Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Amateur Sleuth; Paranormal Romance; Mysteries & Detective Stories; Mystery Thriller; Fiction; Young Adult Fiction; Mystery & Detective; Traditional; Urban Fantasy; General; Paranormal; Women Sleuths;
Description: From New York Times bestselling author Angie FoxFor Southern girl Verity Long, friendship means sitting down to stories and sweet tea on the front porch. For her gangster ghost housemate, it means dragging Verity out to a remote haunted asylum during a raging thunderstorm to do a favor for a long-dead mob boss. But Verity is always ready to help out a friend, even one as eternally eccentric as Frankie. And in the case of Mint Julep Manor, the stakes are too high to refuse. The criminally insane mob boss holds a secret to Frankie's past, one that might set Frankie free. Do the favor--survive th
Publisher: Moose Island Books

The Mint Julep Murders

Angie Fox

Contents

Prologue

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Also by Angie Fox

About the Author

For Southern girl Verity Long, friendship means sitting down to stories and sweet tea on the front porch. For her gangster ghost housemate, it means dragging Verity out to a remote haunted asylum during a raging thunderstorm to do a favor for a long-dead mob boss.

But Verity is always ready to help out a friend, even one as eternally eccentric as Frankie. And in the case of Mint Julep Manor, the stakes are too high to refuse.

1

Swirling gray clouds hung low in the sky as I wound my 1978 Cadillac up a narrow drive through a desolate forest of trees. My cell signal had cut out more than a half hour earlier, and the woods had only grown thicker and darker over the last several miles.

I tucked a wayward lock of hair behind my ear and managed to direct a confident smile toward my ghostly housemate and sort-of-friend, Frankie. “Good thing this isn’t a dark and stormy night,” I joked to the gangster, who sat stiffly in the seat next to me. “It’s merely a cantankerous, mildly threatening afternoon.”

Frankie “The German” shot me a long look and pulled his hat down over the bullet hole in his forehead. “We used to have a guy in our gang who joked like you.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, intrigued. Frankie didn’t like to talk about his past. Maybe he was starting to trust me more.

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “I shot him.”

Maybe we still had a way to go.

I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel. The gangster ghost didn’t have to appreciate my sense of humor. He just had to live with it.

His spirit was trapped on my family’s ancestral property. Permanently, unless we could figure out a way to set him free. And oh, I’d tried.

It had started innocently enough. I’d been cleaning house when I decided to rinse out the dented old vase my ex had given me. Turned out it wasn’t an ugly knickknack—it was an urn that contained the earthly remains of one Franklin Rudolph Winkelmann. Unfortunately, I’d rinsed the bulk of Frankie’s ashes into my rosebushes.

Ash was supposed to be good for the roots. I just hadn’t realized my gardening trick would have serious consequences.

By the time the gangster had appeared, scared me half to death, and pointed out my mistake, the deed was done. Frankie had been grounded to my property, unable to leave unless I took his urn—and the smidge of ashes that remained in it—with me.

Right now, I had it wedged into the cute gingham bag I’d recently purchased with the earnings from my last mission. Frankie had wanted me to buy something manly, but I’d promised to tuck his urn firmly inside so nobody would know he spent his days idling around in a monogrammed tote fit for a Southern belle.

I swear anything could make that ghost saucy.

Frankie stretched an arm out over the long bench seat. “When this thing goes down, follow my lead.” He glanced over his shoulder to the backseat, where my brave police officer boyfriend was catching a catnap. “And ditch the cop.”

Hardly. “Ellis would have my hide.” I spared him a glance. “And yours.”

Frankie snorted, disbelieving.

“Oh, he’d find a way,” I said. Never mind that Ellis couldn’t see Frankie or hear him.

Ellis was nothing if not persistent, and protective. He’d graciously come along to help with any trouble that might crop up. Although for the life of me, I didn’t know how that man could just turn it off and go to sleep—wherever, whenever—especially heading into a potentially dangerous situation. But Ellis didn’t believe in addressing problems until they presented themselves. He took danger in stride and always found a way to bring the bad guys to justice.

I tended to do a lot of winging it.

Especially now.

We were heading to the abandoned Pikesville Sanitorium, a mental hospital built in the early 1900s. Some Yankee paper had nicknamed the facility Mint Julep Manor back in the day, and the name stuck. The authorities closed it down in the 1950s in favor of more modern facilities run by the local hospital system. And while the rest of the world had progressed, the old Mint Julep Manor lingered in the backwoods, a relic of an earlier time.

We were only about an hour outside Sugarland, in Jackson County, but it felt like an entirely different world. I spotted a black crow hunkered on a branch overhanging the road, then a dozen more in the same tree. They burst forth into the sky as we passed underneath.

Folks had been telling scary stories about Mint Julep Manor since I was a girl. Secondhand tales, mostly. And not pleasant ones at that. Still, if I believed every small-town rumor I heard, I’d be no better than those who believed the gossip about me. I’d been under the microscope plenty for my disaster of an engagement to our town’s golden boy. And it hadn’t gotten much better when word spread that—after a time of being alone—I’d started dating my ex’s older brother.

Ellis and I had solved a ghostly mystery together and simply connected, but the rumor mill had its own stories to churn out.

I drew a lock of hair behind my ear and focused on avoiding a pothole in the road ahead.

Given the choice, I would have avoided Mint Julep Manor. I preferred happy, sunny places myself. But I was a ghost hunter now, and I had to go where I was needed.

I already missed my pet skunk, Lucy. She was staying overnight with my sister, Melody, and then going to Take Your Pet to Work day at our local library. Melody worked the help desk and the reference desk, and anywhere else she was needed in the century-old Sugarland institution. I hoped Melody would listen to my warning to keep an eye on our favorite skunk. Lucy liked to nose open books and chew holes in the pages, and she had a taste for hardbacks. Southern Living cookbooks in particular.

She always went for the desserts first.

As for me, I had to stay focused on the ghost-hunting job ahead.

Even if the stories had it right, and Mint Julep Manor was haunted to the gills, it didn’t mean all the ghosts were hostile or threatening.

Only the one we were going there to see.

A rusting sign bent sideways over the road, and I had to steer into the oncoming lane to avoid it. Hitchhikers May Be Escaped Inmates it cautioned in bold black letters on white-painted metal, pockmarked with a long-ago shotgun blast.

“You are not stopping for any sad sacks you see on the side of the road,” Frankie warned.

I rolled my eyes. What did he take me for?

“You and your do-gooder ways,” he muttered, easing away from the window.

“If I didn’t care about you, Frankie, we wouldn’t be out here at all.”

He cringed, which made me smile. Frankie hated when I expressed any sort of affection, and I confessed I did it partly to irritate him. He could stand to be grateful. It certainly wasn’t my idea to haul out to a haunted asylum in the middle of a creepy forest to meet with the clinically insane murderer who happened to have been with Frankie on the night he’d been shot.

“We almost there?” Ellis asked, yawning. He lounged across my wide backseat, his tall frame taking up most of it.

“So good of you to join us,” I teased.

He stretched. “Might as well get some use out of being in the backseat.”

When he’d learned Frankie was nervous about the trip, Ellis had given the gangster the front seat. My handsome boyfriend was tough, but he was also a softie.

“Another mile or so,” I said as the road turned sharply to the left. Winds bent the skinny longleaf pines. I didn’t want to admit it to Frankie, but I half expected a long-dead inmate to walk out from the woods and block our way. Then what would we do?

I glanced over at Frankie. The gangster wore the suit he’d died in—a pin-striped number with a fat white tie. “You kept my power off, right?” I asked.

When the ghost lent me his energy, I could see the other side. For real. But there was one big catch to the power he gave me. When I was tuned in to the other side, I became a part of that world. Any big bad spirits I met could hurt me the same as any real-life thug I met in a dark alley. So far, ghosts had tried to drown me, impale me, and shoot me. And if any of them had succeeded, they would have killed me.

Right now, I’d rather not be so connected to…whatever waited up ahead.

Lightning flashed across the sky, and the sudden boom that followed made me jump.

“Relax.” The gangster fiddled with the knot on his tie as if it had grown too tight. “It’s me Scalieri wants.”

“I’m plenty relaxed,” I countered. But I’d be cautious as well. “That gangster seemed very interested in my ability to get things done on this side of the veil.”

Frankie didn’t have a smart comeback for that. Instead, he shot me a worried glance, which scared me more than I’d like to admit.

Bruno Scalieri, a criminally insane killer, had zeroed in on me during our last case. I didn’t like the way he leered at me, or the way he’d conducted his afterlife. We lurched over a pothole in the road and I cringed as my car’s undercarriage scraped asphalt.

But Bruno Scalieri had something we wanted. In exchange for our help, he’d give us information that could possibly set Frankie free.

We needed all the help we could get with that.

The poor ghost had been tied to my property for more than a year. We’d tried to free him by separating his ashes from my garden soil. That had resulted in a mess, along with a trash can full of garden dirt and ashes, topped with a rosebush, that had taken a permanent place next to the fireplace in my parlor. We’d called in a psychic. She’d proceeded to give Frankie a complex that he’d soothed by opening an illegal racetrack in my backyard. We’d attempted to reunite Frankie with the only thing he’d claimed to love: a long-lost, favorite revolver. We’d tracked it down in a haunted speakeasy, and I’d barely escaped with my life.

Frankie had even found love—real love—a short while later with a sweet ghost from the Victorian era.

Yet he remained stuck.

So we were working on a new theory. Frankie was so attached to his ashes and the life they represented that he’d created a sort of prison for himself. I hoped if he could come to terms with what had happened to him, if he could make peace with his sudden death, then maybe Frankie could be free.

We just needed Scalieri’s help to make that happen.

We rounded a curve in the road, and the asylum came into view.

Now I knew why they called it Mint Julep Manor.

It looked like a sprawling plantation house. Thick white columns graced a large verandah in the front. Then a second set of smaller columns supported a regal third floor. Faded black shutters flanked square windows on the first and second floors, and a collection of smaller windows on the third floor spanned the entire length of the white stone building. A dozen weed-eaten stairs led to an arched double front door. Towering chimneys with round capstones reached toward the churning gray sky, giving it a gothic Tara vibe.

Ellis leaned up between Frankie and me, his elbows planted on the front bench seat, and gave a low whistle. “Talk about faded glory.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said as a jagged bolt of lightning lit up the clouds behind the tangle of vines climbing across the moss-dappled roofline.

Frankie crossed his arms over his chest. “You always think things are so pretty and interesting until a poltergeist pops up.”

“Don’t be so negative.” I had every reason to believe the majority of the resident ghosts would be plenty friendly. This was the South, after all. Most people felt honor bound to be polite.

The tires rattled as we crossed a rickety bridge over a swollen creek. I kept my eyes off the waters churning below and focused on the imposing structure ahead.

Hopefully, we’d be in and out fairly quickly. “Maybe Scalieri wants something simple,” I reasoned.

“Whatever it is, we can handle it,” Ellis vowed.

“That guy is a psychopath,” Frankie said as one fat raindrop, then another, splatted my front window. “Why am I even here?”

“This is for you,” I reminded him. He needed to work on his thank-yous. If I had my choice, I’d be lounging in my parlor, watching Ghost Adventures with Ellis.

I could use the tips.

But Scalieri claimed to have seen the man who shot Frankie, and Frankie believed him. “The truth can set you free,” I mused.

“Now you’re just making things up,” Frankie grumbled.

The rain picked up, and I hit the wipers as we rumbled up to a chain-link fence surrounding the property. Barbed wire draped along the top like a gnarled, twisted garland. The rusted gates hung open despite the new red and white signs that warned No Trespassing.

“Good thing I called ahead,” I remarked. The owner had said she’d be waiting for us and that she’d be glad to let us inside if I did her a favor.

These favors were starting to stack up.

The driveway had disintegrated into weeds and rocks. I slowed the car as we bounced over them and onto the abandoned property.

My wiper blades smeared water and fall pollen into a yellow mess on my windshield. I leaned forward, trying to see the road. “Mark my words. We will get this job done for you.” As long as what Scalieri wanted was reasonable. If not, there was nothing we could do, and we’d have to be okay with that.

“Look at this objectively,” Ellis said. “This project is already starting off better than usual. Nobody’s died.” Frankie shot him a glare he couldn’t have seen, but he must have felt. “Recently, at least,” Ellis corrected himself. “I’ve got three days off. We’ll figure out what Scalieri wants, do him his favor, and then hit up some of those home decor shops for Verity, maybe see what they have in the Jackson County Walmart.”

“Because their Walmart might have something different than ours,” I teased.

“You never know,” Ellis said, dead serious.

I couldn’t help but smile.

After succeeding in my previous ghost-hunting case, I finally had a portion of the funds I needed to restore the antebellum home that had been in my family for generations. I’d inherited it from my grandmother. It was a lovely old place, and I’d nearly lost it during an unfortunate financial downturn. While I still owned the property and the house, I’d had to sell off most of the furniture and family heirlooms. As a result, I’d been sleeping in my parlor on an old futon and brewing sweet tea in my Girl Scout camp pot. It would be so nice to reintroduce some elegance to my once-gracious home.

We parked in the remains of an asphalt parking lot, under a mobile billboard that read Haunted Halloween Tour and Laser Light Show!

A construction trailer resting on cinder blocks stood between the asylum and us.

“So this place isn’t completely abandoned,” Ellis said, frowning at the billboard, which featured a picture of a man in stained surgical scrubs. Blood ran down his face and neck as he held his mouth open in a terrified scream.

“That would be the work of the current owner,” I said, shutting down the car. “She bought the place a few years ago.” It was a good thing as far as I was concerned. As a police officer, Ellis always wanted me to get permission to enter abandoned properties, and at least this time I’d known whom to ask.

Frankie studied the crumbling asylum and shuddered. “There’s something in there that doesn’t like us.”

“Wait till it gets to know us,” I said as the door to the construction trailer flopped open and a short woman with a halo of frizzy blond hair poked her head out.

“You’re here!” She rumbled down the metal staircase, her worn ankle boots pounding the metal and her jean jacket flapping in the wind.

“Barbara Slater?” I asked, swiping at the rain droplets peppering my cheeks. “I’m Verity Long,” I said, reaching out a hand.

She ignored my offer of a handshake, along with my greeting, and instead glanced up at the sky. “I think we’re about to get hit with it.” Then her attention turned to Ellis. “This must be your law enforcement friend,” she said, warming up. And who wouldn’t? Ellis was quite a specimen. “I promise you I have all my permits.”

“Noted.” He grinned and shook her hand. “This is quite a place. There’s nothing like fixing up an old property.”

I was about to tell her how Ellis had bought and renovated the old Southern Spirits distillery in Sugarland when I detected the ghostly shadow of a woman in a window on the third floor. She wore a smoky black dress that trailed away at the edges. I tried to make out her features, but she disappeared.

“She didn’t look friendly,” Frankie gritted out.

How could he tell? She didn’t have a face.

“Is there anyone inside now?” I asked Barbara.

She shook her head. “Not a soul.”

“Except for that one,” Frankie muttered. “And probably about a dozen more.”

He was probably right on that account. This had been a large facility. It did spark my curiosity that I could see the woman without Frankie’s help. It meant either the ghost was extremely powerful, or that the asylum itself held an unusual amount of energy.

Maybe both.

Perhaps Frankie was right to be uneasy.

“I picked up this place for a song last year,” Barbara drawled as she led us across the weed-strewn lawn, toward the front stairs. “I’ve updated some of the electricity and brought most of the first and third floors up to code. Otherwise, I couldn’t have my haunted house going, or charge people to sleep on the death floor.” She grinned. “That’s what I call the third floor. For marketing purposes, mostly.”

“Sure,” I said, ignoring Frankie as he glared at her. He didn’t like it when people made light of the deceased members of our community. I didn’t agree with it, either, but I could at least be polite. “Thanks for letting us inside.”

She planted a hand on her hip. “Yeah, well, my last verified ghost hunters ran straight out the door after twenty minutes. I’m hoping you do better.”

I glanced at Ellis. “She’s talking to a features reporter from the Knoxville News Sentinel—”

“And a travel writer from the Memphis Commercial Appeal,” she interrupted. “That would be a big one.” She ushered us along. “The reporter is doing a piece on weekend getaways.”

“Has she seen this place?” Ellis asked, sidestepping rocks in the parking lot.

Barbara narrowed her eyes at him. “She’s looking for quirky, out-of-the-way finds.”

“This certainly qualifies,” I said, scanning the windows for any more ghosts.

Barbara charged ahead. “Both papers are interested in writing stories about Mint Julep Manor, but only if I have actual facts. A testimonial from a ghost hunter like Verity should do the trick.”

Possibly. I tried to keep pace with her. The woman walked fast. “As I told you on the phone, I’d be glad to tell you what I see while we’re inside, but I’m only here to talk to one particular ghost.”

“Sure, sure,” she agreed as if it was part of my act. “Just keep your eyes open and try not to freak out. I need stories, not screaming.”

Ellis paused at the bottom of the steps. “What did the other ghost hunters see?” he asked as a cold drop of rain hit me on the back of the neck.

“They won’t talk about it,” she said, throwing her hands up. “Fat load of good that does me.” She led us toward the darkened asylum. “Meantime, I’ve got to tell the newspaper something. They’re on a deadline, and it’s not like they were terribly interested in the first place.” A piece of the stone stairs broke off under her heel as she began her way up to the verandah. “I need some verified proof of paranormal activity that people around here will buy into,” she insisted. “We do have one documented ghost,” she said, pausing halfway up, “a crazy knife guy. He haunts the basement catacombs.”

“Catacombs?” I halted so fast Ellis nearly ran into my back.

She whipped a brochure out of her back pocket. “Catacombs has a nicer ring to it than utility tunnels, and people love the idea of a knife-wielding murderer down there.”

“They do?” I asked, surprised. Barbara and I clearly hung out with different people.

She shoved the brochure into my hands. “We call him Crazy Charlie after a real-life inmate who ran away back in 1917.” She grinned, relishing the story. “They did this massive manhunt for him. Never found him. I say he died down there—brutally—and that’s why he lurks in the tunnels and haunts the living.”

“How terrible,” I said. I sure hoped poor Charlie wasn’t down there.

“Can I shoot her?” Frankie asked, drawing the revolver from the holster hidden under his suit coat. “I know a ghost bullet won’t hurt her, but it would be fun.”

“Cut it out,” I muttered. I wasn’t overly fond of Barbara or her so-called “haunted” catacombs, either, but this was our way inside. “You have to keep the bigger picture in mind.”

“Fine.” Frankie threw his hands up, one still holding the revolver. “You can get us in there, but I’m not listening to her anymore.” He holstered his gun and sulked off toward a grouping of dead lilac bushes.

“That was good.” Barbara grinned. “It looked like you were really talking to a ghost.” She planted a hand on her hip. “You interested in working here? Ten dollars an hour to fake talk to whatever ghost you want to make up.”

“No, thank you,” I said, a bit harder than I’d intended. I snapped open Barbara’s brochure. It showed a map of the network of tunnels under the old building, along with a glossy photo of the deranged-looking man from the billboard dressed in bloody surgical scrubs, wielding a knife. “I’m not the one making up stories.”

