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eccentricities, hmm?”
    “I’m not sure what—”
    “Come now, Ms. Wright. You worked with my father for several months. You must be aware that he was pathologically secretive and paranoid.”
    She suddenly understood the anger she had sensed a moment ago. Randolph Belvedere had father issues. No surprise there, she thought. Dr. B. had probably not been what anyone would call a great dad. All the old man had ever cared about was his research.
    “Dr. Belvedere was very concerned with confidentiality, but in part that was because those two anonymous clients demanded it,” she said warily.
    “Tell me precisely what you did for these two clients,” Randolph snapped.
    “I performed a special kind of analysis for them on those occasions when the dreamers had difficulty interpreting the symbols and images that appeared in their dreams.”
    “I am aware that there are still some psychologists and psychiatrists who believe they can use the patient’s dreams to help uncover repressed issues. But the field of clinical psychology has moved well beyond Freud and Jung in that regard. Very fewproperly trained therapists put a lot of stock in old-fashioned dream analysis these days. In any event, you do not appear to have been practicing therapy. You never even met your clients, did you?”
    Okay, that had been a major problem, she thought, one she had complained about frequently to Dr. B. I need context, she had told him time and again. I’m working in the dark.
    “I wasn’t hired to do therapy,” she said carefully.
    “Just as well, since according to your personnel file, you don’t even have a degree in psychology.” He flipped open the folder on the desk. “It says here that you majored in history in college. It also appears that your previous job was at something called the Psychic Dreamer Hotline.”
    “You’d be amazed how much practical psychology you can pick up answering phones for the Psychic Dreamer Hotline. It was very educational.” She was starting to get mad. “As I was about to say, Dr. Belvedere employed me to interpret the meaning of events and symbols that appeared in dream reports taken from a, uh, certain class of dreamers. You’re probably aware that your father had a particular interest in what he termed Level Five lucid dreaming.”
    “I knew it.” Randolph’s voice was very tight. A dark flush rose in his cheeks. “He was still fiddling around with that psychic nonsense, wasn’t he?”
    She could feel the cold dampness of a trickle of perspiration under her arms. “I consider that an extremely narrow point of view, sir. In the last few years, your father devoted a great deal ofhis energy and expertise to the study of high-level lucid dreaming. He hired me to assist him in his research.”
    Probably best not to explain exactly why Dr. Belvedere had selected her to help him, she decided. The situation was bad enough as it was.
    “The old fool never gave up, did he,” Randolph said bitterly. “He was obsessed with his personal dream scale and that psychic dreaming crap.”
    “He did not consider it, uh, crap.” She gripped the strap of her shoulder bag. “Dr. Belvedere was convinced that some people experience the phenomenon of lucid dreaming with a great deal more intensity and clarity than others. Most people have lucid dreams occasionally. On his scale they rank as Ones and Twos. A few have lucid dreams more frequently and with greater clarity—the Threes and Fours.”
    “And then we have the Belvedere Level Five lucid dreamer.” Randolph’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “The so-called psychic dreamer.”
    “Your father felt that it was a phenomenon that was worth serious study.”
    “Dreaming is dreaming, Ms. Wright,” Randolph said flatly. “The consensus of most reputable modern research is that there is no scientific evidence to indicate that being aware of a dream or feeling in control of it is somehow a different or more special kind of dreaming. If anything, it