Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) (18 page)

“Everyone is fine,” I said, not meeting her gaze. How could I tell my aunt that Mom was not the only person missing in the Lawrence family? How could I explain that Amber and Tally had disappeared as well? My aunt was not in a position to help me find my siblings anyway.

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that,” Phyllis said, turning her head slightly toward me. “With Victoria gone, I would not want to think I failed in my responsibility to take care of you girls, now would I?” She smiled.

I gave a fake grin.

“Aunt Phyllis, I have to get back home real quick, but I want to ask you something before I go,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s about the night of the explosion.”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Do you remember exactly what happened?”

“Of course, I do.”

“What do you recall?”

Phyllis took a deep breath. “I heard a loud bang, and then there was this awful pain in my head. I think I had knocked my head against the steering wheel or dashboard or something. I felt so dizzy, but I managed to stop the car.”

“What about Amber?” I asked.

Phyllis rolled her eyes and chuckled. “The entire time we were heading toward Michael’s Market, Amber was squirming in the back seat, looking out the window and saying that the bad lady was following us in a white car. That poor child is paranoid.”

I gasped without intending to do so as I leaned forward in my chair.

“What happened next?”

Phyllis tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. “Then I heard the explosion. Something caught fire.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“That’s when I must have hit my head. I don’t remember anything else, only the sound of sirens screaming, like the wailing of an ambulance. That’s all.”

“Oh,” I said, sinking back in my chair.

“Do you remember anything else that Amber said?” I asked.

Phyllis shrugged her shoulders and shook her head in denial. “No, not really. I was thankful that a nice lady came to help us right after the explosion. She was assisting Amber in the back seat. I think Amber had hit her head. Your sister is all right, isn’t she? I figured that if something was wrong, the ambulance would have taken her as well.”

“What woman was helping Amber?” I asked, trying not to sound alarmed.

“She was in a car traveling behind us, and she rushed out to help right after the explosion,” Phyllis said.

“What did the woman look like?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied softly.

Unconsciously, I rose from my chair and started pacing around the small room.

The guard peeked inside and told me that I only had two minutes left since he had to go back downstairs to his post.

“Aunt, Phyllis, I’ve been trying not to cause you too much stress in your condition, but I’ve got some awful news to tell you,” I said. I figured that I would have to explain what happened to Amber sooner or later. If Phyllis is released from the hospital tonight, she would find out that Amber was missing.

“What?” Phyllis asked. “Is Amber all right? Is she sick?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing like that. I don’t know if she’s sick or well because we have not been able to find her since the explosion.”

Phyllis gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes were wide.

“Y
ou’ve got to try to remember everything about the woman who helped Amber right after the explosion. Try to remember. I think Amber was abducted, and the woman may have something to do with it,” I pleaded.

The guard entered the room. “Come on. I’ve got to go back downstairs,” he said. “Visiting hours are over, and I can’t leave you up here by yourself.”

“Oh, give me a minute, please,” I begged.

The guard sighed out loud and said, “One minute exactly.” Then he stepped back into the hallway.

I clasped Phyllis’ hand. “Please, try to remember. What did the woman look like?”

“Well, I just recall her wearing an orange scarf with fringe,” Phyllis said. “I really did not get a good look at her face. I was so dizzy and shook up.”

“An orange scarf?” I asked.

“Yes, the crocheted kind with threads of silver sparkle yarn woven throughout,” she replied. She rubbed her head with her hand. “I’m getting a headache. Please go find Amber. There must be an explanation,” Phyllis said. “This can’t be happening. No, this can’t be. I was responsible for Amber. It’s all my fault.”

The impatient guard entered the room with his hands folded across his chest. “Time’s up. Let’s go,” he said.

As Phyllis buried her head in her pillow while mumbling that it was all her fault, I followed the guard down the hall and into the employee elevator.