“Right.” Barbara winked. “Anyway, Crazy Charlie’s feeling a little old hat, so I need something new, something really terrifying. It would be nice if you could find another insane killer in the underground tunnel system. That way, we wouldn’t have to pay a graphic designer to draw a map of a different crazy ghost lair.”

“So you want souls to be trapped in this place?” I snapped. I couldn’t help it. These were people. Or at least they had been.

“Let’s just get inside,” Ellis said, slipping the brochure from my hands. He was probably afraid I’d forget my manners and swat her over the head with it.

“You don’t have to tell her anything,” he reminded me as Barbara continued on without us. “In fact, we can turn around and leave right now. We can find another way to free Frankie.”

“We don’t have any other ideas,” I reminded him, keeping an eye on my ghost, who was lighting up a cigarette behind the bushes.

I wasn’t so jazzed about Barbara or her eagerness to exploit whatever poor souls still wandered this place, but I did need to find Scalieri. I owed Frankie that much.

While my ghost wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine all the time, I suspected some of his ill humor today sprang from the fact he was afraid of what Scalieri might tell him about his past. I’d be toying with his emotions if I left without giving this a chance.

Barbara waited for us at the top of the steps. “Are you coming or what?”

Her accent made her sound like she was from around here, but she didn’t act like it.

I took Ellis’s hand and managed a smile. “Tell me. Who are your people?” I wanted to know what family hadn’t raised her right.

She waved me off. “I don’t go for small-town small talk.”

Wow. No doubt this was a woman who would slip a store-bought pie into her hand-me-down family pie pan and try to pass it off as her own—never mind that it was an inch too small on all sides.

Yes. I’d met her type before.

“The catacombs housed all the behind-the-scenes elements of the asylum,” she explained, gesturing toward the building. “The laundry, the boilers, the supply closets I plan to rebrand as punishment cells, and the morgue. But that’s all part of phase two.”

“Of course,” I drawled.

Little did she know, she had a real killer imprisoned on this property. Even as an inmate, Scalieri didn’t seem like the type who’d want to share his quarters with a crazy knife guy. From what I’d seen, the gangster had a low tolerance for people, living or dead.

She inserted a key into the old lock. “This building is creepy. It has a reputation. I could make up any ghost story I wanted, and people would buy it.”

“It seems like you have,” I said, knocking clumps of dark brown mud off the bottom of my white Keds.

“Yeah, but I want something gritty and unusual. I need something real,” she said as the lock snapped open with a grinding click.

I eyed my ghost, who skulked up the stairs, trailing smoke and wearing a bad attitude. “Be careful what you wish for.”

2

The heavy front door protested as our host pushed it open with a loud creak.

If there were multiple ghosts at Mint Julep Manor, as Frankie had suggested, I already felt sorry for them. No one should be the feature of a circus sideshow in their afterlife. It was bad enough to endure gossip, but gawkers showing up at your door were even worse. At least at the height of my unfortunate scandal, the curious had come bearing baked goods and casseroles.

Barbara stepped over the threshold, and as I joined her, I made a promise to myself and to the poor souls inside: If I ran into any ghosts, my first order of business would be to help them leave, to get away from Barbara and her decaying asylum. And if they did tell me any stories, I’d only give Barbara the happy ones.

We stepped into a decrepit lobby littered at the edges with stacks of old plywood and building materials.

“We’re still building the actual ticketed haunted house part,” Barbara said confidently, and I could see where workers had drilled supports for some kind of maze into the beautiful old floor. “We’re going to make it so visitors can be ‘in’ the asylum, but not anywhere that hasn’t passed inspection.”

The ceiling soared up to a landing on the darkened second floor. Dust and spiderwebs clung to the rails overlooking the area where we stood, and I suddenly felt very exposed.

Frankie hovered next to a box of rubber ghost masks, the ethereal smoke from his cigarette trailing out behind him. “And I thought the gang and I did some low-down dirty things to earn a buck. This woman takes the cake.”

“Come on,” Ellis said, glancing at the second floor. It felt like we were being watched. I’d bet his cop instincts were flashing a warning sign right about now. “Let’s do this while we still have light.”

“And before the weather gets worse,” I said, drawing closer to him. The sky was darkening by the minute and it wasn’t even suppertime.

“So no ghosts in the lobby?” Barbara sighed, as if we were supposed to order them up from a menu.

“Just one, but he’s really obnoxious and he doesn’t come with the property,” I said. I couldn’t resist even if my comment earned a frown from Frankie.

He responded by hitting me with a blast of power that knocked me sideways into Ellis. “Verity!” Ellis held me upright, and I clung to his arm as prickling waves of energy cascaded over me. “What did you do to her?” Ellis demanded as Frankie’s power wound through me like a thousand tiny army ants wriggling into my very being.

“Nothing I haven’t done before.” Frankie took a hard drag from his cigarette. “She’s fine,” he added defensively.

“Fifteen dollars an hour,” Barbara gushed. “Just do that once every ten minutes for the people in line.”

“Not a chance,” I gasped, glaring at the gangster as the initial shock subsided to a dull thrum in my ears. “Take it easy next time.”

He winced. “Sometimes, I forget how alive you are.”

I’d take that as a compliment. Maybe.

Luckily for him I lost interest in debating it as the other side came into focus. I saw the asylum lobby as it once was—pristine, elegant, and gently lit with standing brass lamps designed to resemble large torches.

A faint medicinal smell tinged the air, and the unmistakable sound of a woman weeping echoed from the floor above.

“Are you getting a bite?” my host asked, as if she were counting the money in her head. “You’re the real thing, I can tell. Not that I’d mind if you were a fake, as long as you sign off on the stories. But we might as well make this the best spook show we can!”

If she’d meant to be inspiring, she missed the mark.

Then I saw the glimmer of a ghost among a tangle of real-life parking-lot signs propped up against a closed door. He wore a badge and gun; and as the other side shimmered into better focus, I recognized him.

“Sir?” I asked.

He tipped his hat. Oh, yes, I knew exactly who he was. When a persnickety police inspector had turned my ancestral home into a ghostly prison, this man had guarded the gate. He wore a dark, turn-of-the-century police uniform with a five-pointed badge. His mustache twitched, and his eyes narrowed when he took me in.

He must have recognized me as well.

“Thought you’d know to stay out of trouble by now,” he said by way of greeting.

“You’d think,” I agreed, approaching him cautiously, all the while rubbing the back of my neck where some of Frankie’s ghostly power still tingled. “We’re here to see Bruno Scalieri.” A ghost friend of mine named Graham Adair had gotten us on the visitors’ list. The long-deceased king of Sugarland society knew all the important people, at least the dead ones. “My name is Verity Long,” I continued, as if the guard who’d helped lay siege to my house could forget. I indicated the gangster beside me. “And you know Frank Winkelmann.”

“Frankie The German,” he corrected, as if his mob nickname would clarify things.

The guard gave me a long look before consulting his clipboard.

A bright flash to my right nearly blinded me. “What the—?”

I turned, and spots exploded in my line of vision just as Barbara took another photo with a Kodak camera obviously set to stun.

“You’re really doing it,” she said as if she hadn’t quite believed I could. “Talking to a ghost,” she added as if she were narrating the movie version of my life. “I don’t even care if it’s a boring ghost. I can slap this on a billboard and make bank.”

“Would you stop talking about them like they aren’t here? These are people,” I said, gesturing to the guard, who glared at her. “Same as you and me.” Only dead.

“They aren’t people anymore,” she said blithely.

I was about to tell her how wrong she was when Barbara’s cell phone began blaring the theme to Zombieland. She drew it out of her pocket, pointing at me the whole time. “Five hundred bucks if you find me a serial killer or, better yet, a cannibal. Or how about a cannibalistic serial killer?” She cocked a grin and answered the phone. “Yeah?” With a grimace, she pressed the phone to her chest. “I’ve got to go handle an issue with the electrical hookup. This place is running on spit and a prayer.”

I let her leave. Gladly.

“She’s everything a Southern lady should never be,” I said to Ellis.

“You’re not going to fix her,” he reminded me.

Somebody should.

“You’re cleared to enter,” the guard said, handing me a pair of ghostly visitor badges that chilled me to the core. “Scalieri’s in room 138. But before you go, I have something for you.” He flipped up the pages on the clipboard and drew a single sheet from the bottom. “Inspector De Clercq left you a note,” he said, holding out a folded piece of paper with my name scrawled on the front.

I didn’t know that was possible. “I thought he went to the light after our last adventure.”

“Yet he still gets to deal with you.” The guard kept holding the note out, but I didn’t want to take it. Contact with ghostly objects was uncomfortable at best and disastrous at worst. Once I came into contact with the ethereal paper, it would soon disappear. I could take the risk with a visitor’s badge. That could be replaced. But I wasn’t so sure about the letter.

Frankie saved me the trouble and snatched the paper out of the guard’s hand. With a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, he unfolded it and scanned the contents. The gangster took a long drag and glanced at me before reading it out loud. “You don’t have to do this,” he read, “but if you feel you must, then be careful. Scalieri will escape in any way possible even if it means getting into your head.”

“Let me see that,” I said, crowding him. Frankie showed me the hastily scrawled note.

The guard merely nodded. “De Clercq’s special order gives you three visits, tops. Scalieri is a manipulative psychopath. We have him in isolation for a reason.”

“I’m more than a match for that old crook,” the gangster said as the guard drew open the industrial door that led to the south wing of the hospital. I took that as my cue to grab the real one.

The gangster paused in the open doorway and pointed a finger at me. “Remember. Confidence is key. Show any weakness and Scalieri will eat you alive.”

“I dealt with him on my front porch, I can deal with him here,” I vowed.

A gray institutional hallway greeted us, with a real antique wheelchair—thankfully empty—about halfway down.

“Let’s do this,” Ellis said. “A simple in and out.”

I sure hoped so. I pinned the icy visitor’s badge to my chest, and Frankie did the same. Ellis wouldn’t know if they tried to kick him out anyway.

“Good luck,” the guard said, returning to his post.

Think positive, I reminded myself, even as an odd creaking sound echoed from the hall.

“You hear that?” I asked Frankie.

“Unfortunately, yes,” said the gangster, taking a hard drag on his cigarette.

The old empty wheelchair inched toward us on its own.

It had to be a ghost, one that had chosen not to reveal itself to me. I detected no gust of wind. Nothing to move it as the wheels slowly turned.

Ellis drew up sharp. “Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”

“You okay?” I asked. I mean, he’d seen weirder things. He’d saved me from drowning in a haunted mansion, a poltergeist had tried to take the roof off his police cruiser, and he’d been leaving carrots for the ghost horse at his restaurant for several months now.

“I’m fine,” Ellis insisted, straightening his black leather jacket. “I just don’t always know what to expect.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“Are you two done with the tea party?” Frankie asked, trailing smoke as he strode down the hall.

“We’re coming.” Dang, he could be bossy.

It felt good to have Ellis beside me, even if he couldn’t hear the scratching sound coming from the door on our right.

Room 132.

“Hold up.” The small window was barred, the glass clouded with dirt and age. But I sensed movement inside.

Frankie’s shoe squeaked against the industrial floor as he made a hard stop and a turn. “We’re here for Scalieri. Just Scalieri. Don’t borrow trouble,” he warned.

“I’d like to see what will be behind us,” I said. The gangster had to respect that. Either way, I eased the door open, keeping hold of the handle in case I needed to close it really fast. A grate over the window cast a gray shadow over the small cell of a room. A rusted bed frame clung to one wall, opposite a stained sink and toilet. I saw no one. Then I felt the scratches vibrate against the door and heard a faint voice whisper.

Let me out.

I took a hard step back. “You’re out,” I said to it. I mean him. Or her.

Let me out.

“There’s nothing keeping you here,” I insisted, hoping I was telling the truth.

Let me… The whisper faded away.

I smelled Frankie’s cigarette before I saw him. “It can’t hear you,” he said. “That kind of ghost fades in and out. Forever. It’s trapped in a loop. There’s nothing you can do.”

It pained me to think that.

“We gotta focus on what we came here to do,” Frankie reminded me.

We eased past the abandoned wheelchair, and a pair of heavily armed guards shimmered into existence as we neared room 138. We showed them our badges. The guard to the right nodded and pulled out a massive key ring, while the one to the left looked ready to gun down anything that moved. “Only you two with the visitor badges.”

I relayed his words to Ellis, who nodded. “I’m familiar with police procedure,” he said, planting his back against the age-worn wall, keeping an eye on the wheelchair.

“You have five minutes,” the first guard said.

I hoped it would be enough. Then I saw Scalieri and decided I didn’t want to be there at all.

He sat at a desk by the window, in gray hospital scrubs, resembling a physician more than an inmate. His mouth quirked, amplifying the puckered scar that ran from the black patch shielding his right eye down his cheek. His good eye sized us up, cold and calculating.

“Hello, Verity,” he said, like a spider luring me into the web, “I’ve been expecting you.”

3

“I knew you’d come.”

Scalieri cracked his knuckles and treated me to a self-satisfied leer that made me want to put on a sweater, and a jacket. Perhaps a muumuu.

His cell was small and bare, with only two personal effects. A battered hat hung from a hook in the corner, and a framed photo perched on a rusting shelf near the bed. The matronly woman in the photo stared straight forward, unsmiling.

“Nice digs,” Frankie said, not quite able to hide his smirk when he noticed Scalieri’s leg shackled to the desk.

But Scalieri never took his attention off me. “I like Verity’s place better,” he said like a lover.

His scar crinkled as he treated me to a predatory smile. I tried to ignore the way his overt gaze traveled over my body. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much his invasive stare felt like an intimate touch, just as it had when I met him on the front steps of my house.

This was where he belonged, shackled to a table. At least justice had been served in that regard.

Frowning, the guard closed the ghostly door. The lock turned with a heavy click.

“So what do you want?” Frankie asked, strolling toward his old rival.

“So many things,” Scalieri drawled, blatantly checking out my breasts.

Frankie stepped between us. “Cut to the chase or I’m taking her out of here.”

Hardly. I suspected Scalieri didn’t want me as much as he wanted to intimidate me. Besides, we’d come this far, and we would see this through.

Scalieri chuckled as he sized Frankie up. “Brave words, Winkelmann. Remember,” he added, the warning in his voice unmistakable, “I have something you want. Desperately.”

Frankie took a long drag of his cigarette. “If I’ve ever been desperate, it hasn’t been because of you.”

Scalieri barked out a laugh. “Would have helped us if you’d been this calm on the Spitniki job.”

“I should have dropped you in the river when we got rid of Johnny Bones,” Frankie said, blowing smoke out of his nose. And at that moment, I recognized him for the cold, hard criminal he’d been. I’d never directly asked my housemate whether the kills he’d racked up in his gangster years had been in cold blood or hot anger. I didn’t want to know the answer.

Scalieri held himself perfectly still and watched Frankie. “It’s amazing. If you’d think about it, you’d know who pulled the trigger on you. You just don’t want to admit it.”

Frankie’s lip curled. He drew his revolver on the other man and took one step forward, two, three… “I. Didn’t.” He pressed his gun against the other man’s forehead. “See.”

Scalieri grinned. “Now who’s the crazy one?”

“Lower the gun, Frank,” I said. “This isn’t helping either one of you.” Their verbal sparring might be the gangster version of a how-do-you-do, but Frankie couldn’t afford to lose his cool. Bullets wouldn’t solve a thing. A gunshot to the head would just knock Scalieri out, and then we’d be here all night.

“He’s toying with you,” I said. Frankie was extremely sensitive about the events surrounding his death, and apparently Scalieri knew exactly how to play on those nerves.

“We can walk right out of here,” I reminded them both. I didn’t want to leave. This could be the closest we’d come yet to setting Frankie free, but…

“If you two aren’t going to talk to each other like two grown adults, we won’t solve anything.”

Frankie frowned and lowered his weapon. Thank goodness.

“And what’s with all the gun-toting?” I added. “You haven’t been this trigger-happy since Billy Three Fingers rigged your roulette wheel.”

Scalieri smirked. “I could’ve told you Billy was a crook.”

Seriously? They were all crooks.

I closed my eyes briefly, counted to three, and turned. “So what do you want? Be honest.”

He tilted his head, his horse-like face appearing almost skeletal in the fading light. “I want you to break me out of this joint.”

“Impossible,” I said.

At the same time, Frankie asked, “How?”

“Are you kidding?” I turned to my ghost. How could he think about shooting him one minute and springing him out the next? “Stop and think about what he just asked us to do.”

“He wants me to do a prison break,” Frankie said as if he were explaining it to a two-year-old. “It’s part of my skill set.”

“Frankie’s great with a lock,” Scalieri agreed. “And you can drive the getaway car.”

“That’s right,” Frankie conceded. “I don’t have wheels.”

Oh, now they were on the same page.

“No,” I said to the both of them. “Not a chance. Absolutely not.” I couldn’t even believe we were having this discussion.

“She gets that way sometimes,” Frankie said to Scalieri.

“Excuse me,” I said to the hardened killer in the chair before focusing on my housemate. “Frankie, a word?”

The gangster gave his frenemy a what-can-you-do hand gesture and followed me to the opposite corner of the too small, too narrow cell, where I turned my back to Scalieri to give Frankie a piece of my mind. “Are you crazy?” I hissed. “We didn’t come here in order to take him home with us.”

“We can drop him off somewhere along the way,” Frankie said, glancing past me toward the psychopath in the chair. “Look, he could have asked us for something hard, or he could have asked me for mob information I don’t want to give. Instead, he just wants out. Who wouldn’t? I mean, how hard is that?”

“Very, Frankie. It is very hard. Not to mention the fact that he’s dangerous. He’s evil.” I could see I was already boring my gangster. Frankie didn’t care about Scalieri’s criminal past. Frankie probably admired him for it. “How about this?” I asked, shifting direction. “There are three guards out there waiting for trouble, and if even one of them hears us discussing a prison break, we’ll be arrested, too.”

Frankie held up a finger. “Only if we get caught.”

If I could throttle him, I would. “You got caught before.”

“Nooo,” he smirked. “I got shot.”

Whatever. “Scalieri was arrested and tried in a court of law, and this is where he belongs.”

“You always care so much what other people think,” Frankie said, as if it were a character flaw.

“It was a judge and jury!” I said, trying hard not to shout.

Frankie grinned at the imprisoned criminal. “Don’t worry,” he said to me under his breath.

“What?” I snapped.

He leaned back against the wall and drew the cigarette case from his jacket, a knowing smile still pasted on his face.

I leaned closer. “Do you have a plan?”

He glanced past me as he wedged a cigarette on his bottom lip. He didn’t seem nervous at all. In fact, maybe he was plotting. Maybe he was just playing along with Scalieri. Maybe he had another idea.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t worry,” I whispered.

He struck a match on the wall behind him and cupped his hands around his cigarette to light it. “I’m really good at lock picking.”

Wrong answer.

“It isn’t worth it,” I said as he took a drag, smoke trickling out his nose. “I could get arrested along with you. If they did something to keep you from disconnecting me, I’d be stuck too.”

Then I’d really be in trouble. I seriously doubted they’d remember to feed a live prisoner.

