Between Worlds (Pendant Series Book 3)

by Austin, Cynthia

  Chrissy stood frozen in the entryway of the front door. “Why is Ray’s blood on your shirt?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it.” I said as I remained eerily calm. I gripped my emerald pendant. “It all started with this necklace. When I put it on, it must have summoned someone to me, and Adrian thinks I’m someone else, and I think he might be right.”

  Snapping out of her reserved conversational style, Chrissy slammed the front door and marched over to me, exclaiming, “That’s crazy. You’re Sidney Sinclair and I’ve known you since kindergarten. You’re nobody other than that girl. Now tell me, is Ray gonna be okay?”

  Finally, my eyes began to work again as I felt them blink a few times. They were so dry. I turned to retrieve some eye drops out from my purse but then remembered I had left my purse at the mausoleum.

  “Where is Ray?” I jumped as Chrissy shouted the question into my face.

  “He’s in the mausoleum. I need to find Adrian.”

  Chrissy gripped my shoulders and started to scream louder as she shook me back and forth like I was the dice inside of a Yahtzee cup. “Snap out of it, Sidney, and tell me what’s happened!”

  “Ray’s dead,” I answered flatly. “Adrian killed him.”

  I paused as I thought of the best way to explain it to her. “But Adrian is not really Adrian. He’s Samael and he’s been searching for me for a long time, probably for hundreds of years.

  He couldn’t let Ray come between us so he killed him. But I think Ray may be someone else too, and he might not really be dead. He just went somewhere else. If I could just find Adrian, he could answer my questions.”

  Chrissy let go of my shoulders and took a few cautious steps back as she brought her hand up to her head and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Okay, Sidney. It sounds like you’ve been through quite a bit tonight.” She nervously scanned the room as she continued to retreat. “I’m just going to get you something to drink. I’ll be right back.”

  I nodded to my best friend and curled onto the couch. I was so exhausted. Something to drink did sound nice. A shower also sounded nice but I was too spent to move. I closed my eyes and fell into a slumber.

  God only knew what kind of dream awaited me now.

  Chapter 13

  Use the Man

  “Ms. Sinclair? Wake up.” A vaguely familiar voice brought me back into consciousness.

  I opened my eyes and slowly sat up, I must have dozed off on the couch. I searched around for that glass of water Chrissy had promised to bring me but I didn’t see it.

  Instead, I was sidetracked by a flashing light that crossed my peripheral vision. I turned my head and glanced out the front window to see the blue and red illuminations of a police car.

  I looked over in the direction of the voice that had awakened me and saw that it was Detective Albright’s. Chrissy was standing in the dining room with alligator tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “What are you doing here, Detective?” I asked.

  His expression was pained as he took a step closer to me. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sinclair, but I’m going to have to place you under arrest for the murder of Ray Ryker.”

  Now Chrissy’s tears turned into loud sobs as she gripped the back end of the dining chair to steady herself. I shot my gaze in her direction as I angrily shouted, “I thought you were bringing me some water, not calling the cops on me!”

  The detective placed a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder. “I need you to place your hands behind your back.”

  “I didn’t kill him!” I yelled, panic beginning to set it. “It was Adrian, I told you that already, Chrissy. What the fuck?”

  Detective Albright firmly placed the handcuffs around my wrists and I couldn’t help but wonder if these were the same cuffs Ray’s wrists were in months before.

  “Please, Detective Albright, you have got to believe me. I have to find Adrian and see where Ray went. He might not be dead!”

  The Detective shook his head as his eyes filled with pity. “Sidney, the county coroner is at the crime scene right now, there is no doubt here, Ray Ryker is dead. I’m going to read you your Miranda rights and I caution you, do not speak until you have a lawyer.”

  I couldn’t go to jail. What about Granny? Lilly said that she would be waking up soon.

  I looked over at Chrissy and this time, instead of hatred, my eyes were filled with desperation. “What about Granny? Who’s going to take care of her if I’m not here?”

  Chrissy took a step toward me, but then she must have remembered that I was a murderous animal because then she took two steps back. “That’s what I meant to tell you. I think Emmy might be waking up.”

  Of course she was waking up, just as Lilly had predicted. I exhaled a small sigh of relief. At least, in this horrific series of events, one good thing was certain to come out of it.

  Granny will live.

  The detective began to lead me out of the house and into the darkness; a familiar place in my life.

  I turned to Chrissy with one last request. I suddenly remembered that Adrian had passed his bar exam last month. “Please call Adley and Ayers in Sacramento. I need you to get a hold of Adrian and have him represent me. He’s a lawyer, Chrissy.”

  Chrissy shot me a look of indignation while slowly nodding her head in acknowledgement of my request.

  Chapter 14

  Come Undone

  I sat numbly at the stone cold, steel table.

  My arms had goose bumps on my pale flesh that had not seen the sun for two days. The authorities had not provided jackets for jailbirds nor did they bother to turn up the heat. I’m pretty sure these conditions were done on purpose to teach us newbie lawbreakers a lesson and make sure that when we were released we’d never return.

