Hidden in Dreams Page 2

  “You genuinely care about her,” Elena observed.

  He held out a memory stick. “Nothing rattles Rachel Lamprey.”

  Elena accepted the stick. She felt the young man’s fingers trembling, or perhaps the memory stick held a force so potent it created a vibration all on its own. “I see.”

  He gave her a business card. “My own details are on the back. You can contact me day or night.” Reginald shut the case and started for the door. “She wasn’t kidding. You really do need to hurry. You know. Just in case she’s right. And this really is a crisis in the making.”

  • • •

  When she returned to her rented condo, Elena turned on her tablet computer and popped in the memory stick. Her fourth-floor balcony overlooked the southernmost portion of the Banana River. Farther north, the river was over three miles wide and separated from the inland waterway by Merritt Island, a peninsula jutting south from Cape Canaveral. From Elena’s balcony she could see the narrow spit where Merritt Island ended, marked by a drawbridge much loved by locals and tourists alike. Here the Banana River was crimped down to just fifty meters wide. It was quiet here, on the western side of the barrier island. The tourists clustered over by the Atlantic Ocean, where the hotels and the beachfront condos rose like concrete teeth. The traffic was heavy there, and the glitz was as constant as the noise. Over here it was still possible to savor the fragrances of frangipani and bougainvillea and old Florida.

  Her apartment complex was a cluster of four low-slung buildings fronted by palm trees and docks for pleasure craft. The boat traffic was held strictly to a crawl, because the manatees used the narrow water as a haven for birthing their young. As Elena sipped her iced tea, a pod of river dolphins passed. She could hear the soft puff of their breaths as the westering sun turned their backs into slick copper. It was as good a place as any to call home.

  Elena set down her drink and turned her attention to the tablet.

  When she had completed her first read-through of Rachel’s documents, Elena entered the condo and made a Cobb salad for dinner. She stood up to eat, watching the golden glow of another Florida sunset. The afternoon storms had passed, leaving the skies amazingly clear. The air remained very humid, the temperatures in the low nineties. Elena found she minded neither. Her screened balcony had a ceiling fan, which shifted the air enough to dry her perspiration almost as soon as it formed. She loved padding around in a sleeveless T-shirt and cotton shorts. Formal attire around here meant a shirt with a collar. She found it positively refreshing after Oxford’s stuffiness.

  When the salad was eaten, she returned to the chair and the tablet. Rachel’s information came in two segments. The first was a file of clinical data, supplying an overview of SuenaMed’s new drug. The medicine was a new means of treating ADHD in both children and adults. If successful, it could revolutionize the entire field of attention disorders. Elena could only imagine the pressure Rachel Lamprey was facing as the company approached its worldwide release date.

  The second file contained a video named simply, “Clinical Debriefing, Patient 303.” The file was dated two afternoons ago. Elena hesitated, then clicked on the tab.

  The setting was a well-appointed office. The camera was situated so that it looked across the desk and focused on the chair and its occupant. The desk appeared to be black lacquer. A sterling silver clock read the same time as the file’s heading. A vase held a spray of orchids.

  Elena heard Rachel’s voice say, “Will you describe the experience for me, please?”

  “I already told the lab guy everything.”

  “I understand. And I’ve read his report. Which is why I asked to see you.” Rachel’s tone was soothing. She offered her guest a genuine concern. Despite Elena’s doubts about the woman, she found herself impressed with Rachel’s professionalism. “I’m very grateful for your taking the time to see me. A personal discussion is called for, given the details you gave my lab technician. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  The man appeared extremely nervous. He was overweight, almost round, and showed a clinical disconnect from his personal appearance. It could have been caused by his agitated state, but Elena did not think so. He wore a blue and yellow and green short-sleeved shirt, a web belt, and creased khaki trousers. His hair, though short, was unruly, as though he had not brushed it in days. Elena knew such traits were common in severe adult ADHD cases.

  The patient asked, “Am I having these dreams on account of your spray? ’Cause if I am, I want out. Today.”

  “There have been over three hundred patients in our human trials,” Rachel replied calmly. “These trials have now entered the third phase and have been going on for almost two years. No one, I repeat, not a single other individual, has reported anything like your symptoms.”

  The man was distraught. “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Before we discuss treatment, I would be grateful if you would please describe your symptoms for me.”

  “What are you, some kind of doctor?”

  “I am a clinical biochemist. I am also director of this project.”

  Elena had the distinct impression the man was unaware of being videotaped. Which was not entirely ethical, since most clinicians would make an official statement with each new taping. The patient had undoubtedly signed release forms before beginning the trial. Which would legally cover this. But Elena disliked the secretive corporate nature revealed in this action.

  Rachel pressed gently, “You have been involved in this study for how long?”

  “I got my first spray last week. Today was supposed to be dose two. Now I ain’t so sure.”

  “And the dreams began immediately after the first dose?”

  “Nah, it was three nights ago. But it ain’t no dream. It’s an attack.”

  “Who attacks you, sir?”

