Dead Memories (Carol Ann Baker Crime Book 2)

by Lissa Pelzer

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Lauren asked finally. ‘Because you know, once we go out, once they see you’re gone and so is your paperwork, it’s not like we can just say we went for a drive.’

  ‘Of course, I want to do this.’ Lilly was almost pissed, but kept her voice low.

  If Lauren decided to back out now, what could she do?

  But Lauren nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  There was a panel next to the door, and Lauren pressed her fob to the sensor. The door beeped and they walked through and out into the lobby. Through the glass doors, she could see heavy rain clouds but the ground was still dry. Still, Lauren pulled out an umbrella and got ready to open it up.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Lilly said as they approached the door. ‘I just need to check something.’

  She scanned the parking lot for any sign of Davis lurking but saw nothing except the wind moving the bushes and knocking the first dead leaves from the trees.

  Lauren smiled at her. ‘She’s not there,’ she said firmly.

  Lilly froze. She didn’t want to ask who Lauren meant, but then remembered she had told Bryan about Davis being a weirdo. Bryan must have passed that information on to Lauren.

  ‘Just checking.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Come on. Let’s go.’

  And Lauren took her by the arm, pulled her up under the umbrella and ran her out of the building, down the drive and through the gates.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ Lilly called out.

  ‘Across the street.’

  And they ran out into the road under the umbrella without even stopping to check it was clear.

  ‘It’s unlocked,’ she said as she darted around the other side. ‘Seatbelt!’ And without waiting a beat, they were off down the street.

  For a minute neither said anything. Lilly was trying to assess this new reality as quickly as possible. She was out of that place, free from the probing and testing and questioning, but she was about to be back in a semi with a trucker she hardly knew. Would he expect gratitude and repayment for this service, was that what this was all about? She tried not to think about it. She needed to stay cool.

  A fat droplet of rain exploded on the windscreen, followed by another.

  Lauren looked up. ‘Right on cue,’ she rolled her shoulders up to her fluffy.

  Lilly looked down at her arm and saw the hairs full of static and standing right up.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she muttered. ‘Look at this.’

  And Lauren did. A cute smile spread across her face. ‘Wait for it,’ she instructed, and a moment later a coral web of lightning rolled out across the sky followed by an ear numbing peel of thunder.

  ‘Amazing, huh?’

  Lilly nodded, the muscles in her heart not quite ready to let her speak.

  Davis

  She crawled the car forward, came within a hundred feet of the trees and bushes and stopped. She couldn’t see any sign of Rane. The undergrowth was thick and dark and a Tree-of-Heaven, or rather several of them, created a canopy over the site. To the right was a single large rock with a flat face. Perhaps he was behind it. But there was no way he could be anywhere else.

  She eased her foot off the brake and the car moved of its own accord, sucking gas from the tank as it pulled half way closer again and Davis had to brake before her proximity to the location became unbearable. She’d pressed the brake and without taking her eyes off the bush, Davis reached over into the glove compartment.

  Inside, her fingers rested on the little lizard teeth ridges of the riot cuffs and then something else too, Valerie’s gun.

  Davis pulled it towards her but didn’t look at it. She hoped Valerie had taken care of her weapon and she hoped she wouldn’t need to find out. She stuffed the cuffs in her pockets, held the gun down towards the floor and got out of the car.

  ‘Ralph Adams!’ she called out, her voice sounded papery thin in the wind that had begun to bluster. ‘Ralph Adams… Come on out.’

  Davis waited, not expecting compliance. Her armpits began to sweat at the thought of him in there, possibly armed, possibly taking aim.

  ‘The police have been called. They are on their way,’ she lied. ‘It would be best all round if you came out now before they got here.’

  The words sounded stock and hopeless, she knew that and expected nothing. So when the bushes moved, Davis wasn’t truly ready. She didn’t have a feeling about how this was going to go and she flinched and raised the 45mm instinctively and was prepared to discharge.

  Then what? Nothing. There was no more movement, but her body was acting like it was under attack. Her heart hammered against her lungs and her eyes began to water. This needed to end now, right now.

