Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (9 page)

What?
Clay was never anything but nice to me, why
would he even possibly think that he would end up in Hell?
Okay, so he was frustrating and super irritating at times but
that was no reason to burn in a sulfurous hellfire for eternity—
I don’t think. “Why do you think you’ll go to Hell?”

“I’ve done some bad things, Ruby. Things I shouldn’t
have done.
I may have even done
the
thing that you’re not
supposed to do.”

“Murder?!” I shouted out without thinking then
clamped my hand over my own mouth.
If Dad or Shelly heard
me they would come upstairs thinking I was
being
murdered.
And then once they realized I wasn’t, they would think I was
going crazy. I’d successfully kept my more recent ghost
problems a secret from them and I wanted to continue the
trend. All they knew about was Scarlet so they still believed
that Rosewood had been haunted but not me personally. When
no frantic footsteps sounded in the hallway, I knew I was in the
clear but I turned on the TV to help drown out any potential
future outbursts. Then I repeated it quietly. “Murder?”

“Well, sort of. Maybe. I don’t really know. Honestly, I
have no idea what happened in the last few hours of my life but
I think I may have killed myself.”

Whoa. I did
not
see that one coming. Zach would have
told me if it was a suicide, right? But then again, not all suicides
were recognized for what they were even by the best coroners.
Great. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was going
to be. I should have known that nothing in my life
ever
was.

“Alright, why don’t you know what happened that day?
I mean, if anyone should know the truth, it
should
be you.”

“I
know
that, Ruby!” Clay said as he ran his hand
through his hair in frustration, “But that doesn’t change the fact
that I don’t know what happened that night. The last thing I
remember is answering my phone.”

“And you don’t remember who called you?” I could feel
the urgency growing in my voice. Maybe all he needed was a
little push in the right direction.

“No!” he shouted back at me angrily, “I just know that I
did some bad things in the months leading up to my death and
the thought of what else I might have done that I don’t
remember, scares me.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to yell at me! I’m
trying
to help you here.”

Clay buried his head in his hands and mumbled an
apology. “Sorry, Ruby. But I’m not proud of who I was or what
I did.”

I accepted his apology and gave him a moment to cool
down. What could he have possibly done that was so bad that
he couldn’t even face it after he was dead?

“I sold drugs, Ruby. The hard stuff, too.
When my
girlfriend found out, she broke up with me. I was depressed,
dangerous, and self-destructive. That call probably came from
one of my buyers. I didn’t use the stuff myself—I tried it a few
times but I didn’t like the way it made me feel so I stopped.
With the state of mind I was in those last few weeks though, I
have a feeling that I went back to using.
I probably got so
messed up that I didn’t even know
what
I was doing the night I
died. And I don’t think I ever
want
to know.”

Wow.
I was
speechless, utterly speechless.
Clay
definitely had that bad boy persona but I never would have
guessed that it extended past a bad attitude, a lead foot, and no
respect for authority. He was a drug dealer. I had to repeat
that phrase a few times in my head before I could fully grasp it.
This problem wasn’t going to get solved by morning, that’s for
sure.

Before I could apologize to him for digging around in
his painful past, he walked through the wall and disappeared.
Hopefully, Zach was having better luck with Foxy than I was
having with Clay.
My
attempts to heal someone left me feeling
more like I’d killed his, well,
spirit
. First, I fell for Lucas’s lies
and believed he was someone he wasn’t. Now, I found out that
my
seemingly
harmless
ghost
friend
was
actually
an
unpunished felon. Aside from Zach of course, was anyone in
this world the person I thought they were?
Disheartened, I
crawled into bed and set myself up for yet another strange
dream.

7. Seeds of Doubt

I woke up disturbed but definitely alone this time.
Just
before waking, I dreamed about the white dog and the icy river
again. As far as I could remember, the dream was exactly the
same as before. The only thing the dog seemed to want was to
be with me but I had to firmly keep him at bay.
Dogs were
supposed to be able to sense danger—why couldn’t he see that
he was better off where he was?

My dreams always had something to do with whatever
ghost was currently messing with my life. My conclusion? The
dog represented Clay and his inability to cross over into the
next life.
He was stuck here just wanting to hang out with me
instead of finding his peace. Just like with the dog, I was going
to have to be firm with Clay. He needed to move on and stop
clinging to me. It simply wasn’t good for him and frankly, not
good for me, either. I would have to discuss it with Zach later—
maybe he would know something about Clay’s life that could
help me. The idea that I once thought I could live without Zach
now felt like a long forgotten memory.
What would I ever do
without him? I sent him a text before I even crawled out of bed
to let him know that I was thinking of him and that sweet little
kitten he was desperately trying to save.

“Good morning, Sunshine! How’s Foxy?”

 

Less than a minute later, I had a reply.

 

“She’s great! But Sunshine misses u…”

I giggled out loud when I read his reply.
To
me
, he
really
was
sunshine. He lit the darkest corners of both my heart
and my mind. His mere presence in this world made me feel
warm inside. He was the sun to my moon—two opposites that
were never meant to cross paths but when they did, they
formed something more magical than either of them could ever
create on their own.

“What r u doing later?” I replied, hoping that he would
say he was free to make plans with me. His response was even
better than that.

“Seeing you…somehow. Still no car, remember?”

 

“Meet u at shelter after work then?”

 

“”

I one upped his smiley face with a winky face and
dragged myself out of bed. Now that my morning Zach fix was
satisfied, it was time to get ready for my day at Something
Wick-ed. Little did I know that “wicked” didn’t even come close
to describing the kind of day I was going to have there.

