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

left me and my siblings last year? I thought about telling them that I was responsible for my sister, but decided against the idea.
    I gave the officers a brief description of what Amber looked like, as well as what she was wearing.
    Ken and Henry surveyed the crowd of onlookers.
    “I’ll go see if your sister is inside Mitchell’s,” Ken said, as he headed toward the store.

Chapter 6
    H enry pulled out a notepad, scribbled something down, and then stuffed it back into his blue shirt pocket.
    “What’s your name?” he asked.
    “Celia Kristine Lawrence,” I replied.
    “Oh, could you be related to Victoria Lawrence, the scientist?” he asked.
    “Victoria is my mother. How do you know her?” I asked.
    Henry chuckled. “You know it’s a small world. Last year, I worked on the investigation regarding her disappearance,” he said. “But then my boss called off the search after only a day or so. I guess your mother and Tom must be building a new life for themselves somewhere.” He grinned widely.
    I did not find that amusing. But I said nothing.
    “It’s been about a year since she left. Did you ever hear from her?” he asked.
    “No,” I replied, looking down.
    Everyone in town thought that my mother had abandoned me and my sisters because she wanted to elope with Tom, but I knew better. She was already divorced from Peter. She could have married Tom if she wanted. Mom did not have to take off the way she did. Despite all of the disparagement that she received, I still believed in her. I knew deep down that she would never abandon me and my sisters. We were all she cared about.
    And I did not appreciate people like Henry who knew nothing about Mom but thought that they had a right to talk about her in such derogatory terms. She was a very intelligent scientist. Before she left, she had been working on an experiment that would have transformed the world of human genetic engineering.
    Mom had said that if her experiment were a success, it would revolutionize science and man’s ability to combat disease naturally. I started to open my mouth to tell Henry that my mother was a good person. But when I realized that anything I said would not convince him otherwise, I bit my lip and took a step back.
    Ken returned and informed us that Amber was not in the store and that he had searched for her in the crowd without success. He also said that the bomb squad was on its way to investigate the explosion. The chief detective suspected that the fire was caused by a bomb that had been planted under my car.
    A bomb? Who would want to plant a bomb under the Taurus? If foul play caused the explosion, then foul play could have had something to do with Amber’s disappearance. Did the woman in the white car set the bomb there? Amber had told Phyllis that the woman was hiding behind my car. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long evening.
    At that brief moment when I was standing in darkness in front of Mitchell’s with the moon high overhead and the storm brewing to the west, I began to realize that Amber was truly missing. But how? Something tugged at my subconscious, urging me to search for my sister in the woods, but the woods seemed so dark and deep, and I did not know where to start.
    Phyllis was on her way to the hospital, and I had absolutely no one to help me. And Tally was home with Eleanor. To make matters worse, I felt that I needed to hurry and get back to Tally. I sensed that Tally was in danger.
    Henry and Ken assured me that they would send out a search team immediately to look for Amber, and as they moved to their patrol car, I could hear them radio headquarters about a missing child.

Chapter 7
    I did not have much faith in the police. Last year, the chief of police had called off the search for Mom after only a couple of days.
    So I resolved to find Amber myself. I recalled reading a newspaper article once that said something like the first hour after a child disappears is called the