Ruby Hill (Entangled Ever After)

by Sarah Ballance

  He froze. He shook.

  A glint of light caught his eye, drawing his attention to something on the wall. Plaques. Such a terribly normal thing to find in such a horrid place, the display humanized the asylum. Those were real names—real people—and from the looks of them, staff. He scanned the list, much of which was illegible after decades of abandonment. A swipe over the otherwise undisturbed dust uncovered a few names. Winston Madison, Behavior Analyst. George Freeman, Commissioner of Lunacy. Harvey Osgood, Lobotomist. Near the top, one caught his eye.

  Colleen Franklin. Why did the name look familiar? He rubbed with his thumb, but the raised letters eluded clarity.

  “Secretary of Admissions.” The soft-spoken words brushed his ear, evoking chills. The good kind. Without meaning to, he turned his head and found too few inches between him and Ashley. The familiar tease of her shampoo put him back in her bed, his head sunk too far in a fluffy Ashley-scented pillow to see her mile-long legs draped over him. But he felt them. God, he felt them.

  Thousands of square feet and they had to share the same one. But he couldn’t step away. Not from her, and not from the truth.

  Corbin did believe in ghosts.

  His past was full of them.

  So was his present.

  “You’re not ready for this,” Ashley said.

  He bristled at the statement. He was the strong one, the cop. He had stared down mutilated bodies without flinching, and he wouldn’t flinch now. “I’m fine.”

  She was still in his space, filling the void. Changing something at his core. The realization stunned him. He hadn’t wanted to face her, hadn’t wanted to go back. Hadn’t considered she could be his way of moving forward.

  She abated the darkness.

  “I’m ready,” he said. The walls threw back the words. The echo built his resolve.

  Colleen Franklin.

  “Franklin,” he said. “One victim’s last name is Franklin.”

  Ashley stepped back while Corbin dug for his phone.

  With the distance, his heartbeat settled a notch. He hid a deep breath and unlocked his screen. Relieved to discover he still had reception, he tapped out a text to Joe, asking him to look for a relationship between their victims and Colleen Franklin. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  Corbin looked at Ashley. Whatever had strung them together was gone. The peace that had swept over him rolled out in an uneven tide, leaving a washed-out hole.

  He was no babysitter.

  Hell, he was only half a man.

  Without a word, he turned and walked away.

  Chapter Three

  Six months ago, when Corbin walked out in a firestorm of angry accusations, Ashley promised herself she’d never run after him again.

  Tonight, she broke that promise.

  She couldn’t let him revisit the site of his brother’s death alone. Though she had no real way of knowing that was where he was going, her knowledge of Ruby Hill left little doubt that was exactly where he’d find himself. The main corridors stretched endlessly in offset blocks, each corner precisely like the last, but even in the growing dark, the spot would stand out. Not because the dust had been so deeply disturbed by the paramedics and subsequent police investigation, but because there had been left the kind of mark a person couldn’t see—a crushing heaviness that made breathing difficult and forgetting impossible.

  Morose and deeply shadowed, even during the brilliant light of day, the sun’s descent bathed the asylum’s interior with terrible darkness. Most of Ashley’s equipment was in the room with her team, and her empty hands felt particularly vulnerable. She carried only a penlight in her pocket. When her shin made contact with a metal bar—a piece of a bed frame, maybe, or an IV pole—she considered putting the penlight to use, but Corbin had a head start so she forged ahead without stopping.

  The hall bent ninety degrees at a time. She counted turns. When she got to the section that was now Cash’s, she was surprised not to see Corbin. She hesitated.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  The words landed close to her ear—so close she might have felt his lips graze her lobe. When she jumped, she knocked into him, sending them both against the nearby wall. A hand landed on her arm—attached to Corbin, she hoped—and drew goosebumps from her skin.

  Her throat tightened. “I think we both need to be here.”

  She expected him to argue, but seconds ticked by in silence—seconds where they stood, touching, her back nestled against his front. Seconds where tendrils of familiarity curled through her. Seconds of healing.

