Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (10 page)

“Why are you laughing?” I asked as I opened the door to
the office.
What was so amusing about watching me count
money? Boys never make sense. Ever.

“I’m laughing because you asked me if I could hang out
for a while. What other plans did you think I might have?
You
forgot that I was dead again, didn’t you?”

Okay, so boys make sense
sometimes
. “Yes, I did. But
now that you reminded me, I’d like to resume our conversation
about your death sometime soon. I don’t want to see you float
around down here for the rest of eternity when there’s a better
place for you to be.”

“Not right now, okay? I want to hear what happened
between you and Lucas that was so bad that you wielded that
pen like it was a samurai sword. What were you planning to
do—write him to death?”

“Very funny, Clay, but I can’t sit around here being the
butt of your jokes all night—I’m meeting Zach in a bit.”

 

“I like Zach, by the way. I think you guys make a good
couple—since I can’t have you myself, that is.”

I could tell by his tone of voice that he was no longer
joking. He totally had a crush on me! Seriously, what was it
about this town?
Back in Trinity, Lee was the only boy who
even noticed that I was alive.
But the second I moved to
Charlotte’s Grove, I turned into some sort of boy magnet.
Honestly, I was glad that Zach was the first boy I met here—
who knows who I might be with now if I hadn’t met him in the
diner that day. With a polite smile, I let Clay’s comment go
without addressing it and filled him in on why Lucas was no
longer my friend.
As much as I liked Clay—as a
friend
—I
couldn’t let him get any more attached to me. Or me to him. I
would have to say goodbye to him forever, soon—there was no
reason to make it any harder than it already had to be.

When I got to the shelter, I found Foxy eating from a
dish on the floor at Zach’s feet. I was incredibly astounded by
her rapid recovery and she owed it all to Zach.
Without his
constant care and attention, she may not even still be alive. I
was so proud of him and he should have been proud of himself,
too.
Instead, he sat glumly in his chair without even a hint of
excitement showing.

“Zach! Foxy’s doing great, why do you seem so sad?” I
put my arms around him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. If
there was a way to cheer him up, I would certainly find it.

“I’m really happy that she’s getting better but I argued
with my dad again today. It’s all I can seem to think about.”

I was hoping he would be in a good mood so that I could
share my current problems with him but for once, he looked
like he needed me to listen to his problems first.
I plopped
down onto the air mattress and said, “This thing with your dad
goes way beyond the accident, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. He’s still mad at me for walking away
from a football career. Every time I screw up in any way, he
brings it up. We argued about it back when I got suspended
from school but it wasn’t this bad. I just wish he could forget
about it once and for all. I made the right decision—I
know
that
I did.”

Parents don’t make sense half the time, either. “Here’s
what I don’t get—he got hurt pretty bad playing football, didn’t
he? You would think it would be the last thing he would want
you to be doing.”

Zach shook his head no. “He didn’t get hurt on the field.
Somebody attacked him with a baseball bat—smashed both of
his kneecaps. Football had nothing to do with it. He thinks our
lives would be so much better if he’d never gotten hurt. He still
thinks about all of the money he could have made in the NFL.
He just can’t seem to understand why I would walk away from
that kind of opportunity. Actually, he just doesn’t understand
me
.”

“Parents rarely do.” With those three words, I said a
mouthful. It’s like the minute they had kids, they forgot what it
was like to
be
one.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Zach said as he lay down on the
mattress with me and coaxed Foxy over to join us. “Let’s talk
about something else. How did things go with Clay last night?”

I rested my head against his shoulder and Foxy curled
up between us. This new aspect of our relationship was nice.
Once we removed the idea of sex from the equation, it felt like
we were getting to know each other better as people. Unlike
before, I wanted to share every part of my
day
with
him
without leaving a single thing out. Okay, so I wasn’t exactly
excited to tell him about my conversation with Lucas but that
didn’t mean I wasn’t going to tell him about it. Zach certainly
wasn’t going
to
be happy when he heard that his sister’s
sudden illness on opening night was caused by Lucas and Misty.
But first, I needed to get some answers from him about Clay.

