Elizabeth Basque - Medium Mysteries 01 - Echo Park Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I kinda got that feeling.”
    “Carla!” Julie exclaimed. “You don’t want to be stuck here forever, do you?”
    “ No…” the girl answered, “but I just had to see you.”
    “ And,” I offered, “I think we have a mystery to solve here. We want to find out who killed you and your mother, dear, so we can set things right.”
    At this, Carla sighed. “My mother…I don’t remember her so much. Less as time goes by…how long has it been?”
    “Since you both died?” I asked.
    “ Yeah.”
    “ About three months,” I told her. “And, if you’re losing memory of her, then the sooner you tell us what happened, the better.”
    Julie was serious now. “I, for one, would like to know who killed you, and why.”
    Carla sighed. She was shimmering a little now; a sign that she could fade. “It’s such a long story. I don’t know what you need to know.”
    Julie was trying to keep hold of Carla’s grasp. She didn’t want to lose this connection any more than I did.
    “Well,” I offered gently, “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Carla settled down next to Julie, their hands still interlaced. I sat across from them in the chair that Mack had tipped over. Mack had drifted back in and floated just above the floor near me. Carla glanced at him, a question on her face.
    “Would you rather he not be here?” I asked her.
    “ No, it’s okay. He knows a lot of it anyway. He’s my friend.”
    I looked up at Mack, whose expression was stoic now. “You’ve known her and you didn’t tell me?”
    “I know a lot of souls,” Mack responded. “How am I supposed to know which ones you’re interested in?”
    “ Is the other one back?” Julie asked, looking straight at Mack without realizing it.
    “ Yes. He wants to hear this, too. Is that all right with you?”
    “ I guess so, as long as Carla’s okay with it,” Julie responded a little nervously. “But please, ask him not to overturn any more furniture.”
    Mack chuckled now as I said, “He can hear you, darling.”
    “I’ll be good,” Mack said, and Carla related this to Julie.
    I took a sip of my beer, trying to make it last. I was too ashamed to pop open another one in front of a client. “All right Carla, tell us about yourself, and how you and your mother came to be killed.”
    Carla closed her eyes for a moment, focusing. When she opened them, she began her tale. “Ever since I can remember, Mom was always in trouble. She was always in some kind of mess, and she spent a lot of time trying to get out of them. Even when I was little, she would leave me at an old friend’s house for days sometimes, trying to clean herself up. Her friend wouldn’t let her stay there while she was using. We probably could have lived there if Mom had ever been clean for more than a couple of days.”
    I could tell this wasn’t going to be easy, for her to tell or for us to listen to. But I nodded my head in encouragement and waited.
    “We never had the best relationship,” Carla continued. “Yeah, she was my mom, but we weren’t that close. No, that’s not right. She was my mother and I loved her, but we kind of…saw things differently. You know? There was a good year or so, after the first time she went to rehab, that we got along great. The rehab place helped her get a job at a thrift store and we lived in one of those residence motels for sober people. But then, she started getting into trouble again and lost her job. And then we lost our place to live because she kept failing the drug tests. After that, she was never clean for more than a couple of days, and that was only because when she had money, it went for drugs. We ate, sometimes, out of the garbage bins just outside fast-food restaurants.” She grimaced.
    Carla spoke like a girl well beyond her years. Maybe she’d had the last three months to think about her previous life. But I had the feeling she’d always been a wise child. An o ld soul , that’s what