“That live girl of yours,” Scalieri called from across the cell, “she’s cute, but she worries too much.”

“She’s not the one with the chisel,” Frankie said, lifting his pants leg and revealing an entire lock-picking set strapped over his sock.

“And you just happen to carry that around?” I demanded. Maybe he’d plotted this all along.

“Always be prepared,” he said, lowering his pants leg.

“You are no Boy Scout,” I reminded him.

The guard knocked on the other side of the door. “Time’s up.”

He had no idea.

My first instinct was to walk out of there with my head held high and take Frankie’s urn with me. My housemate would have no choice but to leave the property the moment I did, and Scalieri would be sorry he’d even asked us to do something illegal.

But then we’d also fail to get what we wanted from Scalieri, and we’d be back at square one.

And if this didn’t work, I didn’t know what we would do to set Frankie free.

“Miss?” the guard prodded.

I chewed my lip. There might be another way, but I’d have to turn on the charm when I really didn’t feel like it. And I’d have to get Frankie to cooperate.

That might be the hardest part of all.

I gathered my wits, directed my best smile toward the guard, and said, “If you please, I’d like another few minutes with the prisoner.” I added a little eye batting for good measure. I wasn’t a Southern girl for nothing. “I know you’ve already been very generous, but I must tell Mr. Scalieri one more thing. Something rather private.”

The guard hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he’d turn me down.

But then he tilted his head like a true gentleman and said, “Sure, miss. I suppose a few more minutes couldn’t hurt.”

“Thank you so much,” I simpered before eyeing Frankie. “You can wait in the hall.”

My plan did not call for him or his opinions.

“Glad to.” My gangster winked at me. “I might as well get started.”

If he could hear my teeth grinding, he ignored it.

Frankie ducked out with a grin and a thumbs-up to Scalieri. He didn’t seem concerned at all about leaving me to be ogled by a hardened criminal now that he could break said criminal out of the asylum.

Well, he could enjoy it while it lasted because I was putting a stop to it.

As soon as the guard closed the door behind me, I stalked straight up to Scalieri. “I am not letting Frankie Winkelmann bust you out of here, so you’d better think of something else you want.”

I expected a smug retort or another leer, but he sat with his jaw hard and his body stiff. “I’m not staying,” he said, his tone plain. “Not for a day longer. This place is bad news.”

“It’s not supposed to be a church picnic.” He’d earned hard time. “There must be something else you want.” Love. Friendship. Redemption. Just a few ideas off the top of my head.

When he didn’t respond, I strolled to the rusted shelf with the picture. “Who is this?”

He snorted. “Nobody.”

He lied. This woman had to have meant something to him if hers was the only picture he cared to display. I studied the stern woman in the ghostly silver frame and noticed the glass had been removed, a prison regulation no doubt. “Do you want me to find her?”

“No,” he said quickly. Then after a moment, he added, “She wouldn’t want to see me.”

“You might be surprised.” Most people had others who cared deeply about them, even after arguments or time apart. It was sometimes hard to accept love, especially after unkind words or actions, but it didn’t mean that love wasn’t waiting. “So who is she?”

He stared at the table. “My mother.”

That was easy, then. “I’m sure she’s worried sick about you.” She could be just the one to help him find his way out of that dark place he’d lived in for so long. Scalieri obviously needed some kind of support. We all did. “She’s a good person, right?”

He drew the blunt tips of his fingers over the metal table and didn’t answer.

“Oh.” Or maybe she wasn’t kind. Oh, dear. Maybe she was a terrible person who’d turned him toward a life of crime.

“Was she—?” I motioned toward the picture. Mrs. Scalieri appeared as if she belonged on a jar of pasta sauce, with stacked graying black hair and a stern expression.

His chair creaked, and his chain rattled as he grabbed the photo off the shelf. “Don’t you touch her.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t going to.” I wasn’t about to be the one who made her picture disappear.

“It was just her and me,” he said, running a finger over the frame. “She tried to raise me right, but it was hard times.” His voice went cold. “When I was eleven, I took my mamma’s silver box that she kept hidden in the cupboard. It had thirty-eight dollars in it, and I used it to buy my first gun.”

Yikes. “Talk about an early start.”

His eyes flicked up to meet mine, and for the first time, I saw shame. “My mamma never forgave me, and I don’t blame her.”

“Maybe you can make it up to her,” I suggested. “Or at least talk it out.”

His fingers tightened on the frame. “No. I’m too far gone.”

“Is she still…here? Where you can talk to her?”

He swallowed. “Yeah. She haunts the house where I grew up. I never even told her I buried her box in the yard.”

“Then you can still fix it,” I reminded him.

I watched the idea dawn on him. “By giving my mamma her silver box with thirty-eight dollars in it,” he said, disbelieving. “I have more than thirty-eight dollars in my pocket right now!”

“I don’t think it’s about the money or the box exactly,” I hedged. “I think it’s more about being honest with her about your past and the mistakes you’ve made. It’s about trying to change and be a better person.”

“No.” He clutched the frame to his chest. “It’s definitely about the box.” He gripped the frame tighter. “I stole from my own mamma. Once a man will do that, he’ll do anything.”

That was one way of looking at it.

Only he’d done so many more awful, awful things. I’d read the library articles on him. Scalieri had killed more than a dozen men in cold blood. He’d tortured a police officer. He’d drowned his girlfriend with his bare hands. But this, his momma’s silver box, was what bothered him.

Then again, maybe this was what he needed to fix in order to move on, this incident that started his life of crime. It certainly couldn’t hurt. And it really wasn’t up to me anyway.

“How about this? Frankie and I will get your silver box back,” I said. “You can put the money inside, and Frankie and I will deliver it to your mamma at her house. Then you can tell Frankie what he needs to know.”

“Sure.” Scalieri nodded, not listening. “It’s buried under the old oak tree. I can make it up to her by giving it all back. Show her I’m a man she can respect. But first, I need you and Frankie to break me out of here.”

“Nope. Not the plan,” I reminded him. “Try again.”

“Get me out of here or I’ll kill you,” he gritted out.

As I’d learned with Frankie, sometimes redemption could be a rocky road.

I ignored his attitude and set my own terms. “We’ll help you, but you have to stay in prison. That’s the deal.”

“Who says you’re in charge of the deal?” he balked.

“I do,” I stated, “because I’m the one you and Frankie both need to get anything done.”

“Now you listen to me—” Scalieri leapt up, rattling his chain, stumbling as the taut links held him back.

The guard rapped on the door. “That’s it. You’re finished in here.”

We couldn’t afford to be overheard if Scalieri started talking about jail breaks again. “It’s a good offer,” I pressed. “My only offer. I’ll be back. Soon.”

But first, I had a ghost to corral.

4

I glanced back one last time at Scalieri and found him glaring at me as the guard closed the steel door. He hadn’t appreciated my attempt to negotiate. Well, tough. The deal he’d offered was completely impossible. He didn’t need to escape. He needed to face his issues straight-on.

He’d have to see that once he thought about it. Or maybe Frankie could help convince him. This was truly the best solution for everyone. I’d reunite Scalieri with his mamma, and he’d stay locked in prison until he truly had changed.

It could be his first step on the road to redemption.

I let out a breath as I stood in the empty hallway. Leaving that cell felt like an escape even though I didn’t belong in there.

Now I just had to find Frankie and tell him the plan had changed.

The hallway was eerily silent. Empty as well. Ellis wouldn’t have left me unless something had happened to take him away.

But what?

I nodded my thanks to the guard and tried to ignore the echoes of my footsteps as I walked down the abandoned hallway toward the lobby, my sneakers crunching over dirt and debris. I made a wide berth around the wheelchair and pretended not to notice the wheels squeaking.

All in a day’s work.

I had to locate Frankie before he tried to slip back into Scalieri’s cell and unhook him from that table. Frankie loved a good lock. And a criminal challenge. I was halfway to the lobby when a woman’s voice sounded in my right ear. “Excuse me.”

I turned to see the figure of a nurse in a white dress. Her fair hair was pulled back into a tight twist under her neatly pinned nurse’s cap. Her name tag read Iris Claymore.

She looked down her nose at me, her gray eyes piercing. “Visiting hours are over. The guard should have told you.”

I smiled and tried to pretend that I didn’t have a ghostly roommate who might or might not be plotting a breakout at this very second. “I’m on my way out,” I said, polite as you please. “I was just visiting the patient in room 138, Bruno Scalieri.”

The lines between her eyes deepened. “The guard should have told you that Bruno Scalieri is not to have visitors until the doctor finishes working up a treatment plan for him. He’s sick. Very sick.”

Didn’t I know it? “I’m trying to help him,” I said, ignoring her quizzical look as she escorted me toward the lobby. And speaking of ghosts who needed a bit of extra attention… “I’m also worried about the patient in room 132. I think he or she feels trapped.”

Just because Frankie said there was nothing to be done didn’t mean I couldn’t ask a professional.

Her mouth formed a thin line. “Please keep away from my patients.”

Perhaps I hadn’t made myself clear. I slowed while she strode straight past 132. “I can see where it might look like I’m bothering your wards,” I explained quickly. “But I’m only asking because I care.” After all, she didn’t know me or my abilities. “I have a way of talking to people, and not just dead people—”

She stopped cold. “The patients that are left here are the sickest of the sick—the doctor’s most desperate cases.” She ran her fingers over her precisely coiffed hair. “They need professional attention and rest. Not meddling.”

“See, I’m a professional ghost helper.” It sounded better than hunter.

“My patients also need quiet,” she snapped. She caught herself and lowered her voice once more. “Your mere presence is upsetting. Your loud noises. Your ‘death floor’ sleepovers. Poor Mr. Rink has begun cutting himself from the stress of mortal beings in this place of rest and refuge.”

“I’m sorry. That’s awful.” I hadn’t stopped to consider the fallout of Barbara’s grand marketing plan on the ghosts who lived and worked here. “Is Mr. Rink the one in room 132? I’ll talk to the living owner of this place and see what I can do.”

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mr. Rink is on the third floor. Not that it should matter to you.”

It did. It mattered a lot.

“I’ll try to fix it,” I promised. As soon as I talked Frankie out of letting one of her patients go.

She drew her shoulders back. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re leaving. Now.”

“Of course,” I said, keeping pace as she escorted me out, noting her precise walk and the squeak of her shoes on the old linoleum.

The trick was, I had no hope of talking Barbara out of making money by letting tourists sleep on the “death floor.” But perhaps I could make it less intrusive. No doubt the ghosts would appreciate it if we at least found an unoccupied room.

“Can you show me the third floor?” I asked.

She looked at me like I’d just asked to sit in her lap. “Absolutely not.” She continued almost to herself. “Leave it to the living… No manners. No boundaries. You’ve already put me behind on my rounds.”

I usually had a way with people, but my good nature was lost on the nurse. “Where can I find the doctor?” Maybe he could show me.

“The doctor is too busy for you,” she snorted, then drew a hand to her chest, as if embarrassed by her candor. “You must understand, the doctor is overworked. He and I are the only staff left,” she said, her voice cracking. “Everyone else has selfishly moved on, and I will not endanger the treatment of the sick by playing tour guide to the curious.” Nurse Claymore had gotten me to the end of the hall. “We must cure these people. Everyone deserves good mental health.”

I opened my mouth to apologize when a medicine cart shimmered into existence next to her. The top tray held old-fashioned metal syringes as long as my hand, filled with a milky white substance.

“The patients need their medications at precise intervals,” Nurse Claymore said as if she were reciting a rule book.

I blew out a breath. “I’m sure they do.” Although I wouldn’t want to get stuck with any of those monster needles. Not in a million years.

Nurse Claymore reached the ghostly door to the lobby and held it open for me to leave.

“These are sick people, not sideshow acts,” the nurse said, turning to her medicines. She drew a syringe off the tray. “I trust you’ll pass the word.”

“I’ll try my best,” I promised her. “I’m on your side.”

I opened the mortal door, and as soon as I stepped into the lobby, the ghost doors slammed shut.

“Well,” I said, smoothing my hands over my white jean shorts, “that could have gone better.”

Although I wasn’t sure exactly what I could have done to improve relations with the nurse. She’d had little time or patience for me.

The rapidly darkening lobby lay empty except for the smirking guard I’d met on the way in.

“Charming, as usual?” he taunted.

I was really starting to dislike that guy.

“Have you seen Frankie?” I asked.

“He left out the front.”

I hoped he wasn’t outside removing the bars from Scalieri’s cell window.

“Thanks,” I said, heading to fetch my ghost, when a door on the side of the lobby creaked open.

“It’s compromised, all right,” Ellis said, walking out. He seemed both surprised and glad to see me. “Verity, you’re done. Great. I was just checking out the old superintendent’s office. Barbara was concerned there might have been a break-in attempt last night.” He scanned the lobby. “Where’s Barbara?”

“I have no idea.” I hadn’t seen her. “But that’s terrible about the break-in attempt.” It was the last thing the ghosts needed.

“It looks like someone tried to jimmy the window,” Ellis said, clicking off his flashlight. “I’m going to have her file a police report.”

Here was Frankie trying to get someone out while we had others trying to get in. “Who would want to climb through the window of a haunted asylum?” I wondered.

“Crazies, copper thieves, antique hunters,” Ellis theorized. “Kids looking for a scare.”

All possibilities. I surveyed the lobby for anything worth stealing. The art deco lights were pretty neat. The spindles and railing on the stairs to the second floor were ornate and appeared to be made of brass. A dozen or so framed black-and-white photographs of men in suits and doctors in white coats lined the wall up to the second-floor landing.

“The last thing we need is more live people in this place,” I mused, and as I uttered the words, a black-and-white framed portrait of a man in an old-timey suit wobbled and fell from the wall.

I rushed for it as it clattered down the stairs.

“That was weird,” I said, examining it for damage. It was surprisingly well-built and sturdy.

“You think he agrees with your assessment of the living?” Ellis asked, only half-joking as he helped me pick up the portrait. It was heavier than it looked.

“If so, he’ll have to tell me outright.” It was much easier when the ghosts said what they thought in plain English. Well, except for my gangster ghost. More often than not I wanted him to keep his thoughts to himself. “Let’s fix this. And then we need to find Frankie.”

Ellis helped me hang the man’s photograph on the wall. “Dr. Seymour Anderson. Superintendent from 1917 to 1954,” he read on the plaque below.

“1954,” I murmured. “That’s when this place shut down.”

“I saw his name on the desk in the office back there,” Ellis said. “Maybe he’s still in charge.”

“Maybe.” He appeared stern, with piercing gray eyes and white hair that showed harsh comb marks. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the rapidly darkening lobby. “Come on,” I said, “let’s get out of here.”

5

I opened the front door and nearly ran into an equally startled Barbara barreling in from outside.

She clutched her chest and reared back. “You scared the bejeebers out of me.”

She wasn’t alone.

A thin, middle-aged couple strained to see around her as heavy rain whipped inside. I hadn’t realized how hard it was coming down.

“Go, go,” Barbara said, ushering them inside.

“I’m so excited,” the woman gushed, shoulders up to her ears as she unwrapped a mustard-colored scarf from around her neck. She sighed happily, taking in the darkened, dreary lobby as if she’d just stepped into Disney World. “Oh, Tom, I tell you—this place already feels haunted.”

If she only knew.

The sky had turned a sickly shade of green-gray. “We’ve got hail coming down,” the asylum owner said, slightly out of breath. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was amused.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said as the hard, round balls cracked forcefully on the stairs behind her.

“We’re very lucky,” Barbara’s guest said, draping her mustard scarf over the stairway balustrade. “Damp weather can bring on paranormal phenomenon. It makes ghosts stronger.”

The last thing I needed was a juiced-up Frankie picking locks.

Not to mention what hail like that would do to my Cadillac.

Barbara tossed her coat over one of the unlit antique torch lamps and spread her arms like a ringmaster. “You never know what will happen in such a haunted place,” she added, with no small amount of glee.

As usual, Ellis cut to the chase. “I need to talk to you about your situation,” he said to Barbara. “Your suspicions were right.”

Her face fell. “Oh no.”

“Let me show you what I found,” he said, being deliberately cagey around her guests as he led her into the former superintendent’s office.

“Are you here to sleep on the death floor too?” the woman asked as if we were talking about a ride at Disneyland. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a month. I swear if I see a ghost, I’m going to die. I mean, flat-out die.”

“I sincerely wish you don’t,” I said, only half joking.

If she sensed my reticence, she quickly dismissed it. “I’m Joan Burowski, and this is my husband, Tom,” she said about the man who wandered the lobby, looking at the art deco light fixtures.

“My name is Verity, and my boyfriend, Ellis, and I are just on our way out,” I told her. Even as I said it, I felt guilty abandoning the ghosts on the third floor—especially to this woman. At least her husband didn’t seem so bad. Still, I had to get Frankie off this property before he did anything crazy.

“We need to leave before the storm really hits,” Ellis said, walking back out of the office with Barbara. “But as soon as we’re out of the woods and I can catch a signal, I’ll call the local authorities and give them the details.”

Barbara nodded grimly. She’d lost the showman’s flair and was frowning at the news of intruders. I almost felt sorry for her. Until she opened her mouth.

“Does Verity at least have good news for me?” she asked.

I glanced toward her guests, who had dropped their backpacks and left them to make puddles on the marble floor. “I don’t,” I said. “At least not right now,” I added cryptically. Mainly because I hadn’t figured out what to tell her yet, and I certainly didn’t want to do a show for Joan and Tom. “I promise I’ll have something for you tomorrow,” I added quickly. Hopefully, when I was on my way back with a silver box for Scalieri.

Once Scalieri saw it, he’d be eager to make a deal.

“But—” Barbara began.

“Don’t worry,” Ellis said. “Verity always comes through.”

He took my hand, and we were on our way out when a ball of ice the size of a baseball slammed into the steps and shattered.

“What the—?” I began as Ellis jumped in front of me, taking the impact of the ice shrapnel.

“Oof.” He lurched back, hard.

Oh, my gosh. “Are you okay?” Ice clung to his shin where he’d been hit.

“Fine,” he said, trying to walk off the pain. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to brave the hail,” he added, eyeing the remains of the ice bomb on the steps.

“Even the weather is worse on this haunted property,” Barbara said gravely, playing it up for her guests.

Oh, please. “Ghosts can do all kinds of things”—as evidenced by my gangster and his efforts to rob a bank, open an illegal bookie operation, and lead a prison break—all from the other side—“but a ghost can’t make a storm worse.”

Still, I wasn’t eager to step out into it. “Let’s give it a few minutes.”

Barbara took advantage of my hesitation and kicked the door closed with a resounding boom. “Welcome to an evening of mystery!”

In her dreams. “The only mystery is how we’re going to get out to my car,” I said as an intense wave of thunder rolled across the sky, rattling me to my bones. The way it was coming down, it had to let up soon.

“I promise Verity’s not usually such a scaredy-cat,” Barbara announced to the group. How would she know? She’d met me less than an hour before.

She grinned at the scarf woman, who had stripped her outerwear down to an olive green sweater and black jeans. She had her arms out and eyes closed.

