Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (39 page)

Let me get this straight,” Officer Looks Like Peter Griffin
replied with definite doubt in his voice. “Not only do you not
know your stalker personally, but also you aren’t even sure if
you have one or two
different
stalkers?”

That was the moment that I lost all poise, abandoned all
attempts to not sound like a total moron. I was just too stupid
to notice it.
Instead, I plowed ahead enthusiastically like a
death row inmate
innocently
offering
to plug
in
that nice
wooden “chair” for his arthritic warden.

“Well, I can’t actually
see
my
stalker or stalkers,
whichever the case may be,” I announced factually. It was the
absolute truth—the windows in that Buick were too dark for
me to tell who was following me. I felt certain that it was Shane
but that was only based on a gut feeling.

From the minute I walked into the police station, I got
the
feeling
that
Captain
Donaldson
was
staring
at
me.
Obviously, I assumed that it was because I looked so hideous in
my clashing red on red ensemble. I was dreadfully wrong.

“
That’s
where I know you from!” he exclaimed before
“Peter” could fire off another question. “You’re the one who
found the body on the church steps a few months ago. You’re
the one everyone in town is talking about—the one who
thinks
she can see ghosts.”

That was my cue to run away. That was my cue to find
a legitimate reason to excuse myself. Like the first few opening
lines of “A Phantom Affair”, I missed my cue. By a
long
shot. I
was laboring under the impression that educated men—men
sworn to protect and serve the community—were above petty
bullying of teenage misfits like me. I was wrong.

“Yes,” I replied naively, “That was me and my friend
Rachel. “Anyway, as I was saying—”

“Wait a second,” interjected the until now silent third
officer, “Is this the girl you were just telling us about, Captain?
The one your wife caught playing poker with her imaginary
friend?”

A round of hearty laughter filled the small room but
echoed endlessly through my suddenly empty soul. They didn’t
believe me. They were making fun of me.
They thought I was
crazy. They thought I was a liar or a freak. They looked at me
as easy prey. They saw me the same way Misty saw me. And
that’s the moment when I could only describe myself in three
small words. I saw red.

Anger. Humiliation. Hurt. Disbelief. Clay stood beside
me offering words of comfort but I blocked them all out.
I
blocked out everything but the pain I was so used to—the pain
of rejection. The pain of being mocked by strangers and friends
alike.

“Yeah, that’s me. Ruby Matthews—carnival oddity.
Sideshow freak. Ghost Whisperer. I see dead people. However
you want to ridicule me, I
guarantee
you that someone before
you has done it better. Laugh at me all you want to. But I’m not
crazy and I’ll take care of this all by myself, thank you.” I
stormed out of the police station proudly while fighting back
the tears. This was
my
battle to fight—not anyone else’s and
especially
not theirs.

During the drive to Something Wick-ed, Clay alternated
between
chastising
the police for their insensitivity
and
apologizing for the role his presence played in the matter.
I
couldn’t respond. I was still too hurt, too angry for words. Still
seeing red. I was too busy trying to figure out how I was going
to take care of this problem myself. That would have been huge
life decision number three if I’d been keeping track at the time.
Another trifecta. A trifecta of Fate’s carefully woven threads. A
trifecta that would change my life—what was left of it—until
my dying day. This day wasn’t supposed to start out the way it
did.
And nothing in the world could prepare me for how it
ended. Shit really
was
about to get real.
And I was far from
ready for it.

25. Driving Miss Daisy

Since my time at the police station was much shorter
than I expected it to be, I now had more than enough time to go
back home and get properly dressed for work. But that wasn’t
what I did. I was too mad to care how I looked. I was too busy
trying to figure out how I could prove to everyone that I wasn’t
crazy. Being able to see ghosts had nothing to do with being
stalked by drug dealers. Nothing whatsoever.

