Murder Lies and Little Green Men: Dreamland Junction, #2

By Kendra Ashe

Murder, mayhem and high strangeness continue in Dreamland Junction. 

   There's a UFO festival coming to town, and that means lots of overtime for Kat Parker.

   Between working at the ET Landing Café, and uncovering all the government's deep dark secrets, also known as Black Projects, she barely has time to breathe. 
   That's life in Dreamland Junction. 
   But then the chaos changes from just bizarre, to downright scary. Someone is trying to kill her. 
   Fortunately, Kat knows how to handle killers, mostly anyway. What she might not be able to handle is the handsome stranger who keeps trying to save her life, and date her at the same time. 


Warning: Dreamland Junction is not your everyday town, and Kat Parker is not your everyday girl. She has a bad attitude, and a tendency to get herself into some bad situations that might be suitable only for adults. 
Get the beginning of Kat's story in Conspiracies and Stuff. You'll get a romantic mystery, as well as a taste of life in Dreamland Junction. Included with this book are several recipes from the ET Landing Café. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lavine
• Release date: May 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386579816

Book preview

1

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Suddenly I had a whole new level of understanding for the saying, blinded by the light.

While I struggled to make out something other than shadowy silhouettes against the dazzling white light, that old seventies song kept replaying in my head.

The sensation of leathery hands against my skin sent a chill down my spine. They were struggling to remove my clothes, and I was putting up one hell of a fight.

But who were they?

Stay calm. Don’t struggle. We mean you no harm. The nasally voice echoed through my head.

Stay calm!

How could I stay calm when I couldn’t see a thing, and these three shadow beings were doing everything short of knocking me out to get my clothes off?

Later I would wonder if they had read my mind and decided that knocking me out was actually a good idea, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up to something ringing.

Suddenly I became aware of something hard against my face, and some mega intense pain in my eye.

When I finally managed to pry my eyes open, the first thing I was able to focus on was a gray thing with the letter J on it.

That’s when I realized that I was looking at the J key on my laptop. Seeing how I had used the keyboard as a pillow, it was no wonder my hair had gotten tangled in my glasses, causing them to sit on my head sideways, which resulted in the frame, jamming me in the eye.

In a matter of two seconds, I’d completely explained away my strange - over the top dream. Now if I were my BFF, Spencer, I might have leaned toward the belief that I’d just been abducted by aliens, but no way was I going there.

Nope, I didn’t believe for one minute that I had aliens hovering over my house in the middle of the night.

My dream had been the consequence of splurging on a Hefty Boy hamburger at the Burger Bar. That’s it and that’s all.

Now it had been five seconds since I opened my eyes and I’d completely explained away everything, except for that annoying ringing in my head.

It would take a full ten seconds for it to finally get through to my sleep fogged brain that the ringing wasn’t coming from inside my head, but from my phone.

My muscles screamed in protest as I sat up in my rickety old desk chair. It was a good thing it had arms on it or I might have landed on the floor, instead of waking up to my glasses jamming me in my eye.

I wasn’t really in the habit of falling asleep at my desk while working, but four hours of sleep every night wasn’t cutting it.

Just as I reached for the phone, it stopped ringing.

I was torn between putting my head on the desk to go back to sleep, or checking the caller ID. It was my generic ringtone, which meant I didn’t know the person anyway.

So I was on the verge of going back to sleep when it started ringing again.

I decided to compromise and answer without opening my eyes.

Groping for the phone, I nearly knocked it off the desk before I managed to get a hand on it.

Hello. I croaked into the phone.

Kat! Are you still up? Spencer asked.

Although I was only half listening, I was awake enough to realize that there was a little too much excitement in his voice to feel comfortable with. Spencer was a pothead, which meant if he was having an adrenalin rush, something big had to be in the works.

Giving into whatever dark force it was that seemed intent on not letting me sleep at night, I sat up, focusing my eyes on my computer screen, and the site I’d been researching when I zonked out.

Genetic testing and conspiracies.

Those were the two things that just might explain the rash of bizarre pregnancies in Dreamland Junction, and what happened to Celeste.

Are you awake? Spencer asked again.

Does it sound like it? I grumbled.

Well, you might want to ... like ... listen to your police scanner. There’s some big stuff going down at the Green Man.

