Wraiths of Winter (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 3) (34 page)

So I drove home slowly, hoping that maybe just those
extra few minutes
would be enough time for Dad to be
sufficiently calmed down. I was almost hopeful when I pulled
up outside of the mansion.
What was the worst that could
happen? He could yell at me again and forbid me to see Zach.
Blah, blah, blah—we already went through that last night. No
more tears, I decided. He needed to see just how grown up I
was.

As I walked into the entry hall ready to explain to him
what happened at the theater last night and how it affected
Zach and me, I stopped right in my tracks. There stood my
father holding up a skimpy white lace negligee and looking
seriously pissed.
A white box with a red ribbon lay on the
stand beside him. It was identical to the box the scarf arrived
in.

“Is that Mason boy suicidal?” my father asked angrily,
thrusting a note card in my face.

I snatched the card from him and read what it said
aloud. “For my bride: Last night may have been cut short but
rest assured that our wedding night won’t be. Yours for
eternity.”

This had to be a sick joke, right?
The scarf was one
thing but lingerie? Zach
never
would have sent this—or Lucas
either.
Someone was definitely messing with me, someone
who wanted to break up Zach and me.
Of course the obvious
suspect was Misty Landrum.
The gifts were expensive—
definitely her trademark.
But there was no way she could
have found out about last night unless she was hiding in the
mansion
when it happened.
Petty
cyber
bullying, yes.
Breaking and entering, no. It just wasn’t her style. Very few
people even knew about what happened and none of them
would have told her about it.
None of it made sense. I was
completely stumped.

“Dad, Zach didn’t send this!” I declared. I may not
have believed Zach the first time but this time I didn’t even
have to ask—I knew the truth.

Defending Zach only made my dad angrier. “Tell me
then, who else did you almost sleep with last night?
Lucas,
maybe?”

His words hit me with the intensity of a verbal slap in
the face. “I’m not that kind of girl, Dad!” My no-tears
declaration tore itself into little shreds as I began to cry. “You
should know me better than that!”

“Before last night, I thought I did!” He tossed the
negligee back into the box. “You’re grounded until further
notice—school and work only.
No phone, internet, or car
either. You can ride the school bus and Shelly will escort you
to and from work. And if I hear that you’ve stepped out of line
at either school or work, they’ll be gone too.”

As he disappeared up the steps, Shelly popped her
head around the corner of the dining room. “What’s going on
in here? Ruby, why are you crying?”

Where should I begin?
The onslaught of tears had
turned me into a hyperventilating hot mess. Words poured
from my lips but nothing made sense. Shelly comforted me
until I calmed down enough to talk.
When I was speaking
coherently enough for her to understand me, I briefly told her
what had just transpired.

“Stop right there, Ruby. I’m going to grab my purse
and let your father know we’re leaving. You need to get out of
this house. I’m taking you somewhere so we can talk.”

I pulled the card out of the box and read it one more
time. Someone was trying to ruin my relationship with Zach
and it sure did seem to be working. But how did they know
about last night?
If I could figure out the source of the
knowledge, I would probably know who was interfering with
my life. Until then, I had no clue who was slowly destroying
me. Shelly was a whiz with mysteries—maybe she would be
able to see what I was missing.

Shelly and I sat at one of the private booths in the back
room of City Lights for nearly two hours. I wasn’t hungry at
first but she insisted I order something to eat anyway. Boy
was I glad she did—the more I got off my chest the more I
realized how hungry I was.
I told her about my argument
with
my
dad
and
just kept
going—everything
about my
dilemma with Lucas and Zach. I even told her the whole truth
about the night before—that what they thought happened,
very well could have.

She listened most intently as I described the scarf and
all of the controversy it spawned. Funny—I just told her that
I almost slept with my boyfriend for the first time and she
found the mystery gifts more interesting. Shelly deserved the
Stepmother of the Year Award!

“So neither boy is taking credit for sending it?” she
queried, her mystery writer’s brain in overdrive.

