The Ex Who Glowed in the Dark (Charley's Ghost) (23 page)

Scott’s lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. “He wouldn’t leave it alone. I told him we’d take care of it, but he got impatient and went behind my back to write a program to block ours and stop the transfer of money.”

The insanity was starting to make sense. Dawson and Grant’s father had stopped them from stealing from the Federal Reserve. Cut off their income as surely as their former employers when they sent their jobs to India. This entire nightmare came down to money and ego. Dawson and Grant lost their parents because these arrogant jerks thought it was beneath them to take a cut in pay, to look for a job like regular people.

“So write another program and steal from somebody else, a bank or something.”

Alice stepped closer and Amanda flinched, fearful the woman was going to hit her again. “What do you think we are?
Common thieves? We’d never steal from a bank! We only want what we’re entitled to.”

“Okay, you’re not common thieves, but you’re murderers and not very bright ones! You killed Dawson’s parents. If you were all that smart, you’d have made his father take down the program first. You’re not smart. You’re dumb and evil.”

“Amanda!” Charley protested. “It’s not a good idea to insult somebody who has a gun!”

Alice lifted the
Glock again. “We’re all members of Mensa, something you could certainly never hope to achieve.”

Amanda raised her chin defiantly. “I’m a member of the NRA.”

Alice snickered. “That doesn’t help you much when I’ve got the gun, does it?”

“Maybe you’ve got the gun, but we’ve got the program.” She met Alice’s gaze defiantly. “You kill us the way you killed Dawson’s parents and you still won’t have that program. And Mensa will revoke your membership because that would be a really dumb thing to do.”

“How’s Mensa going to find out they did that if you’re dead?” Charley asked.

Amanda ignored him.

Scott let out a long sigh. “We thought we had the code when we killed the Dawsons. I told Professor Dawson the FBI’s IT department was about to break the code that transferred money but his program was interfering with our progress. He gave me a flash drive that he said contained the source code. By the time we figured out he’d given us bogus code, we’d already blown up him and his wife. We thought those two kids would be in the car too. But I guess it’s a good thing they weren’t since their father lied to us.”

“I see. You thought you had the program and you killed Dawson’s parents. Why should Dawson give you the program if you’re going to kill us when he does?”

Scott nodded. “That’s a valid question. We’ll make you a deal. You give us the program, we verify it’s the right one, then we take both vehicles, leaving you stranded but alive. By the time you get back to civilization, we’ll be in Belize with our income restored, living under false identities.”

“Don’t believe him, Amanda!” Charley darted between Scott and Amanda. “He’s got that tone in his voice and that look in his eyes. Do not trust him!”

“I know,” Amanda replied quietly. But it was a way to buy more time. Every minute was another chance.

“You know what?” Scott asked.

“I know a good deal when I hear one.” She tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth refused to go up. She was probably grimacing like some sort of ghoul. “You put that in writing, Dawson will give you the program, and we’ll all live happily ever after.” Assuming you defined
ever after
as five minutes. She looked at Charley and spread her hands in a
help me
gesture.

“Create a diversion and run for it,” Charley advised.

Great advice. She’d just toss a bomb in the corner and run away as fast as she could in her motorcycle boots. Oh, wait, she didn’t have a bomb. She glared at Charley, wishing she dared tell him how ridiculous his suggestion was.

“You want it in writing?” Scott scowled, lifted his hands in confusion and looked around the room. “That’s insane. You’re not getting it in writing.”

Amanda folded her arms. Kept them from shaking. “If you’re being honest about that deal, you won’t have a problem putting it in writing.”

Scott studied her for a long moment as if trying to decide whether she was really that crazy. By that point she probably looked crazy. She certainly felt it. “Look around you. We don’t have a printer,” he finally said.

“Who needs a printer in the digital age? You’ve got four computers.” She grabbed the nearest one, spun it over to her and hit the touch pad to bring it out of sleep mode. It was Grant’s computer with all the games and the defective audio program. That might provide a small diversion. It wasn’t a bomb, but it was all she had.

She clicked on the icon for the music program then shot up from her chair when the same hideous noise as before burst into the room. She lunged toward Scott, aiming for his already-wounded cheek, gouging with the glass. He screamed and grabbed his face.

She whirled around in time to see Dawson throw himself on Roger, taking both of them to the floor.

“Grab the purse!” Charley shouted in her ear, trying to make
himself heard over the noise coming from the laptop. “It’s got a set of car keys in it!”

Roger screamed
, clutching his neck as red oozed between his fingers. Dawson had apparently saved his piece of gorilla glass too.

From the corner of her eye Amanda saw Alice raise the
Glock.

“I got this one!” Charley darted through Alice. She looked surprised and shivered, momentarily lowering the gun.

Amanda grabbed the brown purse from the table with one hand and with the other slashed at Alice’s arm with the glass. “Run!” she shouted, hoping Dawson and Grant could hear her over the racket.

“Over here!” Grant yanked the front door open.

Amanda tossed the bag toward him. “Car keys!” He caught the bag like the baseball player he was and fumbled inside as he ran out onto the porch.

Dawson disentangled himself from Roger, dodged past Alice and lunged for Grant’s laptop, slamming it shut and stopping the noise. He dropped his piece of glass, snatched up the computer and headed for the door.

Scott seized Amanda’s arm. She spun on him and drew the gorilla glass down the other side of his face. He cursed but didn’t release his grip.

Dawson turned back.

“No, go!” she shouted.

Of course he didn’t go. Nobody ever listened to her.

He dropped the computer and threw himself at Scott. It wasn’t exactly a football tackle, but Scott didn’t seem to be in any better shape than Dawson. The battle of the nerds.

