Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4)

by Joy Elbel

  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.

  Once the rest of the mess was cleaned up, Clay and I went to the front window to observe the rain. It was nothing short of torrential. I hadn’t seen rain that heavy since the day Hurricane Erica swept through Charlotte’s Grove. That thought inevitably led to memories of what happened to me later that night. I hadn’t thought—let alone spoken—of that incident in detail in a long time. I never really wanted to either but for some reason, I felt compelled to talk about it now.

  Clay knew the basics of the story but I’d never shared with him the more personal aspects of the haunting at Rosewood. The emotional aspects—the fear, the loneliness, the pain I felt inside—were things I kept locked deep inside of me. That’s where I thought they would stay but they obviously needed to come out. And they came rushing out of me in a metaphorical flood.

  I got so deeply entrenched in my account that Clay had to remind me that it was time to close the store. With only one customer and zero sales, all I really needed to do was lock the door and put the till into the safe. While my hands were more occupied than my mouth, Clay pointed something out to me.

  “You’re a pretty good detective, you know that? You’re good at piecing together clues and stuff. If it weren’t for the fact that my killers are still alive and a danger to you, I’m positive you would have had some answers for me by now. I mean, all you did was wander around your own house and you solved a hundred year old mystery without ever questioning anyone involved.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks, dumbfounded that I hadn’t thought of that idea myself. “I know you hate it there but we need to spend some time at Silver Lake.”

  “Why?” Clay asked with doubt in his voice. “Spending time in the place where you died might be all you need to jog your memory about what happened that night. We don’t really need to solve the mystery for anyone other than you. I don’t have to put my life in danger by pointing fingers at suspects—all you need is some closure so you can move on.”

  “But you seem to forget that before I met you, that’s all I did—hang out surrounded by memories of my own death. It didn’t help me before, what makes you think it will be any different now?”

  I finished what I was doing, found an umbrella I could borrow, then waved it at him as though I were wielding a magic wand. “Because before, you didn’t have me.” With a flourish of my wrist, I cast my spell. “May Clay remember what happened that day!”

  I knew he couldn’t resist my charm using either sense of the word. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. “Yes, Dom. When do you want to do this?”

  “We’re doing it right now, silly.”

  “Are you serious? Have you taken a single look outside that window today? It’s still pouring out there!” “It’s not about what I see out there—it’s about what I don’t see out there. No Buick. Which means we need to do this while they’re not around, rain or no rain.” I opened the front door a crack, just enough to stick the umbrella outside before pushing its button. There was no need to tempt fate by putting it up indoors.

  “You’re going to get drenched, Ruby. That umbrella is going to soak through before we even get to the car.” “But you aren’t going to feel a drop of it and I give you full permission to make fun of me when it happens.” I popped out onto the sidewalk and turned the key in the lock. “And besides, it isn’t like you have any choice in the matter. You go where your dom goes.”

  “Yes, Dom,” Clay said with a bow of his head. “But first you have to admit that I was right about the Buick. It wasn’t following you—it was following your car.”

  “Yes, Master, you were right,” I said begrudgingly as we got into the car. I started the engine excitedly, having no idea at the time that I was right on schedule for the moment that would change everything.

  26. Hell and High Water

  Daisy slogged down the road at a snail’s pace—and not simply because the car was barely bigger than a snail. The rain was terrible and the wipers barely made the road visible even on full tilt. I couldn’t drive more than ten miles an hour before starting to hydroplane. Every car I passed along the highway blasted its horn at me. I knew the car I was driving looked ridiculous but did they really have to point that out at a time like this?

  Clay tried to convince me to drive home and do this some other day but I refused. Once I got an idea in my head, it was next to impossible for me to change my mind on the matter. I couldn’t change the fact that I got laughed right out of the police station but I could make myself feel better about it by discovering the truth. The wet, soggy truth.

  I could barely read the sign to Silver Lake as we pulled off the main road and onto the dirt path leading down to the water. Ten miles an hour was a now unachievable dream. I drove in at that speed and immediately hit a pool of water that was wider than the car itself. As we bounced back out of the rain-filled gully, one of Daisy’s eyelashes dislodged and hung limply below her eye. Rachel was going to kill me.

  The further down the road we traveled, the worse it became. I literally could have walked down to the lake faster than I was driving there. When Clay suggested one more time that we give up on my plan for the night, I agreed. Sort of.

  “Turn around, Ruby. This is insane. If it keeps raining like this, this road is going to wash out and we’ll get this car stuck here for who knows how long.”

  “I know, Clay. As soon as we get to the end of the road, I’m going to turn around and head back. I knew that it rained hard all day long but I never realized the road would be this bad down here.”

  “Don’t go any further—turn around right here. I’m telling you, we need to get out of here ASAP! Who knows, the road might be the least of our worries. We haven’t had a completely dry day in weeks—that lake could be ready to overflow.”