  “Cash,” Corbin said, his voice quiet and choked. “Is he…okay?”

  Ashley swallowed. The sound seemed to echo in the institutional silence. Where were the cops? They were supposed to be there somewhere. Was someone watching them? She had no way of knowing—the asylum’s dark presence interfered with her instincts. In that moment, all she felt was Corbin, his hands on her upper arms, and the weight of his question.

  “I don’t know.”

  Her own words surprised her. She should have said something reassuring, but her heart couldn’t hold empty promises. It couldn’t give them away, either.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be.” The hard edge was back.

  “He wanted to know this place,” Ashley said. “He felt a connection.”

  More silence. Then, “There was one.”

  A thought flashed, niggled, and drove away. She took a slow breath and wondered if Corbin could tell her pulse raced. “What was it?”

  “My grandmother worked here as a nurse. She didn’t have any schooling—the family was too poor for that—but she cared for the residents. There were so many and not enough care to go around, so she stepped in.” He shifted but didn’t relinquish skin contact with Ashley. “After my grandfather died, Ruby Hill became an obsession. She wanted to save them all.”

  Pieces clicked into place. When Cash found out Ashley had investigated the asylum, he’d begged her to bring him along. Days passed before she gave in.

  Cash’s last days.

  Corbin had blamed her for bringing Cash along. Then, by extension, for his death.

  “That’s why Cash was so interested in this godforsaken place,” Corbin said.

  Pent-up emotion clogged Ashley’s throat. “And why you hate it.”

  “My grandmother died here,” he said.

  Ashley spun, dislodging his hold. Her face inches from Corbin, she could nearly see him in the dark. Sorrow had paled him. “How did she die?”

  “Heart attack.” Slow, measured words.

  “And Cash?” Click. Click. More pieces. “What was his official cause of death?”

  Corbin tensed, his body turning to stone—as cold and unforgiving as the asylum walls. He radiated a sudden terrible energy that defied the slab of granite into which he’d hardened, but his words came deadly calm.

  “Sudden cardiac arrest.”

  …

  Corbin swore with every hurried step. How could he have been so blind? The connection couldn’t have been more obvious. Ruby Hill wasn’t his case—at least, not before this night—but if he’d opened his eyes a slit, he would have seen it. Connecting these dots meant expanding their time frame. It meant their victims weren’t all women, but Corbin didn’t believe in coincidences.

  They had three victims.

  If the connection panned out—if they were dealing with murders and not some horrible coincidence—they had the preliminary definition of a serial killer. The FBI would be all over the case—one Corbin now desperately wanted for himself. He slowed his ranting pace and tried to get his bearings, but the effort was futile. The whole damned place looked the same. Worse, he’d lost Ashley. He’d meant to, but now the thought of not keeping her close suffocated him. After a pair of steadying breaths, he removed his phone from his pocket.

  Heat gave way to cold, the effect so sudden and profound Corbin shivered and nearly dropped the phone. Cursing, he found his
grip and fumbled to turn it on.

  Dead. Minutes before, he’d had a full battery.

  Dread hit him with dizzying force. “Ashley?”

  The walls, so terribly silent before, seemed to laugh as they threw back the word, again and again.

  Dammit. Where was the back-up Joe promised? Probably guarding the crime scene.

  A shadow—only marginally darker than everything else he saw—passed a nearby doorway. “Ashley?”

  “Here.”

  Her voice came not from the shadow’s direction, but from behind. He turned and thought he saw an outline. She drew closer, not stopping until they were separated by inches.

  “My battery is dead,” he said.

  “Mine, too. Spirits commonly drain them and use the energy to manifest.” Ashley stared at him for what felt like forever. Long enough for him to think a thousand times she was beautiful. The words were on the tip of his tongue.

  Then the air sizzled, and an overhead light bulb popped to life.

  “What the hell?” For several seconds, he saw nothing but spots, and even after his vision returned his view was riddled with bright, white orbs. How had that light bulb come on? Not only had the electricity been shut off shortly after the building was abandoned, but the main power source had been disconnected as a precaution against fire in the century-old wiring. He made a mental note to check for extension cords, although concealing the noise of a generator on the premises would take some doing.