I drove around the block a few times while trying to
decide what to do next. And venting feverishly to myself. Or at
least that’s how it looked to the rest of the world. I was too
mad to care
who
saw me talking to Clay. As I ranted and raved
about how I hoped that Mrs. Donaldson stopped into the shop
today so that I could give her something to talk about, Clay
offered a brilliant suggestion.

“Hey, Ruby, I hate to interrupt Angerpalooza here, but I
just thought of something weird. It may seem farfetched at first
but I don’t think it’s coincidence.”

I was still steaming mad, of course, but I shut my mouth
long enough to hear him out.
It was his use of the term
“Angerpalooza” that did it. Apparently, I was a sucker for
literary creativity even while I was knee-deep in a bad mood.

“So I got to thinking that maybe
you
aren’t being stalked
after all.”

He said it with such conviction that if I could have
smacked him, I would have. Farfetched was right.
How could
he—of all people—come to that insane conclusion?
He was
with
me in the car when I almost wrecked trying to shake my
pursuer. I opened my mouth prepared to hand him a heated
rebuttal but he held up his hand in protest.

“Hear me out, Hot Pants,” he said to me with a devilish
grin, “I didn’t mean to suggest that we weren’t being followed,
I’m just saying that maybe it was really the car that was being
followed.”

“Either way,
I’m
not following!” I shouted, deliberately
ignoring my new nickname.
Hot Pants.
WTF?
Was he making
fun of my ugly outfit or my current state of rage?

“That Buick didn’t start following us until
after
you
bought this car. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe
they think you’re someone else. I think you should switch cars
with someone for the day and test out my theory.”

Brilliance. Sheer brilliance. If I could have hugged him
right then, I would have. He was right. The car I was driving
now could easily be mistaken for about a million other cars in
the state of Pennsylvania alone.
And I knew exactly who I
needed to switch vehicles with.
Rachel—owner of the most
distinctive car in
Volkswagen with
town.
No one could look
at a yellow
eyelashes
and
mistake it for
my
black,

nondescript set of wheels.
I knew exactly where to find her,
too. Rosewood.

With only thirty minutes left until I was supposed to be
opening the store, I was going to have to hurry to make it all the
way to my house, convince Rachel to let me have Daisy for the
day, then race back into town.
Assuming that racing was a
possibility in a car like that. I would get the stink eye from Mrs.
Tuttle even if I opened five minutes early so what difference
would it make if I opened five minutes late for once. Rita would
understand once I explained the situation. I think. I would still
try to make it back in time but without driving like a maniac
like I did last night.

Rachel was getting out of her car as I pulled up to the
house. How convenient! I didn’t have to waste any time
searching for her in that labyrinthine mansion. I also wouldn’t
have to explain to my parents what happened at the police
station or why I was borrowing Rachel’s car. I would be able to
do that once I got out of work. This plan was looking better by
the minute—foolproof from
passenger side window
and
attention.
every
angle.
I put down
the

yelled her name
to get her

 

“Rachel! Who’s your bestest friend in the whole wide
world?” I asked cheerfully.

“Well, Ruby is but you’re in too good of a mood to be
her so you must be a shape shifter wearing Ruby’s clothes.”
She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she inspected my outfit.
“Which is also a dead giveaway because she knows better than
to wear two clashing shades of red together.”

“Yes, she does,” I said laughing, “But she got dressed in
a super hurry and still doesn’t have a second to spare on
worrying about her wardrobe. So be a good little girl and let
Mr. Shape Shifter borrow your car for the day and no one gets
hurt. Please? I don’t have time to explain but I promise to be
careful with it.”

“It? Oh no, if you want to spend the day with my little
yellow friend, you’re going to have to use her proper name.”

“Fine,” I said with a gigantic sigh and an even bigger eye
roll, “
Daisy
. Can I borrow Daisy for the day? My car is perfectly
drivable so if I’m not back before you need to leave, feel free to
take it.”

