Wraiths of Winter (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 3) (49 page)

My depression over being alone on Valentine’s Day—
again—was now the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe it
wasn’t
too late to save her! Maybe I wouldn’t have the
romantic day I always envisioned having but I might be able
to do something wonderful
for someone
I
loved—Rachel.
Zach or no Zach, she was like a sister to me and always would
be. And even if it was too late for Crimson, at least I could
give her friends and family some closure by finding her body.

I didn’t even bother to shut off the TV. In one quick
movement, I kicked off my slippers while sliding back into the
hoodie I wore to school today. I grabbed my sneakers from
their usual spot just inside the door to the attic and ran
downstairs to find Shelly. They weren’t ready to give me back
my car keys but all I really needed was a ride. It didn’t matter
how I got there—I just needed to get there fast.

“Shelly!” I called out as soon as I hit the landing on the
second floor.
She used to be so easy to find in that rambling
mansion but once she finished writing her last book, her
study was the last place I ever found her.
When she didn’t
answer immediately, I tried again. There wasn’t enough time
to search for her so I screamed a little louder the third time.
“SHELLY!!”

“Ruby,” she replied as she poked her head out of the
dining room doorway. “You haven’t spoken to your father or
me in days so I know you aren’t just looking for idle chitchat.
What’s wrong?”

I sat down on the bottom step of the grand staircase
and hustled into my sneaks. “I need a ride to the Bantam.
There’s a rehearsal tonight that I forgot about.”

“But you aren’t even in the play, are you?” she asked
suspiciously. “I’ll have to run this past Jason first.” She pulled
her phone out of her pocket and began to type out a text.

“Seriously, Shelly? I’m late! I’m not asking for my
phone or car back—all I’m asking for is a ride. You know that
if Dad’s busy, he won’t even look at his phone for hours. I
admit that Lucas will be at the Bantam but he’s not the reason
I want to go. If you don’t trust me, you can go in and discuss it
with Jonas yourself. Please, I need to get there fast,” I pleaded.

“Okay,” she replied hesitantly, “But if you get into any
trouble tonight, your Dad’s going to kill both of us.
Understood?”

“Perfectly. I have absolutely no intentions of getting
into any kind of trouble. I swear.” I wasn’t a Boy Scout—hell,
I never even remotely considered joining the Girl Scouts—but
I mimicked Clay’s hand signal and solemnly said, “Scout’s
honor.”

While I wasn’t totally truthful about why it was so
urgent for me to get to the theater, there was one thing that I
didn’t
lie about. I had zero intentions of getting into any kind
of trouble. My reason for being there had nothing to do with
Lucas or Zach or anything to do with boys at all.
I was going
to the Bantam to hopefully find and rescue Crimson. What’s
the worst that could happen?

All heads turned as I flamboyantly flung open the door
to the theater and marched down the aisle to where Rachel
was sitting.
I was rudely interrupting a monologue from
Jonas and I knew my lateness wouldn’t go unnoticed.
So
before he could scold me for tardiness, I apologized and took
the empty seat next to Rachel. Lucas was sitting alone on the
opposite side and I prayed that he would stay where he was.
As long as he kept his distance from me, Jonas wouldn’t have
anything bad to tell Shelly if she decided to grill him about my
behavior when she came back to pick me up. That’s when I
realized that I never told her what time I would need a ride
home. Oh well, that wasn’t going to be a problem. As soon as
I found Crimson, I would borrow Rachel’s phone and take
care of that little oversight.

Rachel gave me an odd look but before she could ask
me what I was
doing
there,
Jonas
returned to lecturing
everyone on how much work they needed to do to be stageready in two weeks.
As he droned on about dedication and
concentration, I was squirming in my pants. I decided on the
ride to the theater that I wasn’t going to get anyone else’s
hopes up about why I was there tonight.
If my brilliant idea
about where to find Crimson was wrong, Rachel would be
heartbroken
and
I
would look
like a complete idiot to
everyone else. When the lecture was over, Jonas called Lucas
and Brian to the stage giving me the perfect opportunity to
talk to Rachel.

Well,
talk
wasn’t exactly the word for it.
Listen
was a
more appropriate description of what happened.
Before I
could open my mouth, multiple sentences were already flying
out of hers.

“Ruby, what are you doing here? I thought you were
grounded!
I thought you were dead set against ever setting
foot in this place again! Aren’t you afraid of what Allison
might do to you?
Seriously, as your best friend I have to say
this. Get out of here now!”

Allison!
In my rush to play the hero, I forgot that
Jackson wasn’t the only dangerous thing at the Bantam. While
the place still looked like a wreck to me, it hadn’t gotten any
more rundown since the last time I was there. That had to be
a good sign, right? I wonder….

“Trust me when I say that I have an excellent reason
for being here. And about Allison, I’m thinking that Jackson’s
arrest may have taken some of her anger away. The fact that
her killer was in the same building with her—the building he
killed her in, no less—may have been part of why she was so
vengeful. I don’t think she’s as dangerous as she used to be.”

“But nothing,” she interjected. “If you’re convinced for
some dumb reason that you need to be here tonight, call her
right now and get her opinion on it.”

“Fine,” I agreed begrudgingly. “But I need to borrow
your phone. The wardens still haven’t given mine back to me
yet.”

“Here,” she said as she fished it out of her bag and
handed it to me. “I want you to promise me that if she tells
you to leave, you’ll leave.
If whatever reason you’re here for
is important enough for you to risk your life over, I can always
do it for you. Unless you’re here to talk to Lucas, that is. I love
you, Ruby, but I refuse to help you break my brother’s heart.”

