Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2) (30 page)

“Who did you have in mind?” Rachel began to twirl
her hair
so I
knew she
was
at least
thinking
about my
proposition.

Nonchalantly, I said, “Well, Mr. Raspatello’s not bad.
And.…” I struggled to think of one other name I could include
so I wouldn’t appear obvious.

Rachel helped me out there. “Ooo, Coach Hunter
definitely!
And you
probably don’t know her, but Mrs.
Gregory the Spanish teacher is pretty cool, too.”

Thank you, Rachel! “Okay, we should probably
mention it to Shelly—I’m sure she’ll agree. And as long as the
teachers are good with it, we’re all set.”

“We need to go pick out costumes ASAP. If we don’t
hurry, all of the good ones will be gone. This party is going to
be the biggest thing to hit Charlotte’s Grove in years. I don’t
know about you, but I sure don’t want to be caught dead in a
stupid costume.”

I couldn’t care less about my costume but I just didn’t
want to be caught—dead or otherwise—so I agreed with her
wholeheartedly. The party wasn’t the most important thing
happening that night. To me, it was nothing more than the
perfect distraction, something I could use to carry out my
criminal plans
in
private.
So
far,
my
plan
was
working
perfectly.

Rachel packed up her stuff and slung her bag over her
shoulder. “Well, I need to head home now—I’ll see you at
school in the morning.”

I nodded quietly. School sucked and now that I was
working on the weekends, Monday rolled around twice as fast
as it did before. I was turning on my computer to do a little
writing before bed when Rachel popped her head back in the
door.

“Zach will be back in school tomorrow—thought you
might wanna know.” After delivering that news, she
disappeared once again.

Seeing Zach, being so close to him again, was going to
be tough. When I was near him, it was like I lost control of
myself. Staying focused was crucial now. I couldn’t let him be
a distraction. One slip could mean the difference between life
and death.

I walked into school the next morning not knowing
what to expect. Would Zach try to talk to me?
Or would he
now be Misty’s best friend, catering to her every need as
payment for getting him back into school? I should have been
thinking about other things but I couldn’t get him out of my
mind. I tried hard to fight it, but he just had that effect on me
and I didn’t know how change it. The time we spent together
was so magical that even after the breakup I was still under
his spell.

Homeroom was nothing but a triple whammy.
The
three people I most wanted to avoid were all going to be
crammed into that tiny little room with me. I was the first
person to walk in so I got settled into my seat in peace. That
peace was short lived. Mr. Raspatello waltzed in with a cup of
coffee and immediately called my name.

“Ruby, your stepmother called me this morning and
asked me if I would help chaperone the Halloween party.” He
looked at me like he was expecting some sort of response. He
got nothing but a dumb stare. “I said yes, by the way.”

Whew.
I was doing the happy dance in my mind but
just muttered a quick, “That’s cool.” He couldn’t know how
happy I was to have him at the party. He was intelligent and I
was afraid he would figure out my plan if I showed too much
enthusiasm.

Next, came Misty.
She
sauntered into the
room
wearing the biggest smirk I’d ever seen on her face. I weighed
the options. Would punching her in the face be worth the risk
of suspension? Definitely, however it would have to wait. I
couldn’t let her distract me from the more important matters
at hand.

One by one, every seat in the room filled up except for
the one directly beside me. I was so conflicted. I didn’t want
to see him because I knew my heart would break again at the
mere sight of him.
But then there was the part of me that
wanted to see him, to make sure that he was okay. As I sat
there fighting my conflicting emotions, Zach walked into the
room.

The good news? He totally ignored Misty when she
tried to talk to him.
The bad news?
He pretended that I
wasn’t even alive. Instead of taking the seat beside me, he
took Rachel’s instead. It seemed like it was only yesterday
that he moved his desk so that he could be closer to me. Now,
he couldn’t get far enough away.

He was still wearing the neck brace and cast and
although he didn’t seem to be in pain, he did look quite
uncomfortable.
He never even glanced in my direction. As
soon
as
the
morning
announcements
were
over,
he
approached Mr. Raspatello’s desk. With a few whispered
words, Zach handed him a slip of paper and walked out of the
room.

Where was he going?
I knew it was none of my
business but I still would have given anything to find out. All I
knew was that he didn’t come back. I didn’t see him again
until math class at which point I wished I hadn’t.

I spotted him from halfway down the hall. Let’s face
it—he was pretty hard to miss. It’s not every day you see a
Norse god who looked like he shopped at a medical supply
store. But that wasn’t what really caught my attention. It was
the giggling
girl by
his
side, clearly
happy
to
be in
his
company. That girl was Chloe Cosgrove.

I knew it! She was after my boyfriend the entire time.
I would have been torn apart to see him with any girl but this
sight hurt twice as bad.
She was my friend!
There was a
definite point where I trusted her and told her things I now
wished I hadn’t. As I brushed past them and through the
doorway, Chloe called my name.
I ignored her and kept
walking. With what little pride I had left, I refused to let her
see the tears forming in my eyes.

When he took his seat in front of me, I hid my face so
he wouldn’t see them either.
I sat through the entire class
feeling like someone had punched me in the gut.
All of the
special moments
I
should have been sharing with Zach, he
was now sharing with Chloe. I knew it was my choice to give
him up, but I did it for good reasons. I didn’t expect him to be
alone the rest of his life but another girlfriend already?
So
soon? He could have at least pretended like our relationship
meant something to him. He just wasn’t the boy I thought he
was. How could I have been so wrong about him?

I spent five minutes in the rest room before stopping
at my locker to give him time to do what he needed to do and
be gone before I got there.
When I was done, I tracked down
Coach Hunter to see if I could use the track. If there was ever
a day when I needed to run away, it was today.
As expected,
she was happy to see me so I changed quickly and put it into
full gear.

