Dead Memories (Carol Ann Baker Crime Book 2)

by Lissa Pelzer

  Dead Memories

  Carol Ann Baker Crime 2

  LISSA PELZER

  Copyright © 2016 Lissa Pelzer

  All rights reserved.

  ASIN: B01N8U261E

  Previously...

  In No More Birthdays, Carol Ann Baker finds out the worst secrets are the ones you keep from yourself...

  Lilly Lessard is the glamorous new name, Indiana runaway Carol Ann Baker has acquired for herself in Miami, but it hasn’t come easily. With the help of her so-called friend, Cassandra, Lilly has been pulled down into a world of underage prostitution, and what’s worse, she’s never even received any of the money.

  Setting out cross-country to track down her ex-pimp Bobby Alvin, the teenager is faced with many choices; to trust her friend who tells her Bobby is broke, to make the best use of the friendly movie agent who offers her a place to sleep or to believe the cop, Detective Davis who tells her she can help her with a plea bargain if she testifies against Bobby Alvin. But for Lilly Lessard, trust doesn’t come easily. And after finding out she was responsible for a murder she thought Bobby committed, things just get worse. Now, Lilly has shot Detective Davis and is heading west with a trucker she has only just met.

  Dead Memories

  Lilly

  They were three hours west of Ohio on the I-70. Signs for Indianapolis had come and gone and the trucker was still staring hard at the road ahead. In the lights of the oncoming traffic, Lilly watched his face. His heavily lined eyes didn’t flinch, didn’t flicker, didn’t water and his head never turned. But her eyes burned, her neck throbbed and her forearm ached just from holding on to that tiny pug gun, for pointing it in his general direction, for so long.

  The show that had been playing on the radio since she’d got in, hits of the 70s, broke for news and this time she’d made the headlines.

  “Police are asking for the public's help in tracking down a young woman wanted in connection with the discovery of a body in Montgomery County and the shooting of an off-duty police officer at Big Al’s truck stop yesterday evening...”

  ‘You want me to turn that off,’ the trucker asked, the first thing he’d said in hours.

  Lilly shook her head, but didn’t speak, didn’t want to talk over the information.

  “Carol Ann Baker is described as 18 years old, blonde, around 5’5”, weighing approximately 110pounds and is dressed in a white t-shirt and light blue jeans. Baker, a Florida resident is expected to be traveling in a south-easterly direction. She may have already secured a ride but drivers are advised not to stop or pick her up if seen, but to call the hotline number or 911. The police are also working with information that she may have dyed her hair a darker color and may have changed her clothes... She is considered armed and dangerous,” the reported said, before veering off to talk about the weather.

  Now, the trucker’s eyes moved towards the pug gun. This old boy in his big red truck was headed to California and she needed to go that way too. And he’d seemed kind enough, had mentioned daughters and her being safe with him, but that had been before he’d noticed the blood from Detective Davis down the front of her t-shirt. She was dead tired, hadn’t slept properly in days and suddenly realized, it would be only a matter of time before she dropped and he reached over and pried the gun from her fingers. And then what?

  At some point she’d have to change him up. And the next time her head fell forward, the decision was made. Now was a good time.

  Lilly rubbed her face. ‘I want you to drop me off someplace.’

  ‘Say when.’

  ‘When.’ The gun shook in her hand.

  They came off at the next ramp, an exit lightly populated with drive-thrus and restaurants closed up for the night.

  ‘Keep going,’ she said and they cruised the deserted streets, finally slowing to a stop outside a dive motel called The Sleep Cozy.

  The red roof tiles on the office looked like they were made out of plastic. Lilly opened the door and felt the nighttime humidity flow in like fog.

  ‘You got a spare t-shirt I could use?’ she asked.

  The blood on hers, Davis’s blood, had dried up and gone hard like a rubbery decal on the front of a cheap souvenir t-shirt, but no one would mistake this stain for a map of Florida. The trucker turned, reached behind him and handed her something, a hoodie. She sniffed at it, detergent and dryer sheets, something she’d not smelled in a long time.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, then added, ‘Really.’ And dropped down onto the asphalt.

