Free Hidden in Dreams by Davis Bunn Page A

to tell Rachel they could not make it to the airport on time, because of needing to go to the police station, then handing the phone to Jacob because it hurt her throat to talk. She felt the trembling of Jacob’s own hand as he took it from her.
    The plane waited. The pilots might have known why their three passengers arrived ninety minutes late, or perhaps the wary look they gave them was their customary manner of greeting SuenaMed executives.
    Elena opened her eyes when Jacob touched her shoulder and asked if she wanted something to drink. Suddenly she was very thirsty. The police had given her a cup of the most awful coffee she had ever tasted. She asked Jacob for a tea with milk and several sugars. He must have heard the raw timbre to her words, for he said he would see if they had any honey.
    He returned and set down a china cup and saucer embossed with the SuenaMed logo. He settled into the seat across the aisle. The oversize plush chair was white doeskin leather. Jacob used both hands to hold his own cup. He stared at the blank flat screen on the wall in front of his seat for a time, and then said, “You saved my life.”
    She watched the faint trembles ripple across the surface of her tea and took a sip. It was warm and sweet and went down easy. She sighed.
    “I didn’t want to contact you, of course. I felt as though I was dragged kicking and screaming to the only avenue that offered any sense at all to the situation.”
    Bob Meadows slipped into the chair behind Jacob. He did not speak. He just listened. His face was as white as the butterfly bandage on his forehead, where he had been struck by a flying rock. His wife and children were at their cabin in the North Carolina mountains where he was scheduled to join them the followingweek. Bob’s fear was a palpable force. He did not so much sit in the seat as quiver.
    Jacob went on, “Your entire premise rocks my world. The first time I read your book, I was furious. Your perspective on human behavior originates from an entirely different direction. You use dreams as a reason to draw in . . .”
    When he stopped, Bob Meadows nudged him in the arm. “You might as well say the word, buddy.”
    Jacob did not speak.
    “God,” Bob Meadows said. “The divine hand. The one at work with us this evening. I for one can’t stop praying right now. Giving thanks for the chance to draw another breath. Watch my children grow up. Hold my wife . . .”
    Elena watched Jacob reach down and touch the lever to unlock his seat. He swiveled around to where he faced her across the aisle. Jacob pretended not to notice as his friend struggled to regain control. He said, “If I insert an invisible force into human behavior, my entire professional world is demolished. By saying that one word. That is why I resented needing to make contact. No matter how great the need. Because . . .”
    Bob Meadows’s voice was both hoarse and overly deep, as though he had been the one screaming. “Your desire to measure human faculties is not wrong. It is crucial . The science of psychology depends upon identifying all components of the human psyche that are quantifiable. The mistake lies in claiming that everything about human life can be measured.”
    Jacob Rawlings was drawn around against his own will. His gaze looked haunted.
    Bob went on, “It is not your professional life that is challenged. That is a mask. It is your personal life. It is the way you see yourself. Alone and independent, standing at the pinnacle of your career, beholden to no one. The same internal forces that havekept you single and flitting from one lady to the next are the precise same reasons why you find Elena’s perspective so threatening.”
    Jacob tried his best to offer Elena a mocking smile. “We’ve been having this same argument since college.”
    Elena watched the two men and felt an immense rightness to the moment. She sipped from her cup and decided it was time to share what she had been pondering since