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  Dead Girl Blues

  A Taxi for the Dead Paranormal Mystery

  By

  Joyce and Jim Lavene

  Copyright © 2014 Joyce and Jim Lavene

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Book coach and editor—Jeni Chappelle

  http://www.jenichappelle.com/

  Table of Contents

  Dead Girl Blues

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  About the Authors

  Chapter One

  “So what do you think?” Debbie Hernandez put her twenty dollar bill on the sunbaked dash of the old van. “I think she’ll run, Skye.”

  I pulled out my binoculars and surveyed the old homestead in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The house was in good condition, a two-story frame building that sat quietly in a pretty valley. It was surrounded by thick green grass and a few tall oaks. The whole effect was like a picture from a calendar.

  “I think she’ll be okay. She’s got this pretty house, and there are kids who play here—see the swings and bikes? She won’t run and upset them.” I put my twenty dollars on the dash next to Debbie’s.

  It was midsummer, hot and dry. Clouds of dust filled the air instead of pollen as people cut their grass. The rivers and streams were lower than they had been in twenty years, or so they said on TV. Newscasters pleaded with residents of the state to moderate their water usage.

  Me?

  I just wished my old van had air conditioning. I didn’t feel the cold much since I’d died, but I suffered in the heat. Even sitting with the windows open to catch any spare breeze wasn’t much help. In a job like ours, we waited a lot. It would’ve been nice if we were waiting in a little comfort.

  But the money I made picking up Abraham Lincoln Jones’s LEP workers (that’s Life Extended People – Abe doesn’t like it when I call them zombies) never went as far as I would’ve liked. It was enough to keep the house in one piece and pay for food, clothes, and my daughter’s swimming lessons. That was about it.

  “Is that her, Skye?” Debbie adjusted the thin strap on her red tank top for the tenth time. “Is she married?”

  Debbie liked to dress sexy in her thin, low-cut tops and short-shorts. She was pretty—early thirties, with a round face, chocolate brown eyes, and thick, shoulder-length hair. She was shorter than me, but her plump curves were in all the right places.

  I was tall, thin, and a little older. Not so many curves. My short blond hair was wild most of the time since it tended to curl. I used to put all kinds of gels and stuff on it to keep it in place when my husband was alive.

  Now I was dead, and so was he. I didn’t care so much anymore. My T-shirt and shorts were utilitarian—like the Beretta I carried in a lightweight shoulder holster. Whatever I needed to get the job done.

  I looked down at the peaceful picture before us. A white-haired woman in jeans and a yellow T-shirt was coming out of the house. She was laughing and talking with an older man. They leaned together as they spoke, as couples do who have been together for many years.

  They were headed toward an old pickup that needed a wash as bad as my van. Someone had even written ‘wash me’ in the dust on the side of the truck. Probably one of the kids.

  “Abe never gives us that kind of information.” I started the engine. “We’re supposed to cajole, remind, and if necessary, drag his late workers back to the mortuary. He doesn’t consider knowledge about their lives important.”

  Most of what should have been important to our job, Abe didn’t consider necessary information. I’d worked as a police officer in Nashville for ten years. If they’d been so stingy with info, I wouldn’t have made it that long. No one would.

  But that’s another story. Another lifetime.

  “Here we go.” Debbie took out the tranquilizer gun and inserted a dart into it. “I’m telling you. She’s a runner.”

  Long hours of waiting for the people we were supposed to take back with us had developed this game. I’d worked for Abe by myself the first two years after I’d taken him up on his offer of another twenty years of life so I could raise my daughter.

  Debbie had come onboard in the last year to save her husband’s life. Some days it was better having her to talk to while I waited. Some days it wasn’t.

  The old white van rattled down the washboard gravel driveway. It effectively blocked the pickup from leaving unless it went airborne over the creek that surrounded the property.

  “Put that away,” I told her. “We’re here to offer a ride to the mortuary, not threaten her.”

  Debbie shrugged. “They almost always run. We might as well take something with us for when it happens.”

  “That’s not the way Abe wants it done. When it’s your time, do you want someone to show you some respect or just shoot you down?”

  She gently put the dart gun on the seat between us. “Okay. But I think Abe needs to work it into his contract that if his people want respect at the end of their twenty years, they shouldn’t try to run us down, throw things at us, or any of the other things they do to keep from going back.”

  And to think she was so meek and mild when she first started. “You could stay in the van if that works better for you.”

  “Okay. I get your point. I’m sorry. I won’t think about it that way.” Debbie opened her door and stepped out into the slowly fading daylight.

  The man and woman coming out of the house saw us. They kissed briefly and whispered a few quick words. I hoped that meant that she was coming with us quietly. Usually the people who had made plans for this day were the easy ones. They’d told the people around them what was going to happen. There might be some tears and anguish, but they accepted their fate, grateful for the extra time Abe had given them.

