Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (38 page)

“Too risky,” I replied as I put the car in gear and pulled
out onto the street. “We’re going to have to try this again and
hope that it isn’t after dark the next time we see that car.” I
consoled myself with the fact that the driver probably wasn’t
even in there—that I wouldn’t have garnered any information
anyway.

Clay nodded his head in agreement and said, “I’m sorry,
Ruby.”

I sighed heavily as I came to a stop at the first stoplight.
“It isn’t your fault, Clay. I’m the one who created this bond in
the first place, remember? You have no control over what’s
happening to you now, either.”

“No, that isn’t what I’m sorry about. Look behind us,”
he said as he pointed into the mirror. “You were right.”

There it was, pulled up so close to my back bumper that
there wasn’t enough room for a snake to slither between our
cars.
My heart began to thump faster and I was certain the
driver could see the fear in my eyes reflecting back from the
mirror. The light refused to turn green but when it finally did, I
realized that driving away with him behind me was an even
more frightening thought.

Any normal driver would have honked the horn angrily
while they waited endlessly for me to pull forward. My pursuer
did not. Instead, he sat there patiently like a panther lying in
wait. No need to alert your prey to danger—just sit back and
wait for the right moment to pounce. The sound of its engine
ticking softly behind me was simply maddening but held me
entranced.

“Go!” Clay yelled and I instinctively complied.

My foot hit that peddle and I took off like a wild doe that
had caught wind of the enemy’s scent.
I broke the speed
barrier through town—or the speed limit at least—in the hopes
of losing my pursuer. My greatest fear while driving was that I
would be stopped and handed a ticket for irresponsible driving.
Now, my greatest fear would have been a dream come true.

“I’m calling the police,” I said as we broke past the
borough line and out into the desolate secondary roads.
I
reached over to grab my bag and veered a little too far to the
right around a curve.
I could hear the sound of wet gravel
spinning out from under my back tire so I spun the steering
wheel to get back onto the road.

The car lurched over to the left, throwing me into the
other lane of traffic. Through the misty windshield, I could see
the headlights of an oncoming car further down the stretch of
highway but I tried not to panic.
There was enough time to
correct my over-correction. My main concern wasn’t what was
coming toward me—it was what was behind me.

“Clay!” I shouted, “Are they still behind us?”

 

“Don’t worry about that until you get this car back on
your own side of the yellow lines! Stay calm, dammit!”

One long, loud honk began to echo
through
the
darkness as the oncoming car screamed at me to get under
control.
I jerked the wheel forcefully right and sent myself
flying back too far to the right again. I could feel myself starting
to hyperventilate, starting
to become light headed from
breathing that was much too shallow.

“Ease on the brakes!” Clay commanded. “Turn
the
wheel slowly back to the left!
And turn your damn wipers on
woman!
You know I love you and I would give anything to
spend eternity with you but this isn’t how I want it to happen!”

For the love of all things holy, why did he have to tell
me he loved me at a time like this? I was caught in a trifecta of
terror—murderous
drug
dealers
behind
me,
eternally
unrequited ghost love beside me, and
innocent
bystanders
about to total my new car in front of me. FML—make that a
quadrafecta now because fat raindrops were splattering onto
the windshield at an alarming rate.

I flicked the wipers on, hit the brakes, and carefully
turned the wheel
back
the other direction—all the while
wondering whether or not “quadrafecta” was a real word. Why
couldn’t I shut off just a fraction of my weird brain long enough
to get myself out of situations like this without unnecessary
distractions? Why, for one single day, couldn’t I stop being me?

Clay made an excellent driving coach.
No sooner did I
complete his suggested moves, than the car was back where it
needed to be. The oncoming vehicle sailed past us, horn still
blaring, but far from threatening to hit us.
The car behind us
had backed off to a slightly safer distance but was still in
moderately hot pursuit.
The wipers were keeping the rain
effectively at bay so that I could see to drive us home without
any more incidents.

The only thing Clay’s coaching didn’t take care of was
his impromptu declaration of love for me. He may have been
calm enough to keep me under control, but he had to have been
severely panicked to let that one slip out. Even the best driver’s
ed teacher on the planet couldn’t have prepared me for that
kind of accident. And it had to happen so shortly after realizing
that we were even more tightly bound to each other.

On the drive home, I made two—what I thought were
very wise—decisions.
Neither of them turned out the way I
expected them to. Looking back on it later, I’d have to say that
they were two of the most important decisions of my entire
life—in an odd sort of way. They led to a very weird chain of
events, a strange unraveling of who I thought I was and what I
thought to be true. Fate was about to rip me apart at the seams
for the sole purpose of stitching me back together using a very
different pattern.

24. This Should Be a Breeze

Decision number one—how I was going to handle Clay’s
verbal admission that he loved me. It was a two-fold plan that I
had in mind. If he chose to open up the subject, I would tell him
in no uncertain terms how I felt about him.
He was a great
friend to me—even better than Rachel. While she and I were
super close, she had her own life to live. She had school, Boone,
and plans for her future which took up a lot of her time. She
wasn’t able to hold my hand every time I needed support.
That’s just how life goes, I guess. Clay, on the other hand, had
none of the above and was able to spend every second of his
day catering to my myriad of emotional needs. That’s just how
the afterlife goes, I guess. Nope, I wasn’t going to give him a
watered down version of what he meant to me—I was simply
going to let him know in no uncertain terms, that he was
eternally friend-zoned in my book. And not just because of the
whole him being dead thing, either.
My heart belonged—and
always
would
belong—to Zach.

Part of me though suspected that he wouldn’t even
remember saying that he wanted to spend eternity with me. If
that was the case, what good reason was there to remind him?
I needed to suck it up and pretend that it never happened.

