Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) (4 page)

“I have a feeling that Amber is not too far from here,” he said.

I could not quite place my finger on it, but his comments were very odd. He made them as if he were talking candidly, like he really knew something about Amber, when in fact he had never met her.

We stood near the lamppost just outside the store. Mark had one hand in his pocket and was clutching the post with the other hand.

I tried to keep from staring at his handsome face, but somehow could not manage to look away. There was definitely an irresistible energy that compelled me to keep talking to him so that he would not go away. It might be a long time before I saw him again since I did not have him in any of my classes this semester.

“How do you know Amber will be okay?” I asked.

“I just have that feeling,” he said, his voice calm.

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?” I asked.

“No.” He threw his head back and chuckled. “Although, I must confess, if I knew what words I could say to ease your concerns, I would not hesitate for a moment to speak them.”

I laughed without intending to do so.

“Everything will be fine. I promise you that,” he said, meeting my gaze.

“I certainly hope so, but I must admit that right now I feel miserable. My entire world is crumbling, falling apart,” I said with an audible sigh. “I saw you talking to a couple of police officers earlier. Did they have any information?”

“Well, they were asking me if I saw anything, but I told them I arrived just about the same time they did,” Mark responded.

We both lingered at the post for a while, watching the detectives as they photographed my car, took measurements of the road, and jotted down notes.

The cold wind picked up speed. I shivered. Mark took off his varsity jacket and put it around my shoulders.

W
hat happened next really baffled me, though, more than all of Mark’s previous comments. Officer Henry approached me and asked if I happened to have a photograph of Amber. In my haste, I pulled out the wallet from my back jean pocket, fumbled through it, and then replied that I did not have a picture with me but that I could find one when I returned home.

“Look in the zippered part of your wallet,” Mark suggested.

I had not thought to look in the zippered pocket since I had not placed anything in it for months. Years ago, Mom had told me to hide a twenty dollar bill there just in case I ran out of money.

Clumsily, I unzipped the pocket, pulled out the faded twenty dollar bill, a few singles, and some photographs of my mother and sisters. I had forgotten that I had put the photos in there.

“There, I found a picture,” I said, handing Officer Henry the photograph. “This picture was taken of Amber about a year ago, but it’s a very good likeness of her.”

When Henry left, I gave Mark a quizzical glance and asked, “What made you think to tell me to look in the zippered pocket?”

He raised an eyebrow, smirked, and simply shrugged his shoulders.

“I’d forgotten I had put those photos there in the first place, but somehow you knew they were in there, didn’t you?” I asked.

Mark ignored my question.

“Hey, would you like a ride home?” he asked, changing the subject. “I don’t think you can drive this one anymore,” he said, pointing to the Taurus.

“You’re right. I’ve lost all track of time. I had better get back to Tally. She and the babysitter are probably wondering what happened to me. But with Amber missing, I don’t feel that I should be going home.”

“The police are conducting a search. Go home and get some rest,” he said.

“I hope they find Amber soon,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll find her,” he said, motioning toward the team of policemen who were starting to walk into the woods with flashlights and whistles.

To me it seemed as if every officer in town was working on this case along with the Crawford County Sheriff.

And for a moment, I contemplated staying behind to help them in the search.

What if something turned up? What if the officers needed more information? I had already told them about the woman in the white car. But I was not able to describe exactly what type of car it was since I had only seen the tail end of it.

And what would I do at home? I could not possibly sleep at a time like this. What if the police don’t find Amber by tomorrow morning? I shuddered at the thought and clenched my jaw.

A strong gust of wind tore at the jacket Mark had draped on my shoulders, and I pulled it closer to me to keep from shivering. The only good thing that had happened this evening was that I had spoken to Mark. Actually, it was he who spoke to me first. He sought me out, followed me into the woods, and wrapped his jacket around my shoulders. He even reassured me that Amber would be okay to keep me from falling apart.

