Free Ruby Hill (Entangled Ever After) by Sarah Ballance Page A

cops?” he asked. “The old man at the gate won’t cut it.”
    Joe opened his door. “He’s not supposed to. Our guys are waiting to see who wants in.”
    Heat blasted away the last traces of conditioned air. God, but it was hot. Too hot for October. “Two murders in as many weeks and you think this guy is entering through the front gate?”
    “Nah. But I don’t mind if he thinks we think that.” Joe climbed out of the car. His stance left Corbin with an unwelcome view of his almighty ass.
    Corbin averted his eyes and ended up with a windshield full of Ruby Hill.
    You did not kill your brother .
    Joe was talking, the words muffled by the car’s roof and thick air.
    Corbin forced himself out of the vehicle. When the second foot hit the ground, the knot in his chest traveled to his stomach.
    “. . . in one room. We’ve been over it for evidence, just in case, but we can’t go over the whole asylum. Just keep them in and everyone else out, and everything should be fine.”
    Joe deserved some credit. The room he’d rented the ghostbusters for the night was on the wrong side of the enormous complex, not that they’d ever know the difference. The exact location of the crime scene hadn’t been released to the media. Still… “And if it isn’t fine?”
    Joe shrugged. “They signed waivers. Your job is to make sure they don’t leave that room. It’s nowhere near the crime scene area, but don’t let that particular cat out of the bag. It’s an interior room and the walls are concrete. It’ll be secure. Any questions?”
    “Yeah. Why are you humoring these morons?”
    Joe sighed with a heaviness that suggested he’d heard the question one time too many. “They can collect evidence we can’t. Maybe our ghost is in the mood for a confession. That’s the official answer, anyway.”
    “What’s the unofficial version?”
    “They want to prove it’s not a ghost. I don’t believe in what they’re doing, but they’re in a unique position to put a damper on the hysteria. It’s much more effective to let them discredit the ghost theory, however they think they can. People are more likely to listen to them say it isn’t true.”
    Joe turned his back. Case closed. Only, it wasn’t.
    “Why am I here?” Corbin asked.
    Without turning around, Joe replied, “You’ll find out soon enough.”
    …
    From Ruby Hill’s front entrance, Ashley Pearce watched Corbin Malone step out of an unmarked car. The distance didn’t hide the familiar stance of his body, nor did it hurt the view of the tee stretched decadently over his chest. Jet-black hair illuminated pale blue eyes, crystalline against the pallor he’d worn since his brother’s death.
    A chill broke through the oppressive heat, sweeping over Ashley’s skin. She shivered. For as long as she could remember, she’d been drawn to Ruby Hill—to its dark past. In a hundred years of operation, tens of thousands of residents called the asylum home. Most never left alive.
    Hundreds, dumped anonymously in unmarked graves, never left at all.
    Despite the scars left on so many lives—and by extension, the community as a whole—Ruby Hill was an astonishingly beautiful piece of history. The building boasted the trademark Kirkbride design so closely associated with institutionalized care. Though long neglected, the complex could not shed the remnants of its past glory. Ashley wasn’t blind to the horrors that took place within its walls, but she could not look at the building without seeing what it must have once been before abuse and abandonment took its toll.
    Stately. Breathtaking. Desecrated .
    The media, with its claims of a phantom killer, had turned it into a circus.
    When the local PD’s Joe Ellison asked if she’d bring her team to collect evidence of the haunting, she’d been stunned—police departments didn’t typically make sanctioned agreements with paranormal investigators—but she’d agreed. She didn’t want to demonize the asylum. She wanted