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

by Berneathy, Sally

  “He’s your neighbor.” Amanda indicated Dawson. “He’s Dawson Page. I’m Amanda Caulfield.”

  The kook nodded. “Yes, yes, I’ve seen him leaving his apartment. I’m Brendan Matthews. What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “You’re not with the police department, are you?” Dawson asked cautiously.

  Matthews jerked his head around as if the spoken word might make the police materialize. “No, I am most certainly not allied with those government spies.”

  “Good, that’s good.”

  Matthews’ attitude didn’t sound at all good to Amanda. He sounded like a total nut job. But at least Dawson would be willing to talk to him if he wasn’t a cop. “Dawson’s little brother is missing, and we just wondered if you might have seen anything.”

  Matthews scowled. “Anything? I’ve seen a lot.”

  “Have you seen somebody hustling a little boy out of the building, a stranger lurking around the building, somebody you haven’t seen before?” Amanda didn’t expect much from this guy. He would have to have x-ray vision to see through all the foil, but he had recognized Dawson so it was possible he knew something.

  “What does he look like, this little brother?”

  “Grant is eleven years old. He’s four and a half feet tall, weighs seventy-two pounds. He’s a little thin because he’s always running around doing something, playing baseball, riding his bicycle—” Dawson bit off his words, licked his lips and started again. “He has brown hair and blue eyes. Have you seen him?”

  Matthews shook his head and frowned. “I didn’t know you had a brother. I’ve seen you coming and going, but never a child. Has this child always been with you or did he come here recently?”

  Dawson leaned forward, his posture rigid and urgent. “He’s always been with me. We’ve lived in that apartment for two years. He rides his bicycle to school every day. One day he fell on the sidewalk and skinned his knee right in front of this building. You must have seen him!” As if he suddenly realized he was becoming hysterical, Dawson sat back and drew a shaky hand over his face.

  Ice wrapped around Amanda’s heart. Again the question had arisen of whether Grant was real or not. Dawson had the photograph and the little boy’s room. Grant had existed. But she had no proof he was still alive. Maybe he’d died in the car wreck that killed their parents. Maybe Dawson was suffering from an emotional trauma. Maybe—

  “They took him.”

  Amanda gasped in shock at Matthews’ words, the same ones Dawson had spoken earlier.

  Dawson shot to his feet and stood looming over Matthews who remained sitting. “What do you know about them?” Dawson demanded. “Where did they take Grant?”

  Matthews shook his head, causing his strange hat to tremble. “You didn’t have any protection, did you?”

  “Protection?” Amanda echoed. Surely he wasn’t talking about condoms. “You mean like a gun?”

  Matthews snorted. “You couldn’t stop them with a regular gun.”

  This conversation was getting weirder and weirder. “I’m pretty sure I could stop anybody but Superman with my .38, especially since it’s loaded with jacketed hollow points.”

  Matthews snorted again, more vehemently this time. “You couldn’t even stop a Venusian with a .38, and the ones from Alpha Centauri have diamond based skin. Don’t waste your bullets. You need a laser gun.”

  Amanda’s chin dropped. Charley had even been stricken dumb. Dawson had rambled on about a mysterious they, but Brendan Matthews was more specific—Venusians and creatures from Alpha Centauri.

  Dawson blinked a couple of times, stepped back and stared at the man in the tinfoil hat. “Alpha Centauri? Diamond based skin?”

  “Yes, they’re the ones who’ve been skulking around lately. They’re the ones who took your brother.”

  “That guy is seriously nuts!” Charley moved toward the door as if fearful that proximity to Matthews would infect him with the seriously nuts virus. Too late. Charley had been seriously nuts as long as she’d known him.

  “Thank you so much for talking to us, Mr. Matthews. Dawson, I think I hear the phone in your apartment ringing. We need to go.”

  She grabbed Dawson’s arm and dragged him toward the door before he could protest that he didn’t have a landline.

  “I have some extra foil,” Matthews offered. “And I can help you set up the shield program on your computer.”