“Not good, not good at all. He wants to stay earthbound
because he’s afraid that he’s going to go to Hell if he moves on.”
I didn’t actually see him, but I felt a cool breeze then, seconds
later, all of the dogs began wildly barking in the kennels.
I
could tell that Zach knew Clay was there but he barely even
flinched and definitely didn’t mention it. It was too bad that
Zach couldn’t see ghosts, too—he would make a damn good
ghost hunter at this point.

“Oh,” he asked cautiously, “why is that?”

“He was a drug dealer and he thinks he may have even
committed suicide. He can’t remember a single thing that he
did on the day he died and he doesn’t want to. My easy ghost
removal mission isn’t going to be as easy as it seemed.”

Zach sighed heavily and snuggled closer to me. “I was
afraid this might happen.
There are a few things I should tell
you about Clay’s death. I would have told you a long time ago,
but you didn’t want to talk about him. Once you guys became
friends and you decided to help him, I hoped that he would
have the answers no one else did. Looks like I was wrong.”

“Okay,” I replied, but I was anything
but
okay. Freeing
Clay from whatever held him here was supposed to be easy. It
was supposed to be something nice I was doing for a friend. He
didn’t seem to mind being here and if we hadn’t formed that
stupid bond, I would have let the whole thing rest.
But—story
of my life—it was too late for that. He simply had to change his
mind about moving on. It was Clay’s turn to do something nice
for a friend—that friend being me, of course. I couldn’t live the
rest of my life with him attached to my hip, now could I?
Could
I? No, I couldn’t.

“Clay was considered a missing person for two weeks
before his body was found. The last person who would admit
to seeing him alive was his mother. She said he left the house
sometime
that
Friday
night
but
he
never
came
home.
Apparently, this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for Clay so
she didn’t even start to worry about him until several days
later. The cops found his Mustang at the lake and by the looks
of it, they automatically assumed that foul play was involved.
They searched the woods by helicopter first and eventually
brought out the cadaver dogs. When the dogs came up empty
handed, they started dragging
the lake.
Silver Lake is
incredibly
deep in some areas so it took them awhile but
obviously, they did find Clay’s body. It was kind of hard for
them to determine an exact time of death, but they said he
probably died within twenty-four hours of the last time he was
seen.”

How strange.
Was it more than just coincidence that
Clay himself had no information about those last twenty-four
hours of his life? Of course it was. I had to go and stumble into
yet another freakin’ mystery surrounding the death of yet
another freakin’ ghost. Granted, Clay wasn’t a danger to me in
the same way that Scarlet, Garnet, and Allison were but he lived
a dangerous lifestyle. Who knows what I might uncover on my
quest to send him into the great beyond. Maybe I had a vivid
imagination, but a Mexican drug cartel was the first thing that
popped into my mind. Sure, they rarely operated this far north
of the border, but I had a reason for being so paranoid. Talking
to Allison was only supposed to clear Drake’s name but it
ended with me being kidnapped by a serial killer. No, I wasn’t
going to scratch “Mexican drug cartel” off of my list just yet.
Better safe than sorry, right?

“I’m confused—they ruled his death an accident, didn’t
they? What did you mean when you said ‘by the looks of it,
they assumed there was foul play’?”

“Well, that’s just one more piece of the mystery
surrounding
his
death.
When
they found his
car, it was
smashed all to hell.
Every window was broken out and it
looked like somebody had taken
a baseball bat to it.
His
grandmother insisted that Clay never would have done that
kind of damage to it himself.
But since there weren’t any
suspects and no evidence found at the scene, the police ruled
his death as accidental.”

