Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) Read online

  It became apparent that Tally had also seen the cars disappear from sight. Her demeanor changed, and her face betrayed a look of alarm. We gaped at each other in dismay for a brief moment before pressing our faces to the window pane to search for any sign of the vehicles.

  Bam!! I heard a loud explosion that came from the direction of Mitchell’s Market. And I saw thick plumes of black smoke fill the air.

  Chapter 4

  I don’t remember exactly what happened next. A surge of panic washed over me as I telephoned my next door neighbor Eleanor. I asked her to babysit Tally so that I could make a mad rush to Mitchell’s Market.

  Eleanor, a short, vibrant woman in her mid-sixties with grayish brown hair and hazel eyes, arrived a few minutes later. As Tally stood in the kitchen explaining what she had seen to Eleanor, I bolted out the back door, down the stairs, and up the dirt road. Mitchell’s Market was about a mile away, and I estimated that it would only take me a few minutes or so to reach the store if I ran the entire way.

  Darkness was descending upon the small town. There were no lamp posts along the roads of any kind on this side of Grayling. The light of the moon overhead slightly illuminated the path as I sprinted toward Mitchell’s.

  All sorts of thoughts rattled in my mind. What if the explosion had nothing to do with Amber and Phyllis? Mitchell’s Market could have suffered some type of calamity, or some freak accident could have happened.

  Stay calm, I thought. Perhaps there was a plausible explanation. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t jump to conclusions. Above all, stay calm. Maintain your composure, I ordered.

  Perhaps I was overreacting since Amber and Tally were both uttering nonsense about the woman. Maybe there was no such person.

  But the fleeting image of the white car was at the edge of my subconscious. There was no mistake as to what I had seen.

  When I have no one to talk to, I naturally start to over analyze things. There was no one to tell me that my fears were unfounded. What made matters worse was that I had left Tally home alone with Eleanor, who had no idea what was happening. What if there really was such a woman who was stalking my sisters? What if she returned to the house?

  After a couple of minutes, my legs began to ache, and I started to stagger up the road. The panic that burst through every vein in my body did not help matters any. I hoped that I could reach Mitchell’s Market, learn that everything was fine, and that Phyllis would drive Amber and me home.

  Then I realized that I should have believed Amber when she started complaining about the woman last year. Just because I could never catch a glimpse of the woman did not mean that Amber was making up stories. Everything seemed so confusing. My brain resisted the suggestion that Amber might have been right all along.

  As I got closer to Mitchell’s, curls of black smoke filled the air. My breath came in short gasps, and I slowed down a bit.

  In the distance, sirens wailed.

  Two police cars raced past me and stopped in front of Mitchell’s. An ambulance was already parked outside the store with its back doors wide open. My blue Taurus was engulfed in smoldering flames a few yards away.

  Two paramedics were helping Phyllis climb onto a stretcher as she talked to them, pointing to her leg. There was a big gash above Phyllis’ right eye brow, and her face was covered with soot.

  A crowd of about twenty people had gathered, mostly customers who heard the explosion. I scanned the road for any sign of the white car, but there was so much commotion and people milling around that I did not see anything out of the ordinary.

  The smoke was making my eyes water, and I started coughing.

  I moved past the ambulance toward the Taurus. The police were searching the perimeter of the vehicle. But what about Amber? Where was she? Wasn’t anyone going to help Amber get out of the car?

  I pushed my way through the crowd of onlookers toward the Taurus, grasped the passenger door handle and peered through the window. No one was there.

  Chapter 5

  A couple of police officers motioned for me to step back.

  “It’s dangerous for you to get too close to this vehicle,” a policeman yelled out, as he began securing the area with yellow tape.

  “That’s my car,” I heard myself say. No one seemed to pay any attention to me.

  The flames around the car were barely visible now. The siren of a fire engine howled in the distance and grew louder as the vehicle made it closer to where I was standing. A few more patrol cars arrived as well. Policemen were ordering people to keep away as the paramedics eased the stretcher that held Phyllis into the ambulance.

  Instinctively, I dragged myself toward the rescue vehicle. Perhaps the paramedics had already pulled Amber out of the Taurus. Maybe she was already in the ambulance.

  “Phyllis,” I screamed.

  With great difficulty, Phyllis lifted up her head to look at me. She appeared confused, weary. She had been scratched up pretty bad.

  “Take care of the girls. I’m just shook up a bit,” she said, as a paramedic closed one of the doors to the ambulance.

  “Where’s Amber?” I shouted.

  “In the car. She’ll be fine,” Phyllis said.

  “No, no!” I shook my head. “She’s not in the car.”

  Phyllis closed her eyes and sank down onto the stretcher.

  “Aunt Phyllis,” I yelled, as I reached into the ambulance and grabbed her hand.

  Her fingers stirred slightly. She lifted her head up a little and tried to force her eyes open. Then she moved her lips and uttered a series of garbled words that I could not decipher. Finally, she gave up and closed her eyes. I stepped away from the rescue vehicle.