  “Thank you, we’ll get back to you on that.” Amanda opened the door with one hand and pushed Dawson through with the other.

  The dreariness of the hallway was a welcome change from the shiny insanity of apartment 3C. Amanda drew in a welcome breath of the stale air.

  Dawson took two steps forward then two back and shook his head. “What was that man talking about? Is he saying aliens took Grant?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s what he was saying.” Dawson was close to losing it, dependent on her to hold him together. She wasn’t cut out for that job. She was way more familiar with being the panicker than the soother. But she had to help her friend. “Okay, you got a kooky neighbor. It happens. Let’s go talk to your other neighbors. Who knows? One of them may actually be from Alpha Centauri. I think that’s probably where Charley was from.”

  That got a half-smile from Dawson. “No, he didn’t have diamond based skin.”

  “Not funny, Amanda.” Charley floated ahead of them down the hall and disappeared into apartment 3B.

  A loud scream burst from the apartment.

  Amanda and Dawson exchanged a horrified look then dashed toward the door.

  Charley slid back out, looking a little frazzled. “Cat. I guess he could see me. Guy’s another nut job. No sign of a kidnapped kid.”

  Another nut job? Was the building a refuge for tin foil freaks?

  Dawson pounded on the door. “Open up!”

  The door opened almost immediately to reveal a tall well-muscled man in a tight T-shirt and workout pants. He didn’t look like a nut. He looked pretty good, actually.

  Dawson lunged toward him. Amanda grabbed Dawson around the waist in a futile effort to hold him back. “It was a cat, not your brother!”

  The man reacted defensively, grabbing Dawson’s arm and twisting it behind his back. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What the hell’s going on?”

  A Siamese cat darted into the hall, looked up at Charley, hissed and shrieked in a voice at least ten times his size.

  Dawson ceased struggling and looked at the spitting, screaming animal. “A cat?”

  “A cat.”

  He lifted his gaze to the man who held him in his grip. “I’m sorry. I thought—”

  Amanda stepped forward and offered her hand. “Hi. I’m Amanda Caulfield and this is Dawson Page. He lives in apartment 3D, and he doesn’t usually attack people. We heard your cat and thought it was a person, Dawson’s brother, to be exact.”

  The man studied her for a moment then released Dawson and shook her hand. “I’m Nick Farner. Yeah, Miss Kitty gets pretty loud sometimes. I have no idea what’s got her so upset this time.” He stepped around Dawson and picked up the cat who continued to grumble at Charley.

  “I know how you feel, Miss Kitty,” Amanda said, reaching to tentatively stroke the cat’s head. “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding, Mr. Farner. Dawson’s brother is missing, and he’s very upset. We’d really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to talk to us.” She gave him the sweet smile her mother had tried for years to get her to use. It didn’t come naturally, but this was a desperate time.

  Nick looked from her to Dawson then finally shrugged and stepped back, holding the door open. “Come on in.”

  Behind him Amanda could see an apartment furnished with shabby but elegant antiques.

  Amanda arched a questioning eyebrow at Charley as she and Dawson entered the apartment. She and Charley obviously had a very different idea of what constituted a nut job. He’d been right about Brendan Matthews, but Nick Farner seemed pretty normal.

>   Charley kept close to her side, as far away from Nick and the cat as he could get. “Yeah, I stand by what I said. Another nut job. What normal guy would live in an apartment like this? It reminds me of your grandmother’s house. Your first grandmother. Well, I guess she was actually your second grandmother. But the first one you knew about. The one with the big house in Highland Park. You have too many mothers and that makes for way too many grandmothers.”

  Amanda moved past him and sat on the faded damask sofa. Dawson sat tentatively beside her, tense as if he still didn’t quite trust this man.

  Nick Farner closed the door, put the cat in the bedroom and took a seat in the matching arm chair. His virility did look a little out of place in the faded rose colored Victorian style chair. “So what’s going on?”