“The ghosts are sending a message,” Barbara’s guest said, a little too delighted for my taste. She waggled her fingers. “You can tell by the tingling in the extremities,” she added.

“More like a whack upside the head,” I told Ellis, who smirked.

Joan threw her head back. “Ghost energy hits the fingers and toes first. I really should be lying down.”

Her companion rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone.

Barbara grinned. “Maybe you should team up with our resident ghost hunter, Verity Long,” she suggested. “I offer the complete experience here at Mint Julep Manor.”

Hardly. “I’m not a resident anything,” I said as Joan broke out of her pseudo-trance lickety-split and hurried over to shake my hand.

Her grip was tight and her fingers cold. “I’m somewhat of an enthusiast,” she confessed.

“I can’t get a cell signal,” Tom complained.

“I’m leaving now,” I said. I didn’t care if I got smacked over the head with an ice ball. It couldn’t be any worse than being part of Barbara’s sideshow act. I waved a polite goodbye, dodging Barbara and gripping the handle of the door as an ice ball slammed into the other side with a loud crack. The impact radiated up my arm.

Ellis and I shared a look. “I think it’s getting worse,” he said.

“We can brave it,” I said, hoping.

To be fair, that philosophy didn’t always work out well for me.

“Let’s…take a look first,” he suggested, motioning toward one of the nearby windows.

Darn him and his logical ways.

The window revealed a mess of hail on the lawn. Wind whipped the trees surrounding the property and lashed my poor avocado green Cadillac. The land yacht was almost the same color as the sky above, its antenna whipping back and forth, its body shaking on its shocks as it was pounded and abused and, ohmyword, was that a crack in the windshield? I’d just gotten it fixed up. “My poor car,” I said, resting my forehead against the cold glass.

“We can’t go out there,” Ellis said. “Not if the hail is hard enough to crack a windshield.”

“Or shins,” I agreed.

His lips formed a thin line. “Even if we made it inside the car, we couldn’t drive in this weather.”

But I really needed to get Frankie off this property.

“Hey, there’s Frankie!” I whispered, spotting a ghost sulking behind a storm-whipped magnolia bush near the front of the house. Hail crashed straight through him and bounced on the ground. I waved at him and was glad to see him toss a cigarette and float in our direction. “Things are looking up.”

“Just watch your back,” Ellis said.

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I didn’t have time to ask before my ghost glided through the wall next to me. “Oh, good.” I pinned him close to the window. “Listen,” I said, wary of the guard near the hallway in the back. “You didn’t get Scalieri out yet, did you?”

“No,” he ground out, digging into his suit coat pocket.

“Perfect,“ I gushed. Happy. Relieved. “Here’s the scoop—” I began as he shoved a mangled silver instrument into my hand. “Ow.” I let the ghostly object clatter to the floor as the icy burn of it seared through me.

“That needs to disappear,” he grumbled. “Then it’ll come back fixed.”

“That was rude.” I shook my hand out. It tingled like I’d just grabbed dry ice. “You could have warned me.”

“Would you have taken it?” he countered.

“Probably not.” I rubbed my hand on my shorts. It stung like the dickens. Plus, I preferred it when his criminal tools did not work.

“That’s why I didn’t warn you,” he concluded.

Turning to let Ellis know exactly what I put up with, I saw Barbara and her guests staring openly. Well, dang.

Ellis was right. I did need to watch my back. The last thing I wanted to do was put on a show.

“Verity can have actual conversations with ghosts,” Barbara explained to the couple as if she were my teacher, trainer, and handler. “Frankie is her spirit sidekick.”

Joan’s eyes widened. “Is he a wise sage?”

“More like a fearless leader,” the ghost said.

“Or an overgrown twelve-year-old,” I countered.

“Verity came here to document the ghosts who haunt this asylum,” Barbara prompted.

As long as we were stuck inside, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to throw her a bone. “I met one today, actually.” Besides, the dedicated nurse I’d met deserved a little credit.

“I saw her talking to a ghost right by that door,” Barbara said, pointing at the bored guard.

Joan gasped.

Meanwhile, Ellis lingered by the window, keeping an eye out for any break in the storm.

“I met Nurse Claymore,” I said, focusing on Joan lest I see the dollar signs in Barbara’s eyes.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Barbara gushed, with an enthusiasm I would have enjoyed had it come from anyone else. “I have a picture of her from the archives.” She pulled out her phone. “Nurse Claymore was real. She was here, and I swear I didn’t tell Verity her name or anything about her.”

“I have goose bumps,” Joan said, breathless, as if I couldn’t have looked it all up on the internet, which I hadn’t, but still.

Tom rolled his eyes and checked out the art deco stairway spindles.

“There she is. Nurse Claymore,” Barbara said, pointing to the picture as Joan hovered next to her. “Look at that mean medicine cart she has. And that crazy tight hairdo. Nurse Claymore is a regular Nurse Ratched, injecting her patients with monster shots.”

“Hardly,” I broke in. I mean, the nurse hadn’t been all rainbows and warm fuzzies, but she wasn’t a Halloween caricature. “Nurse Claymore is a good person. I have a feeling she could move on if she wanted. She’s staying voluntarily because she cares about her patients.”

“I swear I didn’t Photoshop the injections to look even bigger—” Barbara grinned “—even if that’s something another haunted house owner would do.” She held out her phone for me to see. It was the woman I’d met in the hall, looking intense. But that was how old pictures sometimes looked. “Beware of crazy Nurse Claymore.”

“That’s wrong,” I said. “She’s not crazy. She’s trying to help people.” I felt sick. I should have kept my sighting to myself.

This wasn’t a game.

“I hope we meet her tonight. Does she haunt the death floor?” Joan asked, at last noticing that her husband was almost halfway up the stairs to the second floor.

“For an extra two hundred bucks, I’ll bet she does,” Tom said to his wife.

I sincerely hoped the picture of Dr. Anderson stayed on the wall. We didn’t need Barbara charging folks extra to hold the haunted photo. “Dang.” He checked his phone. “I still can’t catch a cell signal.”

“We have a hotspot in the trailer,” Barbara said. “Once the storm lets up, I’ll go out and fiddle with it. We need you to be able to post pictures of your haunted experience. The hashtag is MintJulepGhosts, and if you find one of the tormented souls who haunt these halls and post about it, we’ll give you a free Mint Julep Manor haunted asylum T-shirt.”

Heavens to Betsy. She really had turned these peoples’ afterlives into a carnival act. It was wrong, and it was mean, and I couldn’t do a thing to fix it.

But I could make one thing better.

“Why don’t I take you and your husband up to the third floor?” I offered to Joan. “We can see where the ghosts are.” And we’d keep her away from them, especially the sick souls who needed rest and quiet.

“Yes!” Joan fist pumped.

“Great,” I said, glancing to Ellis, who raised an eyebrow. I’d explain later. “Holler if the storm lets up,” I called down to him.

“It’s a plan,” he said, keeping an eye on the brewing disaster outside. I loved how he trusted me. “Be ready,” he cautioned. “As soon as we get a break…”

We’d be out of here.

“Perfect,” I told him.

And then I got an even better idea.

I stopped at the bottom of the staircase, one hand on the rail. “Sorry to say only Joan and Tom can go,” I clucked as Barbara—camera at the ready—joined us.

“I’m the owner.” She waved a dismissive hand. “The ghosts have to do what I say.”

Hardly. “My wise and strong ghostly spirit, Frankie, says that if I take more than two of you up, the ghosts won’t appear.”

The gangster hit me with a cold spot that made the hair on the back of my neck prick up and sent goose bumps cascading down my arms. “Leave me outta this. Your wise and strong spirit guide is busy doing a job for Bruno Scalieri.”

That was up for debate.

Joan clapped her hands together. “I feel a chill!”

I rubbed my arms to warm them. She’d feel Frankie in the desert at noon the way he was acting.

With any luck, the storm would soon let up, and we’d be out of here. Then Frankie would have to do things my way.

At least I could win right away with Barbara. The less I saw of her, the better.

“I’m the owner,” she stated, her humor gone.

“I’m not venturing up to the third floor unless it’s only me, Joan, and Tom,” I told her. “Those are my terms.”

Warring emotions crossed her face, but she pushed through them and forced a smile for her thousand-dollar-a-night guests. “Get good pictures,” she said, “and I’ll just bill your credit card for the private tour.”

“It’s on the house,” I said, my grin even bigger.

That earned a glare from our host. Well, she deserved to be knocked down a peg.

“Let’s go,” I said to the Burowskis. I was a woman on a mission, and we didn’t have much time before Frankie, Ellis, and I would be blessedly out of that place.

6

Nurse Claymore might not think much of me, but it didn’t matter. I would do right by her patients. Like it or not, I was the only one standing between the ghosts and Barbara Slater, entertainment director from hell.

And the thought of poor Mr. Rink cutting himself… That chilled me more than any cold spot Frankie could whip up.

“There are no lights on the upper floors,” Barbara warned.

I pulled the flashlight from my purse and gave her a wave. I’d come prepared.

“This is definitely going in my Yelp review,” Joan gushed, snapping a photo of me brandishing my light.

Oh, brother.

“What’d you say, dear?” her husband asked, checking his phone. Again. The poor man needed an intervention. I could only hope he would turn out to be some sort of online influencer. If Barbara’s guests had a boring night in an unhaunted room, maybe Tom Burowski would tell the world this place was a dud. No amount of pleading from me would convince Barbara to stop her thousand-dollar-a-night scheme, but if she had nobody paying, well, problem solved.

“There are stairwells at each end of the hall,” Barbara called, following me up a step before backing down. “Those’ll get you to the third floor.”

“Noted,” I said. If I did this right, it would take ten minutes. Maybe less.

“Are you seriously going up there?” Frankie’s voice grated in my ear as I scaled the staircase toward the darkened second floor. “I can’t believe you’re spending your time with these people instead of helping me spring Scalieri.”

“The objective has changed,” I stated as we passed frame after frame of black-and-white photographs of the doctors who had run this place all the way back to the late 1800s.

Frankie shimmered into existence two steps ahead of me. “No. The deal is to break Scalieri out.” He pointed a finger at me. “You can’t go changing the deal. That’s not how it works.”

“That’s how I work,” I said primly. Besides, I hadn’t agreed to anything. “There is no deal.”

“Yes, there is,” Frankie said as if I’d just fallen off the turnip truck. “And you can’t control it. Scalieri made an offer. I said yes. That’s…” He held his hands out, palms up. “That’s how gangsters work.”

Not anymore. “Scalieri isn’t going anywhere.” I dodged Frankie and felt the coldness of him as I did. “Remember what De Clercq said in his note: Scalieri is a lying psychopath.”

Frankie glided next to me, glaring. “He’s also my friend.”

Hardly. “You’re only saying that because he can give you something.”

The gangster threw his hands up. “And thus we have the definition of friendship.”

“We’re driving this bus, not Scalieri.”

“There is no bus!” Frankie pleaded.

He reappeared on the landing at the top of the stairs. “We have to give him what he wants, or he’s not going to tell us what we need to know.”

“It’s the wrong plan, Frank. Think,” I said, joining him at the top. “We can get Scalieri’s box while he’s here, and once we show him we have it, he’s bound to agree to our terms.”

“But he won’t.”

“Because he thinks you’ll let him out.”

We were interrupted by clapping. “Oh, that was wonderful,” Joan gushed. “Tom? Did you get that?”

Her husband held up his cell phone camera. “It’s dark up here, but I think so.”

Oh, great. They were filming us.

“I’m sorry. No cameras,” I told them as they joined Frankie and me on the second floor. The last thing we needed was me talking to thin air on the internet.

Joan’s expression hardened. “I’m paying a thousand dollars a night. I can do what I want.”

“I’m doing this for your safety, not mine,” I said, wishing I could leave her on the landing. “My mystical, slightly evil ghost will follow you home if you don’t erase your recording.”

“The heck I will.” Frankie wrinkled his nose. “You couldn’t pay me to hang out with those yahoos.”

“You really think this is real,” Tom said, incredulous.

“Yes,” Joan and I both answered.

He held up his phone and showed me as he erased the recording.

“Thank you,” I said over Joan’s groan of anguish.

“I would love a personal ghost,” she hissed at him as she ventured first down the abandoned south hall.

She could have mine.

“I wonder if I could buy one on the internet,” she suggested to her husband.

“I’d like to give her a cold spot where the sun don’t shine,” Frankie said, watching her go.

A bad feeling swept through me that had nothing to do with our fellow guests or my bullheaded ghost. “This floor doesn’t feel right.”

It wasn’t only that the abandoned second story looked dark and foreboding. It felt unfriendly.

Wrong.

“Yeah. I’m getting the signal loud and clear,” Frankie said, glancing around as if he could find the source. “You know I don’t like haunted places.”

“Isn’t everywhere you go technically haunted?” I asked.

Frankie rolled his eyes. “I mean bad haunted. There are ghosts out there with powers that’ll blow your hair back. I like to avoid that kind. Unlike some people.” He gave me a pointed look.

“So what is it saying?” Other than a warning. “Can you tell?”

He blew out a breath. “It’s saying get yourself downstairs and help Frankie do his job.”

“I’m not what you’d call a criminal asset,” I remarked.

“You’re good at distractions,” he countered.

“Said the pot to the kettle.” I glanced down to where the Burowskis had paused to check out a bed frame rusting against the wall. “Maybe the bad feeling I’m getting is coming from that nurse I met.”

I couldn’t let it get to me. I was going up there. “Come on,” I said. The Burowskis were getting ahead of us. “This won’t take long.”

“It’ll take even less time for me because I ain’t going.”

I stopped. Closed my eyes. “Frank,” I grated out.

“It’s a bad idea,” he warned. “You already know it.”

I did. But I didn’t have a better one.

“Ten minutes,” I said, tracking the beams from Joan’s and Tom’s flashlights up ahead as I hurried after them.

“You might be easily distracted, but I’m not.” Frankie’s voice trailed after me.

“In what universe is that?” I said over my shoulder.

“You never learn,” he called after me. “You think you’re in control because you’re living, but you’re not. You don’t know who or what is lurking in this place. I hate to be the one to tell you, but bad things happened here.”

“I get it. I do.” But I couldn’t stop thinking about that poor ghost the nurse had told me about, the one cutting himself because of stress. If these paranormal tourists were determined to spend a night up in one of the rooms, I was equally set on sticking them in an empty one. I was half tempted to lock them in.

Besides, we didn’t have much time. I had to be ready to leave whenever the storm let up, and I wasn’t going to waste even a minute arguing with Frankie.

Frankie started gliding backward toward the stairs. “Yeah, well, while you’re busy with that, I’m gonna spring the lock on Scalieri’s window with a Coke bottle and an old hairpin.”

“You’d better not.”

I glanced over my shoulder toward him and the light from the first floor. He waggled his fingers at me and disappeared.

Lovely.

Now I just had to get this done before he located a vending machine and a woman’s purse.

A sudden bolt of lightning lit up the window at the far end of the hall and outlined the dirty beige paint peeling in strips from the walls, along with chunks of drywall and debris littering the cracked linoleum floor.

I’d been in worse places.

The beam of my flashlight caught the ruins of a wheeled hospital cart rusting outside an empty examination room.

I directed my light inside. Rain pelted the frosted windows and reflected my light back over the remains of an instrument cart next to a narrow bed, the mattress half eaten by rats and other vermin, the leather wrist and ankle restraints untouched.

Frankie was right. Bad things had happened here.

“You see something?” Joan whispered, nearly scaring me half to death.

“Please don’t sneak up on me,” I hissed, blood pounding.

“We doubled back for you,” she said as if they were doing me the favor.

A large round examination light hovered over the scene, the glass bulbs shattered long ago, leaving only the skeleton of scraggly filament.

“Okay, now that’s cool,” Tom said, searing the room with a camera flash.

“Let’s go,” I said, backing away, my heart seizing in my throat when a light began to flicker at the end of the hall. “Oh my,” I murmured.

“What?” Joan asked, sticking close. “What are you looking at?”

The single bulb stuttered like a strobe light, illuminating a small figure huddled in the corner.

“Nothing,” I said to her, daring to press forward once more. I’d come to help. If this entity needed assistance, then I was glad I saw it glowing in stark black and white in the corner of the old hospital.

It was small, too small to be a toddler even.

Dread crawled up my spine.

Please don’t let it be a baby.

“There’s a rusted-out bathtub in this room,” Tom said, from across the hall. “And it looks like blood on the wall.”

“I’m sure it’s not blood,” I said, not at all certain.

“Want to…get some measurements?” Joan asked, her voice shaky.

“Later,” he said. His voice held a warning. This didn’t seem like the Tom I’d met in the lobby, the one who I’d assumed was only there to support his wife.

“You’d better not wander around too much tonight,” I advised. “It’s not safe.”

And it could upset the ghosts.

He didn’t respond.

I glanced over my shoulder just to make sure no otherworldly trouble had cropped up behind me. Tom aimed his light into the room a few doors back. But I was relieved to see no ghostly glow coming from inside.

Just the one dead ahead.

Heart pounding, I left my living companions behind and pressed on toward the tiny figure in the corner.

“Hey there,” I said as I drew near.

I didn’t want to startle it.

And I was fully prepared to run.

When I drew close enough, I saw it in the flickering light.

It was a teddy bear, a child’s toy. I heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t alive. This wasn’t a horror movie. I was just a girl who could see ghosts, wandering around in a haunted asylum.

The discarded bear glowed gray, its shiny glass eyes staring at the ceiling.

Jagged lightning lit up the sky outside. Hail slammed against the window.

“Oh, good. There’s the stairwell.” Tom cracked open the door just beyond the flickering light. “Ladies first,” he joked. “Hey, you okay?” he asked, shining his light into my eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said, holding up a hand to block the worst of it. “Do you mind?”

“You look like you saw a ghost,” he quipped.

“Me? No…” I said, brushing it off. “Nothing to see here.”

Just a phantom light and a child’s toy. It could very well be the spirits trying to connect in some way, but I wasn’t about to tell them that.

The ghostly light sputtered and died as Joan passed her light over the space in the corner. The bear had disappeared, and in its place lay a tangle of old rags.

“Scary,” Tom quipped.

If he only knew.

“Let’s go,” he said, “on to greater adventures.”

I pasted on a smile. This was a man used to giving orders. And while I might not appreciate his manners or his attitude, I would do my best to play along if it meant getting us all out of here.

Joan eyed me as we followed her husband into the old stairwell. “He thinks Barbara’s full of baloney and this is just a game.”

“I do believe in keeping my wife happy,” he commented over his shoulder, his shoes scraping the concrete stairs.

Our flashlight beams formed perfect ovals on the floor ahead as the door to the stairwell creaked closed behind us. It smelled like wet leaves and rusted metal.

Joan kept pace next to me as we began climbing. “I think it’s fabulous,” she continued. “I’ve always wanted to own a haunted property.”

“Maybe find one that’s not falling apart,” I cautioned, the sharp edges of peeling paint flaking off against my hand as I gripped the cold metal banister.

“Oh, I’m looking for a project, something I can make my own.” Joan blew out a breath. “If Barbara misses one more payment, the bank gets this place, and then it’s ours.”

“What?” I asked, nearly stumbling a step.

