Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) (17 page)

“What do you mean by guarded?” Edgar asked.

“She refused to give me any information during my hypnosis sessions. But I continued to question Darcy for years. Finally, she became weary and put her guard down little by little. Then when she finally opened up to me, the information cascaded out of her like an avalanche.”

“What did she reveal?”

Dr. Foster stood still, glanced out the window, and shook his head. “This rain just does not want to let up, does it? It hasn’t rained this much in months.”

He settled into the chair behind his desk, leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and tilted his head back. “Darcy admitted to me that she killed your mother because she thought she was protecting Travis. She believed that your mother was conspiring against Travis. Well, later I learned that Darcy herself, being the alter personality, actually suffered from schizophrenia. She thought everyone was bad and was conspiring against Travis. She wanted to protect him from the people around him. That’s why she killed your mother.”

Edgar rubbed his brow. “Did my father know any of this?”

“Of course not. Travis did not have a clue,” Dr. Foster said. “But then I made the mistake of telling him about Darcy. I explained to him what Darcy had done. When he finally accepted the facts that I have just conveyed to you, he became very despondent. Very reclusive. He talked of suicide often throughout the years, but never tried to kill himself. We had him under 24 hour observation for years. He was upset over having killed his wife, and he was even more distraught that the authorities took you away when you were a child. He loved you dearly.”

The doctor rose from his chair, threw his arms back, and stretched.

“Then what happened?” Edgar asked.

“Travis had always hoped that one day he would be released from this hospital and that he would find you. He talked about that at every opportunity, probably at every therapy session. Connecting with you became an obsession of his. It was only during the last five years that I began to think that he showed remarkable improvement in his outlook on life.”

Edgar gave a crooked smile. “My father loved me,” he said under his breath.

“Oh, you were the most precious thing in his life. His dreams of finding you helped him to regain some of his optimism. He kept a small photograph of you under his pillow. Of course, the photograph was one taken of you at a young age.”

“Then how did my father die?” Edgar asked.

Silence fell upon the spacious room. Dr. Foster stood still for a long time, looking up at the ceiling. “I guess you could blame the news media for that. As I said, he began to improve, and so we treated him like any other patient and even let him watch television in the cafeteria with the rest of the patients. The only channel we let them watch is the Disney Channel, for obvious reasons. Our psychiatric patients are strictly forbidden from watching the news. But a patient happened to be flipping through the channels when the nurse was not paying attention, and Travis caught a glimpse of the photograph of you that the Twelve O’clock News flashed on the screen just after Amber’s abduction. He heard the report about you and that the police are looking for you as a person of interest in Amber’s disappearance. He also learned about Brandon’s death in Ohio and that you, or your other personality, has stalked Catherine all of these years. He got an immediate history lesson when he heard on the news channel that you, his own son, may have had something to do with Brandon’s death decades ago and with Amber’s disappearance. The newscast provided information about your previous arrests and detailed that you were caught wearing female clothing but had no recollection of stalking Catherine or wearing female clothing. Travis immediately started crying and shaking uncontrollably and blaming himself for Amber’s abduction and for Brandon’s death. He said that he brought you into this world and that he had no business spreading his evil genes around. Travis said that the madness had to stop. The last time I talked to him, he was rocking back and forth in his chair and saying that the madness has got to stop.”

E
dgar opened his mouth wide. A look of horror overtook the expression of astonishment. He would not look up at the doctor. “We have evil genes,” he finally whispered to no one in particular. “My father passed down his evil multiple personality gene to me. Oh, my!”

Edgar buried his face in his hands.

Tucked away in my hiding spot, my mind was racing, probing, yearning to understand how Amber’s abduction and Brandon’s death were tied to Edgar somehow. Was Edgar’s other personality the woman who used to peer at Amber and Tally through the window? Did Edgar’s female personality kill Brandon decades ago and then abduct Amber? But then again, Edgar’s alter personality, Shelly, had said that she saw the boy kill Brandon. Was the boy Peter, my step father? The thought was disturbing since my sisters and I had lived in the same house with him while he was married to my mother.