  She expected him to speed off, glad to be rid of her, glad to be away from some crazy gun-toting teenager from who-knew-where, but the truck lingered behind her like a homeless dog with no place to go.

  Or was the guy waiting to check she got in okay?

  Lilly shook her head. She wasn’t going to stay here. She wasn’t going to let him know where to send the cops. She’d just go off and hide somewhere until it got light.

  But was there anywhere to go?

  Her eyes skimmed across the chain link fence. The lights from the office showed some scrub grass behind. As a little kid, she had roughed it, spending nights on neighbor’s porches, on trampolines, and in the flatbed back of more than one truck.

  It was what it was. She’d just wait for this trucker to leave, let him think she was checking in and then find a hole to crawl into. But the truck didn’t move. Probably, she needed to act like she was checking in to get rid of him. So she began to walk. She pulled her bag back up onto her shoulder and strutted forward.

  Through the smeared reception window she saw a bald head move. A moment later the guy stood up. He was staring out into the dark lot, wondering what was going on out there. Now he was coming to the door. She had to hold her nerve. She’d cook a story, say her Pop had just dropped her off and was coming back, and then she’d go and look for ‘old Pop’ again. But when the door opened, her gut instinct told her this guy didn’t do stories. He had a mean look to him, a hard, fat stomach and small hands. Plus he was pointing a shotgun right at her.

  So Lilly did what any sensible person would do, she ran.

  Chad

  Chad watched Simon crush up the peeled Oxycontin with a spoon, watched him scrape it around on the back of the twenty-year-old nudie magazine and sniff it up with a cut straw. The kid winced and cringed and rubbed his face hard. Maybe it burned. Chad didn’t know. He’d never tried one. But while he had a hand over his face, Chad took the chance to look around the inside of the trailer.

  This trailer might have been an office once, stuck down one end of a building site or a used car lot. It had that kind of look to it, bare and cold, but now it functioned like the clubhouse for this crew, for Simon Snell and all his buddies. They’d carpeted the main room, put a full-sized pool table in the middle and couches along the walls. A towel had been nailed up over the only window, because daylight, who needs that, right?

  ‘Woo-ee!’ Came the cry from the couch.

  Chad turned back to look at him. ‘Yeah, that’s good stuff.’

  ‘Sure is. That’s no generic shit.’

  ‘Hell no!’ Chad chuckled, but in fact, it was generic, stolen out of his neighbor’s bathroom cabinet. And if he’d known Simon couldn’t tell the difference, he would have bought him aspirin and sleeping pills instead.

  ‘So what are you asking for these?’

  ‘Asking?’ Chad rolled his shoulders and let an easy smile cross his face. ‘They’ve got a price. I buy them, I charge fifteen percent tax. Simple as that.’

  ‘Okay...’ Simon turned his lips down.

  ‘One-forty,’ Chad said, but Simon didn’t look like he’d even heard him.

  �
��I’ll tell you what. Ten percent, introductory price. One-thirty-five.’

  Now he heard him.

  ‘Aren’t introductory rates usually free?’

  Simon smiled and Chad saw his Mountain Dew teeth, some yellow, some rotten and some missing and he looked away and ran his tongue over his own teeth.

  ‘It’s not crack. I’m not trying to get you hooked,’ he said.

  ‘But I’m your buddy. Aren’t we friends?’

  Now he had to laugh. He didn’t know this guy from Adam. He’d just heard he liked Oxys, come by and knocked to see if he could sling these pills his way.

  ‘I’ll give you that, what you had just there, for free. How about that?’

  ‘You mean the sample?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a free sample.’

  ‘And the rest of them?’ Simon pointed to the 11-count baggie of 10mg pills sitting on the arm of the couch.

  ‘They’re not free. Hey, I can go to five percent, if you really need me to. I paid ten dollars apiece for them and there are 11 still in there. So that’s a hundred and fifteen, and five bucks for gas. Make it one-twenty.’