“Joan!” Tom stood on the landing and directed a bright beam down onto the steps between us like an interrogation light. “That’s our business, not anyone else’s.”

“Or,” she countered, “it’s a stroke of luck I could get the ghost hunter alone to ask about it.” She stepped up next to her husband on the landing. “How else am I going to learn if Mint Julep Manor is truly haunted?” She directed a scowl down at me. “I think half the things Barbara tells me are made up.”

“More than half,” I said.

“It seems the only real ghost is the one you brought along,” Joan grumbled.

“And I’ll be taking him with me when I leave,” I added. Soon, if I had my way.

I eased off the stairs and onto the tiny landing. “Does Barbara know you want to buy this place?” I asked. Not that I had any loyalty to that gold digger, but Barbara had poured her dark heart and somewhat shriveled soul into this place. At the same time, I didn’t like the way Tom and Joan seemed to be scheming behind her back.

“Barbara is as clueless as they come,” Tom said, the beam of his flashlight trained on my chest. He was watching me carefully. “She didn’t even ask us why we wanted to spend a grand a night.”

“Why do you, then?” I asked. It seemed they already knew they wanted to purchase the property.

“None of your business.” He opened the door to the third floor. “Now, after you…”

Well, okay.

I went first. “I’m sorry Barbara lied,” I said. And too bad I’d have to tell a few more fibs if I wanted to protect the residents up here.

The hallway loomed dark and perfectly still.

Then I saw it—a faint gray glow from underneath the first door to my right. A ghostly light.

“I’m going to check this one out,” I whispered, nearing the door. “Please stand back…for your own safety.”

I grasped the chilly handle, turned the knob. It was locked.

“Want Tom to try to break down the door?” Joan asked.

“No.” The ghost inside that room had managed to find a bit of privacy, and we’d keep it that way. “It feels empty,” I said, coaxing her away.

“I don’t know,” Joan said, “it sure gives me the creeps.”

We tried the next door, and it opened.

This one was occupied as well.

The glowing ghost of a young woman crouched over a desk at the window, writing. She wore a simple bun and a black gown with lace at the neck.

“This one’s empty too,” I said.

Joan deflated. “A thousand dollars a night.” She turned to her husband. “Verity’s right. I don’t feel any spark of ghostly energy in my fingertips or my toes.”

“Let me see if I can help,” I said, ducking into the room. “Excuse me. I need to be alone for a minute…to see if I can connect with the spirits.”

“Oh, that’s a good plan,” Joan gushed as I closed her out of the room.

Rain pelted the glass and streamed down in rivulets to the bare windowsill. The ghost’s fountain pen scratched against the paper as she worked at a furious pace, not seeming to notice the storm raging outside, or me behind her.

Maybe this young woman could help me understand what was happening on this floor, and which room Barbara’s guests could use without disturbing the patients.

In fact, she didn’t even seem like a patient, with her black dress, her focused demeanor, and her hard grip on her pen.

“Excuse me,” I said gently, near enough that I could see what she was scribbling so furiously.

It’s not my fault.

It’s not my fault.

Oh my.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” I said, “but I have a question—”

She looked up in shock, her face a mask of horror and surprise.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” I managed as she disappeared, quick as the snuffing of a candle.

Yet the scratching continued.

I looked down to the glowing, ghostly parchment she’d left behind, to the fountain pen still scribbling hard, tight lines across the page.

It’s not my fault.

“Okaaaay,” I said, backing away.

“So did you connect with any spirits?” Joan asked breathlessly from the open door.

“I don’t think this floor is haunted at all,” I said, closing the wooden door on the pen still moving across the page.

“Now what are we going to do all night?” Joan sighed as we skirted a rotting mattress in the hallway. Rusted springs clawed up from tattered cotton.

“We can find you a haunted vacation house,” Tom coaxed, his light examining some pretty plaster molding near the ceiling.

“But you said you like this place,” she said resentfully.

“It has good bones,” he stated. “I can still use it.”

Darn it. So much for turning Tom away. “What do you want to do with an old asylum?” It baffled me why anyone would want to spend more than an hour here, much less the night.

Joan let her husband wander ahead of us down the hall before pulling me closer. “Tonight, we want to get a feel for the property. Tom runs a renovation company. We’re going to take measurements, make an estimate on what it’s worth and what it would take to fix it up.”

“And then what?” I pressed. “Another haunted house?”

Joan laughed. “Hardly. We’d like to turn it into a high-end hotel and spa—premier treatments, a place to get away from it all. We’re only an hour or two south of Nashville. The city of Jackson even has an airport. Besides that, have you seen the architecture? The bones of this place are stunning. And we wouldn’t even have to alter the layout much. Those examination rooms on the second floor would make perfect mini-suites.”

“Very relaxing,” I said, “once you get rid of the straps on the beds.”

She didn’t take the hint. “We’d also move the dead bushes out back and put in a pool overlooking the trees in the valley,” she added. “It’ll be pretty.”

I’d take her word for it.

“I can’t recommend it,” I told her honestly. “I’m not sure if you’re from around here, but this place has a bad reputation. Lots of stories.”

She waved a hand. “All old buildings have history,” Joan said. “It’s one of the things that make them so interesting. And, besides, once people see this property fixed up, we won’t be able to keep them away.”

Great.

Tom made his way back to us. “If Barbara finds out about our plans to buy, we’ll know exactly who told her.”

I didn’t like his tone. “Is that a threat?”

“No,” he said, surprised. “I get things done, but not that way.”

Sakes alive. I’d dealt with too many shady types lately. I was touchy.

“Look.” I held up my hands. “I’m just trying to find you a good place to spend the night.” I might not be able to turn them off the asylum, but I could at least find a room where the overnight tourists could go while Barbara still ran the place. Which, from what these two were saying, might not be long.

I entered the next dark cell, very aware of the Burowskis behind me.

It was similar to the room that had held the young woman, only this one had no desk in front of the window. Just a rotting bed in the corner.

It wasn’t haunted.

“You two should stay in here,” I said, moving to the window.

The storm outside shook the glass. Hail clanged against the windows, rain came down in sheets, and I could barely see the security lights on the chain-link fence at the edge of the property.

But as my eyes adjusted, I saw the swelling creek as it crested just below the bridge off the property. Dread punched me in the gut. Once the creek breached its banks, we were stuck.

“I have to go.” I turned to leave.

“Wait.” Joan grabbed my arm. “This is a haunted room? Do you feel the ghosts in your toes? Because I think I might.”

“Oh, they’re in my toes and my fingers. My eyebrows feel a little tingly,” I said, trying to unclasp her.

“Yes?” she asked, touching her fingers to her eyebrow.

“This may be the only haunted room,” I said, encouraging her to place both hands on her head.

“Yes!” She rubbed her eyebrows. “Yes. I feel it!”

“Now, I have to go.” My flashlight beam trained straight ahead as I made my way out. It was harder to see in here with no ghostly glows, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.

“Wait!” Joan called, following me. “Which ghosts am I seeing?”

“Just one,” I said, making it up. One was about all I could handle. “There’s a very handsome ghost named Rodger.” She nodded enthusiastically, massaging her brows. “I don’t have a last name.” Because I was terrible at lying. “He’s a former butler in a five-star hotel. I think you should make friends.”

I skirted a ruined mattress out in the hall.

“How?” Joan called after me, nearly thwacking her elbow on the doorframe as she tried to follow me with her hands still on her head.

“Sit in there and talk,” I said, making my way toward the glow coming from under the door near the stairwell. “Tell him your hopes and dreams. Just stay away from those other rooms we saw, or he’ll stop listening to you.”

“Why?” Joan pleaded.

“Because there is no such thing as ghosts,” Tom remarked.

“Because Rodger is very needy. Matter of fact, Tom will have to stay in the room with you,” I said, opening up the door to the stairwell. “Or Rodger might feel deserted and leave this place all together.”

Joan gasped. “Then we’ll never get him back!”

“Exactly.” I hated to spin such nonsense, but it was for everyone’s good.

It also bothered me on about ten different levels that Ellis hadn’t already rushed up here to tell me about the swelling creek. What could be going on down there to distract him?

That went for Frankie, too. I’d better not make it down to my car and find Scalieri sitting in the passenger seat.

“I’ve got to go. Have a great night! Bye!”

I raced down the stairwell and through the darkened second floor. I was almost to the main staircase when I heard shouts from below.

7

The sconces along the staircase surged brighter as the light at the top of the stairs shattered. Stained glass and bulb shards blew outward, and I let out a yelp, halting at the top of the landing. “What’s happening?”

Whatever it was, I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I raced down the stairs, careful not to slip on the glass and avoiding the largest shards.

“Power surge,” Barbara hollered. “Duck!”

I did. I heard a crash, and then we were plunged into darkness.

Cripes. I halted my free-for-all run, gripping the banister as I spun sideways. I was near the haunted painting, or at least the one that couldn’t seem to stay on the wall. It wasn’t far to the main level from here, but that didn’t mean it was smart to run willy-nilly down the stairs in the dark.

“Verity!” Ellis called from below.

“I’m here,” I assured him. “I’m fine,” I added optimistically. I gripped the banister, my fingernails sinking into the layers upon layers of varnish. I dug the flashlight out of my back pocket and clicked it on. “I’m just going to take it slow.”

Lightning flashed, and I saw the outline of Barbara at the front window, cupping her hands around her face, looking hard outside. “I think we took a lightning strike to the power box,” she warned.

Wow. Okay. Well, if we’d lost all power, then at least there would be no more surges to blow up the remaining lights. That was a positive.

The sound of torrential rain had replaced the pounding hail.

I’d take that as well.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, making my way down slowly despite my shaking hands. “I’ll go back for Joan and Tom. We’ll get everyone out to my car. Barbara, I can take you home, and I’ll drive the rest of us to a hotel.”

“The creek is over the bridge,” Ellis said stonily, his voice echoing off the marble as he worked his way across the lobby toward me.

“Are you all right?” I tried to speed up, but my legs felt like jelly.

He met me at the bottom of the stairs. “I wanted to get out before the creek cut us off. I went upstairs to look for you, but I ran into something on the second floor and went down hard.”

I took his hand. His skin felt clammy and he wavered on his feet. “What was it?”

“I didn’t see,” he said, frustration lingering in his voice. “Whatever it was, it came out of nowhere and took me down.” He half-sat, half-collapsed on the bottom step, and I joined him. “It chased me out,” he added flatly as if he didn’t even want to admit it.

“It…happens.”

“Not to me,” he countered.

True. I rubbed his back and felt a cold sweat. He was shaken. I’d never seen him this way. “It’ll be okay.”

“Of course it will,” he said, a little too quickly. “I know that.” He ran a hand along my back in return, and I tried to take comfort in the contact, but I was scared. A ghost had never physically interacted with Ellis before. Sure, he’d seen me dodging them. And they’d attacked his car. But this was different. A little more personal.

“I took a second to recover,” he said, lingering over the words, trying to piece it together, “and when I looked to see what got me, it was like I’d tripped over nothing.”

“Maybe you collided with an old chair or mattress,” I said, hoping I was right. The hallways were cluttered with junk.

“I didn’t see anything.” He sighed.

“Let me have a look.” I trained the beam of my flashlight onto his leg. Streaks of blood stained his jeans. Worse, he was breathing shallowly, and his color was off. “Oh, my gosh, Ellis. You don’t look so good.”

“Thanks,” he said, running a hand through his short dark hair, shooting me a choppy grin. “You know how to make a guy feel special.”

I knew how to run one through the wringer was more like it.

Barbara clicked her light on, the beam cutting through the darkness as she strolled toward us. “Show her the rest,” she urged, with a little too much enthusiasm for my taste.

Ellis lost the grin. He eased up his jeans and I gasped. It looked like he’d run up against a dozen razor blades. The slices were deep, random, and scary as heck. Several of them still bled.

“Let me bandage you up,” I said, trying to think of what I could use. I was wearing white jean shorts and a sleeveless lace shirt, which didn’t leave me much fabric to work with. I didn’t even wear socks with my Keds.

“I already found him a crutch,” Barbara said, “from the Doctor of Doom display.”

“Lovely,” I told her. At least her props were good for something.

“I don’t need it,” Ellis insisted. “Much,” he added. “It’s just weird because what I hit felt more hard than sharp.”

A bruise had already bloomed on his shin.

“Is it broken?” I asked, reaching down to check.

“It’s not.” He gently moved my hand aside. “Just bad luck.”

“Okay,” I said, snuggling up next to him, trying to comfort him the best way I knew how. “Let’s think of our options.”

We were trapped in the asylum with ghosts, real estate investors, and the force of nature that was Barbara.

The place wasn’t safe. “Maybe we need to get the Burowskis downstairs.” If something had gone after Ellis, I didn’t want it gunning for them.

“The Burowskis are fine.” Barbara screwed up her nose. “They’re getting what they paid for.”

“You left them somewhere safe?” Ellis confirmed.

“I did,” I said. Maybe they were better off on the third floor. I hadn’t encountered anything particularly terrible up there. Then again, I hadn’t tangled with Ellis’s attacker outside the exam rooms, either.

“We need to get the power back on,” Barbara said, ever practical. “Luckily for us, I have a generator. It’s ancient and I could use some help getting to it,” she added, giving Ellis the once-over, “but once we have it going, I can book out to the trailer and get the mobile hotspot up and running again. That’ll give us phones and internet.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, standing. “After that, we’ll call the fire department. Hopefully, they can get us across that bridge.” And give Ellis and me a ride to the urgent care to check out that leg. I didn’t like that he wasn’t putting weight on it.

I’d grab Frankie’s urn out of my car along the way.

“One more thing.” Barbara dug out her cell phone and snapped a picture of Ellis’s leg. She grinned. “While you call in the cavalry, I’ll call my graphics guy and have him work up a bright yellow sticker to put on all our billboards. Warning: ghosts may bite.”

“Those aren’t teeth marks,” I countered.

“They could be,” Barbara shot back. “It depends on the shape of the teeth.”

“You have no idea if it was a ghost,” Ellis said, attempting to stand quickly but getting tangled in his crutch.

“Watch it,” I said, trying to get him to sit back down.

“Maybe I’ll make that sticker look like it’s surrounded by police tape,” Barbara continued. “Don’t worry. I won’t mention your name,” she added over Ellis’s curse. “That way, I don’t need your permission.”

Ellis drew up to his full height with the help of his crutch, the banister, and sheer fortitude. “I don’t like this place, and I don’t like you,” he gritted out, towering over our host. “Now, where’s the generator?”

“Downstairs,” Barbara said, with grudging admiration, “in the boiler room. With Crazy Charlie from my billboard.”

“You made him up,” I said.

“Or maybe I didn’t,” Barbara countered.

It didn’t matter. Ellis would never make it down there. He was barely standing.

“I can go,” I said quickly.

“Good idea.” Ellis nodded, taking an unsteady step away from the stairs. “I don’t want you up here alone.”

“I meant instead of you,” I said under my breath.

“Not a chance.” He chuckled.

Did I need to remind him he was having trouble walking at the moment?

Ellis was invincible, except when he wasn’t. And we were about to go down into the underground passageways that might not be safe or well lit, even if there was no knife-wielding spirit in the “catacombs.”

“Wait. Before we go, I need Frankie.” I searched for a familiar ghostly glow. The gangster needed to turn my power off. Just in case a maniac wandered those passageways, I’d rather not come face-to-face with him.

It would also be good to know if my ghost had been able to find a Coke bottle and a hairpin. “Frank?” I called into thin air. I searched the lobby but didn’t even see the ghost guard in the back near the south hall. “Frankie, I need you to turn my power off.”

“I am not your beck-and-call ghost,” Frankie said, shimmering into being next to me.

“I’m not sure what you are,” I said. I was just glad he’d showed up. Hanging with Frankie was like having a cat—he’d turn up where he wanted when he wanted. And not always at the most convenient time.

He leaned close so that only I could hear. “You’ll be glad to hear I picked the lock on Scalieri’s window,” he said, drawing off a pair of kid leather gloves.

“You’d be wrong,” I countered.

“I did it with a Dr. Pepper bottle and a rusty nail,” he continued, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “It was a thing of beauty.” He stowed the gloves in his suit jacket.

The night was getting worse by the second. “You can’t go through with this,” I said, keeping my voice low. Just because I didn’t see the guard anymore didn’t mean he wasn’t around. “I’m not taking Scalieri out of here.”

“Bruno doesn’t need your help to get off the property,” Frankie reminded me. “He just needs me to break him out of that cell.”

“I forbid it,” I stated.

“Afraid I’ll take all the credit?” he asked. “In any case, you did screw it up,” he groused. “I can’t get the man out of his leg lock because you touched my tool and it hasn’t come back yet.”

“Good,” I told him. He was the one who’d shoved it into my hand and given me the shock of my life. Hopefully, we’d be out of here before it came back.

The gangster heaved a sigh. “Things are always complicated when you deal with the living.”

“It’s got nothing on dealing with the dead.” I scraped the hair out of my eyes and retied my ponytail. “Now I need your help. I’m going to the basement to help fix something, and I don’t want to see any ghosts while I’m down there.”

“All right,” he said, yanking his power back so fast my head went light, and I had to brace a hand against the door to keep steady.

“Thanks,” I rasped as my throat went dry and my knees buckled.

“Don’t mention it. Now, be careful,” Frankie warned. “Scalieri was telling me some stories while I worked his lock. Seems at least one of the ghosts in this joint is extremely powerful.” He stiffened. “And quite possibly insane.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t talking about himself?” I asked.

Frankie let out a chuckle. “Right. Nah, I think he’s really scared of something. He’s not just breaking out for fun this time.”

In a million years, I’d never understand these gangsters.

“You’re welcome to join us in the basement,” I told him. He didn’t have to be alone.

“I’d rather eat my eyeballs,” he said pleasantly.

“Are you done?” Barbara prodded. “I mean, I get the show, but come on.”

“I really don’t think you do,” Ellis said, leaning on his crutch.

“No, I’m okay,” I said. Barbara was right for once. We were in a hurry. I smoothed my hair back behind my ears. “Be good,” I said to my gangster.

“You know I won’t,” he assured me as I turned to join the others.

Barbara opened a creaky door under the stairs, labeled Maintenance. “Lucky I know my way through the catacombs. It’s a maze down there,” she added as if we should be happy to be in this situation.

The winding spiral staircase was pitch black save for the narrow beams of our flashlights, and I found myself missing the soft glow of the ghostly side. It made things simpler…and vastly more complicated.

Naturally, Ellis wanted to go first. I gave him the banister side of the step and also gripped his elbow, trying to take as much of his weight as he’d let me handle. He didn’t even complain, which worried me more than I’d like to say.

My other hand scraped against cinder block, then rough stone as we worked our way down, the chill of the basement seeping into my bones with every step.

“So tell us about this ghost who roams the tunnels,” Ellis said, with a grunt of pain as he negotiated the next step.

“The real story,” I said. “Remember, you’re not trying to impress us.”

“The real story is better than anything I could make up,” Barbara said, with a sick pride of ownership. “Patients were never officially allowed in these tunnels, you understand, but they occasionally made it down here. Take Crazy Charlie. He didn’t like to play by the rules.”