  I started to panic a little. Okay, I started to panic a lot. The road was filled with watery spots that I was afraid to drive through. Turning around in the middle of the road would be impossible to do without steering right into one. When I explained why I was going to wait to turn around, Clay mumbled something that thoroughly pissed me off.

  “Women drivers!” I brought the car to a halt and sat there letting it idle while I barked out a very insensitive command. “Fine. You can drive instead then.” Time for the second annual Angerpalooza.

  He stared at me with disbelief. “Girls are mean— way meaner than guys could ever think of being! You sound just like Sophie did the last time I talked her. Cold and vindictive. When she didn’t get her way, look out. Even after I promised her that I would get out of the drug business before the ba
by was born, that still wasn’t enough for her. I couldn’t do it my way—my way wasn’t good enough. If I didn’t do it that night, she swore that she would disappear somewhere where I would never find either of them. And then the bitch hung up on me.”

  OMG. Goodbye, Angerpalooza. Hello, Answerpalooza. “Did you hear what you just said, Clay? Did you hear that? You remembered! You remembered something from the night you died!”

  It took a minute for it to sink in. It took a minute for him to cast away his anger long enough to analyze his own words. But once it did, it sank all the way to the bottom. And he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  “I’m a Dad, Ruby! I’m a Dad!” he bounced up and down in his seat like a child himself. “Congratulations!” I exclaimed, stunned myself by the information that he’d just pulled out of his subconscious. Then I remembered what I found when I Googled Sophie’s name and my excitement drained. But I couldn’t tell Clay about it yet—I couldn’t risk having that information block or taint his memories. “Do you remember anything else about that night?”

  “I’m not sure that I need to, Ruby! I want to find Sophie now. I want to see my baby.” I fumbled for a response. This was a delicate situation. On one hand, I felt like this might be the right time to tell him what I knew about Sophie. On the other hand, telling him could make him not want to remember anything else about the night he died. I didn’t want to block his memories but it wouldn’t be fair for me to give him false hope. Fully aware that my hesitance wasn’t going to help in the matter, I quickly decided what to say.

  “We can’t go looking for her now—you know that. It’s still raining and we’re going to have a hard enough time getting home. We’ll go to Ohio soon—Scout’s Honor. Right now, you need to concentrate and see if any other memories surface. I need you more than she does.”

  Clay’s demeanor changed in a flash. “Ruby, I’m sorry. I just got so excited by what I remembered that I didn’t stop to think about how it would affect you. I—,” he paused midsentence, “I’m sorry.”

  Our conversation was getting complex. Was he on the same page that I was? I was afraid to ask. I could no longer hold eye contact with him—it was too intense and I felt bad for keeping vital information from him. A glance out the window revealed that the once torrential rain had slacked off a bit. We couldn’t stay long but I figured that we could at least take advantage of a few semi-dry moments and press forward with our mission.

  “Apology accepted,” I replied curtly as I put the car in drive. “Let’s see if you remember anything more.” Clay gave no objections as I slowly made my way down the road. When the lake became visible, we both gave a slight gasp. While it was nowhere near to overflowing, the rain had noticeably caused it to swell since the last time we were there. I got a bad feeling—and not the usual kind either. Silver Lake looked bloated as though it had swallowed countless bodies— and was still hungry for more.

  I steered Daisy into the parking lot carefully and as far from the water’s edge as the overflowing potholes would allow. Two people who were afraid of drowning were caught in a storm only feet from the lake where one of them actually did drown. This plan made perfect sense. Why didn’t I ever realize what poor decision making skills I had until it was too late?

  And by too late, what I really mean is that I drove too close to one of the giant puddles and Daisy sunk in on the passenger side. With a triumphant splash of muddy water, the engine sputtered and died. There was no way to see the bright side of this because there was no bright side. We were stuck.

  Even with Clay’s abundant knowledge of cars and how to fix them, he only had one thing to offer.

  “If I were alive, I could push us out of this trench but even then, the engine’s flooded.” “If you were alive,” I retorted, “We wouldn’t be stuck here. But thanks for trying.” It was going to have to be Zach or Dad to the rescue—preferably Zach. He would be less likely to yell at me for my stupidity. I was well aware—now—of how stupid it was for me to drive down here in the first place. Time to pull out the helpless girlfriend routine. That was an area I had lots of practice in.

  When I took a look at my phone, I realized that I was about to get more experience at it than I ever hoped to have. No reception. At first, I thought that maybe it was because of how remote and surrounded by trees the lake was. It wouldn’t be a pleasant task, but I assumed that I at least might catch a bar or two if I got out and walked around a bit. Then I noticed something. The text I sent to Zach hours ago and never received a reply to had actually not even been sent at all. The rain must have knocked out cell service to the entire area the same way it did the night of the hurricane—the night I almost drowned.