“Hold it!” Alice shouted.

That damn gun again. Amanda had had about enough of that.

Unlike Dawson and Scott, she had played a little neighborhood football in her childhood. She dove for Alice’s legs at the same time Charley darted through the woman. Alice thudded to the floor.

“Get the gun!” Charley shouted. “Three feet to your right!”

Amanda rolled, spotted the
Glock and grabbed it. She fired a shot through the ceiling as she scrambled to her feet. She had everyone’s attention.

Dawson and Scott broke apart. Scott rose to his feet and started toward her. Amanda took a step backward but leveled the gun at him. “I’m not Alice. I know how to use this. NRA, not Mensa, remember?”

Dawson grabbed the laptop off the floor.

“Forget the damn computer! Get out of here!”

Scott lunged and Amanda hesitated only a split second before she fired a shot into his shoulder. Probably should have aimed for the crotch. He yelped and fell forward, knocking the gun out of her hand.

“Alice is on her feet!” Charley warned at the same time Amanda felt a hand grasp her shoulder.

She shrugged off the hand and turned to look for the gun.

“Get out now!” Charley shouted.

Once in a while Charley was right. Amanda ran from the house.

Grant already sat in the backseat of the sedan. Dawson was climbing into the passenger side, and the driver’s door was open with the engine running. Amanda slid inside, threw the car into gear and screeched out of the yard onto the dusty, rutted road.

Charley dropped on the console between the seats. “Faster, Amanda! They’re coming after you in the van!”

Amanda glanced in the rearview mirror but couldn’t see anything for the dust.

A bullet shattered the side mirror.

Chapter Twenty

Amanda floored the gas pedal and held on tightly to the steering wheel as the car bounced over the rutted road leaving a cloud of dust behind. The rough road would probably ruin the entire suspension system as well as the front end ball joints. Maybe blow out a tire or two. Not that she cared if this car got totally destroyed and the psychotic trio’s insurance had lapsed the day before. That would serve them right. She just hoped it didn’t break down before she and the boys made their getaway in it. As long as the car held together, surely she could out-drive a minivan.

She twisted the wheel and spun around a curve, hanging on with both hands as she was thrown into Charley.

“I don’t mind if you want to cuddle,” Charley said, “but this probably isn’t the right time.”

“Everybody okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Grant said from the back seat.

“Yes.” From the corner of her eye she could see Dawson clutching the laptop with one hand and the dashboard with the other.

Another explosion sounded and the car spun out of control. Had Alice shot a tire while aiming for the back window or had something else gone wrong with the car? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was bringing the car to a safe stop and then—she had no idea what then. One emergency at a time.

She pumped the brake and focused all her strength, mental and physical, on getting control as the car lurched off the road and over the rocky ground. Finally it came to a stop next to a gnarled mesquite tree several feet from the road. The damned minivan pulled in behind them like an unpaid speeding ticket that just wouldn’t go away. Panic clenched her insides and paralyzed her limbs. She pushed it back. Later she’d freak out, indulge her fears and slam several Cokes in a row. Right now Dawson and Grant were depending on her. She was depending on her.

“Check the glove box! See if there’s something we can use for a weapon in there! I’ll check the trunk.” Amanda hit the button to release the trunk then opened her door and stepped out. A car jack wouldn’t be as good as a gun, but it was better than nothing. “Stay in here, Grant!” she yelled when the boy’s door started to open.

He ignored her and scrambled out to join her. She’d have done the same thing.

“Nothing in the glove box but a half-eaten package of Cheetos.” Dawson got out, slammed his door and headed for the rear of the car.

Amanda stumbled through the clumps of grass and weeds to the trunk then threw up the lid.

Empty.

“It’ll be under the carpet,” Grant said. “Pull up the edge.”

She and Dawson each reached for one side of the carpet lining just as a bullet slammed into the side of the car.

“Get over here, all of you,” Scott shouted.

Charley appeared beside her. “I think you’re in trouble.”

She slammed the lid. “What happened to
we
? All of a sudden it’s just me?”

“No,” Dawson said, giving her a curious look. “He said all of us.”

“Yeah, well, I’m already dead.” It was the first time Charley sounded pleased about being dead.

Scott, Roger and Alice stood in front of the van. They were, Amanda was pleased to notice, bloody and bruised, but they did not look beaten. Nor did they look happy.

There was a distinct possibility that soon Charley could return to referring to him and her as
we
.

Anger and fear shared equal knots in Amanda’s gut. It was hard to keep a positive attitude when you were running out of options. Reaching down, she picked up a rock. Like Sundance and Butch, she’d go down fighting, even if her only weapon was a rock.

“Get that laptop out of the car,” Scott ordered. “As much trouble as you went to saving it, that’s got to be the one with the code.”

Dawson stepped back, reached in and lifted out the computer.

“Is it?” Amanda asked. “Is it the one?”

He bit his lip and nodded. “That music,
it’s computer generated, the first music program I ever wrote. It’s horrible. Dad would never have put it on Grant’s computer like that except to mark the spot.”

“And it’s impossible to change to another selection,” Amanda said. “I tried.”

“I never used that to play my music.” Grant moved up beside her. “Dad put it on there, but I never used it. I always used iTunes. He knew that.”

“Well,” Amanda said. “I’m glad we finally found that freaking source code.”

“You are?” Charley asked. “Why?”

“Sarcasm!”
Amanda hissed.

“I’ll hit them with the laptop,” Dawson whispered as the three of them moved across the few feet of
stubbled ground separating them from probable death. One ghost, one child, one woman with a rock, and one nerd with a laptop against three killers and a gun. The odds didn’t seem favorable.