Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy)

by

Celia’s world begins to crumble when her younger sister, Amber, disappears without a trace. During her quest to find Amber, Celia learns that the eccentric and elusive Edgar Humphries might have had something to do with the abduction. With the police hot on his trail, Edgar desperately conducts his own search to determine if his other personality, a female named Shelly, has kidnapped Amber. That is when Celia decides to follow Edgar around to figure out what his other personality has done. But Celia’s life is further complicated when the mysterious and strikingly handsome Mark Greenbaum, upon whom Celia has a secret crush, appears out of nowhere and offers to help Celia locate her lost sister. Celia eventually comes face to face with the twisted culprit at an isolated location where no one can hear her scream. Embroiled in the battle of her life, Celia’s only hope is that someone will find her and save her before it is too late.

Hand Me Down Evil
is the first of a trilogy. The other two novels will be released in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Title Page
Synopsis
Dedication

Chapter 1
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Chapter 2
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Chapter 3
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Chapter 4
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Chapter 5
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Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
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Chapter 8
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Chapter 9
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Chapter 10
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Chapter 11
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Chapter 12
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Chapter 13
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Chapter 14
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Chapter 15
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Chapter 16
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Chapter 17
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Chapter 18
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Chapter 19
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Chapter 20
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Chapter 21
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Chapter 22
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Chapter 23
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Chapter 24
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Chapter 25
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Chapter 26
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Chapter 27
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Chapter 28
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Chapter 29
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Chapter 30
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Chapter 31
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Chapter 32
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Chapter 33
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Chapter 34
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Chapter 35
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Chapter 36
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Chapter 37
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Chapter 38
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Chapter 39
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Chapter 40
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Chapter 41
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Chapter 42
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Chapter 43
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Chapter 44
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Chapter 45
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Chapter 46
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Chapter 47
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Chapter 48
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Chapter 49
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Chapter 50
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Chapter 51
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Chapter 52

About Allison James
Acknowledgements
Copyright

This book is dedicated to my father Charlie, my brothers James, Billy, and Alex, and my cat, Cuddy Boy, who left this world way before his time.

J
ust when I thought that my younger sister, Amber, had been cured of her mental illness, she started acting strangely again. I could hear her and Aunt Phyllis arguing in the kitchen as I made my way down the stairs and into the living room. I began to realize that my life would never return to normal, if it had been normal in the first place. Any progress the therapists claimed to have made with Amber was pure nonsense.

It started about a year ago when Mom left me and my two sisters without any warning. Actually, I like to say that Mom disappeared since the word disappeared covers all of the possible explanations as to what happened to her. To put it simply, the trouble began when Mom, a scientist, went to work one morning at the Northern Biogenetics Laboratory in Gaylord, Michigan, just a few miles away from where we live in Grayling. I will never forget that day. It was September 24, 1985 to be exact. She had picked up a co-worker, Scientist Thomas Grange, with whom she frequently carpooled to work. Neither she nor Thomas ever came back. That was the last anyone saw of them.

If that was not enough, the police had absolutely no leads as to Mom’s whereabouts. The detectives found Mom’s car at the airport in Traverse City but with no evidence of foul play. No one saw Mom and Thomas leave. There was no record of them flying anywhere. With nothing to go on, the chief detective stopped investigating Mom’s disappearance after he concluded that Mom and Thomas skipped town together.

When I questioned the detective about his lack of interest in the case, he only spouted that since Mom had recently divorced my stepfather, Peter, she probably wanted to get away from all of the stresses that plagued her. But that did not explain why she never returned or how she had the heart to leave me, Amber and Tally. I was only sixteen, Amber was nine, and Tally was six. It made no sense to me.

I continued to move toward the kitchen, stopping briefly in the corridor to steal a quick glance in the oval mirror on the wall. As usual, my dark brown hair hung in loose curls around my shoulders. Had it not been for the thick lashes that outlined my blue eyes, my face would have looked super weary. I frowned at my reflection. My pale skin desperately needed a few rays of sun. But it was already November and with each passing day, the sun seemed dimmer and farther away. I tucked my purple wool sweater into my faded blue jeans, fumbled to make sure my belt was buckled, and then I hid behind the partially opened kitchen door to see what all the commotion was about this time.

“Stop it at once!” Phyllis told Amber in a harsh tone.

Phyllis was standing by the sink with her arms folded across her chest. When Mom disappeared, her older sister, Phyllis, had stepped in to help me take care of my siblings.

It was hard to believe that Phyllis was Mom’s sister since the two of them looked nothing alike. Mom was tall and slender with a bright complexion, blond hair, and curious blue eyes. Phyllis, who was seven years older than Mom, was short, overweight, and had broad shoulders. Her straight, brown hair that was split down the middle and tied neatly at the back of her head complimented her dark brown eyes. As usual, she was wearing her white and red checkered apron, a pair of black slacks, and a blue button up shirt.

“But I saw the lady outside,” Amber pleaded as she took a step forward and peered at the backyard from behind the curtain. She smoothed her long honey blond curls away from her face but did not take her gaze off of whatever caught her attention beyond the window. Amber was still wearing her school uniform, a blue cotton dress, white tights, and shiny black sandals.

Phyllis turned to face the window, throwing her arms up in a helpless gesture. “Well, what am I supposed to make of this?” she asked. “So you think you see the lady outside again? You’ve got to stop imagining things. I’ve heard of children imagining playmates, but I’ve never heard of any kid imagining a lady.” Phyllis pressed her lips into a straight line. “Pretty soon the bank accounts your mother established will be depleted. Then what will we do? My small pension check is barely enough to cover the house payment. We don’t have the money to keep taking you from therapist to therapist.”