  ‘Rane!’ she shouted in fear and anger. ‘Get out here now!’ And Davis didn’t realize she’d spoken his name, the name she knew him by, until he answered.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, and she could hear fear in his voice too.

  She didn’t say her name. ‘I’m an off-duty police officer. I know who you are. Come on out. If you have a weapon, leave it on the ground and come out slowly. Back up is on its way.’

  ‘Okay – okay.’

  And now the movement came fast. Rane started coming out in accordance with her demand, but Davis could see his hands weren’t up. Something like a Beretta ‘92 was in his right hand as his left hand pushed away at the branches. She quickly took a step back and to the side, but he got a shot off fast. The bullet passed by her shoulder so closely, it took some of her t-shirt with it and Davis skidded to the ground, turned, aimed at his shoulder and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened... She pulled again and this time, the piece fired.

  The sound was satisfying and Rane yelled out as the bullet stroked his thigh taking a portion of his jeans with it. She saw the wound, freshly made and watched as it fill with blood and began to overflow. It was a superficial wound. He wouldn’t need surgery, but Rane clasped a hand over the gash and sunk to his knees as if she’d hit bone.

  She needed to dominate the situation, right now.

  ‘Stay down!’ she yelled, finding her feet. ‘Stay down!’

  But Rane didn’t. He groaned and hissed and pulled himself up before she could reach him. He lifted his gun and Davis saw the black depth of the inside of the barrel. She aimed at the other leg and pulled the trigger. It jammed. She squeezed again. It jammed.

  ‘Looks like you got yourself a real piece of shit there, Lady,’ Rane hissed and he glanced up and looked her straight in the eye.

  Davis froze.

  It had been fifteen years, but in that moment, time folded up like a paper fan. Davis felt her shoulders loosen and her stomach grow warm. Dead memories, the kind that might have died with her, if she’d never laid eyes on him again suddenly surfaced. The smell of the soil on their farm and Alice’s just changed, cloth diapers flooded her senses.

  And she looked at Rane, and he seemed to be sensing the same.

  But memories like these ones will always be diamonds and rust. And just as the sweetest smells hit her senses, so did the foulest. She smelled the raccoon who fell down the well and she felt her stomach lurch at the memory of the detective telling her that it wasn’t just a raccoon down there. It was the girl she’d known as Strawberry too. She’d broken her neck but had survived, he said. Still, it had probably taken her four days to die.

  Rane took a disjointed step towards her. ‘Buttercup?’ He pressed his hand to the top of his thigh. His other arm drooped towards the ground. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Buttercup?’ Davis spat.

  She didn’t want to hear that name, not now, not ever. If she’d been sure, this gun would fire, in that moment, she might have held it up to his face and pulled the trigger. But she remembered herself.

  ‘Stay where you are. Don’t come any closer.’

  But he didn’t. ‘Buttercup,’ His voice sung out. ‘Now wait. Are you hurt? Please put that gun down. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m making an arrest–’

/>   He let out a stifled laugh. ‘Are you serious? Come on now. It doesn’t fire good, anyways. Now, what is all this about?’

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Her hand stayed steady, but the rest of her shook.

  ‘Buttercup, darling. Are you a cop now?’ He was acting like he’d just run into her at an ice cream shop.

  ‘Turn around.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Turn around and get down on the ground.’ She held the gun on him as if it were a reliable piece.

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘It’s okay - it’s okay. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m not angry at you, look.’ And he crouched down and put his gun on the floor. ‘You didn’t know it was me. And I didn’t know it was you. And I shot at you first. Fair is fair.’

  Davis scrambled to her feet. He was only a pace away, and she wanted to get that gun on the floor out of reach before he picked it back up. But he was right. Her gun was a piece of shit. If he went for his, there wasn’t anything she could do.

  ‘There are cops on their way here to arrest you...’ she said calmly. ‘Now, listen to me. A few weeks back, you picked up a young woman by the name of Carol Ann Baker... I need to talk to you about Carol Ann Baker.’