  The paramedic slammed shut the other door, and then the ambulance was gone.

  Somewhere in the horizon, a ripple of thunder rumbled, and a burst of lightening streaked the dark sky. A storm was definitely heading our way.

  It was entirely possible that Amber could have wandered out of the car after the explosion and was still out there somewhere. The woods were deep, and she could be in the thicket, I thought. Maybe she was disoriented following the blast.

  “A person just doesn’t vanish into thin air,” I muttered under my breath. She had to be close by.

  I scanned the group of people who had gathered outside Mitchell’s Market. Amber could be in that crowd walking around somewhere. Or better yet, maybe an onlooker found her and took her inside the store for a glass of water. That was a very likely explanation.

  A short, bald officer with a crooked smile and a tall, skinny officer with black rimmed glasses and an indifferent expression approached me.

  “Hello, did I hear you say that the Taurus belongs to you?” the tall officer asked.

  “Yes, it does,” I said glancing toward my car.

  “Please,” I said. “My sister Amber was in the Taurus, and now I can’t find her.”

  “How old is she?” the tall officer asked. “By the way, my name is Ken, and this is Henry,” he said, pointing to his colleague.

  I nodded my greetings. “She’s ten. Have you seen her?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Henry said. “Ken and I were the first two responders here, and the lady who identified herself as Phyllis was the only person in the car. We called the paramedics who took over from there.”

  “But Amber was with Phyllis. I saw her get in the Taurus just a few minutes earlier,” I explained.

  “Is Phyllis your mother?” Kenneth asked.

  “No, she’s my aunt.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “My father died in an automobile accident years ago.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She’s not home,” I replied. What else could I say about my mother? Was it really the policeman’s business that Mom had left me and my siblings last year? I thought about telling them that I was responsible for my sister, but decided against the idea.

  I gave t
he officers a brief description of what Amber looked like, as well as what she was wearing.

  Ken and Henry surveyed the crowd of onlookers.

  “I’ll go see if your sister is inside Mitchell’s,” Ken said, as he headed toward the store.

  Chapter 6

  Henry pulled out a notepad, scribbled something down, and then stuffed it back into his blue shirt pocket.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Celia Kristine Lawrence,” I replied.

  “Oh, could you be related to Victoria Lawrence, the scientist?” he asked.

  “Victoria is my mother. How do you know her?” I asked.

  Henry chuckled. “You know it’s a small world. Last year, I worked on the investigation regarding her disappearance,” he said. “But then my boss called off the search after only a day or so. I guess your mother and Tom must be building a new life for themselves somewhere.” He grinned widely.

  I did not find that amusing. But I said nothing.

  “It’s been about a year since she left. Did you ever hear from her?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied, looking down.

  Everyone in town thought that my mother had abandoned me and my sisters because she wanted to elope with Tom, but I knew better. She was already divorced from Peter. She could have married Tom if she wanted. Mom did not have to take off the way she did. Despite all of the disparagement that she received, I still believed in her. I knew deep down that she would never abandon me and my sisters. We were all she cared about.

  And I did not appreciate people like Henry who knew nothing about Mom but thought that they had a right to talk about her in such derogatory terms. She was a very intelligent scientist. Before she left, she had been working on an experiment that would have transformed the world of human genetic engineering.

  Mom had said that if her experiment were a success, it would revolutionize science and man’s ability to combat disease naturally. I started to open my mouth to tell Henry that my mother was a good person. But when I realized that anything I said would not convince him otherwise, I bit my lip and took a step back.

  Ken returned and informed us that Amber was not in the store and that he had searched for her in the crowd without success. He also said that the bomb squad was on its way to investigate the explosion. The chief detective suspected that the fire was caused by a bomb that had been planted under my car.

  A bomb? Who would want to plant a bomb under the Taurus? If foul play caused the explosion, then foul play could have had something to do with Amber’s disappearance. Did the woman in the white car set the bomb there? Amber had told Phyllis that the woman was hiding behind my car. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long evening.

  At that brief moment when I was standing in darkness in front of Mitchell’s with the moon high overhead and the storm brewing to the west, I began to realize that Amber was truly missing. But how? Something tugged at my subconscious, urging me to search for my sister in the woods, but the woods seemed so dark and deep, and I did not know where to start.

  Phyllis was on her way to the hospital, and I had absolutely no one to help me. And Tally was home with Eleanor. To make matters worse, I felt that I needed to hurry and get back to Tally. I sensed that Tally was in danger.

  Henry and Ken assured me that they would send out a search team immediately to look for Amber, and as they moved to their patrol car, I could hear them radio headquarters about a missing child.

  Chapter 7

  I did not have much faith in the police. Last year, the chief of police had called off the search for Mom after only a couple of days.

  So I resolved to find Amber myself. I recalled reading a newspaper article once that said something like the first hour after a child disappears is called the “golden hour” because if you don’t find the child within that hour, then your chances of finding him or her diminish greatly after that.

  Still, I bet I could do a better job than the authorities. They could care less about Mom or Amber. They just go to the police station to collect a paycheck.