  Or, at least for those of us that would eventually have a chance to leave.

  Some of us would have to board that white bus and take a one-way trip to our final destination, also known as the penitentiary. After all, I was arrested for murder. I wouldn’t be incarcerated in a county jail.

  When I was a kid I would hear stories about the vicious girls in “The Pen,” and the brutality they imposed on new inmates. I sure hoped these were just tales for my sake.

  I shivered at the thought, which had turned my pale flesh into the clone of a plucked chicken. I hoped the women in prison only listened to rap music and had no idea who the hell Ray Ryker was.

  So far I hadn’t seen another inmate since I’d been here. I was kept in a single cell and taken out for a few minutes in the evening to stretch my legs and walk a short distance with a guard. But even on those walks I never saw another prisoner. I began to wonder if I was being kept in my own private facility. A jail constructed just for me.

  Maybe Ray’s record label funded it.

  In addition to people, I also hadn’t seen the sun in days and I desperately missed those warm rays basting my skin. I didn’t even feel like the same person these days. I was more like an empty shell of a human being with all of my emotions frozen in time.

  It was the only way to make it through all this. I was now in survival mode.

  I stared across the table at the empty chair that stood in front of me.

  Someone obviously had requested a visit with me today and I could only think of one person. I hadn’t heard boo from Chrissy, but I could only hope that she at least honored my last request and called Adrian. It was the least she could do for me after sending me to this God awful place. I had killed no one. I didn’t belong here.

  This was the first time I had seen any part of the general population but I was too entwined in my own feelings to care about them now. I scanned the giant room full of visitors looking for that mass of black hair but couldn’t seem to find him.

  Initially I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about him coming here but now as my anxiety began to rise I realized that I did, in fact, want to see him.

  I needed to see him.

  He was the only person that ever understood me and right now, I
didn’t even understand myself. Plus, I needed to convince him to tell the truth about what had really happened that night in the mausoleum.

  Getting more frantic with every passing second, I stood up and leaned over the table, stretching my neck to get a better view of the crowd.

  He has to be here.

  My rising panic was interrupted when an older woman wearing a beige dress suit stood in front of the table, coughing loudly to get my attention. “Are you expecting someone, Miss Sinclair?” the woman asked.

  She definitely looked as if she was lost, she couldn’t possibly be here for me.

  But how did she know my name? Our shirts had numbers stitched on the front of them, not names.

  She had short rusty hair that was worn in tight curls with glasses that matched her tresses. The glasses rested at the tip of her long thin nose as she glanced over them at me. She kind of reminded me of P.L. Travers and I smirked at the thought of the Mary Poppins author visiting me in jail.

  She clutched a clipboard with a thick manila folder held close to her thin, frail chest.

  “No, I uh… w-was just,” I stuttered, thinking of something to say that would get her to leave me alone. Instead, she set the folder down on the table and read a name off her clipboard.

  “Adrian, maybe? Adrian McAllister. He’s your boyfriend, right?”

  Now she had my full attention as I slowly turned my eyes toward her, drinking in every detail of this woman. I re-evaluated this intruder with a different perspective now. I knew exactly why she was here. She wasn’t lost; she had intentionally come here looking for me. She requested this visit. Not Adrian.

  I sat back in the chair and folded my arms across my chest in defiance. I could see right through her pathetic attempts of intimacy. She was obviously reading notes from my personal file pretending to know me.

  She knew nothing about me. Nothing about my life. I resented her.

  “I’m Dr. Scott,” she said, stretching her thin, manicured hand out toward me. I remained as still as a statue, making no attempt at civility. “May I take a seat?”

  I shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll take it whether I grant you permission or not.”

  Her tight glossed lips stretched into a smile. “Smart girl,” she complimented me as she sat in the empty chair across from me. The seconds stretched into minutes and finally I couldn’t take her probing eyes any longer. I decided to break the awkward silence between us. “He is my friend.”

  “Pardon?”

  I swallowed hard. “You asked if I was waiting for my boyfriend, Adrian. He’s not my boyfriend. He was just a friend.”

  With this new piece of information, Dr. Scott opened the thick folder and began scribbling into it. Without looking up from her work, she asked, “Any reason you referred to your friendship with Adrian in the past tense the second time?” she asked.

  I blinked at her in confusion.

  She set down her pen and stared at me through her thick lenses, “Originally, you said he is your friend. The second time you said was. Any reason?”

  My walls began to rise up again. This strange woman was asking too many questions. And they were too technical. Who cares if said is or was? Was she trying to psycho-analyze me?

  I confronted her. “Why are you here, lady? Who are you?”

  “I was appointed by the court to evaluate your mental competency and determine if you can stand trial or not.”

  “Because they still think I killed Ray,” I concluded.

  Now the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place.

  “Did you?” she asked.

  “Of course not!”

  I noticed the doctor had stopped writing in her folder. It kind of bothered me. Shouldn’t she be writing that I did not kill Ray? That seemed like a fairly important piece of information, here.

  She had a follow-up question. “Do you know who’s responsible?”