  “The thing, the place, all of it. Over and over.”

  “So the dream is repetitive.”

  “Nine, ten times now. It comes more than once every night.”

  “Will you describe it for me, please?”

  Elena gripped the tablet with both hands. When the patient leaned forward, she did the same. Caught up in the man’s evident fear. And everything that had come before in her own life.

  “It starts out, I’m standing in the bank lobby. The line, it just goes on forever. Out the doors and down the block and back for miles. I’m in line but I see this too. Don’t ask me how. I’ve been standing there for, like, days. We all have. And we’re scared.”

  “You share this sensation of palpable fear with the others standing in line?”

  “All of us. Every last one. You bet.”

  “What precisely are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know. Not then.”

  “What happens next?”

  “The line starts moving. Only the fear, it just gets worse. I’m so scared, man.” Dark patches streaked the patient’s shirt. His face glistened. His voice shook as he continued, “Finally it’s my turn. I tell the lady behind the counter, I want all of it. Every dime. It’s mine and I want it now.

  “She goes, ‘Certainly, sir.’ And she dumps this load of confetti on the counter. I can see it’s money. But it’s been shredded. Worthless. Then I wake up.”

  “Can you describe for me the moment of waking?”

  He wiped his face with both hands. “I’m screaming my head off.”

  “I understand this is very difficult for you. I genuinely appreciate the effort this requires.”

  The patient’s haunted expression said he knew what was coming.

  Rachel asked, “Is there anything more you would like to share with me?”

  The patient mashed his hair down tight to his skull. Over and over.

  “Any lingering impression or feeling that might—”

  “I got to tell somebody.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You asked what I feel. That’s it. That’s why I’m sitting here. Going through this again. Because I got to. You hear what I�
�m saying?”

  “You are telling me that you are filled with a strong urge to share this dream.”

  “I already told you, lady. This ain’t no dream.”

  “What would you prefer that I call it, then? What word would you say best—”

  “A warning.”

  “Is this warning intended for you?”

  “For everybody. That’s what I feel. It’s either stand on the street corner and shout, or sit here and tell you. I figure, if I’m nuts, this is at least a way to keep it private.”

  Rachel did not speak.

  “Am I nuts?”

  “Nothing you have expressed to me indicates any abnormal symptoms,” she replied slowly. “Other than your evident stress.”

  His laugh was coppery with weakness. “You got that right.”

  The screen went blank.

  3

  Elena arrived in the president’s office at eight the next morning. She had woken in the middle of the night with a desperate need to speak with someone she trusted. The problem was, she knew almost no one in the entire state of Florida.

  The Atlantic Christian University campus was divided into two distinct components. The original low-slung buildings dated from the early seventies, when the university had been founded. Florida tended to age buildings with a harsh hand. Years could pass with little more than summer thunderstorms and lightning strikes. Then a hurricane could roar through. Locals said a hurricane aged a building ten years in one week. The past six years had been kind to the Space Coast, as this region was known. But in 2003 the coast had been hit by two category-three storms in the space of seventeen days. The following year, a storm landed on the opposite coast as a category one, then somehow managed to gather force as it crossed the state. It tore into Melbourne from the west, from the landward side, and then sat over the region for nineteen hours, spawning twenty-seven tornados and dumping two feet of rain in one day. This particular month, September, was the most active period for Atlantic hurricanes. Elena heard about storms everywhere she went.

  Four years earlier, the founder of a major Florida corporation bequeathed ACU a sum of fifty million dollars. Since then the university had gone on a building spree. The campus now boasted a new science complex, business school, gym, pool, and dorms. But the president’s office remained where it had been, on the ground floor of one of the original structures. The suite of offices was nice enough, though rather faded. Elena decided the place suited the man.

  Reed Thompson, president of Atlantic Christian, strode into the room. “Dr. Burroughs! Do we have an appointment?”

  “I phoned, your secretary said this was the only chance I’d have to see you today.”

  “This is excellent. I was hoping to stop by for a chat, but with the trustees meeting next week, I’ve been running flat out.” He accepted the secretary’s clutch of messages without breaking stride. “Come on in.”

  “I can come back later.”

  “There is no later.” He reached the door to his inner office, then asked his secretary, “How much time do I have?”

  “Fifteen minutes if you want to arrive five minutes late.”

  “Make it twenty. Coffee for me. Elena?”

  “No thank you.”

  “Have a seat. Give me two minutes.” He hung his jacket on the back of his chair, flipped through the notes, set them by his phone, and seated himself. “How are you settling in?”

  “Too early to tell.” She found herself slipping into the president’s terse mode of speech. “I think okay.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Not with my classes.”

  “Home working out okay? You’re renting, is that right?”

  “Bayside Condominiums. Yes, and it’s fine. Actually, it’s better than that.”

  “Great.” He smiled his thanks as his secretary set down his mug. “You’ve met Francine?”

  “Just now, yes.”

  His secretary said, “Gary is outside.”

  “I’ll see him in the conference.”

