Between Loves (The Pendant Series Book 2) Read Free Page B

night’s rest?”
    He lay there ashen and more than a little shaken, trying to hide his fear from me, but I knew him too well and that look on his face brought me back to that day in my backyard.
    He said somberly, “There was blood everywhere.”
    I recalled the hazy image of him walking alongside my hospital gurney, his shirt and hands covered in blood. I was horrified at the memory. “Was that all my blood?”
    Ray climbed out of the bed and walked to the window. He kept his back to me so I couldn’t see his face.
    “Ray, where did all of that blood come from?” I brought my hand to my face and felt the stitches again. From what I could feel, it didn’t seem like that many sutures. Surely all of that blood couldn’t have escaped from me.
    Ignoring my question, Ray turned around and headed for the door. “The police are waiting in the hall. They asked to speak to you as soon as you woke up. I'll be back when they’re done.”
    “Ray!” I yelled but he continued through the door, leaving me alone and confused.
    A heavyset man wearing a black police uniform entered the room. He had strawberry blond curly hair and a round face.
    “Sidney Sinclair? I’m Detective Albright with the Homicide unit.”
    My mind picked up on the key word in his sentence.
    Homicide? Why would the Homicide Department need to speak with me?
    I weakly smiled up at him, “Isn’t it obvious that I’m not dead?”
    Ignoring my logic, the detective took out a yellow notepad and pen from his front pocket and seated himself in the chair across from my bed.
    “So your boyfriend didn’t tell you about his discovery then?”
    I swallowed hard and shook my head. Thinking of Ray, I remembered the way he looked both in the backyard and in the ambulance, then again just a few moments ago in the hospital bed with me. He had looked so shaken—I had never seen him that scared before. But what was most unsettling were his eyes. They were cold and emotionless as he attempted to shield himself from what he’d seen. Those blue oceans were now a heavy pool of emptiness.
    “There was so much blood,” I recalled out loud. “It was on his shirt and his hands. Was that all from me?”
    Again the detective ignored my question as he jotted down notes in his yellow notepad. As the seconds crept by, feeling more like hours, the detective finally spoke and what he said shocked me beyond anything I had ever heard in my young life.
    “The blood belonged to your grandmother’s nurse. She was found dead inside of the home. Blunt force trauma to the head. Do you recall any details during the moments prior to your injuries?”
    “Nouri’s dead?” I wailed, unable to contain my sobs.
    The way the detective told me was so cold, unsettling, and unfeeling. He dismissed her death as if she was nothing more than an immigrant nurse to some elderly woman on her way out of this world. Nouri was so much more than just my grandmother’s nurse, she was my friend. She was my family .
    “Oh my God,” I cried. The tears poured from my eyes and my head began to throb.
    “Sidney.” The unemotional cop continued, “I need you to focus here while I ask you these questions. Is there anything you remember that can assist us with our investigation?”
    I shook my head as I reached over to the bedside table and took a piece of tissue. “No. I don’t know who was in the backyard with me. One minute I was planting some flowers and the next thing I knew, someone was bringing down a shovel on me. That’s the last thing I remember.”
    I brought my knees up to my chest and sobbed loudly into my tissue. My beloved Nouri was gone.
    “Well, whoever it was whacked you pretty good with that shovel, and then proceeded into the house to attack the nurse. You’re lucky to be alive, Sidney. It appears that you were their target.”
    I blinked in surprise and brushed the tears away with the back of my hand. Every bone in my body seemed to be vibrating like a semi-truck crossing a