Between Worlds (Pendant Series Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter 16

Paint it Black

The third day in jail began just like the last two. I was awakened at dawn by the freezing temperature of the cold cell as I struggled to keep warm with a single cotton blanket that had been issued to me.

Were the taxpayers that broke that we couldn’t afford a thicker blanket?

Finally, I gave up on the concept of any comfortable slumber. I’d gotten up and attempted to start my day. Sleep had turned into my only salvation and I was saddened I could not escape back into it.

Being awake tormented me as my mind flipped back and forth from the loss of Ray to my abandonment by both Adrian and Chrissy. I wished so hard that I could just close my eyes and allow all of my days to pass in the wistful flashes of my subconscious. It was funny how my dreams formerly served as nothing but a nuisance as they refused to allow me a full night’s rest, but now they were my friends, my only escape out of this living hell.

And in those dreams I had always gotten to see his face again.

I know I shouldn’t be thinking of him. It was his fault I was in this situation in the first place. But his absence made everything so much worse.

Where
was
he?

If he really was Samael and I was Eve; how could he leave me?

How could he have spent his entire existence from the beginning of time searching for me and then leave me once he found me?

Especially after he had finally made me believe him.

The meeting between Albright and Jenna did not go as well as I had expected. It turned out she did recall me buying a drink for someone that night at the bar only her memory of what happened was significantly different than mine.

“Jenna insisted there was no man that fit Adrian’s description at the bar that night,” the detective stated as he peered down at me. “She confirmed she remembered that night vividly because she was surprised when you had offered to buy a man named Jason, not Adrian, a drink at the bar. She was caught off guard because she didn’t think Jason was your type.”

“Jason?” I spit the name out of my mouth as if it were poison I was ridding from my body. “I didn’t buy Jason a drink. Jason reached over and stole the drink I had bought for Adrian.”

Now I was livid as the shaking in my hands began to start back up again. I despised that potbellied man Jason and Chrissy and her ugly tattooed friend Dave for trying to set me up with him.

The detective didn’t stop with just one blow. He unleashed wave after wave of them. His next one was a tsunami.

He laid a photograph on my bed. It was a picture of a large, white house with boarded-up windows. The yard had not been tended to and the overgrowth was beginning to climb its way up the large staircase to the red front door. My breath was caught in my throat as I continued to stare at what I was seeing here.

The detective said flatly, “I took this picture yesterday.”

I was dumbfounded. “You’re lying.”

“Sidney, I need the truth from you. Everything you’ve told me up to now has been inaccurate.”

I could hear the strain of impatience in his voice. “As you can see, no one has lived in the McAllister house for years. No one has seen you with this Adrian McAllister person and even you admit that you haven’t seen him yourself in days.”

“I don’t understand what you’re suggesting,” I gasped, my breathing ragged.

I couldn’t tear my eyes from the picture. Strangely enough, it reminded me of the drawing in Adrian’s book of the overgrown Garden of Eden. This picture could not be current.

He zeroed in on me. “You claim that Adrian killed Ray, correct?”

Now I began to get irritated. Detective Albright seemed to be interrogating me and I thought he was here because he cared about my well-being. I thought he wanted to help me. Most importantly, I thought he
believed
me.

I stared at him, my eyes now cold and full of mistrust. “I don’t claim, Detective, I
know
. I was there and I saw what Adrian did with my own eyes. Adrian killed Ray right after he killed his sister, Lilly Lavelle.”

Now the detective didn’t bother to mask his frustration as he slammed his hand against his knee in exasperation, “We only found Ray’s body. Lilly is another person who seems to be a ghost in this story.”

Finally I’d had enough of the detective belittling me. I sat back and crossed my arms, indicating that we were finished here. “A ghost…maybe that’s what they both are.”

Wrapping up our meeting, Detective Albright stuffed his yellow notebook back into the front pocket of his wrinkled button-down shirt and turned to me one last time. “Ghosts or not, someone is going to have to answer for what happened to Ray Ryker up there in that mausoleum.”