Is that where you’re calling from? I asked, suddenly a little more interested. I didn’t recognize the number.

That was only partially true. What I hadn’t recognized was the ringtone. When Spence called me from his number, my phone played the X Files theme as his ringtone.  It might have been a bit mean of me, but I figured since Spence always thought he was being abducted by aliens, the theme fit perfectly.

Yeah, I kind of dropped my phone in the john so I had to use the house phone, he explained.

How much have you had to drink tonight ... and what’s happening at the Green Man? I was now fully awake.

Oh man! That’s so wrong, Kat! You know I’ve had a balance problem since ... you know.

Hmm... yeah, I know. I hoped I sounded skeptical enough.

So what’s happening? I asked, steering the conversation back to the reason he’d called in the first place.

Oh yeah, that. I think there’s been a murder. At least they are all talking about finding a body in the dumpster out back.

Okay ... don’t leave, I instructed. I’ll be there soon.

Not only did I want to find out what he’d seen and heard, but I also didn’t want my friend trying to drive home if he’d been drinking.

Spencer’s partying was starting to get way out of hand. Being his best friend, it was up to me to do something about it.

But first, I had to find my shoes.

Why was it I could track down information on the deepest, darkest, black projects hiding within the shadow government, but I couldn’t keep track of my own shoes?

2

One minute I was speeding through the desert like a boss, the next I was dead in the water, or more accurately, my car was dead off the side of the road. Everything stopped working, the engine, the headlights, and especially the power steering.

Guiding the car to the side of the road was akin to wrestling a particularly large and ferocious alligator. I quickly learned to appreciate modern conveniences, such as power steering.

My car was dead, but the portable police scanner sitting on the passenger seat wasn’t.

The voice of the night dispatch shattered the silence. Unit Six ... advise 10-6 to 3.

Damn! They were going to a private frequency!

Wouldn’t you know it! They probably knew I was listening and decided to shut me down from the start.

I wasn’t sure how they’d managed to screw up my car, but I’d figure it out.

All that I’d been able to find out so far was that a body had been discovered in the dumpster behind the Green Man Saloon.

The only thing I knew for sure was that I had to get to the crime scene as soon as possible.

If there was anything strange going on, and in Dreamland Junction that was a good possibility, someone might try and cover it up. Probably the only place worse for cover-ups was Area 51, which wasn’t too far from town.

Come to think of it, that was probably where the local law enforcement picked up the habit.

Five more minutes and I would have been there.

There was no helping it. I was going to have to get out and see if I could fix whatever went wrong.

I didn’t know a lot about fixing cars, but I had managed to pick up a few things from my twin brother, who just happened to work at an auto repair shop.

Before opening the car door, I glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure there was no one coming. There wasn’t.

Highway 375, also known as the ET Highway, was as dark and dead as my love life most of the time. Well actually, all the time.

I’d been meaning to remedy my situation by going out on the town a little more, but I just never seemed to have the time.

When one’s part time job involved investigating Black Projects and strange happenings, there were probably few places on the planet that would keep them as busy as Dreamland Junction.

I did manage to look under the hood, but it wasn’t long before I figured out it wasn’t going to do much good, seeing how the hood light didn’t work either. 

The only thing left to do was to call Uncle Sonny, who might be too busy to help out since there had apparently been a murder, and he was the chief of police.

Pulling my phone from my back pocket. I gave it a voice command. Call Uncle Sonny.

There were a series of beeps before a voice came on the line. Beam Me Up Pizza. Will this be delivery or carry out?

That wasn’t Uncle Sonny’s voice at all!

My uncle hated Beam’s pizzas. He’d never eat there, let alone work there.

Damn! So much for a smartphone!

I was just getting ready to apologize for getting the wrong number when my phone died too.

A new car - a new smartphone, and neither of them worked worth a darn. What the hell was the world coming to?

I was at least two miles from town. Walking seemed to be the only option, though I probably wouldn’t get there in time to actually check out the crime scene. I’d be stuck with second-hand news that may, or may not be accurate.

I had a tendency to walk slowly.

If I were lucky, I might get to town in time for work in the morning, except I wasn’t even dressed for work.

Being late for work wasn’t an option. Rafe would have fits, especially now. It was starting to get