Edgar wrapped his arms across his chest. His eyes were closed, and an anguished expression was on his face. And of course, Edgar had good reason to be appalled.

It is one thing to tell someone that he is stupid or ugly or foolish. It’s quite another to tell him he has evil genes. Genes make us who and what we are, and if we have evil genes, then I guess, in essence, we are evil. Our souls would be evil. Every inch of us would be sinister, despicable.

Dr. Foster dug his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “But Travis’ faith in you and love for you was strong. After we calmed him down, I took him into my office and we talked about the news account for a long time. Travis became very interested in learning more about Catherine and asked me to find out when you were dating Catherine. He wanted to know why she broke off the engagement with you and the exact date she broke it off. He also wanted me to determine the exact date that Catherine married Sylvester.”

“Why?” Edgar asked.

“I’m not sure.” Dr. Foster shook his head. I think Travis was trying to figure out in his own mind whether or not you committed those crimes. So I reminded him that the news account said that Catherine broke off the engagement with you just a couple of months prior to meeting and marrying Sylvester. Finally, Travis said that he was convinced that you had killed no one. He said that you were a good boy and he always knew in his heart that you would never hurt anyone. But then he said that he felt responsible for Brandon’s death and Amber’s kidnapping nonetheless. He kept repeating that the madness had to stop.”

“What does that mean? How was he sure that I had not killed Brandon?” Edgar asked.

“I have thought about his statement, but I can’t quite understand the logic he used. He said that he felt that you did not kill Brandon but that the madness had to stop. Somehow, those two statements seem to contradict each other,” Dr. Foster said. “Now I guess I will never know. Everything went downhill from there. Travis started uttering gibberish, constantly talking about evil genes and that he had no right to contaminate the world with evil genes and that he needed to put an end to all the madness by taking his evil genes out of business. Later that day I found him crying in his bed and saying that it was too late, that his genes have been unleashed upon the universe, like a horse escaping out of a barn, so to speak.”

Edgar sat in silence. There was a look of confusion on his face.

“The next thing I knew, the staff informed me that Travis had hung himself to death with his bed sheets,” Dr. Foster said.

Edgar grimaced.

“What I don’t understand is that if Travis thought that you had not committed any crimes, then why did he say that he had unleashed his evil genes out into the universe?”

Edgar looked at the pile of police incident reports that Dr. Foster had plopped down on the coffee table.

“So this book that you’re writing about multiple personality disorder obviously focuses on my father and me?”

Dr. Foster scratched his head. “I just need a signed consent from you so that I can reveal any confidential information in the book about you. I already had your father sign one. To be more specific, the book is about multiple personality disorder as an inherited genetic defect. If a person has such a disease, what is the likelihood of him passing it down to his offspring? Does the inherited trait skip a generation or does it surface in a hundred percent of the cases? You and your father are perfect examples of this subject, and that is why I want to use you as a case study. Your participation in this project is even more important now since your father is dead.”

“And what is the title of your book?” Edgar asked wearily.

“It’s called
Hand Me Down Evil
.”

E
dgar stood up, inadvertently knocking the coffee cup off the table. “How dare you call me and my father evil,” he screamed. “How dare you treat us like a bunch of murderers. You’re all in on this together, you and the police, aren’t you? You want to lock me up in a hole like this hospital so you can study me and make millions off your book. Well, I’m not giving you the chance. Go study someone else.” Edgar pushed the door open. I could hear him racing down the hallway.

“But wait,” Dr. Foster yelled. “It’s not like that, I promise you. Don’t be fooled by the title of the book. I can change the title if it offends you.”

I heard the sound of fading footsteps.

The doctor was running after Edgar.

“Someone call the police, call security at once,” Dr. Foster was yelling.