She was embellishing already.

“So where is this generator?” I asked, ducking under the low-hanging transom at the bottom.

“Just past the morgue,” Barbara said, her light and ours filtering down an uneven hallway with a packed-dirt floor. “Although,” she said, toeing the dirt, “I wouldn’t have put it past anybody back then to just grab a shovel and dig a grave any old place.”

“Stop it,” I said. Her made-up stories were terrible. And mean.

She seemed to enjoy making people uncomfortable.

We stood at a crossroads. The hallway continued behind another spiral staircase, into the darkness. Another hall broke off to our right, blocked by a barred metal door. The same to our left.

Barbara continued straight down the darkened hallway, her boots crunching over uneven patches of gravel.

We trailed her past a wooden door marked Delivery.

“Strange place to pull up a truck,” Ellis commented.

“This here’s where they brought the bodies down.” She rapped the door with a knuckle. “Pretty clever. Want to check it out? It’s basically a dumbwaiter system from the second and third floors. With a coffin attached.”

“Let’s just get to the generator,” Ellis said.

“It’s connected to the morgue here,” Barbara said as we passed a second door, the lettering faded and all but gone. “Oh, look,” she said, pausing at the morgue door. “You’re both invited.” The door stood open a few inches as if someone were expecting us.

Cold air filtered from inside, and even without Frankie’s power, I could swear I felt a presence of someone or something just beyond.

Ellis reached out and took my hand, putting himself between me and the morgue door. He didn’t like it, either.

A creak echoed from inside.

“Okay, now that’s weird,” Barbara murmured.

Ellis pushed open the door. “Hello?”

He let go of my hand and lumbered inside before I could stop him. Bad idea. He could barely walk. We were getting off track. He didn’t need to investigate everything. It—

Metal screeched. Ellis grunted and went down hard.

“Ellis!” I leapt into the room, shining my flashlight down on him, on the metal folding chair that had toppled him, and on the steel exam table and the rusting body lockers beyond. I tried not to think about the neat handwritten labels on the front, brown with age, or the door that hung open on flagging hinges, revealing a dirty slide-out stretcher.

“Son of a mother!” He rolled onto his back, gripping his injured shin.

“That chair doesn’t belong in here,” Barbara said warily.

“Well, why’d you leave it by the door?” I asked, rushing to Ellis as he sat up.

“I didn’t,” Barbara said, inspecting the room with her light. “It wasn’t in here before. I don’t like this one bit.”

Well, that made three of us.

Ellis was in serious pain. He’d gone deathly pale, and if he passed out, we were in real trouble. “We’ve got to get you out of here,” I said. “Can you use your good leg?”

“Yeah,” he said, gripping the wall as I helped him up and got his crutch under his arm.

Barbara didn’t lift a finger. She just stood there, frowning, shining her light every which way.

“We’re going back up,” I said.

I wanted to get away from her and this place.

“Fine. I’ll handle the generator myself,” she said, backing out of the room.

“You do that,” Ellis grunted. He looked ready to fall over any second. I shoved his larger flashlight into my back pocket and wrapped an arm around him, using my teeth to grip my mini light. This was going to be interesting.

“It may take a few minutes,” Barbara added, her voice traveling away from us, down the hall. “There’s a lot of junk in front of the old generator.”

Sure, she had it rough.

I kept Ellis steady, trying to run my fingers comfortingly over the small of his back as I supported him up the stairs, trying not to think about what might happen if one of us slipped.

“We’re good,” he huffed, understanding my concern as only he could.

“Really?” I murmured.

“Well, no. I think it’s broken,” he admitted.

I took the light out of my mouth and took a few seconds to recover. “As soon as Barbara gets the power on, we’ll call an ambulance.”

“And swim across the creek,” he added, his humor falling flat.

We were a team. We’d find our way somehow.

Shadows flickered across the passageway up ahead. Surely, a trick of the light. I wasn’t tuned in to Frankie’s powers at the moment, nor did I want to be.

Scalieri said at least one of the ghosts in this joint is extremely powerful. And quite possibly insane…

“We’ll be out of here soon,” I promised.

I eased Ellis out into the lobby, where we both slid down onto the floor and leaned against the wall next to the staircase. I was sitting on his flashlight. I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him as I wiped my mouth, my jaws aching from holding my own flashlight.

“That was awful,” Ellis managed.

“Let’s see what your leg looks like,” I said, reaching for him in the dark.

“Let’s not,” he said, patting my thigh.

“Okay, well, we’re in a good spot for now.”

“We’ve been in worse,” he agreed.

We’d made it out of the basement. Barbara would get the power on. We’d leave and never come back.

I leaned my head back against the wall. “What do you think that was in the morgue?”

Ellis thought for a moment, his breath still coming hard. “I don’t know, but now that I’m actually physically experiencing this, I’m starting to think your job is as dangerous as mine.”

I laced my fingers with his. I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I almost wish I’d had Frankie’s power downstairs.” If only to see what had happened.

“No, you don’t.” Ellis sat up straighter. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I’m behind your ghost hunting most of the time. But I’ll be glad when we leave this place.”

Me too.

“What’s taking Barbara so long?” I asked, waiting for the lights, the stream of power that would break us out of the dark.

“Maybe there was a lot of junk to clear.”

And so we waited five more minutes. Ten.

“She wouldn’t leave us here, go out another way.” Would she?

“I doubt it,” Ellis said. “There’s no reason for her to sneak out. She needs to turn the power on and then call for help. The electricity’s not on yet. We left the lobby lights blazing.”

True. I clicked on my light. “I’m going to check on her.”

“Don’t,” he warned.

I slipped away from him. “I’ll be fine.” The sooner we got out of there, the quicker we could get Ellis’s leg set.

“It’s like you’re not even thinking about the bad stuff down there,” Ellis murmured to himself.

I lingered a few feet away in the darkness. That was where he was wrong. I knew my job could be dangerous—the same as his was. But there was nothing to be done about it.

Just like Ellis, I tackled the task at hand.

At the moment, that meant descending a winding staircase into a maze of tunnels, where I just had to retrace my steps past the body chute and the morgue.

And so I did. I crept down into the darkness.

My light bounced off the rusted metal of the staircase and cast shadows over the dreary passage below.

It was normal to be afraid. Anyone or anything could be down here. I didn’t ignore the danger and I didn’t take this lightly.

I hurried along the dank passageway, feeling very alone.

Exposed.

I kept my cool and walked a steady pace until I saw the morgue up ahead.

Dang it. The door was still ajar.

I didn’t want to think about what might still be inside.

Focus.

We needed a working generator and a way to escape. I skirted past the morgue and turned the knob to the boiler room.

Why would Barbara close herself in when she was trying to move things out of the way?

Then again, why did Barbara do anything?

I aimed my flashlight inside the cluttered boiler room and saw a cleared path among boxes of tools and masks and junk. And at the end, the asylum owner hunched over a metal box.

“Barbara?” I pressed forward.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t move. When I drew closer, my light fell upon her bloodied head and I understood why.

8

Blood pooled on the floor beneath her.

Sweet Jesus. It didn’t look good. Still, I touched two fingers to the skin on her neck. It was still warm. I felt the pulse point. Nothing. I looked into her vacant, glassy eyes. Barbara was dead. She was very, very dead.

I took a step back, and then about three more.

Deep breath.

I’d run into far too many bodies in the last year and a half, but at least that meant I knew what to do. Once I had things squared away down here, I’d get Ellis. Thank goodness he was close by, even if he was injured.

Something clattered out in the hall.

I froze.

Barbara’s killer was near—there hadn’t been time for him or her or them to go far. And now I was sort of a witness. Or at least the girl standing over the body. Alone. In the basement. With only a flashlight to protect me.

Snap out of it. Nothing good would come from running like blazes.

With swift, deliberate movements, I walked as wide a path as I could around the murder scene, trying not to disturb any footprints the killer might have left in the dirt. At least I was wearing Keds. My prints would be obvious.

I found a cleaning rag in one of the boxes and used it to pluck the keys from Barbara’s back pocket, trying to preserve any fingerprints. Then I retreated the way I’d come and walked straight for the door.

Locking her in the boiler room would keep the crime scene intact—as long as the killer didn’t also have a set of keys.

I stopped cold, chewing my lip.

Strange things had been happening in this place from the minute I stepped onto the lawn. Someone or something disturbing Barbara’s body through a locked door would be just one more unexplainable incident to add to the list.

All right, then. An idea formed, and I eased the cell phone from my back pocket. I couldn’t use it to call for help, but I could make it work for me now. Quickly, deliberately, I took as many photographs as I could find angles. Then I took a calculated risk. I couldn’t email the photos anywhere yet, or even upload them to the cloud, but I could still do one more thing to monitor the scene.

I set my phone to record audio and hid it in the nearest box of junk. It pained me to leave it behind—I was nowhere near finished paying it off, and it was my phone.

Still, Ellis had his. We’d be able to call for help. And with my phone hidden near the body, we could at least hear if anyone disturbed the murder scene. We might even get a lead on the killer. And I doubted anyone would be looking for an iPhone in a box of plumbing supplies.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” I said to Barbara as I locked her into the boiler room. She might not have been my favorite person in the world, but she didn’t deserve to die like this. Nobody did.

I wrapped Barbara’s keys in the rag and slipped them into my pocket. I’d done my best, I told myself as I leaned up against the boiler room door. The body was as secure as I could make it.

Now my friends and I were merely stuck in a haunted asylum with a killer.

I’d fix that, too.

In the meantime, I’d have to watch my back on the way out of here. I aimed my light down the hallway past the boiler room. The packed-dirt floor in that direction appeared soupy, with standing puddles in a few spots. So if I heard splashing from that direction, that would be bad.

No doubt the multiple passageways offered an abundance of places to access the basement. And the dead-body dumbwaiter provided almost instant access from the third floor. It would have been fairly easy for the Burowskis to sneak down and kill Barbara if they knew where they were going—which they would have if they’d secured a layout of the property they intended to buy.

Right now, the passage looked clear.

I hurried in the direction of the spiral staircase, careful to avoid the patches of loose gravel littering the uneven floor. I didn’t want to make any noise that would give my location away.

I’d feel so much better once I got upstairs with Ellis. If the Burowskis wanted Barbara’s asylum, it wouldn’t make sense to kill her. With the owner dead, the property would be tied up in probate for heaven knew how long. All they’d had to do was wait for her to miss a payment.

Unless Barbara had dug up the cash or sold an obscene amount of overnight rooms for a thousand dollars each.

Or unless the Burowskis had a more sinister motive.

Cold air swept down the passageway, tangling in my hair like the caress of ghostly fingers.

Oh, mother. I was so glad I didn’t have Frankie’s power. Of course, the living didn’t always need extra powers to feel the presence of a ghost.

I braced a hand on the rough stone wall and took a second to slow the frantic beat of my heart. I didn’t want to see anything. I didn’t want to feel anything, but I’d endure the very real, very definite cold creeping up the back of my neck as long as I’d be safe soon.

Up ahead of me, the door to the morgue creaked open.

I clicked off my flashlight and stood in the complete darkness that could only come from being underground.

The cold spot settled just behind my left ear. It felt like something lingered right there.

I stood perfectly still, tamping down the urge to flip on my light, rub my ear, and run straight for the stairs, screaming as if my life depended on it. Which it might.

But if the killer was hiding in the morgue, they’d catch up with me before Ellis ever could, and I’d end up with my head smashed in like Barbara.

So I eased my back against the cold stone wall, trying to make myself as small as possible, my shallow breath sounding loud in my ears.

I jumped at a bang echoing from the morgue. It sounded like one of the metal doors in the body storage area.

Sakes alive! I wanted to run.

Only they’d hear me. I’d be charging over gravel and debris. I couldn’t make it past the morgue, and I couldn’t retreat through the swampy puddles the opposite way. I hadn’t explored that part of the tunnels, so I wouldn’t know where I was going. Barbara said the underground tunnels were like a maze, and the last thing I wanted was to get lost down here.

Still, I had to do something. The rock wall dug into my skin, and my back went entirely cold. I didn’t know if it was from the awful ghostly presence or the fact that I was trying to press myself into the wall as if that would solve anything.

“We’re clear.” A man spoke low and urgent.

Oh, cripes. It wasn’t Tom Burowski.

I gripped my flashlight tighter. There was a strange man in the basement. A live one.

“Then let’s get out of here,” another man insisted.

Make that two strange men. And I had no weapon save for my light and the fact that they thought they were alone.

I eased toward the boiler room. Maybe I could hide in there with the body. Unless that was where they were headed. But there was no telling what lay farther down the hallway, if I could even get inside another room.

The crackling debris under my shoes sounded as loud as gunshots, and I froze.

“Who’s there?” the first man demanded. A blinding light filled my eyes, and I was caught like a rat in a maze.

It was too late to make a break for it. Too long to wait for an injured Ellis. And definitely not the time for charm.

Men who slunk around in basements feared only one thing.

I threw my shoulders back, turned, and hit him with my own beam. “Aha,” I shouted like I knew what I was doing, holding out a hand, as if that would keep him at bay, “I’m with the police.”

There were at least two of them, all right. They appeared younger, thin, but still way bigger than me. I didn’t stand a chance if this got bad.

“Officer Wydell!” I shouted, my voice echoing down the hall.

“Frack,” the first man muttered. He kept his high-powered flashlight trained on me. He wore a second light strapped to his head and also had a video camera pointed straight at me. The other man I saw in shadow as he raised his arms in the air. He held a flat black box in his hand. It didn’t look like a gun, more like a recording device.

“Hey, look,” the shadow guy’s words came fast. “I know we said we’d never come back here again.”

“That’s right,” I agreed, having no idea, but it sounded good and they weren’t attacking me, so that was an A plus in my book.

“Please don’t arrest us.” The guy lowered the video camera. He looked to be about twenty years old, with spiky blond hair dyed red on the ends. “I’m applying to grad school this fall, and I can’t have a police record.”

“I’m up for an accelerated doctoral program in astrophysics,” his buddy hastily added.

“Well…” That was unexpected. “Were you two the ones who broke in upstairs?”

The men exchanged a look but didn’t answer.

“We’ll go up to the lobby and sort it out,” I said, maintaining my air of authority. “You two first.” I ushered them down the hall ahead of me, careful not to get too close lest I be forced to pull out my nonexistent weapon or use the judo skills I might have picked up while driving past the Sugarland Goshin Academy for Kids of All Ages.

They wore packs on their backs, stuffed full, with strange-looking gadgets poking out of multiple pockets. I could see a red light blinking under the canvas pocket on the second guy’s pack.

The guy with the video recorder looked back at me with pleading eyes. “We were just looking for Crazy Charlie. We got an apparition the last time we were down here, and we couldn’t just give it up, you know?”

“Like a sighting?” I’d assumed Barbara had made the whole story up.

He nodded fast. “I swear we saw smoke forming on camera, and then that owner gal barged in on us yelling and, whoosh—it was gone.”

“You’d think Barbara would be excited to have ghost hunters find her a spirit,” I stated.

“Not us,” the first one balked. “She can’t stand us. We won’t give her squat.”

His friend stopped. “We wouldn’t even show her when we captured an EVP.”

“EVP?” I asked, turning my light on him. He appeared to be about the same age as his friend, African-American, with a silver cross dangling from one ear.

“You don’t know much about ghost hunting, do you?” he asked.

“I’ve dabbled,” I told him.

“EVP means electronic voice phenomenon,” he explained, as if I’d never heard the voice of a ghost, or had one talk my ear off.

“Keep moving,” I told them, careful not to let these men distract me. I was alone with two strangers in the dark. They might be students like they claimed, but I wasn’t taking anything for granted until I got them upstairs.

“The EVP said ‘die,’” the guy said, holding up his voice recorder.

“Or it could have been saying ‘hi,’” his friend countered as we reached the spiral staircase.

I really hoped Ellis was at the top.

“Why would an insane murderer say hi?” demanded the dangly-earring guy, shifting the pack on his back.

“Crazy Charlie was a person too,” his friend countered.

Maybe the spiky-hair guy wasn’t so bad. I might give him the benefit of the doubt as long as neither one of them tried to flee as soon as we made it upstairs. “What are your names?” I pressed.

“Brett Peterson,” said the earring guy. “Cash,” his friend said at the same time.

“Verity Long,” I said, ushering them up the stairs. “And I won’t arrest you for trespassing this time,” I added. Technically, I couldn’t arrest them for anything, even murder. “Did you see Barbara tonight?”

“Only when we snuck past her trailer in the rain,” Brett said.

Cash followed close on his tail. “You’re the one who wanted to sneak across the bridge before it flooded.”

His friend huffed and yanked on his backpack strap. “I was not going to hike this equipment through the woods again.”

“Through the woods? You mean there’s a back way out?” I asked, redirecting the conversation.

“There are trails,” Brett explained. “Public ones.” He eyed me over his shoulder. “We weren’t trespassing on those.”

“The river is too high to get to the trails,” Cash added. “Has been for days. Totally impassable.”

Darn. I’d been hoping we had another option.

A flashlight at the top of the stairs caught Brett’s profile and he turned to me. “Look, we’re really sorry.”

“Go,” I told him, relieved to finally get the two men into the lobby and find Ellis up top, leaning heavily on his crutch, but standing. Thank heaven.

“Verity,” he said, eyeing the two men, “where have you been? Why isn’t the power on?”

“Barbara’s dead,” I said, watching Brett and Cash for their reactions. Ellis swore under his breath.

The other men stood stunned. “What?” Cash managed after a few long moments.

“Are you positive?” Ellis asked under his breath.

“She’s gone,” I confirmed. “You didn’t see her down there?” I asked the ghost hunters. “After all, you were next door in the morgue when it happened.”

Brett looked from me to Ellis. “We heard her,” he sputtered. “She and a group came down all loud and looking for the generator. We had to hide somewhere.”

Ellis eyed him. “So you were inside the morgue.” His mouth formed a thin line. “I knew it.”

He’d sworn someone had been inside, and Ellis’s instincts rarely steered us wrong.

“Which of you hit me with the chair?” Ellis asked pointedly.

Both the men appeared stunned. “We didn’t hit anybody. We…we were hiding,” Brett sputtered.

“I heard you yell.” Cash swallowed hard. “Dang.” He kicked his work boot against the marble floor. A chunk of gray mud broke off and scattered. “It must have been the ghost. Crazy Charlie is powerful.”

“He’s real?” Ellis asked.

“They think so,” I offered.

Brett shook his head. “We didn’t see anything. We slid into the body drawers.”

My word. “That’s awful.”

Brett’s lip tugged up into a slight grin. “It was kind of awesome. I got a wicked high meter reading in mine.” His friend gaped, and he added proudly, “Middle drawer in the second row.”

“Mint Julep Manor is the best,” Cash gushed.

That was up for debate.

“You’re ghost hunters?” Joan asked, turning the corner at the top of the stairs.

Brett nodded. “Astrophysicist by day, ghost hunter by night,” he said sheepishly. “Boy, there sure are a lot of people here tonight.”

My light caught the gray mud on Joan’s black loafers as she hurried down the stairs. “These two men were in the basement at the same time you were,” I said, testing her.

