I didn’t know how much time passed as I stood there, staring at the door. Shock and confusion took hold of my mind and body as I waited for something to happen or someone to come in and tell me it was all one massive joke. It had to be. Nobody experienced this many bad things happening to them in such a short time. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real. I couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be r-
“Calla, wake up!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Words cannot express how grateful I am to each and every person that reads my books. It has always been a dream of mine to create stories for other people to enjoy, and you all make that dream a reality. In a world where every reader counts, mine are the best.
I also have to thank my parents. They are the world’s most supportive and loving parents a daughter could ask for. They will always have my back no matter what.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
With all my heart,
Elizabeth
When a young woman’s body is found in the sleepy town of Baybrook, little did high school
senior, Farren McClellan, know it would change her life forever.
Farren’s identical twin, Laken McClellan, disappeared thirteen years ago without a trace but
learning that she has a sister who suddenly reappeared buried in the woods is the least of her
worries. Apparently, the kidnapper is back, and he wants a replacement.
Five years later, Farren finally gets to tell her story. Television reporter, Melissa Landrews,
believes the world deserves to know the truth, but it might be more than she bargained for.
MY SISTER’S FATHER
CHAPTER ONE
BOXES ARE PILED WAIST-high on the floor, making it difficult to walk around the small space of the apartment. Seniors at Benson College are allowed to stay on campus until after graduation, but we saw no reason to stay once we had a place to go. When we found these apartments so close to the police academy, I thought it was fate. Training begins in less than two weeks, and not having a car would have been a nightmare. Neither my roommate, Terra, nor I have jobs yet, but we do have some money saved. If we were smart, we could live almost two years on that money alone. I estimate we’ll survive at least one year.
“Hey Farren, you want to go grab something to eat?” Terra asks as I shift through the fourth box marked Clothes.
“Sure… have you seen my hoodie? I can’t find it anywhere,” I complain.
“Your orange one?”
I nod and move to the last box. If it isn’t there, then I don’t have anywhere else to look. My grandfather gifted me the hoodie; it was from his alma mater, The University of Tennessee, and the last thing I ever received from him. He gave it to me when I lost the blue one that I used to wear; the one I never went back for. When the last box proves unfruitful, I shove it away with a grunt.
“It probably just got packed in another box. Maybe it’s in with my stuff; I’ve already found a few of your dresses and things,” she says as she leans down in front of me.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“We can look for it later. Zach’s waiting downstairs,” Terra says and pulls me to my feet.
“Don’t you ever get tired of wearing that?” I ask as we climb into the elevator.
“What?” she asks, looking down at her tight jeans and halter top. Don’t get me wrong, it looks amazing on her, the stark white a beautiful contrast against her dark skin. It just always looked so uncomfortable. She looks back at me and I raise one brow, making her laugh. “I like dressing this way. It makes me feel…hot.”
I laugh in return. “You always look hot.”
“I know,” she says as she wriggles her brows.
The elevator’s ding signals the arrival of the cart and the doors slide open to reveal Zach standing in pure loner fashion. The three of us have been friends since the year when the world as we knew it shattered. When the view of the world changed for all three of us. We decide to go to the new Mexican cantina that opened last month. It’s only few blocks away, so we walk.
“Are you guys going to the party tonight?” Zach asks.
“You mean the Seniors’ Last Hurrah?” Terra laughs.
“The what?”
Terra looks at me with raised brows when Zach answers. “It’s the party that the Student Council is hosting for the Senior Class at the carnival tomorrow night. It’s staying open late just for this. There are posters plastered everywhere – I have no idea how you missed it.”
Heat fills my face. I’ve been a little busy with studying for finals to pay much attention to anything else. Plus, I tend to avoid anything that has to do with the carnival. This is the first year I didn’t go. But I can’t let what happened four years ago – so long ago – stop me from ever going again. I won’t let it control any part of my life, ever again. “Are you going?” I direct the question back to Zach.
He shrugs before tossing his hair out of his face. I want to laugh every time he does this. He’s one of those guys that fell into the Justin Bieber floppy hair craze. Swoopy hair? Whatever it’s called. Terra made a joke of it for years. Now I’m pretty sure he keeps it that way to annoy her. “I’m not sure. I guess my answer depends on yours.”
It’s barely past eleven when we enter the restaurant, so we have our pick of the tables. A waitress with the curliest hair I’ve ever seen – she says her name is Sam – takes our drink orders before promising to come back when we’re ready.