  “He says there’s a problem with the architect’s bid.”

  Reed Thompson sipped from his mug, then said to Elena, “If I take five minutes now, I can give you ten minutes more later. Gary will be able to start the conference without me.”

  “I feel silly taking your time at all.”

  “You strike me as someone who does nothing on a whim.” He started from the office.

  Francine lingered long enough to ask Elena, “Are you sure you won’t take anything?”

  “A coffee would be great, thank you. Milk, no sugar.”

  “Just a moment.”

  Elena looked around the office. She had never had reason to enter the president’s office before. Few teachers at a university ever did, with three exceptions: when they were up for a national award, when they were the head of a department undergoing budget battles, and when they were in serious trouble. Elena thanked the secretary for the coffee and wished she had not come. The trouble was, she had nowhere else to turn. She had tried to phone both Lawrence and Antonio, her two friends from the last time events had risen up to strike at her. But both men were unreachable. Ditto for Lawrence’s wife. Then the idea had come to her: speak with Reed.

  The idea had merit. Reed Thompson had made his name in political economics. Other ACU faculty had told her how Reed had been short-listed for a Nobel Prize. He had served on the Council of Economic Advisers to the first President Bush. Afterward he had turned down several lucrative offers in order to become ACU’s president.

  The president’s office was frigid. She had heard about this, of course. It was a joke among the faculty that anyone visiting the president needed a fur coat. Elena was not surprised. Reed Thompson operated at one speed: full burn. She sipped her coffee and recalled the first time they had met. She had been speaking at Emory University. The event had come at the end of a grueling twelve-week American tour. Elena had arrived drained in body and mind, only to discover that the university had changed the format. Instead of delivering the speech that had become tattooed to her brain, she was to take part in a debate.

  Elena wished she could take back that night entirely. She knew now that she should have refused point-blank. But her opponent was Jacob Rawlings, her most ardent critic. The temptation to take him on publicly had been too great.

  Jacob Rawlings was extremely handsome and very magnetic. He was every female grad student’s dream professor. Which only made it easier to hate him.

  Jacob had trained as a behaviorist, which meant he tried to break down the human psyche into rigidly defined components that could be studied and measured and quantified. He loved statistics. He hated what he called the messes of his academic discipline, by which he meant everything that did not fit into a laboratory box. He ridiculed Freud and Jung. Just as, that night, he had mocked Elena.

  Jacob had addressed her as professor. His tone was polite enough. But his comments had been devastating. He had not merely won the evening’s debate; he had obliterated her.

  Elena had emerged from the auditorium’s stage doors gasping for breath. There she had collided with Reed Thompson, who proceeded to thank her for an astonishing performance.

  Elena had been too wounded to give anything other than what was foremost on her mind: “He ate me for lunch.”

  Reed shrugged easily. “You engaged with him. On his terms. Too many of my colleagues fear the world’s ridicule and avoid all such contacts.”

  “Lucky for them.”

  “On the contrary. Too often the community of believers engages only with itself, Dr. Burroughs.” He offered her a card. “I’m up visiting an old friend who teaches here. He’s read your book. I haven’t yet, but I will now, I assure you. In the meanwhile, I want you to consider becoming a member of my faculty.”

  Elena had not been certain she had heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”

  “Pray on it. That’s all I ask. All anyone can ask.” He had offered a brilliant smile, swift as a camera flash. “Y
ou would be very good for us, Dr. Burroughs. The question is, would we be good for you?”

  • • •

  “Are you here to tell me you’re leaving?”

  Elena jerked from her reverie. “What? No. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Because if you are, I won’t hold you to your contract.” Reed Thompson slipped into the chair. “We were both taking a risk, having you join us. If you don’t feel it’s working—”

  “I’m not here to resign.”

  He sighed noisily. “Great. Splendid.”

  She had to smile. “You want me that badly?”

  “Well, of course. You think I’d tackle a strange lady in the dead of a Georgia night because I thought she might be interesting?”

  “You hardly tackled me.”

  “In the figurative sense.” Reed Thompson was a narrow man in all but his smile and his attitudes. His features were not so much slender as craven, as though he burned through every calorie before it actually hit bottom. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to ask you a question. About economics. It may sound completely silly, but . . .” Elena stopped for a difficult breath. She had it all worked out in her head before she came in, only now the words sounded counterfeit. “Is there a risk of America experiencing a genuine crisis? I’m not talking about another recession. I mean, something truly cataclysmic.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The response was so instantaneous, Elena was caught off guard. “Really?”

  “The fear of precisely that keeps me up at night.”

  “Could you explain?”

  “May I ask why?”

  She had dreaded this question. “I have been approached by a scientist based in Orlando,” Elena replied carefully. “She has offered me evidence that has left me extremely disturbed.”

  “If this evidence has to do with the state of our economy, you have every reason to be disturbed. Terrified, more like. How much do you know about economics?”

  “Very little.”

  “I thought, well, with your previous work with the Oxford council, you would have some training in finance.”