The chaos began as soon as church let out. There were
only a few weeks left until Easter however apparently no one
realized it until their sermons reminded them. We received our
shipment of bunny and chick-themed candles weeks earlier but
they sat untouched until now. All of a sudden, everyone was in
the mood for them.
I restocked the display several times
between customers but had very little time to do anything else.
To put it into perspective, I was too busy to even think about
Zach. Now
that
is the new definition of busy.

Since Zach was always at the forefront of my thoughts,
that meant I definitely didn’t have time to think about anything
else, either.
Business was steady until shortly before closing
time. Glad that the day was nearly over, I spent those last few
minutes filling the display with the last box of Easter stock.
Going almost my entire shift with no worries beyond whether
or not we would be able to get more bunnies in before next
weekend, I was taken by surprise when my final customer
entered the store. Lucas.

As he walked through the door, he glanced at the clock
on the wall and then back to the sign in the window. My heart
was already pounding through my chest when I watched him
flip the sign from “open” to “closed”. That’s when I started to
panic and silently called for Clay.
When he appeared in the
shop, he still looked as angry as he did when he walked away
from me last night. Once he saw the look of sheer terror on my
face, though, his anger turned more to confusion as he looked
around to see the cause of my fright. With Clay by my side, I
felt more able to face Lucas. It wasn’t as comforting as having
Zach with me, but it was infinitely better than being alone.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” I said through clenched teeth. “If
you’re really here to shop, you’ll have to come back tomorrow
when Rita’s here.”

“Ru, you know I’m not here to buy any stupid candles.
I’m here to talk to you.”

“Well, that’s too bad because I don’t want to talk to you.
Ever. You’re lucky that I didn’t call the police on your sleazy
ass. Zach wanted me to but I told him that I just wanted to let it
go and forget about it. Don’t press your luck.”

“Look, I didn’t come here to argue with you. I want to
explain a few things to you. Really, I’m not the complete jerk
you seem to think I am.”

“Yes, you are. As a matter of fact, calling yourself a
complete jerk is quite the understatement, don’t you think?”
My words came out with an air of confidence but inside I was
starting to crumble. Seeing his face made me sick. Plus, he had
managed to taint every good memory I had of his brother
because I couldn’t even think of Lee without thinking of Lucas
now, too.
Clay must have been able to sense my growing
anxiety because he moved a step closer to me. Clay wasn’t who
I thought he was, either, but at least he’d never tried to hurt me.

“Ru—“

I cut him off abruptly. “Don’t call me that. My name is
Ruby. You should be ashamed of yourself—using the memories
I had of your dead brother to get close to me.
You only
pretended to be my friend so you could make a few bucks. You
tried to ruin my life! You’re sick and twisted and you and Misty
deserve each other.”

“Sick and twisted? You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re
the
queen
of sick and twisted! I
needed
that money. My mother
is dying—that money was going to help pay for her treatments.
I wasn’t trying to ruin your life—I was trying to save hers. I’m
not like you—once my mother is dead, I’ll never get to see her
again. I knew that I would be in a whole lot of trouble if things
went wrong but if it helped save my mom, it was worth it. The
whole thing was Misty’s idea. I was just glad to see that the
stuff she gave me to put into Rachel’s drink only made her sick
for one day.”

Rachel’s illness was planned, too?! They were far more
evil than I ever would have guessed.
Lucas took one step
forward and
I instinctively grabbed the closest
thing
to
a
weapon that I could find. A pen. That’s all I could come up
with. But it was a very sturdy pen and if need be, I would go
straight for his throat with it. I pointed it at him menacingly, all
the while knowing that he was probably going to laugh at me
but I didn’t care. I was
not
going to play the helpless victim.

“You
did
try to ruin my life—in so many different ways.
Your girlfriend was murdered because of you and you haven’t
even shown the slightest bit of emotion about it. You sent my
dad that text knowing full well that he would find you in the
house and throw you out. I was being stalked by a killer and
you intentionally isolated me from the people who were trying
to protect me. Correction—the
person
who was trying to help
me. Zach was the only one who really cared about me. You
didn’t care whether I lived or died as long as you got your
precious money!”

“I didn’t send that text—Misty did,” he replied
defensively. Then the rest of my comments must have sunk in.
Lucas cocked one eyebrow and glared at me. “How did you find
out about Portia? And she was my
ex
-girlfriend, by the way.”

He didn’t know! He had no idea that Zach had talked to
his mother and found out all of his dirty little secrets. Finally, I
had the upper hand. Now
I
had the answers
he
wanted and I
wasn’t going to give them up. He deserved to wonder, to rack
his brain and still never figure out how I knew.

“How I know is none of your business. What friendship
we had is over now. I don’t want anything from you and you
shouldn’t expect anything from me.” With a flourish, I aimed
my pen at the door and firmly announced, “It’s time for you to
leave.”

Lucas obeyed instantly but just before he walked out
the door, he turned and with a sardonic smile, said, “Oh you
do
want something from me—something I
was
willing to give you.
But not now.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, I ran to lock it.
If he thought his empty threats were going to scare me, he had
another thing coming. There wasn’t anything he could do to me
now that I saw him for who he truly was. I was proud of myself
for handling the situation alone. Oops—I mean
almost
alone.

“What was that all about?” Clay asked. “I thought you
guys were friends?”

 

“Yeah, so did I. If you can hang out for a bit while I
count the register, I’ll tell you what happened.”

Immediately, Clay
began
to
laugh
as
though
the
awkwardness from last night was the furthest thing from his
mind. He once told me that time passed differently now that he
was dead—maybe in his head, that conversation took place
longer ago than it actually had.
There was so much I could
learn about death from him as I helped him cross over. But the
first question in my mind was regarding a more earthly matter.