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

tentatively as if it might spin away from her or do something else bizarre. 
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    You will receive directions as to when and where to bring your father’s source code for Project Verdant. If you fail to do exactly as we tell you, your brother will die. If you contact the police, your brother will die.
    Charley came to stand beside her and read the note. “Dawson’s playing some kind of a joke.”
    Amanda looked at the agony on Dawson’s face.
    It wasn’t a joke.
    He stood and rolled over another chair. “Sit down,” he said. “I need to tell you some things, like my name.”
    Amanda sank into the chair. “Your…name? You’re Dawson Page. Aren’t you? Of course you are. I checked your references when you came to work here. I made a photocopy of your driver’s license. It has your picture. It’s you.”
    Dawson sat beside her and clenched his hands in his lap. “Yeah, about that. It’s all a fake. Well, not completely. My real last name is Dawson.”
    Amanda opened her mouth to speak then closed it when she couldn’t think of anything to say. That morning the sun had risen in the east, she’d gone to court with her father and Charley’s ghost, and her life had seemed quite normal. Now she felt as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole even though she hadn’t had any mushrooms. Not even any cheap champagne.
    “What is he trying to hide?” Charley, never at a loss for words, demanded. “Ask him what he’s trying to hide. People don’t change their names unless they’re trying to hide something. You get on my case because I’ve done a few little things like blackmail and adultery and all the time you’ve been harboring a mass murderer!”
    Little things like blackmail and adultery ? Dawson a mass murderer ? Maybe Charley had been nibbling on a magic mushroom.
    “I don’t understand. You’re a clean cut college kid studying computer science. Are you saying that’s not who you are?”
    “No—I mean, yes, that’s who I am. But my real name—” His gaze darted around the room, searching the corners, as if he expected to find someone lurking in the shadows. Romulan? CIA agent? White rabbit?
    Even if Dawson’s agony was real, Amanda couldn’t rule out the possibility that his delusion wasn’t.
    She leaned forward. “Your real name?”
    He cleared his throat. “Kevin Dawson. My parents were Wesley and Carol Dawson. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept Dawson as part of my name or let Grant keep his real first name. But he was so little and scared. It was bad enough we lost our parents. We both just wanted to keep some part of our family, but maybe that’s how they found us.” He met Amanda’s gaze. “I’m not making any sense, am I?”
    That was the first sane thing he’d said since she’d walked in the door. She shook her head slowly. “No. Not really.”
    He exhaled a long sigh and straightened his shoulders. “My father left us several false identities to choose from. I probably should have chosen one of the others, like John Ferguson or Thomas Waller. It was just so hard to let go of my real name, of all connection to my life and my parents.”
    “You’re still not making any sense. Why don’t I get you a fresh Coke and you start from the beginning, like why your father left you several false identities.”
    “Be careful, Amanda,” Charley warned. “Fathers leave their sons a house or a gold watch or a life insurance policy. They don’t leave them false identities. Something’s not right.”
    Amanda went to the small refrigerator in the corner of the room and took out two Cokes. While she had her back turned to Dawson, she whispered to Charley, “Yeah, you know so much about fathers. You told me yours was an evil dead drug dealer when he’s very nice and very alive and coffee is his drug of choice.”
    “Amanda, you really need to learn to let go of the past. That’s probably why I’m stuck here, because you won’t forgive