“Well, Lucas complimented me on it but never actually
said he sent it. I thought he did but after today’s gift, I don’t
think so. I think someone’s trying to break up Zach and me.”

“Any idea who it could be?”

“Misty Landrum is the obvious choice but she’s
actually been leaving me alone lately. Other than that, I don’t
have any other ideas.” I slumped back in the booth defeated.

Shelly shook her head no. “I don’t think it’s her. There
is a missing piece to this puzzle, though. Let me think about it
for a while—I’ll figure it out.”

Good luck. If she could figure this one out, she was a
genius. “So I guess it doesn’t matter much anyway. Dad’s
probably putting bars on my bedroom windows as we speak.”

“Don’t worry about him—I’m going to have a talk
with him about how he overreacted. You’re not going to
totally get out of being grounded, however I’m positive that I
can get your sentence reduced.
Two weeks max—and I’m
willing to put money on that.”

Shelly was awesome! “Hey, thanks for being on my
side. And I want to say I’m sorry for what I did last night—it
won’t happen again.”

“What won’t happen? Don’t even sit there and try to
tell me that you and Zach aren’t eventually going to, well, you
know what I’m getting at!”

I gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know what to say to
that.”

“Just say that when it happens for real next time, that
the two of you will be safe about it.
Your father may not be
willing to hear it now but the fact that you guys haven’t done
it yet says a lot for Zach’s character. And yours, too.” Shelly
motioned for the waitress to bring her the check. “Oh, one
other piece of advice—next time set the alarm in case you
both fall asleep again.”

Words to live by. While things still weren’t perfect, I
felt a whole lot better about everything and I had Shelly to
thank for it. On the way to the car, I put my arm around her.
“In case you didn’t already know, you’re a really good mom.”

My comment was an instant recipe for tears. “Thanks,
Ruby—you have no idea how much that means to me!”

She made me feel better—it was only fair for me to
return the favor. So I went home to solitary confinement in
the attic and no contact to the outside world. When I left for
work the next morning, I found my phone and my laptop
waiting for me in the hallway.

It was kind of a good thing that I didn’t have my keys
back yet. The ride to Something Wick-ed consisted of reading
and sending multiple texts. According to Rachel, Zach was in
almost the same boat as I was—no phone and grounded for a
week. The funny part was that my dad never even called his
parents—Shelly prevented him
from
doing
that.
Zach, it
seemed, had confessed everything to his mom and dad the
minute he got home that night.

After I got the store open, I called Rachel to explain
everything in detail, including the fact that I had promised
Zach I wouldn’t go back into the theater. Truth be told, I was
afraid to hear her reaction. As it turned out, I didn’t need to
be.

“I get it, Ruby.
After what happened Friday night, I
don’t blame you. You weren’t getting any closer to solving
Allison’s murder anyway—just getting closer to joining her.”

“And, hey, for all we know, Crimson may have just
decided to take off on her own for a little while. NeverMore
was on the verge of breaking up—she probably had a lot on
her mind. I’m sure she’s just fine and living it up in LA or
something.”

I said the words but I didn’t believe them myself. I’d
given up on finding her alive weeks ago. Hope was a powerful
thing, though—I refused to take that away from Rachel.

True to her word, Shelly
got my dad to limit my
punishment to two weeks of being grounded.
I got my car
back but only to drive back and forth to work and school. He
actually made me surrender my keys the instant I walked
through the door every day. Having my phone only helped
me stay in touch with Rachel except for the rare moments that
Zach could sneak me a text from her phone.

School was
absolute torture.
Zach and
I stole
moments together every chance we got but they weren’t
enough.
Lucas ignored me altogether. I was once again the
lunchroom pariah sitting alone at a table big enough for six.
Teachers piled on the homework until I was practically buried
alive in it. The only saving grace was not having to go back
into the Bantam. At least not while I was awake anyway.