How did I get to this point? Sure, it was Garnet who
pushed Zach down the stairs, but in his eyes, it might as well
have been me. If he only knew the truth—the truth I could
never tell him—he would see that breaking up with him was
the most selfless thing I could have done for him.
He would
see that hurting him was the last thing on earth I would have
done voluntarily.
But my hands were tied. He would spend
the rest of his life thinking that I didn’t love him, thinking that
he
meant nothing
to me, when in
fact it was
the exact
opposite. Zach was everything to me and I would never forget
him—never stop loving him for as long as I lived.

I was so deeply lost in thought that an hour went by
without notice. Coach Hunter actually had to come out to tell
me I needed to come in because she was ready to leave. As
we walked into the locker room, I glanced up at the window
my whole plan pivoted around. I had to get my focus back—
Mr. Raspatello got away with murder for twenty years, but his
time was up. I had to stop him.

Shelly had talked to Coach Hunter about chaperoning
the party, too, and she was definitely onboard. So far my plan
was working.
It had to—because if it failed, I was in deep
trouble. And that was the best case scenario. The worst case?
Garnet would have a new haunting buddy.

It was the most miserable week of my life. Every time
I saw Zach outside of class, he was practically glued to Chloe’s
hip.
And every time I saw Chloe, she tried to talk to me.
What? Wasn’t taking my leftovers before they were even cold
not good enough for her? Did she find it necessary to rub my
face in it as well?
My heart was already destroyed beyond
repair—there was nothing left of it.

I kept a low profile around Mr. Raspatello and when it
came to Misty, well, I consoled myself with thoughts of future
revenge. One day I would gain the upper hand in that battle
and then I was going to use that hand to smack her right
across the face. But as much as I relished that thought, Misty
had to take a back seat for now. Revenge wasn’t just a dish
best served cold, revenge was a dish best served by
me
.

When Friday night finally arrived, I was drained both
mentally and physically.
My stomach felt even worse than
before and I was horrified to see that I’d lost another five
pounds. I had to find out what happened to Garnet soon—
while I waited to put my plan into action, I was literally
wasting away.

There wasn’t a whole lot I could do during the week,
but my weekend schedule was packed solid.
Work at the
shop meant I could read more of Rita’s ghost hunting records.
Don’t get me wrong—I
had no interest in
ghost hunting
beyond what I needed to do to rid myself of my current
problem. There was no way on earth—I repeat, no way on
earth—that I would ever turn it into a hobby the way Rita did.
Never in a million years. No, make that a trillion.

After work meant time spent with Rachel planning the
accursed party. She asked me to help pass out the invitations
this week but I refused. Most of these people were strangers
to me. Strangers who saw me freak out in the shower, no less.
In exchange for not helping with that task, I agreed to get a
head start on decorating the ball room Friday night while she
was busy cheering at the game.

So while every normal teenager in town was enjoying
the football game and the dance afterward, I was setting up a
ladder to hang crepe paper bats. Halloween was my favorite
holiday
but even
that was
ruined for me this
year.
No
boyfriend, a party I didn’t want, and breaking and entering—
not the best Halloween ever, for sure. I didn’t even want to
pick out a costume but
Rachel was
forcing
me
to do
it.
Monday night after school, I was meeting her at The Village to
pick one out. She would try on fifty different outfits before
finally choosing one—this I knew. I also knew that I would
grab the first one I found and be done with it. There was no
reason to care about how I looked anymore.

I decorated until nearly midnight and was so tired
that I fell into
bed without even changing
my
clothes.
Morning came in the blink of an eye. Eight hours of sleep felt
more like two.
I took one look in the mirror and wished I
hadn’t. My face was pale and large black circles hung well
below my eyes.
Was it just me or was I even starting to
actually
look
like Garnet?
Like I needed
another
depressing
thought to dwell on.

The
shop
seemed to get busier every
week
so
unfortunately, I got absolutely no reading done. As soon as I
closed the door behind the last customer, I settled in to do a
little reading before heading home.
No sooner did I sit down
and open the file until I heard a blood curdling scream that
seemed to come from right in front of me. When I raised my
eyes expecting to see something horrible unfolding on the
street outside, I nearly fell out of my seat. Something horrible
was unfolding right there in the shop.

A
woman in Victorian-style dress ran
through the
shop screaming as a dirty, unshaven man chased after her
with his left fist raised.
In that fist, he clutched a butcher
knife. The blade was razor sharp and nearly eight inches long.
The apparitions were unlike any I’d seen before. They were
almost solid looking yet they passed through the
display
tables without causing any sort of disruption to the items
resting on them.

I watched in a state of fear-induced paralysis.
That
woman was about to die right in front of me.
I wanted to
close my eyes but morbid curiosity wouldn’t allow me. Her
ankle turned inward and she fell forward, her head slamming
on the tiled floor with incredible force.
Without hesitation,
the man fell upon his prey as she raised her arms in defense.
It was like holding out your hands to stop a runaway freight
train.

The tip of the blade found its target as it plunged into
her chest. Eight inches of hard steel pierced her body as the
knife sunk in up to its hilt. But it wasn’t over. With a ruthless
yank, the man ripped the blade up and out of her chest
releasing a spray of fresh blood along with it. Her screams
turned to gurgles as the air seeped out of her lungs and the
blood oozed in. But it still wasn’t over. In fact, it had just
begun.

Again and again, the man sank the blade into her flesh
until the light left her eyes. Then as quickly as it appeared,
the gory vision was gone. I couldn’t move. I stood with my
mouth hanging open in disbelief. When the shock wore off, I
ran for the phone and dialed Rita’s number.