Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2) (32 page)

I wanted to get excited about my costume, too, but I
just couldn’t. The day Rachel and I went costume shopping I
refused to pick one out. Every single costume I looked at was
part of a couple’s outfit. I couldn’t be Juliet without Romeo. I
couldn’t be Maid Marion without Robin Hood. Hell, I couldn’t
even be Little Red Riding Hood without a Big Bad Wolf.
If
Zach and I were still together, I definitely would have gone for
Little Red. Zach would be one sexy beast as the Wolf. Finally,
Rachel just made the decision for me. She picked out one of
the only costumes there without a mate—the Viking princess.

The
dress
was
stunning
and
under
normal
circumstances I would have been dying to wear it. The body
of the gown was a sparkly ice blue with gray fur accents and
the cape was a silvery gray trimmed with the same faux fur.
The only thing I wasn’t too sure about was the wig—long,
flaxen blond strands that hung to my waist. If it weren’t for
the silver and blue crown that would have looked hideous
next to my own red streaks, I probably would have skipped
the wig altogether.

Thinking of my dress led me to think about the dress
Chloe was wearing at that very second and the handsome boy
who was probably telling her how beautiful she looked in it.
Would he kiss her there in front of everyone? Would anyone
tell me about it if he did?

I couldn’t stand thinking about it anymore. I returned
to my room and opened up my laptop. If anything could make
me feel better, it was writing. So that’s what I did. I wrote for
hours until my eyelids finally grew heavy and then I sunk
onto my bed and into sweet oblivion.

Saturday seemed to drag on forever.
The shop was
busy but I was eager for work to be over so of course time
seemed to come to a complete stop.
Every other customer
was a slow, old grandma who couldn’t decide which candle to
buy—the ghost or the pumpkin, the witch or the bat?
My
patience was wearing thin and it had to be obvious.
I was
about a half a step away from saying “Go with the witch, you
old bat!” to the next octogenarian with poor decision making
skills.

When closing time finally arrived, I practically pushed
my last customer out of the door in my haste to lock up.
Twenty-four hours left to go. Twenty-four hours until I would
have the answers I needed.
Twenty-four hours and then I
would know exactly how Garnet died. The worst part would
be heading
back to
the party
afterward and
facing
Mr.
Raspatello.

I spent Saturday night wishing the hours would fade
away quickly but when Sunday morning came I changed my
mind. Suddenly, my nerves were on edge and I felt sure that I
would have an anxiety attack before the day was over.
As
always happens, now that I was dreading the passage of time,
the hands on the clock seemed to be in overdrive.
Noon
turned into two which turned into five before I even knew it.

My
chest tightened more with
each mile I drove
toward the mansion.
What was I
thinking
when I came up
with this plan? I’d never committed a crime before, what
made me suddenly think I was a world class cat burglar now?
I couldn’t pull this off alone—I needed a partner. But it was
too late now. Tonight could be my only chance to learn the
truth and I had to take it.
I pulled off to the side of the road
less than a mile from my house to throw up.

I checked the clock in the Neon as I pulled up to the
mansion—5:30. It would take about twenty minutes to drive
to the school and sneak into the locker room. That left ten
minutes for me to go inside, feign excitement over this stupid
party and then declare that I forgot to stop for the snacks I
promised I would bring home. I glanced up at the house and
my stomach wound itself into a tight knot. It felt like someone
was watching me from the bedroom next to the ball room. I
looked away quickly but couldn’t resist taking
a second
glance.
Nothing.
Nothing but the stupid paranoia of a girl
about to break the law for the first time in her life.
I was
wasting precious time staring at nothing—time to put my
acting skills to the test.

Right on schedule. I was back in the car exactly ten
minutes later and driving to meet my destiny. Mr. Raspatello
was
already
settling
in
at
Rosewood
with
the
other
chaperones so even if I got caught, I at least knew I wouldn’t
get killed. I drove just past the school and into the dirt road
leading to a gas well.
Pulling the car far enough in so that it
couldn’t be seen from the road, I turned off the engine and
reached for the bag in the back seat.

The sun hadn’t set yet but the sky was dark with
heavy clouds leaving less light than on a normal day.
Just
perfect.
I would need all of the help I could get to conceal
myself from view.
I shoved my arms into my black hoodie
and zipped it up to my chin. Once the hood was in place, I
pulled on the gloves and snatched the flashlight from the
bottom of the bag. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and
exhaled slowly to calm my hyperactive nerves. This was it.

I snuck out of the car and
closed the door softly
behind me. Creeping just inside the woods until I was near
the back of the school, I scanned the area for any witnesses.
The only living creature that could possibly see me was a
rabbit lurking near the track. The rabbit stopped munching
on the clover to watch me with wide innocent eyes, twitching
its nose rapidly back and forth as it watched. Not now rabbit,
don’t look at me so innocently as I’m about to do the worst
thing I’ve ever done. Please, not now.

Certain that I was alone—with the exception of super
judgmental Thumper, of course—I snuck out into the open
and ran swiftly to the slightly open window. My heart was
pounding so hard it felt like it escaped my chest and was
about to shoot out through my hoodie. I crouched down by
the window and gave it a shove. With a high pitched creak,
the frame gave way and the window opened about six inches.
One more push and it was open wide enough for me to slide
right in.

Second thoughts. Could I really go through with this?
I didn’t want to, but there was no other choice. If I hoped to
ever rid myself of Garnet, I had to know for sure how she died.
After what she did to Zach, I wanted her to disappear forever.
If that meant helping her get justice for her murder, then
that’s what I had to do. Before I could change my mind, I
swung my legs
into the opening and lowered myself down
into the room below.

