Wraiths of Winter (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 3) (2 page)

“Okay. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

“Okay,” I called as I took off up the grand staircase at
full speed. The sooner I got my bag, the sooner we would be
on our way to Chow Ming. Their food was delicious every day
of the week but Sundays were extra special.
Why?
One
word—buffet.

When I flung the door to the attic open, a familiar
scent struck me instantly.
A heavenly cloud of Midnight Kiss
hung in the air. Did I
really
spray that much perfume after my
shower this morning? I tugged my sweater closer to my nose
to see if it smelled that strong on me, too. One whiff told me it
didn’t—it was definitely noticeable but still subtle. Oh well,
the attic hadn’t smelled that good since I smudged it with
vanilla incense over the
summer in
the hopes
of ending
Scarlet’s haunting. Quickly, I snatched my bag from the futon
and flung the door shut behind me.

The buffet at Chow Ming was just what I needed.
I
piled my plate full of Crab Rangoon and Szechuan Chicken and
slid into the booth across from Zach. Looking across the table,
I saw that his plate was half the size of mine.

“I thought you liked Chinese,” I said pointing to his
plate. “You barely got anything from the buffet.”

Zach jabbed at a mushroom on his plate, first missing
it and then chasing it around the rim until it was securely on
the end of his fork. “I love Chinese. I guess I’m just not as
hungry as you are.”

“Yeah, I
have
been extra hungry lately, you know,
since Garnet.” I popped a Crab Rangoon into my mouth and
chewed slowly, savoring every single bit of it.

“I’m just happy to see you eating again. I felt so
helpless just watching you waste away, like I was losing you
and there wasn’t anything I could do about it,” Zach replied
sadly. “It was a horrible feeling. I hope I don’t ever have to
feel that way again.”

“You won’t, Zach,” I replied between bites, “Garnet’s
gone for good now. That was a scary time for me, too, you
know. I wasn’t exactly in control of the situation either.”

“Two ghosts in six months—that’s a lot. Hopefully,
the worst of it is behind us now.” Zach laid his fork down on
his plate and settled back in the booth.

Talking about ghosts brought a comment from Rachel
to mind. The one where she said that the only way I could
help her was if I could talk to the dead.
As much as I hoped
that Crimson was found alive and well, I was done dealing
with all things supernatural. “It is Zach. Rosewood’s been
quiet since August and now that Garnet got what she wanted,
the school will be, too.”

“I hate to bring it up but what about Clay?”

Clay Roseman. It was hard for me to think of him as a
ghost—he
was
so different from
Scarlet or Garnet.
He
completely annoyed me and I wanted nothing to do with him,
but there was nothing about him to suggest that he wasn’t
alive.
Now that I knew that he was dead, though, I was
definitely curious about him. No! I didn’t want to know
anything
about him. Not a single thing. All of my spare time
would be spent trying to track down Lee’s biological parents.
Clay didn’t seem to want anything from me anyway. Did he?

“I don’t think Clay is anything to worry about.
The
only places I’ve ever seen him were at the cemetery and Silver
Lake. As long as I avoid both, I’m in the clear.” Why couldn’t
all ghosts be as easy to avoid as he was?

Zach’s eyes lit up when I said the words “Silver Lake”.
“So that day at the cemetery—that wasn’t the only time you
saw him?”

“No,” I stuffed the last bite of rice into my mouth and
put my fork down. “I saw him at the lake the night you broke
up with me.”

“You did? Did you see anything else?” Zach leaned
forward over the table, obviously eager for my reply.

 

“No—well, yes, I guess. He was standing beside a beat
up old Mustang. He waved when we drove past him.”

 

“Really. That makes sense though because he loved
that car and the night he died—”

“Stop! Stop right there!” I held up my hand in protest.
“I don’t want to know anything more about him. The less I
know, the less chance there is of me getting involved. There’s
something more important to focus on.”

Zach gave me a big smile. “I was starting to think you
forgot all about that.”