But something nagged at my subconscious about Mark’s behavior. He was overly optimistic. He had spoken with such an air of confidence that I began to wonder what his true motive was in coming to this side of town in the first place.

Why tonight? Why would he just be casually driving by Mitchell’s Market? Why didn’t he talk to any girls at school even though plenty tried to talk to him? I was truly puzzled.

We walked back to Mark’s black pickup truck, climbed inside, and drove away. When we reached my home, we exchanged telephone numbers, and Mark promised to return to check on me early in the morning.

“Call me immediately if the police tell you anything,” he said as he drove off into the night.

Eleanor opened the door and let me in. She told me that Tally fell asleep on the couch, gesturing toward the living room. I gave her a brief account of what had happened, and she said that she had been keeping track of the incident on the local news channel. Eleanor had known our family for years and she was naturally very concerned. Before leaving, she agreed to return the following day to babysit Tally.

I locked the door after Eleanor left, took a quick shower, and threw on my white cotton pajamas. After I covered Tally with a blanket as she snoozed on the couch, I made a cup of hot chocolate and collapsed into the recliner in the living room next to the bay window.

As I scanned the woods, I wondered about Amber, Mom, and Mark. There was something at the periphery of my subconscious that was bothering me. I remembered something disturbing that Amber had told one of her psychologists about the woman she claimed to have seen outside the window. Amber had said that the woman was really a man dressed in female clothing.

I
must have fallen asleep sometime after midnight on the recliner. Somewhere deep within my subconscious state, I dreamed that I was walking through dark woods in the middle of the night yanking blue wildflowers out of the ground and calling Amber’s name. Then I heard someone approach, and I looked up at him and saw his eyes for a split second before he was gone again. But after he left, I was somehow still hypnotized by his eyes, and I kept looking for him though he had vanished from my field of vision.

Whose eyes were they?

With thoughts of Amber and Mark and Mom whirling through my mind, I fell into an even deeper slumber.

The chime of the doorbell woke me up at the break of dawn. Although my eyes popped open, it took me a few seconds to regain full consciousness. I was hoping that the events of the past day were just a dream, but as I recalled the scene in front of Mitchell’s Market, I became immensely aware of my predicament. There was much to be done today.

I was still in my pajamas when I eased open the side door, shielded my eyes with my hand from the bright glare of the fluorescent lamp, and saw Mark standing in the doorway. He was clutching two cups of hot chocolate and a box of doughnuts. I smiled slightly and waived him in. Then I went into the bedroom and returned wearing my white bathrobe and slippers.

When we settled in the chairs at the kitchen table, Mark insisted that I eat a doughnut despite my protest that I did not feel hungry. Reluctantly, I bit into the custard filled doughnut and took a sip of hot chocolate.

“I called the police this morning, and they still don’t have any leads about Amber. Remember Officer Billy Haddaway who serves as the high school liaison? He’s the one I talked to. Very helpful guy. He sounded really concerned,” Mark said. “And so I’ve concluded that we need to really search for her ourselves, but not the way you started looking for her in the woods yesterday. We have to figure out who would do this. Who has a motive? I don’t think Amber stumbled out of the car suddenly and started running into the woods. The police did search the entire area last night and found absolutely nothing.”

I nodded my agreement and gave a slight smile. Mark must have realized that the police were worthless.

“I would do anything to find Amber,” I said. “Quite frankly, since this incident yesterday, I have been thinking about Mom as well. You know that Mom disappeared about a year ago, don’t you?” I asked.

“Of course. Who in Grayling doesn’t know of Victoria Lawrence?” Mark asked.

“I don’t believe for a minute that my mother would just take off with a fellow scientist. Her departure must have had something to do with the nature of the experiments she was conducting. She was probably in some kind of danger. Mom was so hush, hush about what went on in the laboratory.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed. “The question is who would want to harm Victoria and Amber?”