  Ashley, eyes wide, opened her mouth just as the bulb exploded and sent the corridor into darkness. Instinctively, he reached for her, but she’d already slammed against him. Thanks to the brief light show, the hall now seemed much darker than it had before.

  His heart sputtered and lurched like an engine that wouldn’t quite turn over. But he wouldn’t admit fear. “It’s set up,” he muttered.

  “You can tell me how later.” Her words were a breathless whisper. He’d heard a version of that tone before…in the bedroom. “For now—”

  A horrific bang of metal on metal sounded, sending her tighter against his chest.

  A door. It must have slammed. The sound fit—all the doors he’d seen in the corridor were standard institution steel.

  “There’s someone in here,” he whispered. Although he and Ashley weren’t hidden, standing in the middle of the hall as they were, the urge to keep his voice low persisted. On some level, the silken feel of her hair against his lips registered, but his cop instincts were on high alert. Not knowing from which direction the threat originated heightened the tension.

  When he’d first arrived, he noticed several of the asylum’s windows were broken. The slamming door could have been caused by a draft, but the only air moving was that of their heaving breaths. The silence yielded nothing, not even the distant noise of a motor to power the light.

  Ashley stepped away, leaving him to realize how tightly he’d held her. In his other hand was his phone, which he now squeezed with a death grip. Relaxing took concentrated effort. He pushed the useless device back in his pocket.

  “You need to get back to your team,” he told Ashley.

  She didn’t speak, but she radiated refusal. His eyes had finally adjusted after the flash of light, gracing him with a view of her stubborn set jaw.

  He tried another tactic. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Fine,” she said, a bit too easily. “You lead. I’ll follow.”

  Corbin opened his mouth immediately and snapped it shut. She had him, and she damn well knew it. No wonder she so readily agreed. She knew the asylum inside and out, and at the moment he didn’t even know the general direction of the front entrance, let alone how to get there. He knew the main corridor followed a predictable pattern of elbow joints, but in the dark a single missed turn could render him lost until dawn. And the debris littering the hallway made for a dangerous trek. He’d seen everything from fallen pieces of the ceiling to broken wheel chairs to mangled bed frames. Shattered glass—from windows, beer bottles, and light bulbs—would make for a nasty landing.

  He needed to get a message out to Joe, and his best shot of doing that was getting to the main entrance. His only shot of getting there was Ashley.

  “Point taken.” He chewed back a sigh, tasting defeat. “You lead. We need to get back up front. There’s bound to be a uniform around there with a radio or phone I can use.”

  She smiled—one laced with victory—and turned, walking away from him. It seemed only a couple of minutes passed when he realized he couldn’t hear her footsteps ahead. Bothered, he looked up from the ground where he’d sought a clear path, seeing nothing in the dark but shades of charcoal. Judging by how far he estimated they’d walked since the last turn, the next corner was another fifty feet away. She should be there. “Ash?”

  The word stuck to the end of his tongue. He hadn’t called her that—not even in his thoughts—since that godforsaken night Cash insisted on joining a ghost hunt. It had been a bad idea for a number of reasons, starting with the fact trespassing was illegal. That defied Corbin’s vow to uphold and protect, sticking sorely in his craw. But even if he managed to overlook that particular detail, sneaking into the asylum remained a bad idea—every one of which gave Corbin a compelling reason to go along. Ruby Hill attracted all kinds of crazies—Satanists, drug dealers and users, ghost hunters—and crossing paths with any one of them in the dead of night would likely result in a bad situation. Dismiss all of those possibilities and there was still the small matter of what abandonment had done to the place. Hazards were everywhere.

  People died.

  Dammit. Where was Ashley?

  “Ash?”

  A sound he couldn’t identify brushed his ears, immediately followed by a pinpoint flash of light. Corbin’s pulse quickened. He felt for his concealed weapon, comforted when his fingers closed on it but not yet ready to draw. With his other hand, he found the door frame. After a cautious look around—in which he found nothing more than shades of gray—he stepped inside.