I didn’t care to continue this conversation anymore, it was apparent that the detective was no longer on my side. I turned my gaze, refusing to look at him as I answered. “Well, it looks like that someone will be me.”

I buried my face into my pillow and I heard the metal gate roll open as the detective’s footsteps faded away into the distance.

I had never felt more alone in my life.

I sat in my cell for hours after Detective Albright left. I couldn’t believe what had transpired here. None of it made sense. I had been inside of that house hundreds of times, it
was
lived in. The front yard was well-manicured, the windows were cleaned. The structure he had shown me in the photograph was nothing more than a dilapidated building.

It was not Adrian’s house.

I felt like I was losing my mind. As if the last six months were nothing but a lie. The detective was basically telling me Adrian wasn’t real. Dr. Scott revealed to me that the courts were checking my mental competency.

Maybe I was crazy after all.

Did I
imagine
Adrian?

Would that explain all of my unanswered questions that I had for him?

What about all my dreams and the book that retold them so vividly…how he had ended up connected to Lilly, Ray’s mistress? Adrian’s explanation about everything was so intimately complicated to say the least. If I believed his story that would mean I believed in sorcery and magic, and soul-creating and demons and eternal darkness, even possession.

But if I believed the singular explanation of what Detective Albright was suggesting, that would mean a much simpler answer.

I was crazy.

But if Adrian was all in my mind, then
who
killed Ray?

Chapter 17

Bury Me in Smoke

Any feelings of excitement to visit with Dr. Scott quickly dissipated after my meeting with Detective Albright that morning.

When Gonzalez came to retrieve me from my cell, I could barely drag my tired legs into the visiting room. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I didn’t want to be a part of this world anymore.

“Pick up the pace, Sinclair,” the pudgy guard barked. “The doctor has better things to do than wait for you all day.”

The verbal insults only made me walk slower. What more could possibly be done to me at this point?

Finally my gaze set upon the well-dressed professional that was seated at the steel visiting table and my emotions began to slightly soften. The doctor’s hair was worn in the same style as yesterday but she upped her dress suit to a more daring color…

Gray.

She smiled upon meeting my gaze but I just acknowledged her with a slight nod as I took my seat across from her.

Gonzalez shuffled off to go harass other inmates.

“Did you sleep well?” Doctor Scott leaned forward, her eyebrows furrowed as she looked me up and down. I would almost believe that she genuinely cared for me if I hadn’t known better.

I shook my head, still avoiding her eyes.

“Why not?”

I really didn’t feel like talking to her today, but it didn’t seem I had much of a choice in the matter. I was at their mercy now. Sadly, I was no longer a person with the privilege of options.

I let out a loud sigh and answered honestly, “The dreams.”

I shifted uneasily in my seat, trying to gauge her reaction before continuing. She wore her poker face well. “They keep me awake.”

Pressing the top of her pen in preparation to write, she asked for clarification. “What kind of dreams?”

I shrugged.

Did it really matter what kind of dreams?

She had asked me what had kept me awake at night and I answered her question. Why couldn’t we just leave it at that? Growing agitated by her persistence, I answered shortly, “The kind that repeat themselves.”

“How long have you been experiencing them?”

I shrugged again. I had hoped she would have taken a hint that I really didn’t care to discuss them.

No such luck.

Dr. Scott peered over her glasses at me, serving notice that she did not intend on going anywhere until I began to dish it out. I sat back and crossed my arms. “I don’t know. A long time.”

I could be stubborn, too.

Opening the familiar manila folder, Dr. Scott began examining the pages, obviously wanting to ask more but getting her facts straight first. I rolled my eyes as I thought that this woman should have done her homework
before
coming here today.

“Before your relationship with Ray began to disintegrate?”

I flinched at the use of his name as well as her choice of verb she had chosen to describe our relationship.

“I suppose,” I answered, in a barely audible voice.

Aware that she’d rattled me, she tried a different approach. “What was the main focus of these dreams?”

“Love, I guess.”

