Dead Memories (Carol Ann Baker Crime Book 2)

by Lissa Pelzer

  Lilly realized she was going to be sick.

  She groped her way to the en-suite, lined with products she recognized, a bathrobe and a brush she knew, and squatted down with her forearms embracing the bowl. She told herself, the worst thing about this business was the waking up.

  Awake, she had complete control over her emotions. There was a sense in what she was doing. She was making money for her future, for college for a regular life around regular people. But if she fell asleep, she lost all that control. Those first waking moments were hell.

  What am I doing here? This can’t be real. This isn’t my life!

  Her stomach heaved and she vomited. She had experienced this before, the doubt, the shame, and the fear. She closed her eyes again and restated her usual mantras.

  There was nothing wrong with doing this. It was only other people’s opinions of it and they didn’t matter as long as one day she could walk away and no one would ever know. Every discomfort she went though now was paving the way for a better life in the future...

  Her stomach flinched again and she saw the pink snail trail of a half-digested pill working its way down the bowl. She hadn’t taken any pills. Who had given her a pill?

  But one more gag and it was over – for now. She got up to rinse her mouth and switched on the cabinet light. And now when she saw her face in the mirror, she jumped thinking it was someone else.

  Lilly stood stock-still against the tiled wall with her hand pressed over her mouth. Reality came at her in reverse as her mind raced, trying to fill in the blanks.

  She was in the rehab unit for amnesia, but how had she got here?

  She had shot Davis and got away.

  Lilly pulled at the t-shirt she was wearing, half expecting to see the blood stain down the front, but it wasn’t there. This wasn’t her t-shirt. A cat in a pink bow stared back up at her.

  She twisted the ends of her hair and pulled it forward to make sure it wasn’t a wig. She saw Lauren, saw Bryan, and saw her therapist and the way he rolled his eyes and told her everything was a false memory. Was this a false memory? No, it wasn’t.

  For a moment she was angry.

  They had tricked her and kept her here, making her think she was crazy. Telling her the whole time that her name was Janine Kenny. But in another moment she saw the truth. She had killed people, men. The Judge and someone else, the man in the pine forest, the Hollywood guy, Gary Madison.

  Her hands fell to her side. Who knew there was something worse than waking up and realizing you were a whore.

  The wave of heat came again. The sweat formed. Her stomach lurched. She reached for the toilet bowl, but stopped. Her stomach hadn’t contracted, no bile rose into her cheeks. Her mind ran through scenarios like a slot machine spinning and then it stopped.

  Bing. Bing. Bing.

  She was here at the rehab unit because that guy had hit her. She was Janine Kenny because she had become her after leaving Ohio. No one knew she was Lilly Lessard, or Carol Ann Baker or what she had done. She was completely safe.

  It’s only other people’s opinions and they don’t matter as long as one day she could walk away and no one would ever know...

  Lilly straightened up and went back to the mirror. She looked at herself more carefully now, at the hair mainly, but also at her mouth and her eyes. She remembered looking in the mirror at the truck stop, rehearsing the slightly far-away look Moon Face had been pulling on her driver’s license.

  Moon Face – her real name was Janine Kenny. Moon Face was dead, but look at this, Janine Kenny lived.

  A twitch ran across her cheek when she remembered what those men had done to Moon Face. And her eyes rolled back as the thought of all the things Bryan and Karl had told her about her life, about Moon Face’s life, came back to her. Lilly had thought Moon Face was a phony, just some kid playing runaways for a while.

  ‘I guess I was wrong,’ she said to her reflection. ‘I’m sorry.’

  It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes later. Either way, a new set of mantras had begun to form and Lilly thought of the scholarship, of how her life would go forward from here.

  She thought of Bryan. He had said, only once she was better, once she could take care of herself, could she leave. Lilly huffed. She could always take care of herself. Always had, always would. But that meant she had to tell them she was well, better, cured, whatever they called it. She had to tell them she was Janine Kenny and could remember being Janine Kenny.

  She stood for a moment, still and quiet. Was there anything she still didn’t know, anything that could trip her up? She didn’t think so.

  So, Lilly got back into bed and pressed the night-call button.

  Chad

  They’d put him back in his cell and told him to get some sleep. That was three or four hours ago. But strange noises, shuffling, whispering and shouts were always only a few minutes apart and Chad stared up at the ceiling.

  Instead, he thought of Janine, the way she’d acted so suspiciously when he’d wanted her to come into Simon’s trailer with him. Did she think she was about to get gang banged? He’d wronged her. He’d used her. Even back then, he’d only been thinking of himself.

  Chad rolled over and struck his fist against the wall.

  He liked her. Didn’t she sense that, that if it had been him holding the gun and Simon had tried anything on her, he would have shot the guy himself? If that had happened, where would they be now? Colorado? That was where she said she was headed. They could be all wrapped up in a blanket in the back of his truck, looking at the stars. Instead, he was here and she was in a mental hospital.

  He closed his eyes and saw her face. He wondered if they’d go and question her in the morning or if they’d just ignore everything that he had said.