  ‘And if I say they’re free?’

  Chad didn’t move. He was practically horizontal on the replica Lazy Boy anyway, but now he looked up at the stationary ceiling fan and sighed. ‘Well, I guess we’d have to talk it over.’

  ‘Yeah, about that.’ Simon coughed, and from out of the door at the end, another kid came in. ‘Thing is, I’m not a big talker.’

  This new kid just stood there, legs apart with his hands in his baggy jeans. He stared down at Chad like he thought he was tougher than he looked. Truth be told, he didn’t look like a fighter, but Chad didn’t know these kids well enough to be sure. So Chad pulled his hat down over his eyes. He smiled big and when Simon didn’t smile back, he looked away.

  ‘You want them for cost? As an introduction, that’s one-ten. That’s what they cost.’

  ‘If that’s what they cost, sure. But I don’t reckon you paid for them, did you? You took them from your grandma, right? So if I get them for cost, they’re pretty much mine just to take.’ And Simon reached over and picked up the baggie, started looking at the pills under the low-level glow of a table light.

  The kid at the end of the room cracked his knuckles for effect.

  ‘If I take them, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, is there?’

  Now Chad felt the breath getting stuck in his lungs. He still didn’t sit up, but in his mind he was up, throwing punches and kicking shins. It was times like this he wished he had a gun. If he had one, he’d pull it out, stick it right in this kid’s mouth and make him suck it like a dick.

  Chad looked away. No one moved and no one spoke. There was a tear in the imitation leather next to his elbow and he turned his attention to that instead.

  ‘So?’ Simon asked.

  ‘So, what?’

  And Simon began to laugh. ‘Dude! I’m fucking with you. Ha ha ha! I’m fucking with you.’ Now he leaned over and shook Chad by the foot. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you. Why would I do that to you?’

  Chad looked over at the other kid, but he wasn’t laughing. He put his hands back in his pockets and turned around, went back into the other room, into the sound of a TV playing a car chase movie. He still didn’t smile back. While Simon had the pills in his hand and there was no money in Chad’s, what did it matter? But now Simon had raised his hip off the couch and was going into his back pocket. He pulled out a chain wallet that must have been as old as the nudie magazines and let it fall in his lap.

  ‘One hundred and ten?’

  Chad shrugged, still not sure he was going to get paid, but Simon pulled out a hundred dollar bill and a fifty.

  ‘You got change for a fifty? You got forty bucks on you?’

  He pulled out his own wallet and made a show of looking into it. He knew he didn’t have forty bucks. He had eighteen. He knew for a fact that he had eighteen dollars.

  ‘I thought I did...’ He stood up and patted his back pockets but when he looked at Simon again, he saw the dramatics hadn’t been convincing.

  ‘That’s cool. So I’ll tell you what. If you go down to Mickey D’s and pick up a sixer of burgers and sixer of fries, I’ll give you the one fifty in return. How would that be?’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Is that a no-go?’

  But Chad did the math real quick. There was a special on cheese burgers and small fries. He could get all that for sixteen bucks, so if Simon gave him one fifty, he’d walk out with over one-thirty all in. That was okay.

  ‘Sure.’ He stood up and held out his hand for Simon’s money.

  But Simon straightened up. He tucked the money back in his wallet.

  ‘Best use up those natty singles. You know, The D don’t like changing fifties.’

  Chad pulled out of the trailer park with the wheels on his ’92 Toyota pickup spinning in the soft dirt. He’d get them their damn food and he’d take them their damn money and then never come back and that was all he could do. He could hardly bear to put up with this, but he couldn’t walk away from a hundred-plus-bucks either.

  He came up to the turning for the street for Mickey D’s, but as he neared the restaurant, sirens started up behind him. His blood turned to ice water in his veins. Stupid, retarded regret flooded over him. He’d come too fast over the city limits where the signs said 25mph and he’d had an eighth in his glove compartment until half an hour ago and it would still stink in there. He slowed and put on his turn signal, knowing already it was too late to spray, but as he slowed the two cruisers overtook him.