Scribbling away just as ferociously as the day before, she continued her questions without as much as a glance in my direction. “Are they about you and Ray? Perhaps that was your subconscious looking for other ways to work out your differences?”

There it was again, that unwavering speculation that Ray and I were so terrible for each other.

“The dreams had nothing to do with Ray,” I shot back.

She heard something edgy in my answer. She stopped writing and looked up at me intently as she tried to read my body language. I remained frozen in place, not allowing her to see anything.

“You seem tense, Sidney, is this conversation upsetting you?”

What the hell did she think? She came in here with her fancy clothes, scribbling secret notes in her pad, and pretended to know all about my and Ray’s intimacy. Of course this conversation was upsetting me. How dare she even speak Ray’s name. She didn’t even know him.

“You know nothing,” I said furiously.

She placed her pen down on the table. “That’s a fair statement. I only know what I’ve read in your file and what I’ve seen in the media. I’m hoping you will fill in the rest of the details for me.”

I snorted at her weak attempt to make us allies.

She was like Russia and this was the new Cold War. We could never work together.

“Yeah, like I confided in my best friend Chrissy? That’s what got me here in the first place.”

Now, in addition to being angry at the doctor I was also angry at myself for becoming emotional and discussing the betrayal of my best friend. I quickly placed my hands over my face so she couldn’t watch me unravel.

“I understand that you don’t trust me, Sidney, but please believe that I am here to help you, not judge you.”

I removed my hands from my face and stared at her until she was the one who became uncomfortable. I snarled, “Because that’s God’s job, right?”

I questioned her with a tone of sarcasm. “Isn’t that what you told me yesterday when you came in here and attempted to throw your beliefs onto me?”

She didn’t waver at my cruelty. “My religious beliefs are irrelevant.”

I let out a dry laugh and almost shocked myself at how much I now sounded like Adrian. But I was on a roll and I refused to stop. “So you want me to trust you but you don’t want to share any of your personal beliefs?”

She took the bait. “Okay, Sidney, I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

I sat back in the metal chair and waited for her to fire away.

She shot straight for the heart. “Tell me about your dreams.”

I kept the mask on my face as I gave the most minimalistic answer possible. “They’re a story of a man and woman who are in love.”

“But it’s not you and Ray?”

“The characters were strangers to me. My turn now; do you believe in God?”

The doctor shifted in her seat and she nervously scanned her notebook in front of her. It almost seemed as if she were looking for an employee handbook which could guide her through my personal questions. “I believe in a higher power, yes.”

She smiled tightly, proud of herself that she was able to get through my first question. Then she continued her interrogation. “You said the characters
were
strangers to you. Has that changed?”

Well, she did say she was here to psychologically evaluate me. If ever there was a time to not hide my crazy, I guess that time would be now.

I looked up into her eyes and answered truthfully, “Yes, I’ve met them. It turns out that the woman was
me
in a past life.”

I rewarded my answer with a question of my own. “Do you believe in past lives?”

Dr. Scott began to write her notes again, as her hand moved feverishly across the pad of paper she simply answered, “No.”

I wasn’t satisfied with her response so I stared at her, waiting for her to elaborate.

She caught on fairly quickly. “I believe that when we die we meet our Maker and that’s it. We don’t get another chance at life.”

I raised my eyebrows at what I perceived to be her pessimistic belief and shrugged my shoulders. “That’s a shame.”

She ignored my comment and continued her inquisition. “If the woman in your dreams was you, then who was the man?”

I stared at her, waiting for her to say his name. Yesterday she couldn’t stop talking about him and today she just sat there pretending he didn’t exist. “Adrian.” I said it as if it should be common knowledge.

“Your boyfriend?”

“Ray was my boyfriend,” I clarified for the hundredth time.

“So then why were you dreaming about Adrian?”

I shook my head, no longer wanting to talk, but then I remembered it was my turn to ask the question. “Do you believe in soul mates?”

She seemed genuinely interested in that question as she tilted her head back and pondered the thought. “I believe that two people can share similarities paralleled so close together that it may produce a very strong mutual attraction, yes.”

