The Ex Who Hid a Deadly Past

by Sally Berneathy

  “Yeah, that sounds like a great evening, sitting in a bar with my dead ex, wearing a wig, talking to the drunks.”

  “You got a better idea to keep us out of prison?”

  Amanda opened her mouth to say something rude and snarky. But Charley was trying to help. And she didn’t have a better idea. “Okay, maybe your plan has some merit.”

  Charley folded his hands and looked delighted. “This is going to be fun.”

  Chapter Ten

  Amanda woke from a dream of sitting at a table in Bikes and Brews, wearing a long blond wig, surrounded by dozens of dead Lennys lying all over the floor. Charley flitted about the room, tossing her hairs onto the bodies, and Jake waited in the corner with a pair of handcuffs.

  She was glad to wake from that dream, but reality wasn’t much better. If she didn’t figure out how her hairs got on Lenny’s body, she could soon be waking in a prison cell.

  In the early morning gloom, Charley stood with his back to her, looking out the window. Usually he spent the night wandering around, doing whatever ghosts did. Sometimes he watched the small TV downstairs in the shop or the TV in her living room with the sound muted.

  “Do you see something out there?” Please, not another body!

  He flashed around to face her, his eyes wide. “You’re awake. Good morning. I think you should get a short black wig. Straight hair. Nobody will be able to recognize you.”

  “If I didn’t know it was impossible for you to drink, I’d think you were drunk.” She threw back the covers and set her bare feet on the wooden floor. Cold. The sun was rising, but the room was still chilly.

  She grabbed underwear from a drawer, jeans and T-shirt from her closet, and headed toward the warmth of the shower.

  “If you don’t want to get a wig, you could pull your hair back and wear a hat or wrap a scarf around your head. Your face is pale, your eyes are pale, nothing stands out. Nobody notices you. It’s the red hair that everybody notices.”

  Amanda stopped in the bathroom doorway and looked back at him. “Did you seriously tell me my face is too pale to be noticed? Have you looked in the mirror at your own ghostly-pale face?”

  He moved toward her. “I’m just saying—”

  Amanda closed the door and turned on the shower.

  After soaping up, she let the hot water warm her body from the outside in. Was it only three days since she’d lain under a tropical sun during the day and in Jake’s arms at night? She’d been warm all the time then. How quickly things changed.

  The shower turned cold too soon. She got out, dressed and opened the door.

  Charley was waiting. “You could wear your cowboy hat with your hair tucked up under it.”

  She pushed through him.

  He followed her to the kitchen.

  She took the leftover ribs from the refrigerator, put them on a plate and set it in the microwave.

  “You could put on false eyelashes and a lot of makeup, and you’d look different.” He was close, invading her space.

  “Damn it, Charley, I realize you can’t go to bars and strip joints and do your usual things because you’re stuck with me. But you’re not stuck this close. Go down to the shop, sit on the bikes and pretend you’re riding. At least go into the living room and watch TV. Turn the sound on. I don’t care. Just go away.”

  The microwave dinged.

  Amanda took out her breakfast.

  “I love ribs,” Charley said wistfully. “It’s been six months since I’ve eaten anything. You can get really hungry going that long without eating.”

  Amanda set her plate of ribs on the table and took a Coke from the refrigerator.

  Suddenly she’d lost her appetite.

  She shouldn’t feel sorry for Charley.

  She lifted a rib to her mouth.

  She would eat and she would enjoy. She couldn’t help Charley. He was dead because he’d scammed the wrong man. That was not her fault. It was not her fault he hadn’t eaten in six months.

  The sauce that had tasted so spicy and savory the night before had somehow lost its flavor.

  Charley sat across the table from her. “Did you get enough sleep last night?”

  Amanda laid her rib back on the plate and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Yes, I guess I got enough sleep last night. Why are you asking? Did I talk in my sleep or something?”

  “Not that I know of.” He looked away and fidgeted. A fidgety ghost was an interesting sight. “I’m worried.” He darted toward the living room.

  He was worried?

  About her?

  Was he changing, becoming a better person, moving toward the light?

  Was it time for her to forgive him for the terrible things he’d done in life? Could her lack of forgiveness be the reason he was still here, the reason for the invisible tether that kept him close to her?

  When he moved on into the light, would she miss him a tiny little bit?

  He’d been around a lot since he died, more than when he was alive. Sometimes he’d even helped her. He drove her crazy, but their post-death relationship was better than their pre-death relationship.

  Sometimes she almost liked him.

  She finished her ribs, picked up her drink, and went into the living room.

  Charley stood with his back to her, looking out the window.

  As he’d been doing when she woke.

  “Charley...”

  He spun around so fast, for an instant she could see both his face and the back of his head. That was a sight she wished she could unsee.

  “Going downstairs to work?” he asked.

  “Yes. I do that every weekday morning. Sometimes on weekends.”

