Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2) (4 page)

     “What aren’t you telling me, Shelly?  What did you mean when you said Zach wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else again?  Who did he hurt?  Where is he?”

     “Take it easy.  Like I said, Zach’s okay.  But there was an incident at the hospital and he’s been transferred somewhere more
secure
,” Shelly replied. 

     The emphasis she placed on her final word scared the hunger right out of me.  “That’s it.  Screw the food!  Get out of this line right now and take me to see Zach!”  Impulsively, I reached for the steering wheel but Shelly blocked me from taking over.

     “Ruby!  What has gotten into you?  We’re in the middle of the drive thru—there isn’t anything we can do except patiently wait for our turn!  There are cars blocking us in on three sides and the building on the other.  Where exactly am I supposed to go?”

     I hadn’t noticed it before, but we were, indeed, trapped.  “Why do you keep leading me to do one thing yet give me the exact opposite to work with, Mom?  Are you
trying
to drive me crazy?”

     I didn’t even realize what I’d said or who I’d said it in front of until I saw the hurt and confusion on Shelly’s face.  This wasn’t how I wanted to break the news to her.  It was supposed to come out gently over tea and cinnamon rolls not blurted out in anger in the middle of the Chicken Shack drive thru.  My lack of patience got me into trouble yet again.

     “Are you able to see your mother now?” Shelly asked quietly while staring straight ahead through the windshield at the car in front of us.

     “No, I can’t see her.  But she’s the reason I went to Arizona.  Please don’t be offended!  I didn’t mean to tell you this way.  That’s why I wanted to wait until we got home to talk about it.”

     “I’m not offended, Ruby.  You just caught me off guard, that’s all.  You have every right to be interested in who she was.  You have nothing to apologize for.”

     Then why did I still feel so damn guilty?  I should have talked to her as soon as I realized who those signs were coming from.  Ugh.  I wasn’t lying anymore but keeping secrets was really only a prettier form of it. 

     “I’m not apologizing for tracking down Mom’s past.  I’m apologizing for not telling you about it sooner.  I’m sorry.”

     By this point, we were already at the window to order and I hadn’t even noticed us moving.  Shelly placed our order, paid, and then handed me my food before saying, “Apology accepted.  Now eat before you starve to death young lady!  I could hear your stomach growling the entire time we were waiting in line.”

     A few miles down the road, my fries were gone and I was about to start on my sandwich when Shelly abruptly set her popcorn chicken into the cup holder and heaved a gigantic sigh.

     “I’ve been keeping something from you too, Ruby.  I didn’t want to tell you this until you were safely back in Charlotte’s Grove.  Your dad and I were going to break it to you slowly.  But I feel you need to know now so you won’t be so heartbroken when we get there.”

     My heart sank into my stomach and I dropped my Triple Crunch into my lap.  “Zach died, didn’t he?  You didn’t want to tell me over the phone, did you?”  I could feel myself start to tremble like I had when I heard Rachel’s message at Bell Rock.  This couldn’t be happening. 

     “Relax!  Zach is still alive, Ruby.  I would
never
lie to you about something like that.  But the truth is, you can’t get in to see him.  There was an incident at the hospital and he isn’t allowed any visitors right now.  Even your father has been banned from any involvement in his care.”

     My sense of relief was only temporary.  Zach may not be dead; but if I couldn’t get in to see him, I wouldn’t be able to give him the protection he needed either.  One step forward always seemed to lead me two steps back. 

     “But how can they keep Dad from seeing him?  He’s the chief of staff at Baker Regional for crying out loud!  He has the final say in
everything
, doesn’t he?”

     “Under normal circumstances, yes.  But based on Zach’s behavior, Dr. Landon feels that contact with anyone that will remind Zach of certain
things
could be detrimental to his therapy.”

     “And by ‘things’, you’re referring to me, right?  I’m the ‘thing’ he shouldn’t be remembering.”

     “Let’s wait until we get home to talk about this.  I know you’re upset.  But I also know that you want the best for him.  Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing you can do in a situation like this.”

     I didn’t believe that.  I didn’t believe that at all.  Mom didn’t direct me to Sedona just so I could come home and sit restlessly by without helping him at all.  There had to be a way to get to him.  And I was going to find it.

     We were at a stalemate and we both knew it.  There was silence in that car for the rest of the drive home.  Shelly knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t going to take no for an answer when it came to Zach.  And I knew that I had to have the perfect plan in mind before acting on it.  Perfect plans called for perfect thought; perfect thought called for perfect silence.

     About half a mile from Rosewood, we spotted Dad’s car speeding toward us in the direction of the hospital.  He must have spotted us too because he slowed down and started waving to us from his open window.  Shelly brought her car to a stop and waited for him to reach us.

     “Possible complications with an emergency appendectomy—I need to get to the hospital stat.  Not sure when I’ll be home.  If I don’t get the chance to talk to either of you tonight, I love you both and I’ll see you in the morning.”     

     With that, he was off and running again.  I wasn’t sure if that worked in my favor or against it.  He was in a better position to get access to Zach than either Shelly or me.  But Shelly was more apt to help me form a plan to get around the hospital’s rules.  Here I was, yet again, being held back from doing the one thing I was supposed to be doing.

     We hauled my bags into the mansion but they didn’t make it any further than the foyer.  There was some serious conversation to be had between Shelly and me tonight.  Serious conversation required food and beverages of some sort.  Without even discussing it, we both wandered into the kitchen in search of both.  After settling on a frozen pizza, Shelly poured herself a glass of wine.

