Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) Read Free Page A

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