  He positioned himself in front of the door. “You don’t have to go so early. You’re the boss. You can let yourself go in late.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t figured out some way to get drunk? Did you crawl in my bottle of wine and stay there until you absorbed some of it?”

  Charley looked thoughtful. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Great. Now you’re going to try it, aren’t you? I’ll have to throw out my wine. I am not going to drink anything you’ve been swimming in.” She pushed through him, opened the door, and stepped outside.

  The sun was rising in a clear blue sky, promising warmth. It would be a good day.

  “I know where you can buy a wig.” Charley floated down the stairs beside her.

  Amanda changed her mental prediction. With Charley beside her and a charge of murder hanging over her head, sunny and warm might be the only good things about the day.

  The overhead door to her shop was open.

  She froze in place halfway down the steps, her heartrate accelerating.

  She scanned the parking lot.

  No dead bodies.

  “What’s wrong?” Charley asked.

  “The door’s open.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s just Dawson. He’s already here.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She continued down the stairs but stopped at the bottom. “How did you know that? Did you see him when you were looking out the window?”

  “Yes.”

  Charley could no longer lie. Seeing Dawson wasn’t something that would justify a lie anyway. Yet somehow it felt as if he were lying.

  She shook off the strange feeling and continued into the shop.

  Dawson was working on a Yamaha that had come in the day before and needed to be winterized.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning.” He looked guilty.

  Good grief. It was one thing when she thought Charley was being deceitful, but Dawson did not possess the ability to be deceptive.

  “She paid,” he said. “All the paperwork is in the office.”

  Amanda blinked slowly. Had she missed part of this conversation? “Okay.”

  Dawson went back to work on the bike.

  She looked at Charley who looked around the room, avoiding her gaze.

  Amanda cleared her throat.
“Dawson?”

  He turned to her, eyes wide. “Yes?”

  “Who is she and what did she pay?”

  “Jerrilee. She paid for the work I did on her bike.”

  Amanda glanced across the room. The beautifully detailed Honda Shadow was gone. “She came and got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Was she happy with the job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is everything okay? Did you and Jerrilee have a fight or something?”

  Dawson blinked rapidly, the action magnified by his thick glasses. “Yes.” He gulped. “I mean, no. Yes. And no.” He focused on his work again.

  She had asked him two questions. And he’d answered both, in order. Twice.

  But she didn’t believe the answer to the first one. Things were not okay.

  If Dawson was going through the throes of young love, she needed to be there for him, comfort him.

  She’d comforted him when his brother had been kidnapped, but his distress then had been obvious. Now he didn’t seem to want comfort. He didn’t seem to want to talk about whatever was bothering him.

  “What are you doing?” Charley asked.

  She gestured helplessly toward Dawson.

  “Leave him alone. Let’s work on that Triumph over there.”

  Amanda followed Charley to the other side of the shop. “He’s upset,” she whispered.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to you about his love life. Leave the kid alone.”

  Charley was probably right. She was Dawson’s friend, but she was the wrong sex and age to be his confidante.

  She picked up her tools and started work on the Triumph.

  The simple task left her mind free to roam.

  Either Jerrilee had driven to the shop in a vehicle equipped to take the bike home with her...or Dawson had brought her on the back of his bike, and she’d ridden her bike away.

  The latter seemed more likely and could mean she’d spent the night with him.

  Had Charley watched whichever event occurred from her bedroom window? He seemed to know that Dawson was upset about his love life. It wasn’t like Charley to be perceptive.

  Why wouldn’t he have told her what he saw? He was more prone to gossip than to keep anything secret.

  What could Dawson and his girlfriend have done that Charley didn’t want her to know about?

  Had a fight?

  Drank Pepsi instead of Coke?

  Had sex in the parking lot?

  Buried a body in the parking lot?

  Surely she’d have noticed a fresh grave, so that ruled out the last possibility.

  And she didn’t care if they’d done either of the others.

  Charley couldn’t lie.

  But he could withhold information.

  He’d certainly done enough of that in life.

  He’d kept secret his own activities—women, con-games, criminal acts. But why would he hide Dawson’s activities?

  Chapter Eleven

  Amanda’s day was fragmented. Her attention drifted from her work to Dawson to Charley and back again in a never-ending circle. She watched the two of them for signs. She had no idea what kind of signs. Something, anything, out of the ordinary. Something to give her a clue to the secrets they were keeping.

  Charley avoided her, going away for long periods of time. Normally she would have enjoyed his absences. Today she was suspicious.

  What was he doing? Surely he couldn’t get in trouble in his current condition. Only she and Teresa could see or hear him.

  Nevertheless, Charley was an expert at getting in trouble.

  Dawson was never talkative, but that day he made an art out of being silent and avoiding her.

  At the end of the day, he came to where she sat on the floor, working on a transmission. “I’m going home now,” he said.

  “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Amanda, I really appreciate that you took a chance on hiring me when I didn’t have any job experience.”

  “That was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

  “I like working here.”

  Where was this going? Was he planning to quit? “You do a great job. I’m really glad you work here.” Was he going to ask for a raise?