  I crossed my arms in defiance again. I no longer wanted to speak with Dr. Scott.

  “Sidney, I’m not here to judge. Only God can do that. I’m only here to gather the truth.”

  I was exasperated. “What if there is no God? Who judges us then?” I countered, angry that she would even discuss God. What gave her the right to just assume that I believed He existed? She had no idea about my religious beliefs or if I found her words offensive. She had no idea how complex things became over the past 48 hours. That it wasn’t that simple anymore to just believe or not believe.

  I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  “You must believe in some Higher Power,” she pressed, her pen in hand like a loaded gun.

  “Adrian told me there was no God. We won’t be judged because there’s no worse place to go. This is hell.”

  I gritted through my teeth, stabbing my index finger several times onto the metal table. I looked up to meet her solemn gaze and noticed that my actions must have frightened her a bit, for she was pressed against her chair, keeping a safe distance from me.

  “It’s why we’re all so sad and miserable,” I concluded in a softer tone.

  “Are you sad and miserable?” she asked as she wrote again. She wrote a lot this time. It was as if she were never going to stop writing. I sat patiently, trying to catch a glimpse of what she was placing on the paper but her notes just looked like chicken scratches to me.

  Finally, she stopped writing and looked up at me and repeated a portion of her question. “Are you?”

  “Yes, I was. For a long time. But then I met Adrian and we were happy until…until…”

  I couldn’t bring myself to say it and so I skipped over the hard part and concluded with mine and Adrian’s status. “We were best friends.”

  “You used past tense again.”

  I didn’t answer her. Instead I concentrated on keeping the dam of tears building up behind my eyes in check. I could feel the oceans of water behind them threatening to pour out.

  She pressed me, “Are you still friends with Adrian?”

  I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t know,” I answered, as the tears streamed down my face. “I don’t know if I can forgive him. I don’t know if I’ll even get the chance. I haven’t seen him since that night.”

  She closed her folder and abruptly stood up. “I think that’s enough for one day.”

  “Wait!” I began to stand up but the guard shot me a nasty look, so I sat back down in my chair.

  I felt strange. At first I wanted nothing to do with this woman, but now I didn’t want her to leave. She was the only one I had spoken to in so long. Nobody verbally engaged in this place, even the guards were ordered to ignore all of my questions. I raised my voice before she left the room, “You said the court sent you here to mentally evaluate me? So they still think I’m guilty?”

  “Yes,” she answered flatly as she smoothed out the wrinkles from her brown skirt.

  “But they also think I might be crazy?”

  “They just need to rule out that possibility before they can proceed with a trial. It’s a legality issue.”

  Finally, I just came out with the core of my question, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “I haven’t had enough sessions with you to make that determination this early in the process, Sidney.”

  “Do you think that I kill—” I still couldn’t bring myself to say it. It was like if we didn’t speak of it then it never happened.

  I rephrased my question. “Do you think I’m guilty?”

  “We can discuss this further soon. Can I see you tomorrow, same time?”

  I rolled my eyes at her tasteless joke. As if there’s anywhere else I can be. I’ve been in this jail for the last two days and it didn’t look like I’d be leaving anytime soon.

  But the bars trapping me inside my soul were even worse.

  Chapter 15

  Personal Jesus

  That night, as I lay in my cell, I realized I was actually excited to see Dr. Scott again. I mean, I’d much rather see and speak with Adrian, but at this poi
nt, I’d pretty much take anyone I could get.

  A visitor is a visitor, I reasoned.

  And from the looks of it, I may never see Adrian again. It seemed that he was going to sit back in the shadows and allow me to take the fall for his heinous crime.

  It may have seemed crazy that I would even want to see Adrian after what he’d done to my life, but in all honesty I still felt as if I needed him. Maybe those dreams were right after all. Maybe we really were soul mates. But if that were true, then where was he?

  He told me he wouldn’t leave without me. Of course I freaked out when he told me that but now I was almost willing to accept it. At this point, I would go anywhere Adrian wanted to take me. It had to be better than the alternative, which seemed to be three cement walls and a set of steel bars.

  Did I still miss Ray? Of course I did.

  But the truth was that Ray was gone and I really didn’t feel any different because I had always missed him. There was no difference from him being dead or alive, because either way he was still out of my reach. He was always out of my reach. I was just too stubborn to see it.

  But Adrian, on the other hand, I missed terribly. He was always there when I needed him. He was always so easily accessible and ready to understand me. The fact of the matter was that Ray was gone and there was no way to bring him back. No matter how hard I cried, pleaded, or begged. But Adrian is here. Or at least he was.

  I began to doze off when I was startled by the sound of keys clanking against metal. I sat up, startled, as I looked to see one of the guards unlocking my cell. Behind him, I saw the familiar face of Detective Albright.

  The gate opened and the guard glared at me. “You’ve got five minutes. Not a minute longer.” He turned around and gave the detective a much softer look. “Next time come during visiting hours. I could lose my job over this.”

  Albright nodded his head. “Thanks again for doing this for me, Gonzalez. I owe you.”