“So, are you?” Zach asks.
“Huh?”
“Are you going to the party on Saturday?”
I cock my head to see Terra roll her eyes. “Are you still on that?” she asks.
He flips her off before saying, “You never answered my question.”
She flips him back, and I swear they never left the teenage stage of their development. “You are both complete children,” I say with a laugh, and they both turn to flip me off before we all burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. I promise, we are adults.
“It could be fun,” Terra says once she’s finally able to stop and wipe the tears streaming down my face.
“I thought you hated carnivals,” I respond.
“No, I just…”
“I’m sorry about your wait,” Sam says when she reappears at our table, effectively cutting off Terra’s reply. “Are you ready to order?”
We each give her our order, and I wait for her to leave before turning back to Terra. “You were saying,” I say with a smirk as I gesture for her to continue.
“I was saying,” she draws out the word, “that I don’t hate carnivals. I hate the rides.”
“Ohh, OK. So, you just go to eat the food,” I retort.
“If I didn’t know better, I would swear you two are dating,” Zach interrupts.
Terra and I glance at each other before the table’s once again filled with laughter. It’s even funnier when you realize he isn’t that far from the truth. We actually did try dating once… it didn’t work out.
“Yeah, that’s never happening again,” Terra says between gulps of air, and I can’t help but agree. We just aren’t good for each other that way.
“I still can’t believe you dated,” he says with a shake of his head.
It wasn’t that long ago when we tried, just a few years, actually. We didn’t keep it a secret or anything, but we didn’t broadcast it, either. Nobody figured it out because we didn’t act any different than normal when we were around each other – at least, not in public. I would describe the relationship as a friendship kicked up a notch. It was in private that the dynamic really changed. We soon learned we were much better as just friends.
“Maybe you should be more observant,” I respond as our food arrives. We eat in relative silence and my enchiladas disappear way too quickly. We gather our things and head to the cash register at the front of the restaurant. I’m the first to pay and I pull out my wallet. The lady at the register takes my receipt and begins ringin
g it into the machine.
“Wait, wait,” Sam runs up to us and taps the woman on the arm. “Their meal has been paid for,” she says.
“What?” I ask. “By who?”
Sam shakes her head. “Some guy. He said he knew you from school. He left the money on the table with a note, and I didn’t see it until just now or I would’ve said something sooner.”
“I wonder who it was?” I ask as we emerge into the growing heat.
“Who cares!” Terra laughs. “We didn’t have to pay for lunch! This day just keeps getting better and better.”
“You aren’t the least bit curious?”
Zach moves around until he’s on the other side of me. “I think it’s just that detective brain of your working in overdrive.”
“Yeah,” Terra adds, “not everything is a mystery that needs to be solved.”
I sigh. I guess they’re right, but I don’t think I can ever turn off the part of me that is always searching for hidden clues and answers to unsolved riddles.
“Are you guys going back to unpack? Do you need any help?” Zach asks when we reach the complex.
“Thanks, but I actually have to head back to campus soon,” I answer.
Terra pulls out her key card to unlock the building. “Oh right, you still haven’t done your career counseling thing.”
I grimace. Every graduating senior is required to complete at least one session in the career center, but that’s not the reason I’m returning. I don’t tell them the truth, though. I can’t bring myself to.
“My meeting is at one, so I better get going. Thanks for the offer, though,” I say with a smile. “We’ll meet you at the carnival Saturday night?”
He nods. “I’ll be there.”
The drive to campus is short, but I feel every second as if it were in slow motion. There are so many other things I could be doing right now besides this, and when I arrive at an empty meeting room, my teeth grind. A calming breath fills my lungs and I sigh before sitting in one of the hard, plastic chairs in the large waiting area. The room is cool, and my bare arms and legs cover in goosebumps.
Shoes click on the laminate floor, and I straighten in my seat. A beautiful brunette woman in a pantsuit appears in the door, followed by an older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair. They each carry a briefcase, but the man also has a large camera on a tripod.
“Miss McClellan,” the woman says with an outstretched hand, “I’m so sorry we’re late. I hope you weren’t waiting too long. I’m Melissa – we spoke on the phone – and this is James, the equipment manager. I know we talked about recording the interview, but I hope this is OK?”