 

“Forget? Lee’s clone knocked on my door today and
you thought I would forget about it so quickly?”

Zach’s face fell. “Yeah, you’re right. How could I think
you would forget about something so important?” He pushed
his plate away from him leaving half of his food uneaten. “So
how exactly do you plan to find Lee’s family? Lucas may not
even know he’s adopted. You don’t even know him. You can’t
just go up and tell him, you know.”

“I know that. Don’t forget—I saw what it did to Lee
when his mom dropped that bomb inappropriately. I’ll
definitely have to make friends with him first, gain his trust.”

“Friends,” Zach said quietly. “Just don’t forget what I
told you.
Be careful—he’s not Lee and you know nothing
about this guy.”

“Don’t worry, Zach. I’ll be fine.” I slurped the last of
my soda through the straw and tossed my napkin on the table.
“Are you ready to go? There’s still something we have to do
before Dad and Shelly get home.”

“Yeah, there is.” Zach’s mood brightened. “We still
have enough time before they’re due home.”

 

“I hope so but we have to leave right now because The
Village closes in an hour.”

 

He gave me a strange look. “The Village?”

“Yeah. We have to replace the glasses we broke
before Shelly notices they’re gone. I can’t remember exactly
which store she bought them in but I think I can narrow it
down to one or two possibilities. We’ll still have to hurry,
though.”

Zach nodded his head in agreement and dug his keys
out of his pocket. “Let’s go then.”

The fortune cookies our waitress gave us lay on the
table untouched so I tossed one at him and said, “Here—I
know you never eat them, but you at least have to see what
your fortune is.”

We cracked them open simultaneously. Zach chuckled
as he read his fortune aloud. “Everyone has a photographic
memory. Some people just don’t have film.”

“That’s for sure,” I said as I looked down at the tiny
slip of paper in my hand, fully prepared to recite its words of
wisdom back to him—until I read what it said.
What I found
inside that cookie was something Zach would surely take the
wrong way.
So instead, I repeated the strangest saying I’d
ever found inside one.

“Even Popeye didn’t eat his spinach until he had to,” I
said, crinkled it into a tiny ball, and threw it onto my plate.
“
Now
we can go.”

I laid down enough money to cover the check and slid
out from behind the table. “What did you think I was talking
about earlier when I said there was still enough time?
You
seemed confused when I said we needed to get to The Village
before it closed.”

“Me? Nothing,” he replied distractedly. “Let’s go get
those glasses.”

My rough estimate of how many stores we would have
to go into was far rougher than I realized. With only minutes
to spare, we found the exact set of glasses we needed to
replace the broken ones—the one Zach dropped in shock
when he saw Lee/Lucas at the door and the one I broke when
I fainted.

Once back at the mansion, Zach helped me clean up
the mess.
We rolled the broken shards inside the paper
towels we used to mop up the wine and threw all of it into a
plastic bag. Zach placed the bag inside his car and promised
to throw it away somewhere that neither of our parents
would find it. With a few sprays of air freshener, there was no
trace of what we’d done. When I said that I was going to hide
the two extra glasses in my room, Zach hurriedly announced
that he was heading home.

“Oh, okay. Do you have plans tonight?” I asked
casually.

Zach shoved his hands in his pockets. “Plans? Nope,
no plans. I just want to see how Rachel’s doing, see if there’s
any news about Crimson. So I’ll see you in the morning,
then?”

Was he acting strange or was it just me? “Okay, you’re
picking me up for school, right?”

 

“Sure,” he said and gave me a kiss. “See you in the
morning then?”

He seemed sad almost. “Yeah, see you then,” I replied,
squeezing him extra hard when we hugged. Was he worried
that I would break up with him to be with Lucas? If that’s all
it was, he had nothing to concern himself with. Nothing in the
world could make me forget how much I loved him, how
much he’d done for me since we’d met. I watched from the
porch as he drove out of sight, then I shook off the snow and
retreated to the attic.

