Between Worlds (Pendant Series Book 3) by Cynthia Austin

eyes, I saw the big picture window had been shattered and the front door was ajar. I could feel my blood turn to ice as I realized what may have happened. I had defied the killers’ order to stay away from Ray and…
    Had they returned?
    Immediately, I pushed through the door and sprinted to Granny’s bedroom. I collapsed in relief upon seeing my dear relative lying in her bed. She was alive, her chest slowly rising before falling back down into her stomach.
    “Oh Granny,” I breathed, as I tried to calm myself down and think of a rational explanation for the broken window. Maybe Ray had accidently locked himself out and he had no choice but to break the window in order to regain entry into the house?
    Scratching my head, I slowly climbed to my feet, not convinced. My work was less than a mile down the road. If Ray needed to get into the house, he could have just stopped by the store and asked for the key.
    Walking over to inspect my Granny a bit more thoroughly, I noticed something that I hadn’t seen the first time around.
    As her chest rose up, so did a piece of paper.
    Its edge was curled up, flapping like the delicate wing of a sparrow with the motions of Granny’s breathing.
    It was a note addressed to me.
    I took a few steps closer as the warning bells began blaring in my ears. The handwriting was familiar. I had seen it before, when I lay in the hospital bed the day after the attack in my backyard. Detective Albright had given me the note which had the same recognizable penmanship. It had been written by the same person who killed Nouri.
    I gingerly picked the note up off Granny’s chest and began to read it. In the two seconds it took to piece together the words so eloquently scrawled across the paper, my perfect world collapsed.
     
    Why take old when you can have new? Granny’s safe, but Ray may be singing a different tune. I’d rather take him underground than dear old Granny anyway.
     
    Take Ray underground? What could that possibly mean other than to kill him?
    I stuffed the note into my back pocket and rushed out of Granny’s room in a mad dash to get help.
    “Chrissy!” My voice echoed through the silent house.
    No answer.
    I ran back into the living room, my feet feeling like heavy blocks of sludge.
    “Chrissy!” I yelled again.
    Standing at the bottom of the stairs, I could see a yellow light protruding from the crack in the bathroom door. She must be taking a shower.
    I spun around to retrieve my phone to call Detective Albright. I had to save Ray before it was too late. But as I turned around my eyes met those familiar green eyes that still possessed the ability to take my breath away. Even in the midst of disaster.
    Adrian stood in the open entrance of the house. Confusion and worry lined his face. “What happened?” he asked.
    “They took Ray,” I cried as I rushed toward Adrian, reaching into my back pocket to retrieve the note.
    Resilient to my hysterics, Adrian focused only on one thought, “Ray was here ?”
    I shoved the note into Adrian’s hand, forcing him to read it. After a long pause, he finally realized he wouldn’t get any more details from me until he began to cooperate. Tearing his eyes away from mine, he looked down at the note.
    And then his expression changed. It darkened, in the same way it did when he visited me in the hospital after my attack. He focused so hard on the note that I had to nudge him to break his concentration and help me devise a plan.
    “What do you think it means?” I asked frantically.
    Adrian only stared at the fading scar that graced my hairline as his mouth twisted into a grotesque frown. He held up the note. “Do you think the same person who wrote this note hit you on the head?”
    I nodded in response. “Of course they did. Whoever wrote that note murdered Nouri!”
    “Lil.” He breathed the name so quietly I wasn’t even sure I heard him correctly.
    I stood still, waiting for Adrian to repeat himself, but he remained frozen, staring