I sighed unconsciously. Phyllis was right. The accounts were running low. Even the money I managed to save from working as a cashier at the local frozen yogurt shop, Yogurtown, on the weekends and during school breaks was almost gone. And I was supposed to be saving that money for my college education. With my luck, I would be heavily in debt by the time I started college classes next fall. I had not even saved enough money to buy books, let alone pay for tuition. With all of the commotion Mom caused by leaving, it would be a miracle if I even graduate from high school in the spring.

The thought of Mom’s departure made me shudder. Just yesterday, when I was walking home from school, it occurred to me that Mom’s disappearance might have had something to do with the secret project that she was working on in the laboratory. The project centered on human genetic engineering, but I never knew the details. Mom and her co-workers talked in hushed tones on the telephone on the weekends about their experiments, sometimes late into the night.

The few days before Mom left, she seemed preoccupied and absorbed in thought, like she was intensely worried about something. She was startled by everyday things like the sound of someone knocking on the door or the telephone ringing. The truth is that I had lost Mom as I knew her well before she left. And now, with Amber carrying on the way she did, I was afraid that I was losing my kid sister as well.

I stood still in the corridor behind the door, careful not to make any noise, and kept my gaze on my sister. Amber did not move. She had practically wrapped the beige curtain around her as she stared at the area near the garage.

Beyond the window, maple and oak trees with brightly colored red and yellow leaves lined the yard. Grayling was beautiful in the fall with piles of reddish brown leaves scattered upon the landscape, forming a natural golden blanket. A slight breeze blew in from the north and forced a few fiery red leaves to tumble to the ground.

With the sun setting in the west, an air of calmness settled upon Grayling. The yellow shed occupied the southeast corner of the yard, and the driveway, littered with leaves, ran perpendicular to the narrow dirt road that wound past Mitchell’s Market about a half mile up the lane and stretched for at least four miles until it split into two even thinner roads that extended east and west. What was Amber looking at? What was she expecting to see?

Phyllis untied her apron, hastily tossed it on the small round table, and moved toward Amber.

“You know your sister Celia has spent a small fortune on psychiatrists for you. Do you want her to start working on the weekends again to help make ends meet? Stop this nonsense at once!” Phyllis ordered.

“But the woman is out there. I saw her behind Celia’s car,” Amber whined. Her voice sounded small and thin.

Phyllis pressed her lips together, trying hard to hold back her comments. But true to her nature, she could not stop herself from spurting out her two cents worth of advice.

“You mean your imaginary friend?” Phyllis asked with a smirk on her face. “Who is out there? Is it the invisible lady who lurks outside the window? Is she asking you to come out and play? I think you’d do better to forget the lady and find some real friends!”

Amber’s blue eyes were wide open as she turned to face Phyllis, barely noticing my presence as I lingered on the other side of the door.

“She’s not imaginary, and she is not my friend. I don’t think she has any friends. She is trying to do something bad. I wish someone would believe me.” Amber’s voice was low, almost a whisper.

But Phyllis would not let up. “You don’t know how stressful this is for me and Celia. First, your mother divorces Peter for no apparent reason. Ha, Peter Singleton, where is he now? I wish he could see what a mess that divorce created. And if the split-up were not enough, your mother decides not to come home from work one day. She parks her car at Traverse City Airport and takes off with Tom Grange to God knows where. Now you start imagining friends that scare the daylights out of you.”

Amber blinked but said nothing.

“Stop thinking about your imaginary whatever and help me set the table,” Phyllis requested firmly, handing Amber a stack of placemats.

Amber reluctantly spun away from the window and began her chores. She arranged the four placemats on the table top and then set the dishes, silverware, and glasses.

Once the tension had subsided with Amber’s attention focused on her chores, I decided it was safe to enter the kitchen.

“H
i, Phyllis. Hey, Amber,” I said.

Phyllis looked up and gave a fake smile.

But Amber was at it again, staring at the direction of the window as she wiped a beverage glass with a dish cloth. Wrapped up in her thoughts, she did not seem to hear me.

One of the therapists who had treated Amber had once told me that when my sister started to act strangely, the best remedy was to distract her by refocusing her attention on something else. That usually meant taking Amber out of the house so that she could forget about whatever troubled her.

“Phyllis,” I said.

“I know.” Phyllis nodded. “Perhaps it’s best if Amber and I go to Mitchell’s Market and pick up a desert. In my hurry today, I forgot to buy desert for tonight’s dinner,” Phyllis said. “Amber, do you want to go with me to Mitchell’s? We will be back in time for dinner. And we’ll also buy some pancake mix for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

Of course, Amber accepted Phyllis’ invitation. She loved going to Mitchell’s Market. In the summer months, I used to take Amber and Tally there walking. We enjoyed getting a breath of fresh air while strolling up the path that lead to the small grocery store. The trees on both sides of the road formed a natural canopy and gave us plenty of shade on hot days.

“Good, this will get her mind off of whatever she thinks is outside,” I whispered to Phyllis.

As I helped Amber put on her blue windbreaker, my thoughts turned to the events of the past year. I had taken Amber to three different psychologists after she started complaining about seeing a lady outside her bedroom window. There was never anyone outside, of course. Whenever I looked, no one was there. One doctor thought that Mom’s sudden departure caused Amber to see images as her way of coping with Mom’s disappearance. But that psychologist, Dr. Andrew Lowe, also thought that Amber would eventually grow out of it. Now a year later, boy, was he ever wrong.