  That’s how I wanted to be. I had seventeen years left before my time was up. That was borrowed time that Abe had given me the night I’d died. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him and his offer. My daughter, Kate, would have been alone for the past three years, since she was five. I would’ve been in a cemetery resting quietly alongside my husband, Jacob, who’d died in the same wreck that had killed me.

  “Good evening.” I raised my voice, pleasantly, as I approached the couple. “Mrs. Jane Darcy? I’m Skye Mertz, and this is my partner, Debbie Hernandez. We’re here to offer you a ride to Nashville. Abe sent for y
ou. It’s your time.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Darcy had a very sweet smile. She looked about sixty, but that may have been her age at the time of her death. Abe’s people didn’t age.

  I glanced at Debbie with a knowing look in my blue eyes. Mrs. Darcy was going to be fine. Sometimes winning that twenty dollars from her was easy pickings.

  And sometimes not.

  The man beside Jane Darcy pulled out an old shotgun. He fired a few rounds at me and Debbie. Not a great shot, but we hit the ground as Mrs. Darcy sprinted toward the back of the old house.

  Mrs. Darcy had a plan in place for this day all right. I sighed. It just wasn’t to accept what she’d been given and come along peacefully. Life was hard to give up.

  Debbie laughed. “I told you. You can’t go by where they live. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that the nicer the place, the faster they run.”

  “Yeah, well, you won the twenty. Now shut up and get the tranq gun. I’ll handle Mr. Darcy.”

  She kept snickering as she sneaked back into the van and pulled out the gun. I got behind a large rock that had a holly bush growing out of it and took my Beretta 9mm revolver from its holster. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

  “What about your kids, Mr. Darcy?” I tried to talk him out of shooting his way through this. “I don’t think you and your wife want them to see you this way.”

  “You don’t care anything about us,” he snapped back as he fired off another round. “If you care about our kids and grandkids, go away. Leave us alone. Forget you saw Jane here. We’ll leave. You’ll never see us again.”

  I could hear the quiver in his voice. He was wiping away tears by the time he’d finished his speech.

  A moment later, I heard the high-pitched whine of a small horse power engine. I glanced around the holly bush and saw Jane taking off across the meadow behind their house on a four- wheeler. There were duffel bags, and a shot gun, strapped on the back.

  It seemed they had a really good plan.

  “There she goes,” Debbie yelled out. “We can’t catch her on foot.”

  “We can’t catch her with the van either, not on this terrain. I have an idea.”

  I rushed at Jane’s husband, firing the Beretta. As I’d thought, planning something and executing it are two different things. He fell apart as I shot at him, finally dropping to the dry ground and putting his hands over his head.

  “Please,” he whimpered. “Please let her stay with us. She didn’t know what was going to happen when she signed that contract with the devil. Don’t take her away.”

  “If we don’t take her, someone else will. She can’t stay after twenty years. Believe me, I’ve seen what happens. You don’t want that either. She wouldn’t be your wife anymore.” I snatched up the shotgun.

  Debbie ran toward us as the shots stopped. I handed her the Beretta and took the tranq gun from her. “Watch him. I’m going to get her.”

  The keys were in the old pickup, as I’d thought. The van couldn’t handle the rocks and uneven ground, but the pickup could. I started it up and took off after Jane.

  I could still see the four-wheeler racing across the meadow. It was going to hit the bend in the stream—unless they’d thought of that in their escape plans too. She couldn’t get across the deep ditch even though there was only a trickle of water running through it.

  The pickup was faster than the four-wheeler. The rocks and ruts jarred my teeth, but it was only a few minutes until I was on her. I’d been right—the Darcys had thought of everything, including a small wood bridge across the stream. Jane waved and laughed because she knew the truck couldn’t get across the bridge or through the deep ditch. I waved back because I knew something she didn’t.

  As she crossed the bridge, I revved the truck engine and forced the vehicle to jump the ditch. A tire flew off and rolled away on the passenger side when I landed, but the momentum from the jump kept the truck moving. Several pieces of the tailpipe dropped on the ground. I felt the back axle give way.

  I didn’t care. I pushed open the driver door and jumped out into the half-dead meadow grass, rolling until I got to my feet.

  Jane’s face was a mask of astonishment. She wouldn’t have done what I did because she valued the old truck. That was my secret.

  That, and I didn’t have to worry about dying. She didn’t either since she was technically already dead. Most of Abe’s people just didn’t get it.

  I ran close to her as she tried to speed up after leaving the bridge. She couldn’t quite reach the shot gun that was tied on the back. I aimed the tranq gun at her and fired a dart that hit her in the shoulder.