  ‘I should have just driven her,’ he whispered. But it was too late for that.

  Lilly

  She saw the handle moving and the door opened slowly. She couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but she knew her tight pony-tailed head with gravity defying bangs.

  ‘Janine, honey?’ she whispered. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m...’ she could have cringed to hear herself pause for effect, but she’d get over it. ‘I can remember things,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I mean, I can remember everything!’

  ‘Oh...’ The cordless phone on her hip vibrated and she unclipped it. ‘Just wait a minute. I’ll be right back.’

  The woman left the room and Lilly felt a smirk cross her lips. She wiped it away with the side of her hand. She had to stay in character. She was Janine, waking up from amnesia.

  The woman came back in. Her expression was altered and not necessarily in a good way.

  ‘Bryan is coming in,’ she said.

  Lilly nodded, trying to stay modest and possibly a little unsure. That was the look to go for.

  ‘I guess we’ll talk it all over with him when he gets here. Can I sit down?’ She pointed to the armchair by the window.

  ‘Sure.’

  The woman sat and Lilly moved over to the desk and pulled out the chair.

  ‘Should I tell you what I know?’ she asked.

  The woman began to fidget with the cuff of her sleeve. ‘Maybe we should just sit here and wait until Bryan comes along. I’m not a therapist. I don’t know how to handle this. I’m not a cop either...’ She blinked.

  Lilly felt a sharp pain in her arm, like a muscle firing off for the first time. What did she mean by that? Why did she mention cops?

  The woman sat there for a minute in silence. She didn’t appear to want to make eye contact. The next moment she asked, ‘You want to turn on the TV?’

  ‘Okay,’ Lilly replied.

  The first few channels showed commercials, then a sitcom that must have been 30 years old. Lilly glanced up at it, but couldn’t stand to give it her attention. She had stuff to do. She needed to get her story out to Bryan and get him to think she‘d been healed and tell to him
whatever it was he needed to hear, so she could get the hell out of here.

  The night attendant looked up at the TV glad of the distraction. Then her phone buzzed again. She got up and went back into the hallway.

  More commercials.

  Lilly leaned back in the chair. How long would all this take now? Bryan would come in. She'd tell him she could remember her life. She’d invent stories from the care-home, talk about Burger the dog, which was so easy, she’d seen so many pictures and she could imagine it all. Then what, some tests? If they wanted to do another scan and compare the damaged areas again, they could. Wouldn’t it show she was healed?

  But something nagged at her. What was she missing?

  The commercials finished and the poor graphics of a local news show took their place. The highlights came on, a car crash on I-70, a dog mauling a child, but first this...

  ‘Detectives working on the Simon Snell murder case may have finally found the missing murder weapon. A gun matching the caliber used in the shooting was discovered this evening and is currently with forensics. Earlier in the week detectives charged Chad Purcell of Brazil with the murder and now, it is believed that information gained from Purcell has led to this new discovery. We’ll give you more information as we know it.’

  Lilly looked at the photo on the screen. It was Chad. She had the strangest sensation as if her brain were pulling apart and splitting in two. He’d been to see her, but how did she know Chad, was it as herself or as Janine Kenny? The picture shrank back into the left-hand side of the screen and a bunch of stats came up next to it.

  ‘Snell was shot dead at his residence at the Overlook Trailer Park last month and his car was discovered some twenty miles from his home the following day...’

  Now a second photo came up. This one looked like it had been taken from a yearbook. The guy seemed stoned and unimpressed.

  ‘Ryan Bukowski, although originally a suspect in the case, was released from custody shortly after Purcell’s arrest. Bukowski identified Purcell as the shooter who was seen arguing with Snell before the murder. Detectives say forensic evidence places him at the scene of the crime...’

  Lilly blinked quickly. Snell? She knew the name. And suddenly she was looking down on herself from above, seeing a past that had never been. That crazy gun-toting family and their boat down in Florida and she was with them. Lauren had put that idea in her head. But it had never happened, had it?

  She remembered Chad telling her that Ryan Bukowski had been charged with the murder, that she was in the clear. Yes. She had forgotten that. That’s what was missing…

  And now, already in the distant past, she could see him, a kid whose name she hadn’t known at the time. She had held the pug gun up to his face and fired off her last shot.

  But why had she done it?

  Lilly shook her head. She had no idea. But Chad had been there, and now he had been arrested for it. He would tell them she did it, wouldn’t he? Of course, he would. She stood up, her heart pounding. Didn’t they just say they had found the gun too? Her gun, Cassandra’s gun.

  How long would it be before they came for her? She had to get out of here.

  A sound like dripping water came from the window and she looked up. The blinds were only half way down, and then it came again. Someone was tapping on the glass. Maybe it was Chad!

  She pulled the thin string and the blind went up all the way.

  The motion detector lights had come on and she could see as far as the bushes, but before them floated the face of an old man. He was pasty white and half bald with a splattering of a reddish-gray beard. His watery blue eyes were fixed on her. He was smiling.

