Gypsy's Girl

By Olivia Marie

My childhood growing up was one of adventure and lessons. Not in the normal sense of other families. Mine was different, dangerous and even a little on the crazy side.Have you heard of the Gypsy Killer? The beauty that made her way across the country killing and taking anything she pleased?She was my mother. How can this be you ask? Everyone does. The rumor was she killed every man that touched her. Well obviously, one was allowed to or I wouldn't be here.Some worry I am just like the beautiful Gypsy and will follow in her footsteps. Others say I was taken away before she had the chance to influence me. I will let you decide.I might be my own person but I am also my mother's daughter and some things, you just can't outrun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: Jan 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393255642

Book preview

Dedication:

To my family for going with me on this journey. I couldn’t do it without you.

To Erin Lee who has become a great friend and mentor. None of this would be here without you. Thank you for all that you do.

To the trucker who spent over an hour talking to me about what life on the road was like. This one is for you Incognito.

PROLOGUE

Iwatched as she climbed out of the cab of the big rig. It felt different that time.

Stay here, baby girl. I will be right back. She smiled at me and kissed my forehead.

She followed the guy to the side of the building out of my line of sight. It wasn’t the same man we were sharing the ride with. He was dressed in a suit and flashed a shiny piece of something at her before she got out.

The man who owned the truck was greasy and his front teeth were missing. Mom said those were the ones to watch for because they were guaranteed to be easy to get money from. I got that, but they smelled so bad. I gagged every time one put their mouth on hers.

As soon as Mom was gone, a lady climbed up to the truck and asked me to come with her. She was in a suit too. She had her hair combed up in a bun real nice. She smelled better than we did too, and I was afraid she would get dirty coming this close to us.

I fought with all I had. My mom said to stay there and that was what I would do. I would wait there for her forever if I had to.

Come on, baby. I need you to come with me, she said and held out her hand.

I am not a baby. I’m almost nine. I am not going with you anywhere so you can take your hands off of me. What did you do with my mom?

We can go over all of that, but I need you to come with me first. She held her smile despite my yelling at her and that pissed me off more. I wanted her to be mad like I was.

No! I screamed.

Honey, you have to. You can’t stay here, and your mom has to go away for a while. Her smile faded that time and a frown crept into its place.

My mom was all I had in the world. To hear them say they were taking her from me was worse than if they would have killed me.

CHAPTER ONE

D reamer, come on now , honey. We have to get moving. The best rides leave early and you know that, my mom screamed for me to hurry up in the bathroom.

I didn’t want to get out of the tub though. It wasn’t very often we could afford a hotel room and I wanted to soak as long as I could. The water was still warm and the bubbles hadn’t disappeared yet.

Come on. You look like a wrinkly, brown raisin.

She laughed but pulled me out of the lukewarm water anyway. Wrapping me in one of the stiff white towels all hotels had that would make me itch the rest of the day, she rubbed the water off me. When she got to my head, she flung the towel over it until I was gone then rubbed hard. When she moved it away, I was left standing there with my curly, light brown hair sticking up all over.

You and that hair of yours, she laughed. Shaking her head, she brought me in closer to her and started the ever-lasting process of getting a brush through it.

I don’t know why your hair is so hard to handle. Mine was never like this, she said.

We looked so much alike; people commented on it all the time. We both had olive colored skin and deep blue eyes. Our hair had the same wild curls and, when she didn’t dye it, was the same light brown. Right now hers was the go-to blonde she loved to use, but even with that, it was unmistakable she was my mom.

Now get dressed, she said once she made it through the last of my tangles.

I did as she asked while finishing off the last donut we had. I offered to share it with her so she could eat too, but she said she wasn’t hungry.

Ready? She stood by the door to the grungy hotel with both of our bags slung over her shoulder.

Even though the place wasn’t really nice, it was better than the trucks we slept in most of the time. It was nice not having to ask a stranger to stop so I could go to the bathroom or have to wait until they were ready to let me sleep or eat.

Mom always said we had to be polite to them though. It was their house they were sharing with us. I didn’t see how a house could be on wheels, but I knew better than to argue with her too.

The ones who were nice to us, Mom was nice back to. The few that weren’t, left with her and never came back. I didn’t understand it when I was really little, but now that I was seven, I figured it out. The ones who tried to hurt us, she got rid of them. Never in front of me, but she came back with their blood all over her. Those were the times we had to hurry and leave.

Come on, Dreams. You are draggin’ today and we have to get moving.

She grabbed my arm with her free hand and practically dragged me through the parking lot of the big truck stop. We would sit there for hours sometimes waiting for the right ride to come along. Mom said we weren’t beggars, but she knew to look for the ones that had the right look. The ones who had been on the road for a long time and needed company.

She taught me to go for the men who weren’t well kept. Most of them hadn’t seen a woman in a long time and would gladly pick us both up if they thought they had a chance with the pretty woman.

She said to watch out for the foreign men. Not all of them liked women and some would be very mean to us. She said the ones with the track suits, sandals, and black knee-high socks were the ones to go after. She said to watch the rigs too. If one was really run down, they wouldn’t have money, but they could still be used if we were only looking for a ride.

The ones with the nice trucks were the ones she went after when we were low on cash or if she needed a nice place for a while.

She told me once, she never thought about these things much before she had me, but now that she had to watch out for me too, it was her job to make sure I wasn’t always around the pigs.

She taught me what it was to be able to take care of myself and to not need a man in my life to be happy. I knew she had to know what she was talking about because I had never seen her with the same guy twice.

Not that my mom was a slut or anything, she just knew she didn’t want to be with anyone. She said there was only one man she ever liked enough to spend a little time with and even he didn’t last.

She said that was my father. I didn’t remember anything about him and the few times I asked, she gave me very short answers. I never knew what to believe either. Her story changed almost every time. The one she liked the best was her story she told about him leaving us for another woman.

Her story was that he used to be a trucker and he was good to her for a long time. They were together for almost a year after I was born and happy. Until Mom caught him in bed with a sixteen-year-old girl.

She lost it and that was the last time she saw him. I wasn’t sure if he was in jail or what happened to him. I didn’t even have a name I could have looked up if I wanted too.

Mom didn’t have me in