The locker room was a tad bit creepy even in full
daylight and near darkness certainly ramped up the spooky
factor. Knowing that a girl died here made it even worse. The
anticipation of seeing
the
reenactment
of
that
death—on
Halloween no less—made it the very epitome of terror. The
air was stale and the odor of decades’ worth of sweaty socks
invaded my nostrils with a vengeance. The room felt hollow
and
every
small sound
bounced loudly off of
the metal
lockers.
I tiptoed into the shower area and flicked on the
flashlight briefly to check my watch. Six o’ clock. The show
was about to begin.

I stood there in the shower waiting and watching as
the last faint rays of daylight faded into darkness and started
to go over in my mind all of the things that could go wrong
with my plan. Garnet’s death scene was almost guaranteed to
be residual, but what if the other Garnet showed up—the
Garnet who pushed an innocent Zach down the staircase? If I
got hurt in here, how would I get back out? There weren’t
enough lies left in the treasury to satisfactorily explain what I
was doing in here.

What if someone on their way to the party saw me
drive here?
The grocery store was on the opposite side of
town—what excuse could I give for being this far away from
where I said I was going?
I was usually so thorough—I
always had a back story for every lie I told—how could I have
been so careless this time?
I knew the answer to that. I was
distracted—distracted by Zach, distracted by my profound
sadness at seeing him with Chloe so soon after our break up,
distracted by how easy it was to love him even with my heart
in tatters.

Focus.
I had to snap back to reality.
I checked my
watch
again
to see that twenty
minutes
passed while I
contemplated the worst that could happen and brought with
it a new fear.
What if I waited until seven and nothing
happened?
How would I explain such a lengthy absence?
Even at the busiest time of day, the lines at the grocery store
couldn’t account for me being gone for almost two hours. I
was
so
screwed.

As
I
stood
there panicking
over
my
utter
lack
of
planning, the darkness in the room thickened and wrapped
itself around me. And it wasn’t alone. A static charge bristled
at the back of my neck as a milky haze formed inside the
shower area.
The haze swirled counterclockwise, hovering
about a foot from the tiled floor. Slowly, it congealed into a
human figure, a figure I knew well.

The sound of soft sobs filled my ears as Garnet stood
before me crying the kind of tears I was so familiar with
myself. Those were the tears of someone with a broken heart.
I considered myself an expert in sorrow—nothing else could
cause such raw emotion.
She was a pitiful sight, standing
there crying into the sleeve of her blue dress. She could have
been dressed as any number of characters—Sleeping Beauty,
Snow White, or just some random princess—but I knew who
she was. She was Juliet.

The dress was of medieval style, full length with puffy
sleeves and cinched at the waist with a long rope sash that
hung down her back. A delicate ring of blue flowers encircled
her head and for the first time since I came in contact with
her, I could see that beneath
all of the sadness
she
was
beautiful. All of the anger I felt toward her for hurting Zach
and making my life a living hell faded away as I prepared to
watch her die.

At any
second, I expected to see a young
Mr.
Raspatello creep up behind her and wrap a rope around her
neck.
But he never came.
Instead, she pulled a pen and a
crumpled note out of her pocket.
I watched as she smoothed
the paper out against the wall of the shower and wrote with a
shaky hand. I had to see what she was writing.

Emerging from the shadows, I took two steps toward
where she stood but it was too late.
She folded the paper
neatly into a square, tucked it into the front of her dress and
removed the rope sash from her waist. No. I knew now that I
had it wrong, all wrong. As frightening as it would have been
to watch Mr. Raspatello kill this sad and lonely girl, watching
her take her own life was almost unbearable. I knew it was
too late but my instinct to save her kicked in.

But of course, she couldn’t hear me. She wound the
rope into a hangman’s knot, slipped it around her neck and
adjusted it to a tight fit. Then, she removed it long enough to
tie the other end to a large towel hook bolted high up on the
wall. I watched helplessly as she dragged a stool across the
floor, placed it beneath the hook and then climbed on top of it.

I didn’t want to watch what was going to happen next
but I felt like she
deserved to not be alone
this
time.
Loneliness was one thing I knew well—too well.
When I
thought I was going to drown in the fountain outside of
Rosewood, I’d never felt so alone in all my life. On some level,
I hoped she would know that I was there to share those last
few moments of her life with her. No one should ever have to
die alone.

Garnet fitted the rope around her neck and closed her
eyes. A ribbon of tears rolled down each of her cheeks and
each of mine simultaneously.
Her lips
formed
the word
“goodbye” but I never heard a sound. And then she jumped.
The stool fell out from under her feet and crashed silently to
the floor.
As her weight bore down on the rope, her head
lolled to the side, eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. But
then came the heartbreaking part—she changed her mind.

Her hands shot to her throat, frantically clawing at the
rope to free herself. There wasn’t any way out. Her slipper
clad feet kicked furiously at the wall until the constriction of
the rope overtook her. Her hands slowly dropped to her side
and her face turned a hideous shade of blue. When her lips
turned purple, I knew that she was dead. The scene turned
hazy again and faded slowly away until I was alone again in
the darkness.

It was over but I wasn’t any closer to solving the
mystery. In fact, I was further away. She wasn’t murdered so
there was no killer for me to catch. Garnet killed herself—but
why? Would I ever know what she wanted from me? If only I
could have gotten a look at her suicide note—the answer
had
to be on that crumpled sheet of paper.
This was my only
chance to read it and now that opportunity was gone. I was
right back where I started from.

I shook off the feelings of defeat. Getting out of that
locker room was my first priority—I could assess my next
move later. Using the flashlight to guide my way back to the
window I had a horrible realization. There was no way that I
was getting out the way I got in.
Even if I positioned the
bench under the window, I could just barely reach the ledge.
Dammit! My perfect plan wasn’t nearly as perfect as I thought
it was.