When I opened the door to the attic, the scent of
perfume seemed even stronger than before.
My bottle of
Midnight Kiss must have fallen and broken or something—it
was the only possible explanation.
I thought I had Coco
trained not to jump up on my bathroom sink—I must have
been mistaken. Great.
More
broken glass to clean up. After I
hid the wine glasses in my closet, I would take care of the
mess.

But after opening
my
bedroom
door, hiding
wine
glasses was the last thing on my mind. One look at my room
and
I knew why
Zach seemed so sad.
I was
the worst
girlfriend in the world.
And the actual words I found printed
inside that cookie flashed into my brain.

“You cannot connect the dots by looking forward, only
by looking backwards.”
2. Thinking It Through

How
could
I
have
forgotten
something
so
monumental? I looked around the room and felt sick to my
stomach.
Zach went to so much trouble to ensure that my
first time was perfect but in the end
I
was the one who ruined
it. Now I knew why he seemed so sad earlier. And come to
think of it, we didn’t even say “I love you” before he left.

The overwhelming scent of Midnight Kiss didn’t come
from a broken bottle of perfume—it came from the candles
placed
strategically
around
the
room.
I
counted
six
altogether. If I knew Zach, there was one to symbolize each
month we’d been together. They weren’t just ordinary
candles
either,
they
were
custom
made.
Rose
petals
embedded in the wax formed a ring around the bottom of the
clear glass candleholders and red velvet ribbons were tied
around the top.
I knew those candles—they were from
Something Wick-ed and they were wickedly expensive. Rita’s
new line of custom scented candles were popular at the shop
but usually only purchased by her wealthier customers.

But that wasn’t all he’d done. On my pillow was a
bouquet of ruby red roses and on my nightstand was a bowl
of strawberries and a fondue pot. Lifting the lid, I found what
I expected—chocolate. I dipped one finger in and licked it off.
It was
the sweetest chocolate I’d ever tasted. Now I
understood why he took off so quickly when I said I was
taking the extra wine glasses to my room.

Unfortunately, that was the
only
thing I understood. I
sunk down onto my bed in disbelief.
Today started out so
perfect—why did everything have to go so wrong? If Lucas
hadn’t knocked on the door, I would probably be lying naked
in this bed with Zach instead of sitting glumly on the edge of it
pondering what went wrong. But really, it wasn’t his
presence at the door that affected me the most.
It was the
echo of Lee’s words in my head and what they could
actually
mean that ripped the proverbial rug out from under me.

My one true love could have blond hair and blue
eyes—duh, that was Zach. Or he could look more like Lee—
obviously, that applied to Lucas.
Either way, meeting him
would come as a great shock to me—unfortunately, that also
applied to both of them. Automatically, I assumed it referred
to my first meeting with Zach.
The second he touched me a
bolt of electricity shot through me.
But opening the front
door to see what I thought was Lee standing there—well, that
definitely counted as a shock, too.
If we never met, his life
wouldn’t be complete. Which one of them did
that
pertain to?

Lucas—that’s who. I held a key to his past that he
would never find without me. I spent twelve years of my life
with what had to be his twin brother, a brother he probably
had no idea existed. There was so much I wanted to share
with him about Lee, so much I wanted to find out about Lucas
himself. Was
Lucas
the boy I was destined to be with?

I loved Zach in a way I never thought was possible but
being together seemed to cause both of us so much heartache.
Our chemistry was the fuel Scarlet used to torture me. Garnet
pushed Zach down
the
stairs
to get my
attention.
Our
relationship brought out anger and jealousy in Zach which
almost got him kicked out of school. Would we both be better
off without each other?

Grrr!
Confusion
was
so,
well,
confusing
.
My
relationship with Lee was quiet and comfortable. The time I’d
spent with Zach was nothing but a series of highs and lows,
going
from
turbulent
to passionate and
back
again
at
whiplash speeds. If I knew for certain that my battle with the
paranormal was over, things would settle down between us
and we could be happy. But if there were any more ghosts in
my future, maybe everyone involved would be safer if we
weren’t together.