  She knew him. She had ridden with him over here from Ohio.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she went up to the glass. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  He frowned with just the top half of his face and she realized that he couldn’t hear her. She put her knee up onto the table in front of the window, reached up and unfastened the upper section, the only part of the window that opened.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked again.

  Now his smile broadened. ‘You remember me?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, I do. I’m not crazy,’ she said.

  ‘I heard you’d lost your memory.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ she knew there wasn’t time to get into it. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’

  He blinked twice. ‘So, get dressed and let’s go. There’s a door on the back attached to the conservatory. I reckon I can jimmy it.’

  ‘Where are we going,’ she asked, ‘California?’

  Now the trucker laughed. ‘You remember that too, huh?’

  She backed down off the desk and looked around the room for what she needed to take. There was nothing in here, but she remembered quickly, there were documents in the office, transcripts, the scholarship letter, and even her ID – Moon Face’s ID.

  ‘I need to get my stuff from the office,’ she said to the trucker.

  ‘There’s no time. Let’s just get out of here.’

  ‘I really need it. Give me ten minutes,’ she said, moving away.

  The trucker pointed in the direction of the conservatory and Lilly nodded. At the bathroom door, she paused. Why had he come for her when she had held a gun to his face? Did it matter?

  He had been kind before. Hadn’t he said he had daughters too? Maybe he felt bad for her. Lilly smiled. This must be fate or the hand of God or whatever you wanted to call it. Anyway, it didn’t matter. She was out of here.

  Lilly picked up some clothes off the floor and went through to the bathroom. She put on the black denim miniskirt that Lauren said had come from the home. Moon Face’s mini-skirt. Moon Face’s home. Lilly put her hand on the door handle and pressed it down slowly.

  But as the door eased open she heard voices in the hallway and stopped. One of the voices belonged to the night attendant. The other two were male. Lilly closed the door. And a moment later, there was a faint knock.

  ‘Janine. Are you awake?’ the woman whispered.

  Lilly stared at the door. The woman knew she was awake. What the hell was going on?

  ‘Janine?’

  She pulled the bathrobe down from the hook and wrapped it over her t-shirt and skirt. The bedroom door opened slowly. The woman came in, slithered in like a snake and closed the door with both hands behind her back.

  ‘Janine. There are a couple of police officers, detectives, come to see you.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I know.’

  ‘They said they’d like to see you – if you’re awake.’

  Lilly pulled her robe around her neck and turned away. ‘Can you tell them I’m not awake?’ she asked and saw the conflict in the woman’s eyes.

  There was a second light rapping at the door. The woman looked horrified, as if there was a serial killer on the other side, rather than one standing right next to her on this side.

  ‘Tell them I need ten minutes to get dressed.’ And she went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Her heart beat fast like it would wear itself out if it carried on going. She remembered Bryan saying the cops wanted to interview her, but that had been about the accident. Cops don’t come to see accident victims in the middle of the night, but they do come to see murderers.

  She laughed at herself. For five minutes, she’d had it all figured out. Five minutes, that was all she got. Now, she’d have to run again, and ditch the Janine Kenny identity too. She came out of the bathroom and pressed her face to the window, but saw nothing.

  ‘Hey!’ she whispered loudly out of the top opening. ‘Are you still there?’

  There was no answer.

  He’d seen the cops coming in and made a break for it, obviously.

  She could taste panic in her mouth, a bitter bile that would make its way down to her raw and scraped-out stomach. It was the taste of hopelessness, of all the people who weren’t meant to find thi
ngs out – finding things out. And pretty soon, they’d work out she wasn’t Janine Kenny either and then a whole bunch of other stuff would come out too.

  ‘Fucking think!’

  She wanted to wring her own neck. She would just tell them she knew nothing. She had amnesia still. Surely, they couldn’t charge a girl with amnesia for murder. But they’d do their test wouldn’t they? They’d know!

  ‘Think, fucking think!’

  She pounded her fist against the side of her skull and then someone knocked at the door and she knew she’d have to open it.

  Red

  He’d just pushed out of the bushes when he saw the two cars parked up out front. They hadn’t been there ten minutes ago. Where the heck had they come from? Then an overhead light came on in the entrance way and Red pulled back into a shaded corner. A guy came out the front door, a skinny little weed with a frown on him as if a big kid had just stolen his candy. He went into the trunk of one of the cars and pulled out a see-through box full of equipment.

  Red felt deep in his guts that the guy was something to do with the cops. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Don’t lose it, now. This was a test, a challenge to make sure he had the serenity. He had failed on the farm because he had become impatient. He had let that journalism woman come in too quickly. He had wanted the world to know how righteous they were. He had wanted more women to join them.

  Patience.

  Red nodded at the thought. He couldn’t take her tonight, but he would take her. He had God on his side.

  Davis

  They pulled up into the parking area of the facility and she turned off the engine. All the motion lights were on, but the individual rooms were still dark. Probably, they dosed these people up to the eyeballs to make them sleep through the nights.