I recounted everything that I could remember about the woman Amber claimed to have seen and about the white car.

Mark stood up, went toward the window and gazed out at the woods for a long time. He was rather tall and well built, like he had been lifting weights. I had not remembered him being that tall in school. Of course, I had never really been this close to him.

In school, Mark was usually already seated by the time I made it to the chemistry laboratory, and immediately after class he got up and walked out without saying a word. When I attended football games, he was on the field, of course, with the rest of the team members, and seemed small from a distance.

He appeared much more handsome close up. I detected a few light freckles under his eyes, which are not even visible from afar.

As I sat at the table, sipping hot chocolate, another thought came to mind. If Mark had not shown up at Mitchell’s Market, who would I turn to? Phyllis was in the hospital. Mom was missing. I had distanced myself from my schoolmates because I did not have the time to socialize anymore after Mom disappeared. Besides, I resented all of the curious glances the girls gave me at school, and so I just chose to be alone. That way, I did not have to make excuses or explain anything about Mom to anyone.

That is why I looked at Mark with such admiration as he stood near the window. He chose to stand by me when I was at the lowest point in my life in the woods last night, when I needed a good friend, although he did not really know me. He did not ridicule me when I thought Amber was in the woods. Mark seemed so mature although he was only seventeen.

Had Mark noticed me when I was sitting across from him in chemistry class? Surely, he knew my name since we were classmates, but what did he think of me? Had he approached me yesterday because he felt a connection to me as a schoolmate? In chemistry class, I would never have imagined that he would even say hello to me.

Who would believe that he brought a cup of hot chocolate and doughnuts to my house in the early morning? And he had already contacted the police to inquire about Amber. Was he genuinely concerned? He certainly behaved that way.

“Mark, I’m so glad that you have decided to help me. With Phyllis in the hospital and Mom gone, I don’t know who else I could have turned to. I’d probably be sitting here alone wondering what to do if you had not shown up last night,” I said.

A smile lit up his face. “You know I would never leave you at a time like this. Besides, it’s really a pleasure to help out,” he said.

I grinned and exhaled.

There were so many things I wanted to ask him like whether or not he even noticed me in chemistry class and why he had never talked to me then. In fact, I wanted to find out why he never talked to any girl and why he kept to himself. But I knew not to overstep my boundaries. Mom had once told me that males and females are made differently mentally. She was a scientist who had studied genetics and even conducted genetics experiments, so I assumed that she knew what she was talking about.

She told me that I should never ask a guy too many questions because that would only upset him and make him feel that I was invading his space. Mom reasoned that I would have to pick up on a guy’s feelings from things that he did, from his actions, not from his words, as guys usually don’t talk about their feelings. So I did not ask any questions.

Just as Mark sat down at the kitchen table, the doorbell rang, and he sprung to his feet and went to the door. When he reappeared, Officers Henry and Ken trailed close behind.

I
instinctively rose from my chair. “Have you heard any word about Amber?” I asked.

Ken shook his head. “I am afraid not, but we want to talk to you about something else.”

“Please sit down,” I told the officers, gesturing toward the wooden chairs.

“What’s going on?” Mark asked after the officers had settled in their seats.

Henry cleared his throat. “Well, you know Catherine Singleton?”

“Of course, she’s Mom’s former mother in law. Catherine is Peter’s mother,” I said.

“Who is Peter?” Mark asked.

“He was my step-father. My biological father died in a car accident when I was in middle school. Mom married Peter a couple of years ago, but they divorced not too long after that,” I replied.

“Catherine was found unconscious this morning outside her home,” Henry said. “Unfortunately, she is not doing very well. That she’s up there in years does not help matters any.”

I almost choked on my hot chocolate.

“A jogger was taking his usual route early this morning and as he ran past Catherine’s house, he discovered her lying on her back in the nearby stream and called an ambulance. Naturally, we were notified because foul play is suspected,” Ken explained.