  “Are you with the police?” Dawson blurted.

  Farner studied him a long moment as if not quite sure how to take the strange question. “No, I’m a personal trainer. Why would think I’m with the police?”

  Amanda chose to avoid the question rather than answer it. “Dawson’s little brother is missing. We just thought you might have seen something, maybe noticed a stranger hanging around.”

  “What does your brother look like? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. I’ve seen you going in and out, but I never saw you with a little boy.”

  Another neighbor who hadn’t seen Grant. Another question as to whether Grant was still alive.

  “He lives with me.” Dawson’s voice was becoming edgy. Maybe this interview business wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Have you seen anybody around here who looked suspicious, somebody who doesn’t belong?” Amanda asked. “Somebody you haven’t seen before?”

  Nick leaned forward and studied his two visitors carefully. “If your little brother is missing, you should probably call the police.”

  “No, we can’t do that.” Dawson clasped his hands in his lap so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

  “We, uh, think maybe he went off with a friend and he’s, uh, trying to get back at Dawson for grounding him by disappearing. It would be very embarrassing if we called the cops and then he came home.”

  “You’re getting pretty good at this lying business,” Charley said approvingly, settling beside her on the sofa. Well, a couple of inches above the sofa.

  Farner looked a little dubious, and Amanda suspected she was not nearly as proficient a liar as Charley. Not that she aspired to that skill, but it would be handy in the current situation.

  “I wish I could help you,” Farner said, “but I don’t recall seeing the boy or anybody suspicious, anybody who looked out of place.”

  Amanda rose with a sigh. “Thank you for talking to us. If you do see something, please let us know.”

  Farner stood. “I will. I hope your brother comes home soon. I ran away once when I was a kid. I had no idea what torment I was putting my parents through. Don’t be too hard on your brother when he finally shows up.” He smiled and held the door open.

  Back outside in the dreary hallway Amanda sighed. “Well, at least this neighbor was normal, but we still didn’t learn anything.”

  Dawson frowned and looked at the closed door of 3B. “Something’s not right.”

  “Really? We just came from the apartment of a man who sees visitors from another star system, but you think there’s something not right about this guy with big shoulders and antique furniture?”

  Dawson lifted a hand to his forehead. “There’s something about him that bothers me.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just stressed, I guess.”

  “That’s understandable. We’re not getting anywhere. We’ll talk to the people in the last apartment on this floor and then we need to go to Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?”

  Call the police. But she refrained from saying it.

  “Let’s go check on the ladies in 3A. You did say two women, didn’t you? Interesting that you noticed the women but not the guys,” she teased.

  Dawson managed a strained smile. “I’d have remembered the guy in tinfoil if I’d ever seen him. I think he stays inside his apartment and communicates with aliens.”

  Amanda nodded. “You’re probably right. Okay, on to 3A.”

  “The girls may be gone right now. I’ve passed them in the mornings on their way out of the building. They usually have books with them. College students, I think.”

  Amanda strode over to the door marked 3A and knocked. No one answered.

  Charley darted in then came back shortly. “Nobody home. No tinfoil. No old furniture. Looks like a normal place.”

  “Okay, we’ll check with them later,” Amanda said.

  “Do you want to try the people on the first and second floors?” Dawson asked. “Maybe by then the girls will have come home.”

  Not that the girls were likely to know anything either. It was time to resort to Plan B. “Let’s go back into your apartment and talk.”

  Dawson hesitated, looking around as if searching for something they’d missed. Finally he sighed and opened the door of his own apartment.

  They sat again at the table with the cups of cooling store brand tea. Amanda wasn’t about to drink any more of it, but she wrapped her hands around the mug. It was something to do.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” she said. “We don’t know what we’re doing.”

  Dawson drew in a shaky breath. “I realize that.”

  “We need help, somebody who has experience at this sort of thing. We’ve got to call the police.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. They’ll know what to do. We’ll call Detective Daggett and he’ll be able to make sure nobody finds out we’ve talked to them.”