  “Ashley?”

  The room slowly edged into focus. Moonlight softened the shadows, allowing him to see more than two feet in front of his face. The same noise whispered from across the room. As he sought it, his gaze tripped over something.

  Not another body.

  Most of the debris he’d seen thus far had the sharp angles of discarded beds and other furnishings, but the irregular shape lying on the floor appeared softer, its rounded edges hard to discern. With every step, it looked more like Ashley. He’d traced the sensual curve of her hip so many times he’d know it blindfolded. And that long blond ponytail. How many times had he taken down that hair and plunged his fingers through it?

  Corbin’s throat pinched. It couldn’t be her. She hadn’t been gone long enough—this had to be someone else’s tragedy.

  He approached, more rapidly now, not noticing a massive spider web until he stepped through it. The sticky threads stuck to his face, his attempts to remove them only dragging long strands of broken web in ghostly trails with his every moment. Corbin swore under his breath. He hated spiders with an unholy passion. Imagined or not, he could practically feel dozens of tiny disgusting arachnid feet toeing his skin.

  He fought the sensation. Focused on the floor. On a body.

  Ashley.

  Cold seized him—air so cold he could see his breath. Terrible pain hit, exploding in his head and his gut. He pushed past it and dropped to his knees, a sense of déjà vu blistering him. He fought to keep from scooping her in his arms. Fought memories of this moment with Cash. Fought to swallow the poison climbing his throat. Ashley. He felt for a pulse, frantically looking for any sign of breath. She was pale. Too damn pale. But she had only been out of his sight for a minute.

  Heat pricked his eyes when he detected a heartbeat. In nearly the same instant, she opened her eyes.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” He had to force the words past the lump in his throat.

  She said nothing. Just poured o
ver him with those blue eyes, their color nearly black in the dark.

  “You’re cold,” he said, rubbing his hands on her skin. “Freezing. Are you hurt?”

  She struggled to sit, so he helped her. Why wouldn’t she answer him?

  “If you’re okay, we need to get to a phone.” If not, he didn’t know what he’d do. Yell, maybe. Someone would hear. Not a bad idea, actually. He struggled with the idea of leaving her long enough to retrace his steps to the corridor, but she didn’t give him a chance.

  Ashley gripped him with one ice-cold hand. Kiss me.

  He hadn’t actually heard the words…at least not outside of his head. He felt them. Something in her eyes bewitched him, melding with euphoric relief. She was alive. She was alive, and they had a second chance. Captivated with a hope she might have forgiven him, he let himself lean closer, his eyes drifting closed.

  He expected the warmth of her kiss—not the blast of frigid air that slammed into him like a wall of ice water. His eyes flew open, only to discover the person in front of him wasn’t Ashley. Not anymore. Her face tipped, one side drooping slightly like a candle soft from the heat of its flame. He blinked—hard.

  Flat obsidian eyes stared back at him. Shit. Corbin scrambled backward into a pile of debris, plowing through it. He landed on his back, chest heaving.

  Poor light wasn’t to blame. The eyes were black, endless pools of evil. This was not Ashley.

  He scrambled to get his feet under him, unable to peel his eyes from this thing as its features staggered drunkenly then spilled down its skull like syrup over a stack of pancakes.

  It had touched him. He had touched it. This wasn’t possible.

  He didn’t believe in what was right in front of his eyes.

  White-hot pain grated his palm. He flexed his fingers, feeling the sticky heat of blood. Broken glass crunched underneath as he shifted. Unable to find his feet or his voice, he pushed away, hands and feet flailing as he sought purchase in the loose, unsteady pile of debris.

  Where the hell was Ashley? And what the hell—

  He watched, transfixed, as the thing disintegrated right before his eyes. Skin peeled away, leaving visible the pitted remnants of a skull. Hair detached in knots of streaked gray and fell to shoulder-like stumps. That was when he realized it wore a gown. Not the original jeans and tee he’d seen, but the uniform of a patient.