“Really? I mean, come on—even
Inspector Gadget
could see that things just don’t add up there! If only Clay could
remember what happened. If only Clay
wanted
to remember
what happened.”

“I know, Ruby,” Zach said as he kissed me on the cheek.
“Aside from Foxy’s recovery, nothing this weekend turned out
the way it was supposed to. I don’t really want to go but I have
to. Can you give me a ride home now?”

“Of course I can. I hope the situation with your dad gets
better.”

 

“I hope your situation with Clay gets better.”

Zach got Foxy settled into her cage while I pondered the
depths of the new mess I’d gotten myself into. We left the
shelter a very dreary couple but at least we had each other to
lean on at times like this.
I felt bad for Zach when I dropped
him off at his house because I knew just how badly he didn’t
want to be there. As I backed out of their drive, I heard arguing
coming from the Mason house—something I’d never heard
once from that family. March was definitely coming in like a
lion. Things could only get better from here.

8. Eye Am on a Roll Now

When I walked into school Monday
morning,
my
performance at the Bantam on Friday night was the furthest
thing from my mind. And that was exactly where I wanted and
expected it to stay.
Once I stepped through the front doors
though, it was like I was in that parallel universe again. You
know the one where I am popular and people want to talk to
me. The one where Misty disappears in the light of my sheer
awesomeness. No joke, just as she was in mid-flirt with some
bulky football player, he turned to me and said, “Nice work
there, Starlet.” She literally recoiled from her attack and
slithered away down the hall.
Priceless. So many people I’d
never talked
to—teachers I didn’t even know—were all
suddenly
complimenting
me on my
acting
skills.
I was
famous—well, sort of—and it was the most amazing feeling
ever. One night on stage and I turned the red carpet into the
Ruby
red carpet. Un-freakin’-believable.

It wasn’t until I saw Rachel in home room that I
realized I had stolen the spotlight that should have belonged to
her.
I
certainly
never
meant
for
that
to
happen
but
nevertheless, I felt awful. If Lucas hadn’t spiked her energy
drink before show time, none of this would have happened.
How in the world could I have been stupid enough to trust him?
Sure, most of what he did was at Misty’s bidding but that was
no excuse.
Rachel may never get an apology from Lucas, but
she was going to get one from me.

“Hey, Rach,” I said as I slid into my seat. “I’m really
sorry about what happened Friday night.
I never should have
taken your place on stage. If I’d known that Lucas got you sick
on purpose, I definitely wouldn’t have.”

Rachel gave me a puzzled look as she tossed her hair
back into a ponytail. “Why are you apologizing to me?
You
didn’t do anything wrong. And you definitely weren’t the cause
of my horrendous performances both Saturday and Sunday
night. As much fun as I had in rehearsal, I was nowhere even
near prepared for the crippling stage fright that set in once I
had a real audience.
As a matter of fact, you did me a huge
favor. There’s no way I would have been able to force myself to
do that three nights in a row—two was emotionally damaging
enough.”

“What? But you’ve always wanted to be an actress? I’m
confused.” Incredibly confused.

“Wanted—past tense. The second I got on stage I froze.
I can’t even tell you how many lines I messed up or forgot
completely. It was terrible. I seriously didn’t want to do it
again on Sunday but my mom convinced me that it would be
easier the second time around. Well, mothers aren’t always
right—I found
that
out the hard way.
It was so awful that I
cried between scenes. Nope, Hollywood is no longer my dream
but at least I do have something to fall back on—something I
totally love and
know
that I’m good at.”

Now it was
my
turn to give
her
a puzzled look. “Really?
What are you good at besides acting?”

 

“Umm, don’t sound so surprised there sister—I
do
have
other talents you know.”

“Like what?” I wasn’t trying to be mean but acting was
the only
thing
she ever
talked about
wanting
to do
after
graduation. Well, that and being able to make out with Boone
on a more regular basis. How was she going to turn
that
into an
occupation? Never mind—I really didn’t want to know how.