  The four-wheeler rolled over as she lost control of it while trying to remove the dart. By that time, it was too late. She’d dropped off the vehicle as the fast-acting tranquilizer took effect. It crashed into an old elm tree as she rolled on the ground, almost asleep at my feet.

  There were tears in her blue eyes as she stared pitifully up at me. “Why? Why couldn’t you leave me alone?”

  “I’m sorry. It has to be this way. You don’t realize it, but you can’t stay undead for more than the twenty years Abe gave you.” I knelt beside her. “Be glad you didn’t get away. You would’ve come back and killed everyone you cared about.”

  Chapter Two

  The truck was scrap, but I got the four-wheeler running again. I called Debbie’s cell phone and then tossed Jane’s unconscious body across my lap as I left the meadow. The van was waiting on the road.

  “That was rough.” Debbie helped me with Jane. “Why do people run? They made the deal. They got the twenty years. They should honor it.”

  I made sure Jane was comfortable on the seat and that she wouldn’t roll off. “They made the deal with Abe for the extra time in the first place. They didn’t want to die. They don’t want to leave now either. I hope I won’t be the same when my time comes, but who knows?”

  Abe gave us a bonus, besides our salary, for every person we brought home to him. It was less when we brought them in unconscious. It bothered him for us to use any kind of force. We bargained with them when we could—threatened or knocked them out when we had to. The job was hard when you understood how much each person was leaving behind.

  But it had to be done. I’d seen the ghouls the LEPs became when their time was up. I hoped never to see one again.

  It was dark by the time we’d reached Nashville. Jane was awake and bleakly staring out the window in the backseat. She hadn’t tried to get away again. Debbie was listening to music with headphones—we’d had a few strong disagreements on music.

  “Doesn’t this ever get to you?” Jane asked as we passed the Welcome to Nashville sign.

  “All the time, but it has to be done.” I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. “If it makes you feel any better, it’ll happen to me one day too. I’m a zombie just like you.”

  “I’d tried to kill myself the day Abe saved me.” She shook her head. “I’d just found out my husband of twenty-two years was cheating on me. He’d said he was leaving. My kids were grown. I wanted to die.”

  “At least you thought you wanted to die, right?”

  “That’s right. When you’re lying there, and everything starts getting dim, you realize how precious life is. I would’ve done anything to take back what I’d done.” She held her wrist scars up for my inspection. “That’s why I agreed to work for Abe.”

  “What did you do for him?”

  She shrugged. “I worked at a nuclear power station. I gave him reports. It wasn’t much.”

  I wasn’t surprised. The zombies—LEPs— came from all over and did a variety of jobs. Some of the workers made sense—accountants, stock brokers, lawyers, and police officers. Some of them, only he understood. I couldn’t imagine why Abe needed someone who worked at a power station.

  “What did you do before?” she asked. “How did you die?”

  “I was a Nashville police officer. My husband and I died in a car wreck. He didn’t make it long enoug
h to be offered the deal. My little girl would’ve been left alone if I hadn’t taken Abe’s offer. Now I pick people up in my taxi for the dead when it’s their time. Go figure.” I stared at the lights of the city around us.

  Most of the people Abe brought back worked at their past employment. I was almost the only one who didn’t. I’d fought with him about it. He said he needed a resourceful driver to pick up his people, not another cop.

  But what I did made me feel more like a bounty hunter.

  She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. I guess we only see our own problems.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t regret staying for her. I guess things got better for you when you came back.”

  “Yes. My husband has been faithful for the past twenty years. Our children have had grandchildren. Life has been sweet.” She began sobbing quietly again.

  “You’ve had your time. Someone else gets to have their twenty years now. It’s fair.”

  Headlights flashed toward us, but not from the direction they should have been. A heavy, older vehicle was rushing toward us, no slowing down. I called out a warning to Debbie and our passenger just before the car T-boned the van.

  Debbie squealed as she was pushed against the door. We were propelled sideways into a brick wall. The heavy van rocked once or twice before the engine died and steam started sputtering out from under the hood.

  “What the hell?” A trickle of blood slid down from my forehead. There was a sharp pain in my wrist. The car backed up and the headlights came our way again.

  I took out my Beretta.

  “It’s my husband,” Jane yelled. “This was the second part of our plan in case I couldn’t get away at the house. I’ll stop him. He doesn’t understand. Please don’t hurt him.”

  She wasn’t tied up. The seatbelt slipped from her quickly, and she scrambled out the back door.

  “Yeah. Like I believe that.” My seatbelt was stuck. It was one of the old kind that was just a lap belt. I cut it with the Swiss Army knife I always kept in my pocket, the material easily giving way.

  My door was another thing. It was too crushed to open.