I nod and the two proceed with their set-up. Melissa left me a message weeks ago about this interview, but it took me a while before I gathered the courage to call her back. She says I should tell me story for those that went through a similar experience, for those that feel equally alone. My tale is unique and terrifying, but I survived a horrific event that would tear other people apart. My experience can never be compared to another’s, but it can be used as proof that you can continue living. Life won’t end, even after going through something traumatic enough to make you wish it would – at least, that’s what she claims. I don’t know how my story could make anyone feel better, but I’m willing to try. I’ll tell my story and hope someone, somewhere will benefit, will continue to move forward.
“So, to start out, Farren, I thought you could just tell us a little about yourself. Who you are; who you were before,” Melissa says when James finishes. The camera whirs to life, a bright red light blinks, distracts, mesmerizes.
I watch the little light, focus on it as I say, “I don’t really know what you want me to say. Um… my name is Farren McClellan. My parents are Sharon and Benjamin McClellan. I went to Baybrook High School. My…”
“Farren,” Melissa interrupts, “tell us a little about the events leading up to the crux of our story. How did it all start? What happened that night, five years ago?”
Start? I want to tell her there isn’t a starting place. There isn’t one act, event, circumstance, that signified the beginning. There isn’t any one place that can be identified. I want to tell her it all started four years ago when I received that first communication. Maybe it started seventeen years ago when a little girl was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night while her sister slept peacefully unaware right next to her. Maybe it started before then, before I was born, before my parents even met. Maybe it was predestined. I want to tell her that I truly don’t know. I want to stand and scream the words until my throat is raw. But I don’t.
“I guess it all started with Laken,” I say instead.
“Your sister?” Melissa asks.
I pause, considering, before I shake my head. “No, it started before Laken. It started with a man who lost his daughter.”
“This man… I assume you mean the one responsible for the kidnappings? The one who stalked you?”
This time I nod.
“And when did you realize you were being stalked?” she asks.
“When I realized it was too late. What’s more important is when it started. We were being followed for a long time before anyone realized it. This man… that man… he watched, he waited, he bided his time, but then he got impatient. He wanted us to know he was there. He wanted me to know. It wasn’t until the first message arrived when I realized anything was out of the ordinary. I didn’t know I was being hunted for days after that. He was there for a long time, just watching, and waiting, for a long, long time.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
I have always loved telling stories and making up different scenarios in my mine, but I didn’t get seriously about wanting to be a writer until my Freshman year of college. I started my debut novel NaNoWriMo 2016 and it has been strong-going ever since.
What inspired this novel?
I got a lot of my inspiration from reading April Henry’s mystery novels. I got this idea in my head of identical twin sisters being the focal point of my story and the ideas just flourished from there. There are also a lot of parallels that I drew from my previous unpublished work, Dead Emotions.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I am definitely a plotter. When I wrote my first novel, I didn’t plot out anything and it was my biggest regret. It’s why it took me so long to finish. I would write something and have to go back and change a hundred times before it was right. It ended up feeling like I had written two completely different stories and smashed them together. This novel turned out a lot better and took a lot less time to finish.
Where do you write books?
My favorite place to write is on the floor. I try writing at my desk, but it seems my motivation and creativity is at its highest when I’m lying in the floor.
Do you have any future books planned?
Yes, I am currently working on multiple projects. The one at the top of my mind is a New Adult Contemporary that is really close to my heart. It is about a girl who loses her sister and decides to go a trip to find herself and figure out how to move on.
The second is a project that has already been completed for a while but needs a lot of editing. I don’t have publishing plan for this one yet but check back later to see if that changes.
Any advice you have for new writers?
Just write what you love. Don’t worry about if it will appeal to a certain audience or what you think publishers and agents want to read. If you force yourself to write what you think someone else will love, you’ll get burnt out and give up before its finished. Also, writing is supposed to be fun. It’s a passion, not a task. Sure, you do have to work at it if you want to succeed, but you shouldn’t make it so much like a job that you end up hating it.
ELIZABETH BALLEW is an aspiring new author who is currently working on her debut novel. She is a college graduate with a degree in Psychology and loves to incorporate her knowledge of the criminally insane
in her works. Like many writers out there, Elizabeth loved reading from an early age, but it wasn’t until she was in college that she decided to pursue writing.
When she is not writing, Elizabeth works full time as Middle School Mathematics Teacher in a non-profit residential program for struggling teens. She loves to use her writing time in the evenings to wind down after a crazy work day.
Born and raised as a proud Tennessee Volunteer, Elizabeth lives just outside the Chattanooga area with her two rescue kittens, Cleo and Nyxi. If you pay attention, you might catch that southern charm in her writing.
[email protected]
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