Elizabeth Basque - Medium Mysteries 01 - Echo Park

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

Book: Elizabeth Basque - Medium Mysteries 01 - Echo Park Read Online Free PDF
Author: Elizabeth Basque
Tags: Mystery: Thriller - Paranormal - Humor
she was. I sensed that she’d been much smarter in life than her mother had been.
    “ I guess so.” Carla read my thoughts. “I was smarter than she was, and it frustrated me. She had a learning disability, a reading one, but other decisions were hard for her, too. I can see that now, but when we were alive, I didn’t understand it, how hard it was for her to even fill out a job application, and then, if she managed that, all the steps to even get it turned in. I mean, she was my mom, right? She was supposed to take care of me. But she didn’t know how to do things with more than a few steps.”
    “ Oh, Carla,” Julie whispered.
    “ Anyways,” Carla continued, “Mom was still always trying to get ahead. She’d always tell me that soon we would be living a good life. That I could go to a good school. Take horseback riding lessons or ballet. I don’t know how she ever believed this would happen, but at some point, I stopped believing her dreams because they became lies to me.”
    She sighed and continued, “Just before we were, you know, killed, we got kicked out of our last friend’s house because my mom stole from them. We were out on the street, and Mom was desperate.”
    “You were homeless?” Julie exclaimed.
    “ Yeah. It wasn’t as hard for me as it was for Mom. I could ditch school, I could do whatever I wanted. I could have anyways, if I didn’t have to keep an eye on my mom.”
    “ So, what brought you to that house?” Julie asked. “The one that I’ve been having nightmares and visions about?”
    “ Sorry about that,” Carla answered with sincerity. “I just didn’t know how else to find you, Julie. I was kind of haunting you.”
    “ This is all very sweet,” Mack interjected, “but the girl’s only got so much time to stay materialized.”
    “ Right,” Carla agreed. “Okay, well, Mom decided we needed some fast cash, and she started dealing drugs. Again. Heroin this time, as it was easier to come by, and brought a good profit. And you didn’t have to deal with meth-heads, at least, that was what Mom said. That heroin was somehow better than meth, and had safer people in the dealing end of the business.”
    Her tale of woe got worse and worse.
    “So, we went to the heroin dealer to pick up some more to sell. The guy wouldn’t front it, but somehow Mom got the money to pay for it; she had a ‘plan.’ You always have to try a little bit of what you’re selling, so you know what you’ve got. How strong it is, what it’s been cut with. Also, you want the dealer to try it, so you know you’re not getting crap.”
    Carla shivered, if a spirit could shiver, recalling that fateful day that ended her life. “My mom started flirting with the creep. She talked him into mainlining with her. I was watching, and I saw that my mom made herself a much weaker dose. They did it together, and in a few minutes, the guy was out cold. My mom took the H —the heroin—and she kept her money, too. And she ransacked his place and found some more money he’d stashed away.”
    The girl wasn’t even aware of us now; she was reliving the past as if watching an intense movie. I could see some of it in my mind, and I bet Mack could, too, but Julie stared at Carla with a hand over her mouth, horrified and silent.
    “I told her, ‘Mom, this is a really bad idea, you don’t go messing around with dealers, especially if you don’t have a home.’ But she didn’t listen. She told me to shut up, that she knew what she was doing. What could I do?”
    Carla threw her hands up as if we could have given her an answer. “I didn’t have anywhere to go. I mean, Pauline, you’ve got a nice place here, but I don’t—didn’t—know anyone like you where I could go with her . You can’t even stay in the shelters if you are on something. They won’t let you in. You see, I grew up on the other side of Echo Park. It’s a world apart from your hilltop.”
    I understood what Carla was talking about. Echo Park
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Perfectly Reflected

S. C. Ransom

Something's Fishy

Nancy Krulik

The Silver Cup

Constance Leeds

Memoirs of a Porcupine

Alain Mabanckou

A Convenient Husband

Kim Lawrence

Sweat Tea Revenge

Laura Childs

Einstein's Dreams

Alan Lightman