  “No!” Charley echoed Dawson’s refusal. For emphasis he darted up to the ceiling then back down again, half through the table, his face a few inches from Amanda’s as he scowled at her. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “We’ll swear him to secrecy,” she promised, trying unsuccessfully to lean around Charley who matched her every movement. To Dawson who couldn’t see Charley, she probably looked like a drunken snake charmer swaying back and forth. “I’m sure they’ve dealt with this sort of thing before. Daggett will be able to help. Remember when we were trying to catch Kimball, Jake Daggett was so secretive he didn’t even tell me he was working on my case.”

  “The people who have Grant are computer literate. Maybe they can even hack into the police computers.”

  “Then we’ll tell Daggett not to enter anything into the computer. He always carries a little notebook that he writes everything in. Anyway, we don’t have a choice,” Amanda said firmly. “Your brother’s in trouble and we don’t have the ability to help him. He’s counting on his big brother. We can’t let him down.”

  Dawson sagged back in his chair as if defeated. He swallowed hard then gave a brief nod. “Tell Daggett that Grant’s life is in danger if those people find out we’ve talked to him.”

  “I will.” Amanda took her cell phone from her purse. Jake Daggett would know what to do. And he’d have the resources to find out if little brother Grant had died in the car wreck that killed Dawson’s parents. She didn't want to think that Dawson could be mentally ill, but the two neighbors they’d talked to had never seen the boy, and the story he'd told about false identities and running from unknown killers was pretty far-fetched.

  Of course, having her ex-husband’s ghost hanging around was a little far-fetched too.

  Chapter Five

  Half an hour and two cups of bad tea later, a knock sounded on Dawson’s front door. He darted an anxious glance in that direction and Charley swept through the door then back again.

  “It’s that cop,” he reported, a disgusted look on his face. “Brought a buddy with him. Just what we need. Two of them.”

  Amanda thought they could probably use the entire Dallas Police Department, but two was a good start. “It’s Daggett,” she said to reassure Dawson then went to t
he door and opened it.

  She hadn’t seen Detective Jake Daggett for a couple of weeks, not since they’d finally concluded all the details of locking away Roland Kimball. The man looked good in a disheveled sort of way with his piercing brown eyes, dark hair that always seemed to be two weeks overdue for a haircut and cop muscles that stretched his T-shirt very nicely. For a fleeting instant she admitted to herself that perhaps Charley’s jealousy of the guy had some merit.

  But that was silly. She was glad to see Jake because he could help Dawson. That was all.

  She didn’t recognize the other guy, but he had that same indefinable air of being a cop. He also filled out his T-shirt with more than adequate muscles. Cops must spend a lot of time working out. Both men wore faded jeans and scuffed cowboy boots. The new guy was more clean cut with short black hair and a definite Italian look. He carried a backpack that appeared to be stuffed full of something. Doubtless more cop stuff.

  Amanda could only hope their cop aura wasn’t as obvious to anyone who might be observing as it was to her.

  Impulsively she stepped forward, reached up and wrapped her arms around Jake’s neck. “Good to see you again, cousin Jake,” she said loudly, then whispered, “Play along in case the kidnappers are watching so they won’t think you’re cops.”

  “Hey!” Charley protested. “You don’t need to do that!”

  She probably didn’t need to, but it seemed like a good idea.

  Jake hugged her back. “Good to see you too, cousin Amanda.” He seemed more than willing to play along, returning her hug enthusiastically enough to convince any possible eavesdropping kidnappers that they were relatives.

  “Okay, Amanda, that’s enough,” Charley said. “We’ve got a crime to solve.”

  Maybe the embrace had lasted a few seconds longer than necessary. Of course, that all depended on the definition of necessary. Amanda had to admit she hadn’t minded.

  Both men came inside and she closed the door behind them. “Jake, you remember my assistant, Dawson Page.”

  Jake nodded to Dawson then indicated his buddy. “This is Detective Ross Minatelli. He’s a forensics specialist.”