  ‘You know about her?’

  ‘Where is Carol Ann?’ she yelled, getting annoyed at his interruptions.

  ‘I’ve got it taken care of,’ he said.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Buttercup. I’m on it! You just need to hide away, I’ve got a girl coming right now and then–’

  Davis felt a kind of insanity rock her entire body. It was not unfamiliar from her time on the farmstead. His word was absolute, even when it was ridiculous. ‘Tell me what you did with Carol Ann Baker. That’s all I want to know.’

  Rane took a stumbled step closer. Davis took one back. In her hand, Valerie’s gun felt like a dead weight.

  ‘Would you please stop pointing that gun at me?’ he asked.

  ‘Is she somewhere around here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where? God damn it, Rane. Stop playing games.’

  Now his eyes darkened. ‘That kind of language...’ He raised a finger. ‘That kind of language gets you in trouble, Buttercup.’

  ‘Don’t call me, Buttercup, for Christ’s sake.’

  Rane tilted his chin downwards. His voice dropped. ‘Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.’

  There was a rumble somewhere above their heads. The sky had begun to darken this afternoon and now Davis felt a slow, heavy droplet hit her cheek.

  Rane pointed up into the clouds and smiled. ‘See. Someone agrees with me.’

  And she could have laughed. ‘That’s not God spitting a loogie in my face.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Buttercup.’

  ‘Then tell me about Carol Ann.’

  ‘I’m not going to discuss her with you. She’s a bad girl–’

  ‘Stop. Just stop. I know you picked her up in Ohio. I know you came out here with her as far as the Sleep Eazy motel. I know you were stopped out on the County Road and they didn’t find her.’ Her voice began to tremble, but Rane’s gaze was steady. ‘I know you tried to kill the waitress out at Patchy’s.’

  At this last remark, Rane flinched. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Valerie,’ she said. ‘The waitress who gave you a ride back to the truck stop last night, she told us you’d been asking about the girl with amnesia, that you wanted to know where she was. That’s why you’re working with this blonde now. See, I know it all.’

  ‘She’s alive? But how?’ Rane narrowed his eyes and his chin began to rise. ‘And how do you know about Ohio, how do you know about Carol Ann?’

  ‘I am a cop!’

  Rane turned away. Maybe that at least was slowly sinking in.

  ‘And I can help you if you’re willing to help me. I just need you to tell me where Carol Ann Baker’s body is...’

  But Rane wasn’t listening. He was looking up at the heavens as another rumble of thunder broke out. This one was directly over their heads and this pleased him.

  He was seeking guidance, hearing voices in the clouds, and probably seeing angels smiling down on him too. That was fine. It only meant that his mind was unguarded. And Davis took the initiative. She shoved Valerie’s gun down the back of her jeans and jumped up towards Rane’s face. She grabbed the back of his neck, got the palm of her hand into his throat and the heel of her boot into the back of his knee. He went down heavily, his greasy cap tumbling to the floor and he coughed as she rolled him over. She had his left hand in place, pinned with the fingers splayed with her knee, and she wrestled for his right hand, but he pulled it back.

  After weeks in bed, she had lost her core strength. Rane pushed her off as if she were a kid playing giddy-up. Davis landed hard on the ground and opened her eyes to his gun in her face, his baggy wrinkled cheeks hanging over her and the smoky funnels of clouds up above.

  ‘Not you, Buttercup,’ he said.

  And she watched as a single tear welled up in his eye.

  ‘Not you, too?’

  ‘Rane!’ She held up her hand. ‘Rane, no!’

  The pain in her stomach burst out and in the exact same moment, a bolt of sheet lightning lit up the darkening sky. The roar was one single second later and the force of strike sent shockwaves along the ground and through her body.

  But Rane didn’t flinch. ‘It’s like having God as your cheering squad,’ he said and the sky opened up and the rain started to fall in earnest.

  ‘God is not on your side, Rane.’