The
nightmares
struck almost every
night, always
similar but never exactly
the same.
The one
thing
that
remained consistent was that each time I was caught in some
dire circumstance and then had to decide whose advice to
follow—Lucas’s or Zach’s. For some reason, I always woke up
before the situation was resolved. Until the next nightmare
came—the one I wished I hadn’t gotten to see the ending of.

Saturday night—dull, quiet, and boring.
The exact
opposite of most Saturday nights I’d spent lately. I stayed up
late writing, practically setting
my
laptop on fire.
Sleep
beckoned for hours before I finally gave in and went to bed. If
I’d known what was in store for me, I would have vowed to
never sleep again.

I was in the Bantam, of course, but Zach and Lucas
were nowhere in sight. In fact, I was utterly alone. The sound
of my heels echoed through the theater as I walked down the
aisle. Suddenly, they weren’t the only sounds.

Muffled screams became audible from the balcony
above.
A dark figure was standing over a girl dressed in
white, pinning her to her seat with its knee.
In one hand it
held a serrated hunting knife, in the other—the girl’s tongue.
Back and forth with gruesome precision, the figure hacked
until it came free of her mouth.
gushed forth
and
her screams
gurgling sound. As the figure moved out of my line of sight, I
saw that its victim wasn’t Allison. I couldn’t be certain but the
bloody girl appeared to be Crimson, instead.

An instant rush of blood
were
replaced
by
a sick

The figure stood behind the girl and shouted, “All I
wanted was for you to be my bride!” It placed its hands on
the sides of her head and with one quick snap, her head fell
forward limply onto her chest.

I stood still in my tracks, watching the most realistic
horror flick ever. It seemed real yet it didn’t—at least not
until it spoke to me.

“Will
you
be my bride?” the figure called down to me,
its face still hidden but the crimson stained knife in its hand
clearly visible. The voice was familiar yet I just couldn’t put
my finger on who it belonged to.

Filled with
terror, I ran
back down
the aisle and
pushed through the lobby doors to what I thought was safety.
But then, the scenery changed. I wasn’t outside the theater I
was in front of a church.
And splayed out on the concrete
steps before me was the body of a girl, bloody and broken.

She was gone—I knew that.
There was nothing I
could do for her now. As I ran past her lifeless form, her arm
shot out and grabbed me by the ankle. When I looked her in
the eye, the church bell tolled ominously.
The girl on the
steps was me.

I’d woken up from countless nightmares in my time—
enough to know that this one was different. Daylight hadn’t
yet crept into my windows but I dove out of bed and turned
on the lights. I had to get to that church.
There was a body
there—I just knew that there was. Hurriedly, I threw on some
shoes and my robe and reached for my keys.

Dammit!
I was still grounded—my keys were hidden
in one of my father’s pockets somewhere. There was only one
other way. Grabbing my phone, I dialed Rachel’s number.

“Pick up!” I pleaded through clenched teeth.
Rachel
better not be as heavy a sleeper as Zach was!
Just as it was
about to go to voicemail, her groggy voice came through.

“Ruby? What the hell? It’s o’ dark thirty in the
morning! Go back to sleep!”

 

“Rachel!” I shouted, afraid that she was about to hang
up on me. “You have to come pick me up,
now
—I think I
know where we can find Crimson!”
“Oh shit! I’m on my way!” she exclaimed and the line
went dead.

Five minutes later, Rachel flew up in front of the
house and I got inside the car. She was disheveled and still
wearing a pair of fuzzy, pink bunny slippers.
If the situation
hadn’t been so urgent, I would have taken a picture of the
worst fashion statement I’d ever seen her make. As it was,
though, I was no runway model myself.

“Tell me where we’re going, Ruby!” she demanded.

 

“The church! The church where they found Allison’s
body!”

As we drove, I filled her in on my dream.
You know
how I knew for certain that Rachel was my best friend? The
fact that she didn’t even question that I had dragged her out of
bed before the sun was even up to find something I’d only
seen in a dream—that’s how.