“Okay,” she said as we exchanged keys, “But be careful
with her—she’s a delicate flower. And eyelashes like hers don’t
grow on trees, either.”

Thank God for that.
I forced a smile and promised to
take extra special care of her precious front end before pulling
away triumphantly.

Daisy
handled
fairly
well
so
aside
from
the
embarrassment factor, it was a smooth ride back into town.
With such a tiny car, I even decided to give parallel parking a
whirl. Unsuccessful. Especially since Mrs. Tuttle was glaring at
me the whole time, pointing at her watch to indicate that I was
late by two whole seconds.
I came to the conclusion that
parallel parking was a skill that I would never truly possess and
pulled into another spot instead.
I also came to the conclusion
that that annoying
librarian needed to get a
life and
stop
disapproving of mine.

Shortly after we entered the store, the rain came and
drove my first and only customer of the day away.
Clay and I
talked and played a few more hands of poker to pass the time.
When I grew tired of winning, I threw down my cards and
declared “Game over!”

While we were trying to find something else to do, I
sent Zach a text to see if he wanted to get together later so that
I could tell him what happened yesterday. When I didn’t get an
immediate response, I figured he was busy scooping poop or
something and figured he would get back to me when he was
finished. If I’d known the real reason why he didn’t text me
back, I would have started panicking right then. But I didn’t so
Clay and I poked around Rita’s office for another source of
amusement.

As I was going through one of the filing cabinets, Clay
caught sight of the file marked “Rosewood”. “Hey, is that her
account of what happened to you over the summer? I want to
read it.”

“You’re SOL there, Clay,” I said as I opened the empty
file as proof. “Rita is waiting for me to finish writing that for
her—and she’s going to be waiting for a while, too. I used to
make time to write but lately, I haven’t. There’s too much going
on in my life for that. Plus, there’s some memories in there that
I don’t really want to remember right now.”

I didn’t like thinking about all of the lies that I told back
then or how those lies affected Zach. I didn’t like how I treated
Shelly last summer, either. There would be plenty of time to
write once we moved to Ohio. My only goal for the next month
and a half was to graduate without killing Misty—or
getting
killed myself. Simplicity was the name of the game until I got to
leave Charlotte’s Grove.

“Gotcha,” Clay replied knowingly then spotted a Magic
Eight Ball in
the drawer behind my file. “There’s our
entertainment for the rest of the afternoon!”

There are no words to describe how much I hated those
dumb things but it was better than sitting there staring at the
rain for the last few hours of my shift.
Every time I looked
outside, it seemed to be raining harder. Wasn’t the sun ever
going to shine again?

Clay and I took turns asking that cheap hunk of plastic
for answers to life’s big questions. “Was the Buick going to
follow us home tonight?” My sources say no. “Was I going to
get any more customers today?” Don’t count on it. “Was it
going to stop raining soon?” Reply hazy try again. “Was Mrs.
Tuttle secretly plotting to take over the world?” It is decidedly
so.

If
it had been Rachel and me, I would have asked
questions about my future with Zach. But I didn’t want to be
insensitive to Clay’s feelings for me. Since he wasn’t able to
read my mind—yet—I mentally asked the ball a question then
casually flipped it over. “Are Zach and I going to live happily
ever after?” Better not tell you now.

“Okay, I’m bored with this thing,” I said as I plunked it
down on the table, disappointed that my question didn’t gather
a resounding “Yes definitely”. “It’s a toy not a crystal ball.”
I
watched as it rolled off the edge of the counter and smashed to
the floor before I could grab it.

I could tell by the sound that it made when it made
contact with the tile floor that its pseudo fortune telling days
were definitively over. I decided to give it one last chance to
answer my question. “Are Zach and I going to live happily ever
after?”

There in the midst of broken chunks of black plastic and
blue liquid lay the die bearing its final answer—“Don’t count on
it”. I snatched up that infernal little liar and tossed it into the
garbage can where it deserved to be.