  He ignored her. ‘Do you want to pray now or should I say a prayer for you? Otherwise, this might take a while and I’ve got people coming.’

  And Davis held up Valerie’s gun and knew she had nothing to lose. She pulled the trigger. Clack, clack, clack.

  ‘Keep going!’ Rane held his arms out to the side, imitating Jesus on the cross. ‘You keep pulling the trigger and God keeps catching your bullets. Love conquers hate, every time, Buttercup.’

  She shook the gun hard, slammed it into the dirt and she yelled out as a single bullet went off, whizzing through the dry grass.

  And now Rane muttered to himself, formulating his prayers like magical spells to grant his every desire. And Davis saw the darkness, spreading overhead and the light behind, fighting for place, creating that mystical silver lining.

  ‘You’re going to be okay,’ he said as he finished. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  Davis closed her eyes as he came closer. She didn’t want to look on him as she died and he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing the fear in her eyes, either.

  And then fire mixed with brimstone and the earth, as Davis knew it, shifted in time and space. White-hot heat seared through her body and she discerned that she was being lifted off the ground. There was a sound like wind and music, a throbbing, no the strum of a harp! Her ears felt like they didn’t belong to her anymore. She was drifting now, weightless and slack, without any pain or any fear. Time was passing but it had no value. She was in no hurry. It could have been five minutes or five hours, she didn’t care. And for a while, she hypothesized – Maybe Rane was right, maybe there was an all-powerful God who always had his back and maybe now, she had been cleansed.

  Then the music began to fade and she heard a man’s voice.

  ‘Just lie still. You’ll be alright.’

  She knew it well. It was the voice of someone who had helped her many times.

  ‘The ambulance will be here in a moment,’ it said, and this didn’t immediately take her by surprise.

  Davis blinked and she felt a hand, strong and firm touching her on the shoulder. It was Marquez who had ahold of her. And there on the ground next to her face was a boot, with the sole blown out and the uppers still smoking. Beyond that, against the rock, Rane was suspended, about three feet off the ground. His hair, black and flayed like three-day-old road kill, his eyes swollen and red, and where his clothes had been rippe
d open, a thick, black line ran from his left ear to his right knee.

  Three officers were stood around, one with his hands on his hips. They had never seen a body struck by lightning before, and neither had she.

  ‘Is he alive?’ she asked.

  Marquez moved into position to block her view. ‘I don’t think so, no,’ he said.

  And Davis lay back on the ground again.

  Lauren

  They were in the car. They were out of the rehab unit. She was risking her volunteer position, her career, possibly her freedom by doing this. This was real. This was so real!

  And yet it was unreal... kind of a non-event.

  Janine sat beside her, dumb with her silence. She glanced out of the window like an elderly aunt being taken out for Sunday lunch.

  Was this all there would ever be between them? Her risking everything for this girl who would likely never speak to her again, who would just disappear as easily as she had done the last time?

  The thought crossed her mind again, was this worth it? Should she even be doing this?

  She’d almost chickened out at the entrance. She’d put the umbrella up as a precaution against the cameras, it was visitors day and it was going to rain, so that camera would have a lot of umbrellas on it today. But if they checked, if they really asked who was who, they’d be able to work out it was her sneaking Janine out. That was a big risk, a huge risk and she’d tested the waters, ask Janine if she were sure. Janine must have realized what was going on , but she had just looked at her like a puppy. She hadn’t made any attempts to convince her, she had just waited for her to snap back.

  And really, it didn’t matter, but she’d like a little recognition, a little thanks – real thanks too – from Carol Ann Baker, not just from Janine Kenny, because she was saving them both!

  Lauren turned and glanced at Janine’s profile, so pretty and petite.

  Did she even get how much her life was in her hands right now? She seemed to have some kind of believe that if she just stayed quiet, everything would be all right, that someone would save her. Lauren had seen her picture online, the long blonde hair, the fey eyes, she had been such a doll, and so, people probably did. She must have had a gift for wrapping people around her little finger, and someway without asking, Janine had her where she wanted her too.