  A prickly feeling of foreboding overtook me but I tried not to panic. This sense of déjà vu was a result of seeing that file and telling Clay the story of my near death—not a warning that something bad was about to happen again. Optimism was not my forte but I squeezed out every ounce of it I possessed. And then some. I typed out a quick SOS anyway and hit send.

  “Ruby, I think more memories are trying to surface. We need to get out of the car. I need to go take a look at something while we wait for help to get here.”

  “No, Clay, I don’t have any cell service. Help isn’t coming. The only help I have is you. Rosewood isn’t that far but it’s going to be dark soon. We need to start walking. Now.”

  “Please, Ruby? It will just take me a minute—I swear.”

  I shook my head no until he said the magic words.

  “Scout’s Honor.” There was something about the innocence of that phrase and the way he said it that I couldn’t resist. It softened his bad boy exterior in a way that made me feel like I was seeing the real Clay, the Clay he would have been if he’d had a better start in life. So I caved.

  “Fine,” I conceded and reached for the umbrella. “Seriously, though, five minutes and that’s it.” I tapped my finger on my phone to indicate that I was going to be timing it. “Clock’s ticking—let’s go before time runs out.”

  If I’d known the irony of that statement at the time, I never would have said it. If I hadn’t given in to Clay’s request, maybe time wouldn’t have been in danger of running out. But I did and it was. When I opened the door of that car, and set my feet in the opposite direction of the main road, I effectively kicked the hourglass of time even harder than the baton at the track meet. I just didn’t realize it. Yet. But before those five minutes were up, I was going to.

  Clay led me to the once shallow pool where the police found my car. When he got to the edge, his eyes glazed over and I knew that the memories were coming to him. “Clay? What do you remember?”

  Zero response. He was practically catatonic and didn’t seem to know I was there. Now afraid to disturb him, I began to walk away. I was nearly ten feet away from him before I realized that I was ten feet away. Whatever recollections he was having, had to be powerful for them to break or at least weaken our bond. I didn’t relish the thought of walking home alone in the dark rainy night, but it looked like I might have to. I moved cautiously around the lot trying to get a signal on my phone one last time. The rain was dying off—perhaps the cell tower would be functioning again. I heard the faint noise of what sounded like a vehicle approaching. Even though the message still showed as pending in my phone, Zach must have received it anyway. Thank God for Zach. What would I ever do without him?

  “Looks like you’re stuck,” a tiny voice rang out from behind the trees. “Don’t you know you should always be prepared?”

  That wasn’t Zach’s voice or any other one I recognized. I started to turn around to see who was speaking to me and crushed the hourglass firmly beneath my feet. I heard the shrill call of a bird then two familiar voices chiming together in one ominous phrase. Then my world as I knew it, ceased to be.

  “Ruby, look out!”

  27. Behind Clay’s Eyes

  Why was I so stupid? Yes, I still loved Sophie and part of me always would but I had Ruby now. She could
see me and talk to me. The most Sophie would ever be able to manage would be to believe in the possibility that I still existed. Ruby didn’t have to believe—she knew. My future was with her. She hadn’t said that she loved me yet but I had to give her time. When I told her that I loved her, she didn’t even flinch. She felt it—she just wasn’t ready to say it. I mean, why else would she have broken up with Zach last night? She never cared about me overhearing their conversations before so I knew what was happening when she took her phone into the bathroom with her. I felt bad for him—I know firsthand how devastating breakups are. I would have hung up on her, too.

  The closer I got to Ruby, the less my past mattered to me—the less I cared to remember what I’d forgotten. The only reason I agreed to try was because she seemed to need it so badly. I guess she thought that I needed to remember so that I could forget about Sophie and move on. I knew Ruby well enough to know that she wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. Once a dom, always a dom. God that girl’s determination made me smile. She wasn’t tough like the girls in my neighborhood—she was strong in the right way.

  Ruby knew how to fire me up—how to push my buttons in the most frustratingly sweetest of ways. Just like Sophie used to do. So as I now sat there in that car looking at the expression on her face when I remembered that Sophie was pregnant when I died, I felt terrible. I didn’t mean to make her jealous. I didn’t mean to upset her. It was the first memory I had of that night and it rolled off my tongue before I knew it. I did want to see the baby, though—at least once. And then, I could let it go. Sophie was capable of raising that kid alone. There wasn’t anything I could do for them anyway. They would both be better off without me.

  I resisted the urge to ‘compliment’ Ruby on her driving skills when she got us stuck in that puddle. When she said she was borrowing someone else’s car, I wasn’t expecting to be chauffeured around in a Matchbox car for the day. I really should have known it would end up out of commission. Damn foreign cars anyway. My Mustang would have—.