Peculiar thoughts raced through my mind. The orange scarf that Phyllis had described was actually mine. Mom had crocheted it for me for Christmas several years ago. She and I had gone to the craft store together that year, and I had chosen the bright orange yarn and silver thread. It was around Halloween time, and the color had reminded me of bright pumpkins. Then I lost the scarf just last year. Or maybe someone had stolen it. I bit my lip as I thought of other articles of clothing that were missing from my house. Back then, I had thought that my room was just too cluttered for me to keep track of where I put my things.

We exited the elevator, and the guard led me to the emergency room. “Just go out that entrance. And next time, instead of wandering into restricted areas of a hospital, ask for directions. That’s what we have an information desk for,” he said pointing to the front desk.

I smiled politely and thanked him for having taken me to see my aunt.

At least ten more patients were in the emergency room lobby, waiting for their turn to see the physician. A curly haired nurse in her mid-thirties who held a file in her hand entered the lobby and called my name. She did not notice me as I stole behind her and slipped out the door into the parking lot.

Furious drops of rain pounded the pavement, and the wind made a mournful hiss as it rustled through the trees that hovered over the parking lot. I stood under the canopy at the entranceway, trying to collect my thoughts. From where I stood, I could see that Edgar’s car was no longer in the parking lot. He had apparently left as hastily as he had arrived.

The sound of police sirens grew fainter. Maybe the police were chasing after Edgar.

I had to find a way to get home. I needed Mark. He would be eager to hear of all of the things I had learned today. Mark would help me piece my thoughts together, if only I could find him. It didn’t make sense that he did not follow me to the hospital. Where could he have gone?

With Amber’s and Tally’s lives hanging in the balance, I had to maintain my composure. Mark had suggested that we follow Edgar around to see what his female personality did. But chasing after Edgar was out of the question since I did not have an automobile, and I had no clue as to where the old, strange man had gone.

I felt that time was running short, ticking away. Every minute lost was a minute that my sisters’ lives could be in danger. I scanned the parking lot and saw a taxi cab parked at the far end of the entranceway. Without hesitating, I sprinted through the rain toward the cab, and the driver agreed to give me a ride home.

A
fter the cab dropped me off at home, I ran to the kitchen and flipped on the light. The house was empty. Amber was gone. Tally was gone.

Mark was nowhere to be found. I had no idea as to where he could have possibly gone after the ambulance rushed me off to the hospital. He had seemed so concerned. It all didn’t make sense. If it were not for him, I would not have known what was in Catherine’s mind. I would not have thought to go and pay Sylvester a visit. And now Mark had abandoned me after all that we had been through together. Perhaps he really did not care, I thought. But he had seemed so genuine at the beach house.

Had Eleanor deserted me, too? I grabbed the phone and punched in her number.

“Eleanor, it’s me, Celia,” I said.

“Oh, I have been worried sick about you. I called the hospital five times, but they could not locate you in the emergency waiting room. They said you had checked in, but when they went to look for you, you were not there,” Eleanor said. “I figured they must have rushed you to another department for an MRI.”

“I’m fine. Honestly, I am. Have you heard anything about Tally?” I asked, closing my eyes and hoping that she would somehow answer in the positive.

“No. But the police arrived right after you left and took fingerprints. They believe there is a connection between the disappearance of your sisters and your mother’s disappearance.”

“I could have told the police that,” I said. “Where is Mark? Do you know where he went?”

“Yeah,” Eleanor replied. “He said he wanted to hurry over to the public library before it closed. He mumbled something about wanting to review the archives for newspapers that were published in Ohio decades ago. He wanted to check on some dates.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He said something about wanting to try to determine how long after Catherine broke off her engagement to Edgar that she met Sylvester,” Eleanor said. “He said that if his hunch turned out right, then Peter is Edgar’s child. He wanted to make sure that I told you that if I talked to you. He said that this piece of information is very important and that it makes all the difference in the world. Mark also wanted me to let you know that as soon as he found what he was looking for in the library, he would meet up with you at the hospital.”

The voice on the other end of the receiver paused for a brief moment.

“Did Mark say anything else?” I asked.