Decision number two.
It was time to go to the police
regarding my new “friend” in the gray Buick. I realized that I
didn’t have much in the way of a description, but if I went down
to the station before work they could drive by closer to closing
time to get a firsthand look. I even told Dad and Shelly about
what happened and
my
plan
for dealing
with it.
They
approved. I sort of left out the part where I almost wrecked,
though—that was more my fault than it was my stalker’s. His
attack was passive more than it was aggressive. He wasn’t
using
force
to
intimidate—he
was
waging
psychological
warfare instead. That’s when I realized that it had to be Shane.
Dylan was too dumb witted to come up with a strategy like this
and far too impulsive to even carry it out.

Once I finished that discussion with Dad and Shelly,
Clay and I retreated to the attic.
This was where things would
get awkward if they were going to. I went about my business as
though nothing were wrong. And so did he. I pulled out my
copy of
Carrie
and sat down on the futon with him while he
watched TV. It was fairly late when I realized that I hadn’t told
Zach about anything that happened today.
In fact, we had
barely texted each other all day.

I let Clay know that I was going to the bathroom to get
ready for bed since he now had no other choice but to follow
me. I was trying to be respectful of the invisible tether between
us—to at least give him fair warning before jerking him along
behind me. I took my phone along with me so that I could give
Zach a quick call in private. He beat me to it.

“Hey, Ruby,” Zach said quietly, “Sorry I didn’t stay in
touch with you much today. When I’m depressed, I tend to lose
track of time. I don’t feel like talking for long but I at least
wanted to hear your voice before I went to bed. How was your
day?”

So I
now found myself
caught in
a quandary.
My
original intention was to tell him everything about my day but
now it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. I didn’t want to
make him more depressed. I didn’t want him to worry about
me or the fact that he wasn’t around when I needed him to be—
it would only
bring
up more painful memories
of
what
happened with his grandpa. But I didn’t want to lie to him,
either.

“Well,” I floundered, searching for the right words, “A
lot happened today, Zach. But I think I’ll leave that
conversation for later. Now isn’t the right time.”

“Yeah, I’m not equipped to handle any bad news right
now. As long as you aren’t planning to break up with me,
that’s all I need to know.”

“No, Zach! It has nothing to do with that. I—”

Before I had a chance to tell him that I loved him, a loud
ruckus erupted in the background. More unrest at the Mason
home no doubt. I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, but I
could hear his Dad screaming his name amidst the chaos.
I
waited for the noise to die down so that I could finish my
sentence before ending our conversation for the night. I hated
not being able to say goodnight the
right
way.

Zach, on the other hand, was too busy getting his head
chewed off to care. “I gotta go,” he said hurriedly. I heard a
click and then silence.

Even though I understood perfectly why he did it, I still
mumbled aloud, “He hung up on me. He freakin’ hung up on
me.” I shook off the disappointment and finished getting ready
for bed.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I realized that I
now had a new problem.
With our newly strengthened bond,
Clay wouldn’t be able to spend the night watching TV on the
futon like always. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him
spend the night in bed with me. I grabbed my desk chair and
positioned it approximately five feet from my bed and pointed
to it.

“Yes, Dom!” Clay answered with a silly grin.

After that failed conversation with Zach, I wasn’t in the
mood for any verbal sparring with Clay. He received an eye roll
in place of a goodnight.
I set my alarm an hour earlier than
usual and turned out the lights.

Morning came around quicker than I would have hoped.
As a result, I hit the snooze button a few times too many and
ended up losing that extra hour I’d given myself to spend at the
police station before work. I contemplated moving that activity
to the end of my day but changed my mind.
Talking to the
police was important and not something I should procrastinate
about. It was time to grow up a little bit and get my priorities
in order.

Growing up sucks.
In order to have enough time to do
what I
needed
to do before work, I had to forfeit the battle with
my hair—ugly, half frizzy ponytail it is. And after taking a two
minute shower, why would I even care what clothes I was
wearing? I put on the first things I found in my closet which
consisted of a red tee and a red hoodie—two very different
shades of red, I might add—old jeans and boots that were made
to wear with skinny jeans not the bootcut ones I was wearing.
Maybe once they saw how bad I looked, the police would
immediately know that this was an urgent matter that needed
attended to. I wouldn’t go out of the house looking like this
without an extremely good reason, after all.

When I entered the police station, I was relieved to see
that neither Milan Museum nor his potentially flirty partner
were there.
Instead, I found Captain Donaldson himself and
two officers I’d never seen before. I walked up to the counter
and said matter-of-factly, “I would like to report a crime.”

The tall, stocky officer who bore a striking resemblance
to Peter Griffin from
Family Guy
crossed his arms over his
broad chest and addressed me authoritatively.

“Okay, miss. What kind of crime would you like to
report.”

“Someone is stalking me.” Nice, brief, to the point. No
need to overdramatize this thing. No five act play necessary.
Just the truth, short and simple.

“Do you know your stalker well? Ex-boyfriend maybe?”
he questioned.

Why did that matter? A stalker was a stalker regardless
of how well I knew him. Right? But I knew better than to cock
an attitude about it. I stayed calm and factual. “No.
I barely
know him—or them. I’m not sure which one it is. Or maybe it’s
both.” Okay, so I wasn’t exactly very detailed fact-wise but at
least I had the calm part down pat.

I should have known at this point that I had already lost
a few credibility points. I should have walked away with what
little dignity I had and asked Dad to take care of this for me. I
should have but I didn’t. New responsible, grown up, nonprocrastinating Ruby was going to handle this matter herself.