  It was the big truck rig ahead that braked and was corralled like a bull towards the fast food lot. And not just any fast food place, but Mickey D’s, naturally. As he’d already slowed down, Chad pulled in to the Dairy Queen next door. There was no drive-thru here, not that he needed one, but it meant he could swing around the back and come out in the other direction without it looking too suspicious.

  The turn was tight and he didn’t make it in one go. He stopped, popped the truck in reverse and maneuvered through. On his way out of the gap, he caught something or something caught him. He felt the familiar thud of a knocked bumper or rail and then a bounce, but there was no way he was going to get out to check.

  He looked back just once at the flashing lights further down and saw the figure of a guy, the truck driver, coming down backwards out of the cab, his one hand up behind his head. The cops had their guns pulled.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Chad murmured, but he didn’t stick around to complain. He still needed to get to a Mickey D’s and the next one was a good ten or fifteen miles away. He put his foot down and headed back up the ramp.

  Lilly

  She had hauled herself over the back and landed with a thud on the bed of the truck. Somewhere in the moment just before, she’d known it would hurt and had taken the offer all the same. But now that she was in, she saw she hadn’t reckoned on the entire deal. Her bag of clothes and cosmetics hadn’t made it over. She’d dropped it when it got caught on the runner. And there was nothing to hold onto back here, no handles, no straps, nothing. When the guy cornered sharply out of the lot, she skidded to the other side and stayed there, with her face pressed against the metal and the vibrations from the engine rattling through her skull, until he straightened out again.

  But now they were really moving, up on the highway, with the lights and the green destination signs flying overhead. A shiver came over her as the wind whipped the heat from her body, but she’d just try to ignore that. All that mattered was that they were moving, leaving the flashing cop lights and that small town behind. And anyway, there was one of those Mexican-style blankets back here, thick and woolen with stripes across. She might not be comfortable, but she wouldn’t actually freeze. Lilly wrapped her purse and herself together from head to toe like a burrito and hoped for a long, smooth ride. But a couple of minutes later they were coming off the highway again. She saw the golden arche
s above her head and sat up, saw the back of the guy’s head, then she saw his eyes in the rear view mirror. They got really wide, really quickly. He slammed on the brakes and Lilly hit the glass.

  The guy was out, hanging onto the doorframe of the truck and staring her out.

  ‘What the hell?’ His eyes darted around her face. ‘Who are you? Where the hell did you come from?’

  She would have run, but he looked like he could run too.

  ‘I’m nobody,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, okay. I just needed a ride out of there.’

  The brown haired kid put his hand up into his hair and took a fistful. ‘This is not cool. This is so, not cool. If they find out you rode out with me, I’m dead.’

  Lilly frowned. He’d seen her for all of three seconds. How was it possible that he knew already who she was?

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I need a ride. I need to get out of Indiana, at least. Can you get me over the boarder to Illinois? What is that, fifty miles? I can pay you.’

  ‘Illinois? I’m meant to go back there right now. I just came to pick up their damn food order. They’ve got my money.’ He shook his head like a wet dog trying to get dry. ‘No, no, no. I can’t take you to no-damn-Illinois.’

  And he reached for her wrist, tried to grab it, but Lilly pulled away.

  ‘You need to come up front,’ he said. ‘I need to take you back. What if one of them saw you getting in the back. They’ll think I let you.’

  ‘You’re not taking me anywhere,’ she spat.

  But he reached again. Lilly saw his bare wrist coming out from under his hoodie sleeve. She saw the sinewy muscle and veins popping out. She’d had her wrist grabbed enough in the last few days to know it wouldn’t end well.

  She pulled back and he let her, but he put a foot up on the wheel and swung his leg over. He’d made it into the back with her now and had an arm around her waist. She twisted away to her purse, got some purchase on the ribbing of the truck bed and pulled. But it didn’t play out well. He lost his balance and was on top of her by the time she pressed the tiny pug into his gut.