The mud could have come from outside, but I doubted it. I’d dragged some in, and it had been a dark brown.

Joan eyed me as she joined us. “I wasn’t in the basement.”

“She was too busy making friends with Rodger,” her husband said, his tone suggesting he thought we were all nuts.

“I apologize,” I said. “Maybe I’m a little jumpy. I walked in on Barbara in the basement. She’s been murdered.”

Joan gasped.

Brett’s EVP box clattered to the floor.

“You didn’t say murder.” Cash scanned the group like one of us was about to pull a knife on him. “I figured she had a heart attack or something.”

Tom didn’t seem nearly surprised enough. “Have you called the police?”

“I am the police,” Ellis answered dryly.

“So is she,” Brett added, pointing at me.

“I said I was with the police,” I muttered as Ellis raised an eyebrow at me. “And I am. But we have something more important to discuss right now.” I told everyone what I’d found.

Joan’s eyes widened. “How awful.”

“For us and for her,” Tom added.

Joan narrowed her eyes at him.

“Sorry,” Tom said automatically.

“We’re the only ones here,” Cash said, his voice going up an octave. “That means one of you did it.”

“Or one of you,” Joan countered.

Cash gaped. “We didn’t even talk to Barbara tonight.”

“We were upstairs the whole time,” Tom reminded the group.

“Unless somebody else is here,” I said, scanning the faces in our little circle.

“No.” Brett gulped. “There were no other cars. We parked on the other side of the bridge and were the last ones in before the creek flooded.”

“So one of you is the killer,” Tom said icily.

“Somebody here is,” Cash agreed, looking to me. Hopefully, because I was with the police.

Tears welled in Joan’s eyes. She took a step back. “I don’t think I want to stay here anymore.”

Ellis watched her carefully. In fact, he’d done nothing but observe. I wished I knew what he was thinking. “Nobody’s leaving until I say so.”

“We can’t leave with the bridge out, anyway,” I said to the group.

“We can at least get power,” Tom said. “Two of us can move Barbara’s body away from the generator. We’ll get it going and then we’ll have lights and phones to call for help.”

“No good,” Ellis stated. “We can’t move the body.”

“Not with your leg,” Tom agreed. “I’m talking about the teenagers.”

“I’m twenty-four,” Cash balked.

“We’re not moving the body,” Ellis grated out.

Brett cleared his throat. “Barbara has—er—had a landline in the trailer.”

Ellis turned to him. “How do you know?”

Cash wet his lips. “She ran out there to call the police on us last week,” he said, exchanging a look with Brett. “It gave us the extra time we needed to split.”

Ellis stiffened but kept his focus on the murder instead of the break-ins. “She should have mentioned a landline when we first told her we needed to get out of here.”

“Not if she’d rather have your muscle to move all those boxes and get her generator working,” I observed. In any case, we needed a phone. “I’ll head out to the trailer.” I still had Barbara’s keys. I should be able to get in.

“Why you?” Tom countered. He hitched a thumb at Ellis. “Or are you not a suspect because you’re the cop’s girlfriend?”

“She found the body. She could have killed Barbara,” Brett reasoned.

“Hey—” I tossed up a hand to stop him. “It’s not like I can get very far.” I crossed to the door, ending the debate. “I’m just going to call for help,” I said, turning the knob and yanking the door, which refused to open. Stunned, I tried it again. It wouldn’t budge.

“Son of a gun.” Frankie’s voice sounded in my ear. “I was hoping one of the living could get it open. This is worse than I thought.”

I closed my eyes. “What did you do now?”

“I had nothing to do with this,” Cash said from behind me.

That was not who I’d meant.

Frankie shimmered into existence next to me, his jacket mussed and his hat askew. “It wasn’t my fault.”

It never was.

“Frankie…” I muttered, trying the door again.

“I had Scalieri’s leg iron off,” he blurted, his words running over themselves. “The guards were none the wiser. I figured I’d pop out and work on the outside bars, only—bam!—I couldn’t even make it through the window!”

“The door isn’t budging,” I warned.

“If it was my fault, the guards would have gotten me already,” Frankie pointed out.

True.

“We’re trapped?” Cash croaked.

“That’s impossible,” Brett said, scooting around me and trying the knob himself.

Joan tried the front window. Cash joined her.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Tom said, taking over for Brett, “maybe you’ve just got to jiggle it.” He grunted, trying with all his strength to wrench the door open.

Frankie paced behind him. “This is awful. The worst!” He dug a finger under his tie and yanked it loose. “I wasn’t meant to be locked in anywhere.”

Then he should stop doing things that could land him in prison.

I stopped. Drew a breath. “Let’s think. There has to be a logical reason why this is happening.” A door was low-tech. It couldn’t go out like a phone system or an electric grid. Same for windows. You lift them, they open.

Unless we were dealing with a very powerful ghost.

“We can always use the jimmied window in the office,” Cash said, earning a look from Ellis. “Let me just check,” he added, embarrassed, crossing over into the supervisor’s office.

“I’m up for a window,” I said, watching Tom try to heave open the door and fail, over and over again.

Cash emerged from the office, grim-faced. “That window is stuck shut.”

“Stand back.” Ellis lifted his crutch and smashed it down hard on the front window. The glass remained whole.

“No way,” Tom stated, his voice hard. “Allow me,” he said to Ellis.

My injured boyfriend obliged, and Tom put all his muscle behind a hit to the same window.

Tom yelped with the pain of the impact and didn’t even manage a crack in the glass.

“We’re trapped,” Joan shrieked.

“Thanks, Einstein,” Frankie shot back.

“It has to be the ghost,” she said, rubbing her eyebrows. “Rodger? Maybe he doesn’t want me to leave.”

“We’ll try more windows, other doors,” Ellis said. “We’ll make this work.”

“Right on,” I said.

We’d figure this out.

In the meantime, we were locked inside the asylum with a killer.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, not convincing anybody as we formed an uneasy circle in the lobby. “There’s always a way out,” I reminded the group. Tom gave the door one last yank.

“Until there’s not,” he said, stepping away. For the first time, I saw him truly rattled.

9

“Spread out,” Ellis ordered. “Let’s find an open window or door.”

“There are two front-facing rooms on the south hall and one on the north where the safety screens are missing,” Brett volunteered.

“I’ll try the south hall,” I said. I’d been down that way before to see Scalieri, and that was where I’d seen Nurse Claymore. Hopefully, I could run into her again.

“We’ll take the north,” Cash insisted.

“As soon as we calibrate our gear,” Brett crouched, digging into one of the large pockets in his cargo pants.

“We’re not technically looking for ghosts this time,” Cash gritted out as his friend ripped a battery out of his pack, swapping it for a fresh one.

“You’re going to pass up a shot to investigate the north hall?” Brett challenged under his breath.

“Try to make it quick,” Ellis muttered to me as I double-checked the flashlight in my back pocket. “I’m not letting anyone else down that hallway with you.”

Because one of them could be a killer, one that might even have an interest in wiping out the girl who found the body.

“I’ve got this,” I said, erring on the side of unbridled optimism rather than dwelling on the fact that an unknown force was keeping us trapped inside the haunted asylum.

And that my boyfriend wasn’t long for standing.

I gave him a quick peck and hurried for the haunted hallway on the left side of the lobby. Just knowing I couldn’t walk out the door made me want to jump out a window.

But I could do this. I could find us a way out.

I pushed on the double doors I’d used to visit Scalieri, but I might as well have been trying to shove through concrete. They didn’t budge.

“Did Barbara lock these?” I called, fumbling for her keys.

“They should be open,” Ellis said.

Only they weren’t.

I tucked the flashlight under my arm and unwrapped my evidence bundle. Careful not to touch anything directly, I tried a large heavy key first.

Only it didn’t come close to fitting in the lock.

All right. I tried another. And another. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to get my fingerprints all over these.

“You’re not getting through that way.” An edgy Frankie shimmered into existence next to me.

“Stop being so negative,” I murmured, trying a tiny sad key that looked more likely to fit inside the lock than open it.

We were running out of options.

Frankie hit me with a blast of power that made my eyes water.

“Son of a mother!” I bent over as the prickly cold energy filtered through me, chilling me body and soul. It was equal parts searing and discombobulating and, “You could have warned me,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Again. And—oh, wow…”

That was when I saw it—a ghostly glow coming from the lock itself. It shimmered in shades of eerie, iridescent silver.

“It’s the same way on the front door,” Frankie said tightly. “And over the windows. I don’t even know how to break us out this time.”

“Think of it as a challenge,” I told him.

“I like it better when nobody is onto us.” He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and tried twice to light it before the end finally caught fire. “Seems we’ve caught the attention of the dominant ghost.”

Maybe the ghost was nice. “Can we please try to look at the positives?”

He blew out a breath, scanning the lobby. “I’m positive we’re trapped.”

That wasn’t helping. “We’ll try the north hall.”

Brett and Cash were still clustered by the stairs, arguing over gear. We’d be in and out before they could organize enough to catch up.

“Nothing to worry about,” I chirped, crossing the back of the lobby, trying my best to reassure the group gathered at the front entrance. Tom conferred with Ellis while Joan had her hands spread, no doubt waiting to feel some tingling in her fingertips.

“Verity—” Ellis called after me.

“I’m fine!” I assured him.

“You’re a bad liar,” Frankie muttered, exhaling smoke.

“You’re not going to teach me,” I reminded him.

The doors to the north hall lay open. Thank goodness.

Our situation had gone from bad to worse, but it would only take one stroke of luck to free us from this place. And to help that along a bit, I backtracked to a mess of boxes containing Barbara’s tools and pulled out a big wrench.

Frankie let out a low whistle. “Maybe you are learning something from me.”

I hefted the tool in my hand. “This is for breaking out, not breaking in,” I reminded him.

“Baby steps,” Frankie mused.

I’d have preferred a hammer, but we were on a schedule here, and the wrench felt heavy in my hand, solid. It was practically begging for a window to bust through.

“I remember seeing construction scaffolding on the north wing when we arrived,” I said, struggling to picture it. “I think I even saw the window with the missing screen now that I think about it.”

Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. It was hard to remember. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.

According to Brett, the north hall had at least one window with a safety screen missing. I’d find it, open it, and we’d all climb out that way. If it was painted shut, I’d break us out. The dominant ghost couldn’t have energy-blocked every single exit. And if it had, well, maybe I could reason with it.

“We can also look for a side door out to the yard,” Frankie supplied. “With any luck, the dominant ghost doesn’t know about every modern door and window, especially any areas that might have renovation going on.”

“Good point.” Spirits often saw places as they had been during their lifetime, not how they were in the present.

“Who’s she talking to?” Cash asked, catching up to us as I used both hands to shove the doors open on the north hall.

They opened easily.

“That’s our hall,” Brett protested. And when I turned back, I realized we’d attracted the attention of the entire group.

“She’s a real ghost hunter,” Joan said.

“I appreciate that you want to investigate,” I said to the men, “but you can always come back and do that. Right now, we need to find a way out of this place.”

“As soon as we calibrate, we’re in there,” Brett warned.

“So be it.” It didn’t change the job I had to do.

“You will not follow her,” Ellis countered, struggling to catch up to the group with his bum leg.

I didn’t see how he could stop them, but hopefully, I’d be out before they could calibrate their gear. And if they were the killers? Well, everybody would know they did it if I wound up dead.

I propped the doors open behind us. The hallway glowed with a soft gray light.

“Act casual,” the gangster said, scanning the silent north hall.

Ghostly glows emanated from underneath several of the doors.

“Maybe one of them can help us,” I suggested.

“Acting casual does not mean talking to the patients,” Frankie said under his breath.

A sigh echoed down the long hallway, followed by a low growl.

Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be prudent to disturb Nurse Claymore’s wards.

“Come on,” I said, “if I remember right, the scaffolding is farther down.”

I kept my strides slow and purposeful, the wrench clutched tightly in my hand.

At least we weren’t underground. There were no dead bodies on this floor—well, none that I’d seen.

We passed under a sputtering ghostly light overhead, my foot scattering the tinkling remains of the real bulb, which lay in pieces on the floor.

“Whatever it is, it knows we’re here,” he warned. “The energy is getting stronger.” As he said it, the ghostly lights in the hallway flicked on one by one, burning brightly.

The hair on my arms lifted as a wave of what felt like static electricity pulsed down the hall. “Unbelievable,” I whispered. The other side glowed in sharp relief. I could hear the man in the room next to me, quietly calling to his mother. I saw the brush strokes on the number 12 painted on his door.

Frankie held out his hands as if an attack could come from anywhere. “This time, we’re really in trouble,” he vowed.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I said as the doors to the lobby slammed closed.

Frankie screamed like a girl. Or maybe that was me.

Cries from the group echoed from the lobby, and I froze, shocked, not sure what to say or where to go and…ohmygosh, the locks on the north doors were now glowing, the same as the ones in the south hall.

“We’re trapped.” Frankie clutched his head.

“Maybe not,” I said, rushing for the doors, trying them.

“I never should have followed you. Why did I follow you? You never know where you’re going!”

Frankie had lost his cigarette and his hat.

“Calm. Down,” I urged. If only because he was freaking me out. “We’re fine!” I hollered to the group, hoping I was telling the truth.

“We are in no way, no how fine!” Frankie hollered at me. “We’re like bugs under glass.”

“Those doors banged shut on their own.” Cash’s voice sounded from outside.

“I saw. I saw,” Tom shot back as the hinges rattled with human efforts to open them. The locks didn’t budge. They simply glowed from the inside with an unsettling silver light.

“They’re locked,” Ellis cursed. “How do they just lock?”

“How did the front door lock?” I asked, my head swimming. Lord in heaven. “How did the windows lock?”

“Verity, I want you out of there immediately,” Ellis ordered.

Ha. “Yeah.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I want that too, but it isn’t going to happen.” Frankie was right. We were trapped.

“I can’t take it. I wasn’t meant to be incarcerated!” The ghost disappeared, then reappeared almost instantly, his jacket rumpled, his hair mussed. “It’s not letting me go to the lobby or the stairs or anywhere. I never should have come here. I should have stayed home.”

I was starting to agree with him.

“We’re not going to make it back into the lobby,” I said to the group. “We’ll need to stick with the original plan and try to get outside.”

“Be careful,” Ellis warned.

He didn’t need to tell me twice. Still, that warning was the best he could do to keep me safe, so I accepted it with grace. “I’ll be fine,” I told him.

“That’s what you always say before the hammer comes down,” Frankie accused, standing uncomfortably close, his fisted hands clutched to his chest.

I couldn’t argue with that. “Let’s keep going,” I said, continuing down the hall.

“Something’s coming for us,” Frankie gasped as leaves at the far end of the hallway stirred.

“Maybe that means an open window,” I countered, clinging to the bright side. I forced myself to walk toward the stirring leaves. “As soon as we get out, we’ll call the police. They can secure Barbara’s body, question the suspects, and get Ellis to the hospital. Once he’s fixed up, we’ll focus on the job for Scalieri.”

Frankie huffed. “You see now why I don’t like to go anywhere haunted with you?”

I didn’t answer because right at that moment, a ghost took form among the swirling leaves.

He wore a white robe. No. Make that a doctor’s coat, and poking from it, a starched collar, a necktie, and a deeply lined face with heavy black-framed glasses.

“Stop walking,” Frankie ordered as I pressed toward the apparition. “I mean it,” the gangster urged, skirting in front of me so close I nearly ran through him.

“Frank!” I stopped short.

He pointed to an open doorway to my right. It lay dark. And when I shined my flashlight inside, I saw a window with no bars. And outside? Metal scaffolding.

“You’re brilliant,” I said, so thankful I would have hugged him if ghost-to-human contact wouldn’t send us both reeling.

“You remember you said that,” he commented, zipping ahead of me into the side room.

I took one last look at the ghost among the leaves. He was still forming, his eyes hollow, his lower body a haze of white. “Let’s do this,” I said, ducking in after Frankie.

“Less talking, more escaping,” the gangster urged. He reached out and his white Panama hat shimmered into existence in his hand. He tipped it onto his head as we investigated.

The room lay empty save for a neatly made bed against a wall and a sink dripping rust. What a great place.

“Watch my back,” I said, tossing my wrench onto the bed. It clattered to the floor because the bed wasn’t really there. Dang. Everything looked so real. I ran my hands along the top of the window. I couldn’t locate any locks or hinges, so I lifted it from the bottom.

It didn’t budge.

Which, okay, kind of made sense. You wouldn’t want patients opening their windows and slipping out into the yard.

“My turn,” Frankie insisted. I stepped back out of the way and was barely clear when he shot headfirst for the glass.

Bang!

Frankie bounced off it like a startled bird. His hat went flying and he landed on his butt on the floor. “It’s solid!” He rubbed at a spot near his hairline, just above the bullet hole marring his forehead. “Why is it solid?”

“Whatever it is, it’s designed to keep ghosts in,” I murmured.

“And the living too, apparently,” Frankie said.

But we still had one secret weapon.

I doubted many patients—or people—had what I did. I reached through the cold, wet illusion of the hospital bed and retrieved the wrench from the floor.

“This had better work,” Frankie said as he dazedly picked himself up off the floor, watching my every move.

Truth be told, I was cringing inside at the thought of smashing the glass. I didn’t exactly know what I was doing, and there was a good chance I’d cut myself. Badly. But people were counting on me. I swung back and aimed.

“Stop!” A swirling white mass formed directly in front of the window, and my wrench clattered to the floor.

“Whoa.” I hastily retrieved my wrench as the spirit took the form of the doctor I’d seen at the end of the hall.

So much for avoiding him.

This time, he appeared so close and so fully I could see the slightly crooked twist of his tie and the crisp, even comb marks in his hair.

“Calm yourself, miss,” he said, gently holding up his hands. “Property destruction is never the answer.”

In this case, it was. “We’re trapped in here,” I explained, gripping the wrench, reluctant to take a swing at the window with him blocking it. Now that I was tuned in to the ghostly side, I’d just as likely whack him upside the head. It wouldn’t permanently hurt him, but it might earn me a set of restraints. “This is our only way out.”

“Is this place so bad?” he clucked. Then upon further study of me, he straightened. “I’m sorry,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “At first glance, you resemble one of my patients. She’s a dear woman, but delusional and eager to wander. You don’t belong here at all.”

“She’s not even dead yet,” Frankie supplied.

“My name is Verity Long,” I said by way of introduction, “and I just stopped by with my friend Frankie to visit a patient of yours.”

“That’s very kind.” The doctor smiled gently and then glanced over his shoulder at the window, where I noticed sparkling silver bars tightly crisscrossing it. They hadn’t been there before. “I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, but it seems we are on lockdown.”

“But why?” I asked. “There are a lot of frightened people in your lobby right now who can’t get out.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor soothed. “It’s not meant to cause distress. This is a procedure to keep us all safe.”

“Or give us a coronary,” Frankie sputtered.

The doctor gave him an indulgent smile. “Lockdown only means no one is coming in or going out at this time.” He tilted his head. “Tell me, sir, do you always feel this kind of anxiety?”

“No,” Frankie and I said at once.

The last thing we needed was Frankie being admitted for a psychiatric evaluation. Once the gangster started listing all his issues, we really would be here forever.