  Amanda braced herself. If he wanted a raise, he couldn’t have asked at a worse time of the year, but she’d come up with the money somehow. If he was planning to quit—she wouldn’t think about that possibility.

  “I consider you my friend,” he said.

  She squinted up at him, trying to read his expression. “I consider you my friend too.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I worried about you when Charley was alive.”

  “Yeah, I worried about me too. But he’s dead now.” Was Dawson justifying quitting because Charley was gone and she didn’t need him?

  Charley wasn’t gone, and she did need him.

  “Now you’re involved with Jake, that cop.”

  “Yes...?”

  Dawson cleared his throat. “We’re friends, you and I, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can talk about anything, right?”

  Finally he was getting to it. She set down her tools and stood, giving him her complete attention. She’d do her best to help him through whatever problems he had. “Right. You can tell me anything. I won’t judge. I won’t even try to help if you don’t want help.” That might be difficult. “I’ll just listen.”

  Dawson folded his arms as if hugging himself. “You can’t trust Jake.”

  Amanda blinked. That was not what she’d expected to hear. “You mean because he’s treating me like a suspect? He’s a cop. He has to investigate crime. He’s taken himself off Lenny’s murder because I’m involved.” She was justifying the same behavior that bothered her.

  “I don’t mean that part. Well, yes, that too. But there’s more.”

  “There is?”

  “He’s a player.”

  “A player?” He could not be saying what she thought he was saying.

  Dawson’s cheeks reddened. “I mean...” He cleared his throat. “He’s like Charley was.”

  “That’s sweet of you to worry about me, but I promise, Jake is nothing like Charley.”

  “I don’t mean the scams and all that. I mean with women. Jake’s a player with women.” Dawson let out a long breath. “Lots of women.”

  “Lots of women?”

  “Yeah, lots.”

  “You mean...more than friends with a lot of women?”

  “He’s like the Romeo of the station. He’s hit on all the female employees.”

  “Jake? My Jake?” Dawson’s words made no sense. Her relationship with Jake had grown slowly and naturally from hours and days of working together. He had never been flirtatious. He wasn’t a player. After Charley, she knew what a player was. Jake wasn’t.

  “He’s not your Jake. He belongs to all the women there.” Dawson’s voice rose and his hands clenched into fists. “At least, he thinks he does. He’s horrible. He breaks one heart after another. He’s even been written up by Internal Affairs for inappropriate behavior.”

  Amanda shook her head slowly. “Jake’s not like that.” They had never talked about past relationships. He knew she’d been married to Charley, and she assumed he had women in his past. But...breaking one heart after another? Internal Affairs involved?

  Dawson touched her arm lightly. He wasn’t a touchy/feely person. This was a huge gesture for him. “I’m sorry. But you need to know. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

  Even though she knew Dawson was wrong, a tiny dart of pain wiggled its way inside Amanda’s chest. “Why are you saying this? Where is this coming from?”

  His jaw firmed. “I can’t tell you.”

  Dawson was a computer geek. He was able to find information on the Internet that should be private. Had he hacked into the police records?

  Would the police records have that kind of information?r />
  Maybe the part about the Internal Affairs investigation.

  The dart of pain widened, became a shaft.

  “I want you to know, I’m your friend. If you need to talk or...or cry.” He gulped. “I’m here for you.”

  Dawson was saying to her what she’d intended to say to him. He was offering her comfort instead of the other way around. She needed to respond. She forced a word to come up her throat and out her mouth. “Okay.” It was a start, but not enough. “Thank you.”

  “I’m going home now. Call me if you need me.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” Same inadequate response, but all other words were stuck somewhere between her throat and her mouth.

  Dawson left.

  Charley returned.

  “I warned you about Jake,” he said.

  Apparently Charley hadn’t been gone, just hiding, eavesdropping, being nosy.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “And I warned you what I’m going to do to you if you don’t mind your own business.”

  She hadn’t warned him. She had no idea what she could do to him in his current state. The hammer-through-the head she’d threatened Lenny with would pass through Charley, hit the floor, and throw her shoulder out.

  That thought increased her rage...at Charley, at Jake, at Dawson.

  Rage was easier to deal with than pain.

  “You ready to close up here?” Charley asked, changing the subject. “Give you time to eat and find a disguise so we can go to Bikes and Brews.”

  She tossed a wrench through him.

  “I’ll wait for you upstairs.” He disappeared.

  Amanda’s legs had lost the ability to hold her upright. She sank to the concrete floor.

  Going on vacation with Jake evidenced a committed relationship for her. They hadn’t said the L word, but she’d thought it, felt it, was waiting for the right time to say it. Jake had seemed to feel the same.

  But did he?

  Had she read things into their relationship that didn’t exist?

  The black despair that engulfed her confirmed that she was committed to Jake.

  She would call him and ask him how he felt about her, find out if Dawson was telling the truth. That would be the mature thing to do.