  Amber and Mom are a part of my life. They are my family. People don’t normally care about each other as much unless they have a bond of some sort between them. The police could care less about my family. Even though the police have more resources to conduct a search, they don’t have the motivation, the drive that I have.

  Yet I stood frozen, unable to move, paralyzed as thoughts twirled in my mind about Mom and Amber.

  When a streak of lightening lit the sky for a split second, I happened to glance toward the light post on the south side of Mitchell’s Market, and it was there that I saw him.

  He was leaning against the post with his hands tucked in the pockets of his faded blue jeans. He wore sneakers, a white t-shirt, and a blue and white varsity jacket with the words “Grayling High School” embroidered on the front pocket.

  His brown straight hair was combed back neatly. Although I could not see him too clearly, I could tell that his deep brown eyes were focused on me, scanning me from head to toe. He looked mysterious, out of place, and incredibly handsome and tall.

  It was Mark Greenbaum from last year’s chemistry class. Although I had stolen many casual glances at him in school, he never seemed to notice me or any other girl for that matter. Everyone knew him as the high school quarterback who was consistently on the honor roll. We regarded him as someone every girl wanted to date. But he never went out with anyone, at least no one I knew.

  And now in my moment of turmoil, when my entire world was falling apart, when I was completely bewildered, there he was across the road, staring at me.

  What was he doing there?

  What was more mysterious about his presence was that I had lived in Grayling all my life, and I had never seen him at Mitchell’s Market. Mark lived on the other side of town. He had no business at Mitchell’s. And he had no right to come into my world at this moment when the last thing I needed was to be distracted. But there he was. And for reasons I could not completely understand, I was glad he was there.

  I felt a chill move up my spine as he left his place by the post and started walking toward me.

  Chapter 8

  Mark stopped suddenly when he reached my car and stood there for several minutes, surveying the wreckage.

  The police had already wrapped yellow tape around the perimeter of the scene. Mark seemed very interested in observing the Taurus. He paused for a moment directly behind the tape and scanned the charred front end of the car.

  Then he turned his attention to me, looking carefully in my direction.

  Embarrassed, I glanced down at my shoes so as not to make it obvious that I had been staring at him.

  I was barely aware that Ken, one of the police officers, had approached me. He told me that the police department put out a full alert about Amber’s disappearance and that the Crawford County Sheriff was also assisting in the search.

  “We’re also going to get a group of volunteers together, as is usually the case, when we search for a missing person,” Ken explained.

  A search. A missing person. Those words sounded so cold and frightening!

  I had seen searches for missing people reported on television, but I never thought that I would be going through this again after my mother left.

  Was Mom’s disappearance related to what happened today? I could not understand how two people in one family could simply vanish. And the bomb? I wondered if the lady planted the bomb underneath my car. Was the bomb meant for me? I would have to tell the police every detail that I could remember about what Amber told me about the woman. My thoughts were anything but coherent.

  After more patrol cars arrived at the scene, Officer Henry returned to ask me a few questions. He pulled out his note pad again. I gave him another description of what Amber looked like, what she was wearing, and the approximate time I saw her climb into the Taurus with Phyllis. He assured me that two officers were already on their way to Grayling General
Hospital to question Phyllis if she were conscious.

  With Officer Henry listening attentively, I recounted the day’s events, including Amber’s statements about seeing a lady through the window and my own account of having spotted the white car that followed them. Henry took notes as I talked, and then he rushed off toward his patrol vehicle to radio headquarters.

  The crowd that had gathered outside the store began to disperse.

  Mark was busy talking to a couple of women carrying grocery bags. They had apparently been shopping inside when the explosion occurred.

  If customers who had heard the blast ran outside immediately after the episode, then how did Amber disappear without anyone seeing her? Why didn’t Phyllis notice what happened to Amber? Of course, Phyllis could have been knocked unconscious in the explosion. She did have a rather large gash on her forehead, and she appeared confused in the ambulance.

  What if the woman in the white car had coaxed Amber out of the Taurus after the blast? It would only have taken the lady a minute to snatch her.

  But then again, Amber could have lost consciousness in the explosion. Or worse. I shuddered at the thought of what could have happened to my sister.

  Today’s events convinced me that Mom’s disappearance was somehow related to Amber’s. It was too much of a coincidence that two members of a family had vanished. Mom would never leave her children. Never. I had to find her.

  As thoughts whirled in my mind, I took a few steps backward, away from the police sirens and glaring lights. Away from the horrible chemical stench of burning metal.

  If Amber had in fact made it out of the car herself, then she might be nearby. But where could she have gone? I twirled around and scanned my surroundings. The woods.

  Chapter 9

  Perhaps Amber was out there alone. Maybe she was hungry, cold, frightened.

  As I turned to face the woods, I caught a slight glimpse at the edge of my vision of a splash of blue and white hue against the green shrubs and brown tree barks. Could that be Amber in there? She was wearing a blue windbreaker the last time I had seen her.