“No,” Eleanor replied. “But he sounded so peculiar. He kept repeating himself, telling me to inform you that he has a very strong hunch that Peter is Edgar’s child. He was enunciating the word hunch very distinctively, like hunch meant something.”

As Eleanor’s words began to sink in, a sudden surge of alarm pulsed through my body.

“Oh, no,” I screamed, dropping the telephone receiver. It was as if a window opened up in my mind at that moment, and everything started to fall into place. I started to piece together all of the jagged pieces of the puzzle.

Sylvester had said that Peter was not his child. I recalled what Catherine was thinking just before they discontinued life support. She had remembered that she recognized the kidnapper’s eyes, the eyes of a child. The kidnapper was a child to her, her child, who was Peter.
Peter was the kidnapper
, I thought. Then Edgar’s alter personality, Shelly, had said that she saw the boy kill Brandon.
The boy was Peter
. Edgar was Peter’s father. Travis was Peter’s grandfather.

Catherine married Sylvester very shortly after breaking off her relationship with Edgar. She was already pregnant with Edgar’s child when she wed. Sylvester had told us that Catherine played a trick on him. The trick was that she had not told Sylvester she was already pregnant with Edgar’s child when she met him. She might not have even loved Sylvester, did not really want to marry him, but did so because she did not want to have a child out of wedlock. Catherine might not have revealed to Sylvester that she was pregnant until after they got married. Catherine did not want to shame her family.

“Hello, hello, Celia, are you there?” came Eleanor’s loud voice through the receiver that was dangling on its cord.

I took a deep breath but that did not stop the tidal wave of bewilderment that washed over me. Instinctively, I reached for the telephone receiver with my trembling hand, unable to coordinate my mind and body with precision enough to clutch the handset. In my heart, I knew that Mark’s hunches were more than feelings. They were primal instincts that zeroed in on a target with extreme accuracy. If only Mark were here to comfort me and tell me that everything would be just fine. I needed reassurance that Amber and Tally were still safe and that they had not met the same fate as Brandon.

I moved toward the sink, closed my eyes, and sighed. Now what? Do I wait for Mark to return? Should I rush to the public library to look for him? I rummaged through the kitchen cabinet drawer, snatched the keys to the Lincoln, and raced toward the garage.

I
had forgotten that the driver’s side window of the Lincoln had been shot out at Catherine’s house. One good look at the car in the garage reminded me of that inconvenient fact. I found an old towel on a shelf, brushed the broken pieces of glass that had splattered onto the driver’s seat, jumped in the car, and drove off.

Just as I made it onto the main road, a ripple of thunder roared, and a burst of lightning speckled the dark sky. Raindrops were falling steadily now. I had to get to Peter’s house in Gaylord in a hurry, but I was not sure whether or not I had enough time to find Mark first.

Amber and Tally were in danger. I hoped they were still alive. Would I get there a minute too late? Mark had been furious with me when I went to Catherine’s house alone, and understandably so. He would even be more furious if I tried to go to Peter’s house by myself. I wondered if Mark found the information he was looking for in the library. If he did, then he would have known that Peter was the culprit.

I turned down the street and headed straight to the library, with rain streaming through the front window. My hair was drenched, and my clothes were soaked. But that was the least of my problems. To my disappointment, by the time I pulled up to the library, its doors had officially closed. There was not a single car in the parking lot, not even Mark’s pickup truck. Mark was nowhere to be seen. I could not just waste time driving around searching for him. Time was running short, and Amber and Tally were in imminent danger.

I held my breath as I floored the gas pedal and headed to Peter’s house through the storm. His home was located at the outskirts of Gaylord near a small lake. I had gone there a couple of times with my mother when she was married to Peter to collect the rent from the tenants who lived there at that time. But when Mom divorced Peter, he evicted the tenants and moved back into the house.

I should have known it was Peter all along, I thought. He was strange, creepy. I never felt comfortable being around him. Mom did not tell me why she wanted to divorce him after only being married for one year. She was not one to talk much about her personal life. But there was a time when I felt that she thought he was creepy, too.