     “What do you want to drink?  The usual? I think there’s still a can or two of diet soda left in the fridge from the last time you were home.  Or are you still more into tea?”

     I definitely didn’t want tea.  Tea would make me want to read my leaves and I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to find something different inside my cup this time.  No more tea until Addie was around to decipher the message for me properly. 

     “Coffee,” I announced, “Without a doubt.  I need something strong to get me through this.  I would have said wine but I need to keep my wits about me.”

     “I would have said no to the wine anyway,” Shelly said, laughing as she poured me a cup of coffee.  “It’s going to take a while for that pizza to bake.  So while we wait, tell me how and why you ended up in Arizona.  I haven’t told your dad where you were yet.  I figured that was your job.”

     Not what I wanted to hear but I had to accept the consequences of my actions sooner or later.  Again, growing up sucked.  But at least I had one last night of freedom from his lectures before fessing up to the truth.

     In the thirty minutes it took for the pizza to be ready, I explained everything to Shelly that I hadn’t already told her.  She listened intently without any interruptions.  It wasn’t until I got to the part about the bird in the desert that she promptly cut me off with a question.

     “Did you look up what kind of bird that was yet?”

     “No, I didn’t.  It took every last second I had to get myself packed and on a plane back to Pittsburgh.  I had time while on the plane, of course, but no internet access.” 

     Could that bird have been a clue as to my next move?  Most of the feathers I’d encountered were simply just feathers.  But the Lovebird feather I found the last time I was home was an exception.  When the timer went off for the pizza, I went out to the foyer and grabbed my laptop out of my carry on.  Curiosity was about to kill this cat.  My only hope was that satisfaction would bring me back.

     Shelly dropped the pizza cutter and joined me at the table.  Bird identification was more important than eating pizza fresh from the oven.  I brought up the photo I took of the bird and laid the feather right beside it.  We took our time deciding which color and shape best described the potential clue that lay before us. 

     Once I clicked the search button, we simultaneously held our breaths for the few seconds it took for our answer to pop up.  And it was well worth the wait.  There was only one bird that fit the detailed description we’d entered into the website. 

     “Brilliant!” I shouted, “Absolutely brilliant!  Why didn’t
I
think of that!”

     It took Shelly a minute to understand what it meant, but I knew instantly what the message was and how I could form a plan around it. Mom had thrown a life raft into my sea of doubt.  Zach wasn’t as far out of my reach as I’d thought he was.

4.  Flaming Mad

    
Once the haze was gone, I found myself in the midst of a different kind of chaos.  The drumbeats had been replaced with a shrill alarm.  Shouting took the place of her giggle.  My arms were pinned tightly behind my back by two large security guards.  The male nurse that was assigned to my room stood in front of me gingerly wiping blood from his swollen lip.  I didn’t have to see my hands at that point to know that I would find traces of his blood in the cracks of my knuckles. 

     The television that had been firmly mounted to the wall when I last remembered seeing it was now a scattered mess of plastic with smoke still smoldering from the shattered screen.  I’d done this.  All of this.  Not just
for
her but
because
of her.  She brought out the demons inside of me.  She
was
the demon inside of me.  Enough was enough. 

     I knew that I was powerless to stop her—at least on my own.  Someone had to help me get her out of my mind.  My throat was raw from the tubing but I screamed as hard as I could at Dr. Landon as he dashed into the room. 

     “You have to keep Ruby away from me!  Keep everyone away from me!  I don’t want to see anyone!  Take me somewhere else!  Take me somewhere where she’ll never find me!”

     That’s when I broke down.  I hung my head and wept like a child.  I loved her so much but I prayed to God that I could go back in time to a point when she didn’t exist to me.  If I had it to do over again, I would have walked right out of the diner that day and never spoken to her.  I would have spent every last second of my senior year avoiding her like a virus—which is exactly what she turned out to be. 

     Who was I trying to fool?  If I couldn’t even convince myself that I didn’t want her—that I wasn’t
dying
to be with her—who else was going to believe me?  But I needed to focus and try to regain the pieces of myself that I’d misplaced along the way. 

     “Please take me away,” I repeated until Dr. Landon nodded his head.

     “I agree, Zach.  You need time away from your life as you know it.  I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

     In those few seconds, I felt the most overwhelming sense of relief.  Someone was going to help me put myself back together.  Someone other than Ruby.  But like a witch’s familiar, the minute I silently thought her name inside my brain; she appeared in the doorway.  And she was flaming mad.

     Her eyes almost seemed to be
glowing
with hatred.  Her hair was a serpent’s nest of curls—unkempt as though she hadn’t washed or combed it in weeks.  Her face was stark white with what looked like fear.  But when she spoke, it was with the voice of an angel.

     “Zach, if they take you away you’ll never see me again,” she whispered with a lyrical lilt to her words.  “Is that what you really want?”

     No, it wasn’t.  But in some ways, yes it was.  I was already confused.  She was confusing me even further.  There was something not right about her but I couldn’t quite figure it out.  I needed to get away.  Now.

     “Get me out of here
now
!” I shouted, pointing to where she stood.  “I can’t look at her without going crazy!  Give me something to put me to sleep.”

     Dr. Landon pulled one of the nurses aside and whispered words that I could not hear.  She nodded her head then quickly disappeared down the hallway.  The guards continued to keep a tight restraint on me until she reappeared with a hypodermic needle.  After a sharp pinch in my right bicep, the needle emptied into my arm.  Moments later, my brain too began to empty.  It emptied of everything but the desire to go to sleep and never wake up again.