When I was sure that the both of them had gone, I exited the closet and trotted out of the office. As I turned the corner with the intention of running down the staircase, I saw the door close at the opposite end of the hallway. I stopped in my tracks. There would be no way for me to get to the main hospital if I took the stairway closest to Dr. Foster’s office, I thought. I would have to go down the staircase at the opposite end of the hall. With my heart pounding in my chest, I turned on my heels and sprinted through the corridor and down the stairs. Then I dashed out of the door at the bottom of the staircase and raced down the narrow hallway that led to the main hospital area. It was there that a guard, a bulky, stern looking man in his mid-sixties spotted me and asked me what I was doing in a restricted area of the hospital.

I stopped, took a deep breath, and faced the guard who was blocking the door that lead to the emergency room lobby. Apparently, he had been watching me all along the moment that I snuck out of the staircase enclosure.

I had to think of something, any excuse, fast. Had the guard not stopped me, I would have made my way home and searched for Mark. Surely, Mark needed to hear all of the things that Edgar had told Dr. Foster. It was important for Mark to understand what Edgar’s other personality thought happened to Brandon. With his good intuitive skills, Mark would definitely figure out who killed Brandon.

While the guard looked severely at me from above his thin rectangular glasses, I cleared my throat and held my breath.

“I was trying to visit my Aunt Phyllis,” I told him. “She was admitted to this hospital yesterday evening.”

“Young lady, you did not hear my question,” the guard said. He sounded impatient. “I didn’t ask who you were visiting. I questioned why you were in a restricted area of the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I replied. “I must have made the wrong turn and got lost. I am looking for the area where my aunt would be.”

The guard rolled his eyes.

“Sure, you are. The patient rooms are on the other side of the hospital on the second floor,” he said motioning toward the emergency room door. “You’ve got to go through the emergency area and take the staircase or elevators at the other end. But visiting hours are over, and you should have checked with the information desk before wandering around by yourself,” he said. His expression softened a bit.

“I’m sorry. I meant no harm,” I responded.

The guard gazed sheepishly at me. “Come on, kid. If you promise to make it short, I’ll take you to see your aunt.”

I smiled politely and accepted his offer.

During all of the commotion of the day’s events, I had not even thought to visit Aunt Phyllis, and a feeling of guilt set in. I did not even bother to call her. Now I was just going to see her to find out what she could remember of the explosion and what happened to Amber.

I felt a sense of relief as the guard led me through a long corridor instead of the emergency room. It would be a disaster if the clerk at the triage desk recognized me and told the guard that I was actually a patient, not a visitor. After we exited the employee elevator on the second floor, the guard led me to room 210, where I caught a glimpse of my aunt in bed. She had bags under her eyes. The nasty bruise on her forehead was still there, red and bulging, a stark reminder of what had happened to her and Amber the night before.

“Oh, darling, come in. I’ve been thinking about you and your sisters all day. I called the house so many times just yet, but there was no answer,” Phyllis said, as I sat down beside her.

The guard stood outside the room waiting for me.

“I really should have called you, but so many things have been happening. I have not even had a chance to catch my breath since yesterday,” I confessed.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. This nasty bump on my head had the doctors concerned. I told them I was fine, but they did not believe me. They admitted me just so I could get an MRI,” she explained.

I bent over and gave Aunt Phyllis a big hug.

“And will you be all right?” I asked.

“Of course I will. I had a slight concussion. That’s all. They might discharge me tonight. I’ll let you know when the doctor comes later. But how have you and Amber and Tally been managing without me?” she asked, trying to lift her head up. Grimacing in pain, she sank back down on her pillow and bit her lip.

Obviously, Aunt Phyllis had not heard about Amber, and she certainly did not know that Tally was missing, as well. I debated whether or not to tell her about my sisters and decided against the idea. The last thing I wanted to do was to make her sicker than she was. Besides, what could she possibly do but worry about Amber and Tally? The knot on Phyllis’ forehead did not look any better than it had yesterday.