I learned forward and whispered in a hushed tone, “I believe I dreamt about Adrian because he was my soul mate. I loved him before I even knew him. Is that crazy?”

I now had Dr. Scott’s full attention because she gripped the pen so tightly in her hand that her fingertips whitened, and still the pen remained suspended, no longer pouring ink onto the pad. “You mean you loved the man that you saw in your dreams?”

I nodded. My eyes still burned into hers as I waited for some words of advice.

Her answer surprised me. “Assuming that you dreamt about a man and then met someone in real life who shared similar qualities to your dream and then fell in love with him, as you put it, could be understood. It’s the same phenomena as when a television viewer develops an attraction for an actor they watch on TV, yet have never met in real life. You fall for the fictional character that the actor has portrayed.”

I nodded at her example as her words took my mind back into my own fictional world. “Like Mr. Gatsby.”

The scribbling picked back up. “That’s an interesting selection. Why do you believe you were attracted to a character like Jay Gatsby?”

“Because he would do anything for Daisy.”

“He ended up dying for Daisy,” she said flatly.

I could see where she was trying to take this. Gatsby was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the latest film adaptation. He was a handsome man with blond hair and blue eyes. A fact not lost on Dr. Scott. “He held a resemblance to Ray.”

Automatically I shut down. My body couldn’t handle any more of this torture. “I don’t want to talk about Gatsby.”

Thinking about the movie and realizing how easily I imagined Adrian was my Gatsby upset me a great deal, because just like Daisy, I was too stupid to make the right choice. And because of my decisions, Ray was dead.

Somehow for the second day in a row, Dr. Scott managed to break the dam and release my avalanche of tears. And there was a mountain of sadness that came along with it.

She sat still, allowing me these moments of emotion. And when it seemed I was out of tears, she began to cut into me some more, from a different angle this time.

“I understand that Detective Albright has been visiting you.”

Wiping my tears, I answered, “I don’t want to talk about him, either.”

“Did he say something to upset you?”

I didn’t take her bait. She knew exactly what Albright did to me.

She waited a while longer before trying a different approach. “Did you disagree with the evidence?”

I laughed at her choice of words. “You call
that
evidence?”

Dr. Scott remained impartial. “I don’t find that a laughing matter, Sidney. Your boyfriend was just murdered and the district attorney is anxiously awaiting my diagnosis in hopes of charging you with his murder.”

She looked at me long and hard. “This is California and capital punishment is very much an option here since there is a move to bring it back.”

I suppressed my bitter humor and returned the doctor’s cold gaze. At this point I just didn’t care anymore. Dr. Scott and Detective Albright both pretended to care for me but it was all just a sham. Nobody cared for me. I was alone.

The doctor was relentless today. She was a far cry from the candid but gentler woman she had portrayed yesterday. “The detective has quite a bit of evidence piled up against you, Sidney. The D.A. is very persistent and I think we may be running out of time here.”

Now her fake look of concern reappeared on her aging face.

At least one of us was concerned. I wasn’t buying in. “That’s funny, because I didn’t kill Ray. So what kind of evidence can he possibly have?”

The doctor sat back in her metal chair and opened her folder, scanning through stacks of paper that were thick enough to be an encyclopedia. “The police haven’t found the murder weapon as of yet but there was a gun with your handprints on it.”

Then she asked an odd question, “What hand do you write with?”

I glanced at her sideways, “My right hand, why?”

“And what about your friend, Adrian?”

Remembering the night in his library while he was searching for the red book, I remembered watching him scribble a note on his desk. “He’s left handed.”

Then the doctor delivered her blow.

It seemed that everyone was full of fatality moves today.

“Ray’s injury was inflicted by a blade that cut him from right to left. That’s consistent with a person who is right-handed.”

Now my head began to spin and my whole body began to shake convulsively. The doctor continued her torture. “In addition, there were only two sets of footprints in that mausoleum. One set belonged to Ray, the other belonged to you.”