“Oh my God, no!” I said as I dialed the number to
Something Wick-ed. “This has absolutely nothing to do with
Zach
or
Lucas.”

Unless
she
was
flooded
with
customers, Rita was
never more than a few feet from the phone so when it rang
four times without answer, I was puzzled. There couldn’t be
that
many
last
minute
shoppers
fighting
to buy their
sweethearts a candle for Valentine’s Day. There was simply
no way.
When it got to the sixth ring, I did something
impulsive—I lied.

“Hey Rita,” I said, pretending that she finally picked up
the phone on the other end. “I’m sure you’re busy but I have a
question for you about the Bantam.”

Rachel listened to every word of my side of the fake
conversation never guessing that my side was the
only
side. I
relayed my theory that the theater would be safe now and
“Rita” confirmed it for me. I even reiterated it so Rachel
wouldn’t question it. When I was certain that my
performance was Oscar-worthy, I said goodbye and handed
the phone back to Rachel. If it weren’t for paralyzing stage
fright, I really
would
make a good actress.

What happened next couldn’t have gone more
perfectly than if I’d written it myself.
Jonas called Rachel up
for the next scene and pointed me toward a stack of full dry
cleaner bags to the left of the stage. The rest of the costumes
for “A Phantom Affair” arrived that afternoon and he needed
me to hang them with the rest.
Before I gathered up the
heaping pile of clothing, I gave Rachel a thumbs-up and she
gave me a weird look but did the same.
By the end of the
night, she would realize why I did that. Hopefully.

Once in the back dressing room, I tossed the costumes
aside and turned my attention to the dressing table and the
mirror behind it.
Every time I entered that room, I felt the
odd sensation of being watched except for now. My optimism
drained as I contemplated what I was going to find on the
other side of that mirror.
Crimson was in there but was she
alive or dead? I took a deep breath as I pulled the table away
from the wall. Either way, I was about to find out.

If she was dead, an awful feeling of guilt would hang
over my heart forever. This theater was built by Dr. Baker—a
huge supporter of the Underground Railroad.
There was a
huge network of tunnels beneath Rosewood and it only made
sense that the theater was full of them, too. I never paid much
attention to the history of the theater but I should have.
There were so many points where I should have made the
connection. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with my own love
life, I would have found Crimson a long time ago.

I ignored so many clues along the way. Jonas told us
that the theater was built in Charlotte Baker’s honor on the
very first day we were here. The cast iron mask that fell from
the balcony was my next clue.
According to Jonas, it was
fashioned in the likeness of Charlotte herself.
Something
about that mask always bothered me but I chalked it up to the
fact that it damn near killed me. I should have realized that
after how many times I’d almost died, one more close call
with the Grim Reaper wouldn’t have stuck with me for so
long.
I already had so many regrets in my short life, I prayed
that I wouldn’t have to add Crimson’s death to that list.

I was convinced that the mirror was the entrance to
another room and that when I felt like someone was watching
me, I was most certainly correct. Crimson probably sat just
on the other side of that wall—restrained, gagged, and unable
to get my attention.
How horrible that must have been for
her!
To know that help was so close yet still so far away
would be heart wrenching. I had at least an inkling of how
that felt, too. I didn’t remember much from my incident in the
locker room because Garnet was in control of my actions for
much of that time. But there were definite moments when I
was
able to
see what was
going
on but
was
unable to
communicate. I wouldn’t even wish that kind of torture on
my
worst enemy—even though Misty
might benefit from
feeling helpless and not in control for at least a second or two.
What I wanted most was for Misty to see life through the eyes
of her victims and I hoped that karma would take care of that
for me someday.

With
all thoughts
of revenge on Misty
aside,
I
approached the mirror and inspected its edges. There wasn’t
a frame of any sort, just the smoothened surface of the glass
itself. I couldn’t even see how it was hanging as there were no
visible hooks. Prying at the sides didn’t make it budge. I
pushed in on each end hoping that it would swing on a hidden
swivel
but
nothing
happened.
Sudden
flashbacks
to
Halloween night. I broke the glass that night because it was
the only way to get
out
of the school. Breaking the mirror was
the only way I was going to get
in
to the hidden room on the
other side of it. I had to be sure that my theory was correct
before I destroyed any more property. Even if I
did
have to
break it though, at least I was pretty positive that it wouldn’t
cost me three thousand dollars to replace.
Three thousand
freakin’ dollars
!
How crazy!
At what point did glass become
worth its weight in gold, anyway?

I stood close to the mirror and placed the tip of my
pointer finger to its surface. When I was in middle school, I
watched a crime drama on TV where the police found a two
way mirror in a gas station restroom that the owner placed
there
so
he could spy
on his
female patrons.
One cop
explained to his partner that if a mirror was just a mirror,
there would be a gap between the object and its reflection.
If
there wasn’t any space between them, then it was a two way
mirror. For several years, the first thing I did when I used a
public restroom or fitting room was perform the mirror test. I
never found anything suspicious and always wondered if that
trick
actually worked.
When I Googled it once, I found
websites claiming that it was an urban legend yet others
swearing that the method was reliable. I was about to find
out the truth for myself.

Sure enough, my finger and its mirrored counterpart
were flush with each other.
I looked around the room for
something that I could smash the mirror with. If I happened
to somehow be wrong about there being a secret room on the
other side of it, I was going to have to explain how the mirror
broke and I wanted the story to be believable.
My eyes
scanned the room for the perfect weapon but the only things
in the room were the table, chair, and clothing rack. Just like
last time, I would have to use the chair.
I was the walking
epitome of the phrase, “Those who don’t learn from the past
are doomed to repeat it.”