The Ex Who Glowed in the Dark (Charley's Ghost) Read Free

clenched his lips and his fists, looking very young and vulnerable, a little like a child holding in horrible secrets.
    Secrets and Dawson just didn’t go together, but apparently he had a few.
    Impossible images raced through Amanda’s mind.
    Dawson the mild-mannered nerd—a secret life as a bank robber?
    Nah.
    A spy who sold government secrets?
    Certainly not.
    A career as a writer of erotica?
    Probably not.
    He sat straight in the chair, squared his shoulders, and drew in a deep breath. “They took my brother. They’re going to kill him if I don’t give them a program my dad wrote, and I don’t have the program.”

     
     
    Chapter Two
     
    “Your brother?” Amanda frowned. Had she been so obsessed with her own life, with Charley and divorce and murder, she’d somehow missed the fact that Dawson had a brother?
    She looked at Charley and mouthed the word, Brother?
    Charley shrugged. “I never heard of one.”
    She turned her attention back to Dawson and considered how to tactfully bring up her lack of knowledge. “I don’t think I ever met your brother, did I?”
    Dawson managed a half smile. “No, you’ve never met him. I never told you about him.”
    “I’ve known you for two years a nd you just sort of forgot to mention that you have a brother?” When she’d hired him, he’d said he had no family, that his parents had died in an automobile crash. Why hadn’t he mentioned a brother? Were they estranged? Was this an older brother who lived in another country or up north somewhere?
    “I didn’t forget. I deliberately withheld that information. His name is Grant, and he’s my little brother. He’s eleven years old. We were—” He straightened his glasses and drew in another deep breath. “We were trying to avoid notice. Fly under the radar. But they found us.”
    Fly under the radar? Dawson had always seemed the epitome of honesty and integrity. What on earth was he talking about? Was he having some sort of paranoid episode? Had he played too many games on the computer? Confused cyberspace with reality? “Who are they ?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    Well, at least his mysterious they didn’t have an identity like Romulans or the CIA. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “You don’t who they are, but you think they took your brother, as in kidnapped ?”
    He nodded.
    “Then we need to call the police. Right?”
    Dawson shook his head vehemently. “No! They said they’d kill him if I contacted the police!”
    Amanda rose slowly to her feet, trying to appear calm though her stress level was ratcheting rapidly upward. She gave Charley a desperate look. As a ghost, maybe he had special knowledge of the mysterious they who kidnapped boys she’d never heard of and threatened to kill them.
    Charley shrugged. “You want my opinion? I think Dawson’s lost it.”
    Amanda didn’t often agree with Charley, but she was starting to have some doubts about her assistant. He was not acting rationally. Did he really have a brother? Maybe she hadn’t heard about this brother Grant because he didn’t exist. Maybe Grant was an avatar in some computer game.
    She put her hands on his shoulders. “Dawson, you need to relax. If something’s happened to your brother, we’ll figure it out. It’s going to be all right. I promise.” And if there is no brother and you’re flipping out on me, we’ll figure that out too. Dawson was her friend. Friends didn’t let friends flip out alone.
    Dawson focused on her, blinked twice, and his lips twisted into a wry smile. “You think I’m crazy.”
    “No, of course not.” She dropped her gaze, unable to look at him and lie. “Well, maybe a little.”
    He turned in the desk chair and pulled out the wide middle drawer.
    “He’s got a gun!” Charley shouted, dropping to the floor. Heroic as always.
    Dawson pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Amanda. “I printed the e-mail they sent me last night.”
    Amanda took the paper