill his cup and then her own as if the small ritual fascinated him.
    “After doing several dozen Level Five dream analyses it would be hard not to know something about my clients,” she said, setting down the pot.
    “I thought so.” He made himself more comfortable in the chair, turning slightly to study some wet-suited surfers who were paddling out across the bay. “I told Lawson—”
    “Lawson?”
    “Jack Lawson. He’s the director of Frey-Salter, Inc. Anonymous Client Number One to you.”
    “Ah.”

    “I told him that I would deliver his offer of a job. I’ve completed my assignment.”
    “No offense, but you didn’t do much of a sales job,” she said dryly.
    He smiled his cool, edgy smile and picked up his cup. “Just said I’d make his offer for him. Didn’t say I’d try to talk you into going to work at Frey-Salter.”
    “Just as well.” She picked up the small cup with both hands, holding it between her fingertips. “Because I’ll let you in on a little secret, Ellis. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Belvedere let me go. I’ve decided that I don’t want to go back into a lab setting.”
    He continued to concentrate on the surfers. “I know that the kind of Level Five dreams Lawson and I asked you to interpret were . . .” He hesitated and took a swallow of tea. “Disturbing.”
    “True. But it wasn’t the dreams that disturbed me the most. It was the way both of you withheld information from me.”
    That statement got his attention. He turned his head to look at her. “What do you mean? I can’t speak for Lawson, but I made my dream reports as complete as possible.”
    “Oh, sure, you both gave me narratives of the dreams, but you didn’t give me any context. I was never told anything about what was going on in the lives of the dreamers and even less about the subjects of the dreams.”
    His jaw tightened. “You must have figured out enough about the subjects to realize that they were extremely unpleasant.”
    “Of course. But that just made it all the more frustrating.” She spread her hands. “Because I never got any feedback on theresults, either. Do you have any idea just how maddening it was to work that way?”
    He looked blank. “Feedback?”
    “I’m not stupid, Ellis. I may have been stuck in an office on the third floor at the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research for the past year, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you and the lab rats