“How long will we be trapped inside?” I asked.

“Not long,” he assured us. “Most likely a dear man from the third floor has gotten out of his room. He likes to wander, and we don’t want him going far.”

Either that or the dominant ghost had it out for the living.

The doctor consulted his clipboard. “We had a patient escape once and it was terrible.” He shook his head. “I still grieve for him.”

“Was that patient’s name Charlie?” I asked.

“It was. I’m sure you read about it in the papers. They made it sound as if we were too busy and didn’t care.” His lips formed a firm line. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll regret his loss for the rest of my afterlife.” He eased his glasses off and cleaned them on his coat. “Once Nurse Claymore has ensured the safety of each patient under our care, you’ll be free to leave.”

“Is Nurse Claymore the dominant ghost?” Frankie asked, fidgeting with his collar as if it had grown too tight.

The doctor smiled kindly. “Not at all. I am.” His name tag read Anderson. I recognized his name, and now that I looked at him closely, I recognized his face. He looked younger than his portrait on the lobby stairs, but this was definitely Seymour Anderson. He didn’t appear menacing. Or evil. He spoke to us like a favorite uncle. “I lend Nurse Claymore my power because I trust her. And you should, too. You might be interested to know she’s a doctor.”

“How wonderful,” I said. “How progressive.”

“Class of 1915. She graduated near the top. She’s just not allowed to practice, being a woman,” he added.

“Ain’t that the way,” Frankie mused.

“Not anymore,” I corrected.

Dr. Anderson put his glasses back on. “I gave her a good job here and the authority to do the work she trained for, even if she can’t be called a doctor,” he said as if we would argue her worthiness. “And lockdown will take as long as it takes. Nurse Claymore works for me, but I’d trust her with my life. If she saw a need to bar the exits, I’m sure she had a reason. She was as upset as I was when poor Charlie escaped.”

“She cares, Dr. Anderson,” I said, trying to calm the thumping of my heart. “I’m sure that makes her quite effective at her job.”

“So you two are just going to doctor forever,” Frankie said as if he couldn’t quite figure out why.

“We’re the only two left. These patients are like family to us,” he said. “We can cure them. We just need more time.”

As in eternity.

Yikes. I could understand Nurse Claymore—or should I say, Dr. Claymore—had something to prove. But Dr. Anderson must really be dedicated. No wonder his picture was on the wall.

Now we needed him to help us.

“Visits like yours really help,” he assured me.

“Sure.” Scalieri had been thrilled. “Listen, what you’re doing is very noble,” I managed. “It is. But you have a lot of scared live people in your lobby. I don’t know if you realize, but the current owner of the property was killed less than an hour ago down in the basement.”

He parted his lips in surprise. “Have you called the police?”

“I’m with the police,” I said. At least as far as he was concerned, that should be close enough.

“And you got on me for lying,” Frankie muttered.

I shot him a look. We didn’t need to worry about details at a time like this.

The doctor nodded, thinking to himself. “Thank you. This changes everything.”

“Fantastic,” I said, shooting a look to Frankie that said see? I turned back to the good doctor. “Now if you could just open the doors—”

He smiled sympathetically. “I’ll inform Nurse Claymore we may have a new resident. Not as a patient, but if the newly deceased would like to haunt her death spot, we will certainly make accommodations.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I hope Barbara has moved on.” Spirits went to a transition period immediately after death. Then most went to the light. “We’d like to leave, too.”

The ease faded from Dr. Anderson’s expression. “I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere.”

My throat went dry. “You said we could go soon.” As soon as the lockdown was over.

“Circumstances have changed,” he said, matter-of-fact.

He didn’t understand. “There’s a killer inside your asylum. Right now.”

“Exactly,” he said, not getting it at all.

I tried again. “This person already murdered Barbara. We need to get out and find help before he or she kills again.”

All the warmth dropped from his countenance. “I will not let a murderous soul out into the world. These doors and windows stay locked.”

“I refuse to accept that,” I said.

“I don’t think you have a choice,” Frankie reminded me.

Oh, now he was the logical one?

“When are you going to let us out?” I asked the doctor.

“When I have the violent soul under my care and control,” he said as if it were obvious.

That was ridiculous. “We are talking about living people trapped with a living killer. This is a living matter, so please let the living police do their duty before someone else dies.” He had to understand. “The killer could be alone with me in this very hall.” Despite Frankie’s presence, when it came to defending myself in the mortal realm, I was very much alone.

He held up a hand as if he’d heard enough. “Since someone has died, it is now a matter for the dead to manage. And if you cannot find the killer, then presumably everyone will die except for the murderer, and this whole matter will be much easier for me to sort out.”

“We can’t wait until everyone else is dead to find out who the murderer is!” I wanted to shake him. “You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to respect life.”

“I do. In all forms,” he said mildly. “You’re free to leave after you’re dead. But I’m afraid I must put the good of society ahead of your individual interests.”

“So that’s what you want us to do?” Frankie demanded. “Stay until we find the killer?”

“Or until the killer finds us,” I said.

10

“Excuse me. I’m very busy,” Dr. Anderson said, consulting his clipboard like we were the ones holding him up.

“Wait,” I said quickly as his image began to fade. “Do you have any clue who the killer might be?” I knew I was on borrowed time, but I could really use a hand here. He was clearly in charge. He might have seen something unusual or at least been alerted to it.

Dr. Anderson stopped halfway through fading away, his image transparent but steady. I could see the glow of the energy crisscrossing the window behind him, trapping us in this place.

“I’m a doctor, not a police officer,” he admonished, and I felt my face fall. I didn’t bother to hide it. I was scared enough, at my wits’ end already.

“Please,” I said.

The old doctor must have seen the desperation pulsing through me because he softened slightly. “I’m sorry, miss. I wish I could say I’d seen something unusual, but tonight seems no different from any other night in the last century.”

“Maybe your staff witnessed something,” I suggested. If he was going to make me responsible for nailing our killer, he could at least help me with a few clues, or point me in the right direction. “Nurse Claymore seems to know everything that goes on around here.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “She doesn’t miss much.” He studied me for a moment. “I admire your spirit. You remind me of a young Nurse Claymore, ready to take on the world.” He lowered his clipboard. “I’ll let her know it’s all right to talk to you and give you any insights she has. But please don’t disturb her too much. She’s the only staff member I have left, and she works too hard as it is.”

“I promise I won’t take her away from her patients,” I said. “If anything, I’d like to help her make this a better place.”

His gaze flicked over me. “As would I,” he said before he faded away.

“Okay,” I said to Frankie, who stood frowning at the glowing lines of energy barring the window. “Let’s see if we can find Nurse Claymore. While we’re at it, we’ll have to let the group know we’re trapped in here until we discover who killed Barbara.”

“Scalieri is going to kill me,” Frankie said, sticking close to my left shoulder while I backtracked out of the abandoned room and shined a light down the hall in both directions. “I told him I’d have him out by nightfall.”

“We need to find Nurse Claymore and the killer or nobody’s getting out of here,” I reminded him. “Scalieri is on the back burner for now.”

At the far end of the hall where the leaves had swirled, I saw a door. It might lead out to the yard. Too bad for us, the doctor’s sparkling silver energy glowed from the lock.

“Look, I get that you want to go all Verity on this place,” Frankie said, chilling my entire left side with his nearness, “but as far as I’m concerned, we have one objective: freedom for the mobster.”

“That always seems to be your objective,” I said, shining the light to our left, at the double doors leading to the lobby. “Maybe they’ll open if we try them again.”

“And maybe your friend Nurse Claymore will invite us out for a cupcake,” Frankie continued, like the devil on my shoulder.

I stepped out into the hallway. “Have a little faith.”

The ghost snorted. “You realize he can keep us here forever,” he said, not helping things at all. “It won’t even seem that long to him.”

“It already feels like an eternity to me,” I said, giving my ghost the side-eye.

But he wasn’t paying attention to me anymore.

“Look,” he said as the doors to the lobby shuddered on their hinges.

“Thank Jesus and hallelujah,” I said, hurrying that way.

“No,” he called, trailing behind. “No. I don’t know where you come from, but rattling doors in haunted asylums are not good.”

Then he started cursing, which I tuned out completely because it was either my imagination or the silvery light from the locks glowed hotter and then began to fade.

“Lookie, lookie!” I sped up.

“Did you hear me?” Frankie demanded as I made a full-out run for the doors.

“Now!” I urged. I didn’t want to leave him behind, but if these things flew open, I was going for it.

It was our only way out of the north hall at least.

For all his platitudes about patient care and healing, the dominant ghost definitely had a thing for control. He’d spent a lot of energy barring the windows, jamming the locks, slamming the doors. Or at least lending Nurse Claymore the power to do it.

Maybe he’d decided to at least let us go look for her.

The doors shook even more violently, but they didn’t open.

Yet.

“Ready?” I asked Frankie, reaching out for the ghostly cold handle, not waiting for an answer. The wet, invasive feeling of the doctor’s energy shook me and made me want to huddle on the dirty linoleum floor like a baby, but I gripped the handle hard and pulled.

The door groaned open, and Frankie and I wasted no time barreling out into the lobby, straight into Cash the ghost hunter. He let out a cry and his camera went flying.

“E-yahh!” Frankie passed straight through Cash, screaming like he was running through a nest of spiders while I landed on top of the ghost hunter with a crunch and a rattle.

“Get off!” Cash hollered, rolling sideways.

“I didn’t zap you,” I said, fighting for purchase as he dumped me on the floor. “That was my ghost.”

“That. Was. Awesome!” Cash lay flat on the floor with his arms spread. “I can feel the ecto-ference right down to my bones.”

I sat back, rubbing my knee. “Yeah, it’s really great,” I said, with a lot less enthusiasm.

“Verity!” Ellis reached down to help me. I accepted his unsteady grasp and shot to my feet a lot faster than I should have.

“I’m good,” I said, glancing toward the north hallway. The doors stood silent, closed. The only sign of our recent adventure was the trace of gray, ghostly light filtering from the small gap under the doors.

“This haunting is real,” Tom announced to the group.

“No kidding,” Brett said. He held his cell phone over his prone friend and moved it slowly over Cash like a Star Trek–style scanning device.

“What are you doing?” Ellis asked, simultaneously checking me over to make sure I was still in one piece.

Brett spoke to us, keeping his focus on the work he was doing. “I developed a ghost-detector app that uses EVP technology to let them speak to us.”

“This guy’s nuts,” Frankie said, cowering against the wall, his hair sticking out at odd angles, still shaking off the effects of passing through Cash.

“Peanuts,” the recorder said, in a mechanical voice.

I froze. “Wow.” It worked.

Sort of.

“I think you might be onto something,” I told the ghost hunter.

Frankie snorted and pushed off the wall, still a bit unsteady as he ran a hand through his hair. “Lucky guess.”

“Bet,” the recorder said.

“That’s another way to put it,” I told the ghost.

“Is that what he’s saying?” Brett asked, waving his phone in the general direction of an annoyed Frankie.

“It’s not picking up his actual words,” I said, “but it is passing along the general idea.” All in all, it had promise. “Can I try it?”

“You can download it,” Brett offered.

Not at the moment. My phone was at the crime scene, and nobody had internet access in this place.

“My phone has a beaming functionality,” Ellis said. “You can send it to me.”

“Give me your number and I’ll do it now,” Brett said happily. “Maybe you can write a review.”

“This is all well and good, but what the hell happened in there?” Tom demanded, pointing toward the north hall.

“Frankie and I met the ghost who is keeping us here, a doctor named Anderson.”

Joan gasped. “Dr. Seymour Anderson? I saw his picture on the staircase wall.”

“He has this entire place on lockdown, and we’re trapped until we discover who killed Barbara.”

The group erupted in protests. When they quieted down, I explained what had happened in the hall.

It was a job in itself to ignore Tom’s snide comments mixed with Joan’s tingling fingers and toes while stopping a bit too often for the excited rattlings of the ghost hunters.

Ellis merely nodded. He knew I was speaking the truth.

In the milky glow of the flashlights, I could also tell he’d gone paler, but I didn’t know if that was from his injury or from dealing with the ghost issues. Either way, he wouldn’t appreciate me bringing it up in public, so I let it slide.

For now.

“So what you saw was a full apparition,” Brett clarified while Cash hitched his camera on his shoulder and filmed me.

At least our little collision hadn’t done any permanent damage to him or his equipment.

“It doesn’t matter what she saw,” Tom interjected. “We need to find a way out of this horror house.”

“You heard Verity. We can’t leave until justice is served,” Joan insisted.

“Which means we’re all sticking together,” I said, “while we all look for clues.”

“Where?” Brett asked, truly baffled.

He had me there. I wasn’t sure where to look, either.

“Verity.” Ellis motioned for me to step aside with him.

The group continued their speculations without us. “You heard what the ghost said. We can’t just leave our murder suspect alone in this place,” Joan reasoned.

“Who cares as long as we’re out of here?” her husband countered.

Ellis drew me away from the others, to a spot at the back of the stairs. “I have an idea,” he said, leaning close, talking low into my ear. “It’ll keep everyone safe while we figure out who killed Barbara.”

“All right.” I nodded, bracing a shoulder against the wall.

He glanced at the bobbing lights of the group still debating among themselves as he continued. “You’re sure nobody can get out?”

“As positive as I can be.” The ghost said he had us on full lockdown, and we hadn’t found a way out yet.

“Okay.” Ellis’s breath tickled my ear. “Then we need to split into groups to investigate.”

“But—” Somebody would be with a murderer.

“Back me up,” he said as Tom approached us.

“Joan and I are going to go find a way out,” he challenged, clearly expecting Ellis to try to stop him.

“Do it.” Ellis nodded, ignoring Tom’s surprise. “Let’s split into the groups we know. You and Joan; Brett and Cash; me and Verity.”

“That’s—okay,” Tom barked.

“Fine by us.” Cash nodded, the light from his camera bobbing up and down.

“Totally,” Brett agreed. “Cash and I want to get a look at the north hall.”

“Don’t do it, sweetie,” Joan said to the young ghost hunter. “The roots of my hair are tingling like crazy, and even the tips of my ears are sizzling.”

“You sound like a crazy person,” Tom said, taking her hand and dragging her toward the main staircase.

“We’ll send the police after we get out,” Joan promised.

“I am the police,” Ellis reminded her.

“Come on,” Tom said, in a hurry to get Joan out of there with him.

“Kind of hard to get out when you’re going up,” Brett commented.

“We’ll look for a fire escape,” Tom tossed over his shoulder, dragging Joan along.

“As long as we don’t turn our backs on any of these people.” Joan’s voice filtered down the stairs after they’d started up.

“Let’s go,” Brett said, clapping Cash on the shoulder. “Maybe the doors will slam closed behind us, too.”

“Wouldn’t that be a thing to get on camera?” Cash gushed.

“Be careful,” I called over the groan of the door as Brett dragged it open for his buddy. “Watch your back,” I added after they’d already gone.

If I had to bet, I’d say Tom was our heartless killer. Maybe because he was my least favorite person here.

I turned to Ellis. “So now we have a killer wandering the halls.”

“We do,” he confirmed.

Frankie raised his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. I am what I am.”

“A ghost who doesn’t like haunted places?” I asked.

Frankie shrugged and reached into his coat pocket for a cigarette. “One who doesn’t like to be caught and trapped for eternity.”

“I hear you,” I said. And I heard what he wasn’t saying—that it went for my place as well.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Ellis said when he was sure we were alone. “We’ve got our potential killers in the pairs they showed up with, so if there is an innocent companion, that person is most likely safe.”

“All right.” I liked that.

“At the same time, our suspect can’t escape the asylum because the ghost is keeping us all here,” he continued, leading me back toward the main lobby.

“Smart,” I said, keeping up with him.

He stopped at the door to the basement. “Everyone wants a way out.”

“Or ghost footage,” I added.

“But nobody will want to return to the crime scene except our killer.”

“Because he was interrupted by Verity,” Frankie said with relish. Then the excitement drained from him as he realized what that meant. “Oh, hell.”

“We’ll stake out the murder scene and see who comes down to the basement,” Ellis said as if this were the greatest idea ever.

“I even left my cell phone recording at the scene,” I told him.

“I love you.” He grinned, giving me a quick kiss.

“I can’t believe this is how I’m spending my afterlife,” Frankie said.

“You have anything better to do?” I asked the gangster.

He scratched his head, knocking his hat sideways. “Not until there’s a way to get Scalieri out of this place.”

“Then come on,” I told him. “It’ll be an adventure.”

11

Ellis insisted on leading the way down the winding staircase to the basement. I’d hoped we’d never have to enter this dank tunnel again.

Still, his plan was perfect. “All we have to do is hide in the morgue and wait for the killer.”

“Way to sell it,” Frankie said, with all the enthusiasm of a dead bug.

“Hang back and let me handle it if things get dicey,” Ellis cautioned. “I’m a trained officer.”

The trouble was, he could barely walk.

The banister felt cold under my hand, and I could practically smell the rot and fear lingering under the odor of wet brick and mildew.

I hesitated, wincing at the clack of Ellis’s crutch against each step. Despite his brave face, he wasn’t doing well. He needed medical help soon.

Even more worrisome, we had to find our murderer fast, before he or she decided to eliminate the policeman bent on investigating—or even me, the hapless girl who’d found the body.

Rust crumbled under my fingers, and every step I took was a further descent into the void. A sticky spiderweb clung to my hand. My veins iced over, and I fought off a shriek.

Because tiny insects are the thing to fear down here.

“Keep it together,” Frankie hissed.

As if he had room to talk. I rubbed my hand hard on my jeans and wished I’d never set foot in this stairwell, this basement, or this asylum.

I had to be brave. Ellis had it worse. Pain etched his every movement as he lumbered down ahead of me. I hurried to catch up. “You hanging in there?” I asked, mainly to let him know I was there for him.

“The way I figure,” he said on a harsh exhale, unable to hide the effort it took him to simply put one foot in front of the other, “there’s no way an innocent person would go down into this basement.”

“Except us,” I offered. Yet he was right. I’d never be down here if he hadn’t suggested it. No matter. I kept on task and stuck close in case he stumbled. “An innocent party would be looking for a way out,” I reasoned, “not a maze of tunnels and a room with a fresh body.”

“So basically, I’m hanging out with the wrong people,” Frankie said, studiously avoiding a more obvious tangle of cobwebs clinging to the banister to our left.

The gangster could have just disappeared and reformed at the bottom of the steps, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to pursue the investigation. In fact, I’d be willing to bet he was only hanging out with us because he had nowhere else to go.

“The trap you set is brilliant, Verity.” Ellis reached the dirt floor and slowly turned back to me, leaning heavily on his crutch. “All we have to do is see who returns to the scene to try to cover their tracks.”

“Right,” I said, joining him, shivering at how close I’d come to encountering the killer. Still, I was glad I’d thought to leave my cell phone to record the scene after I locked the body in the boiler room.

Water dripped from the pipes overhead, making puddles in the mud. Yes, things were peachy.

“Let’s get to the morgue,” Ellis urged, “quick as we can.”

We needed to be hidden if and when the killer returned. I hoped Ellis was right about that, even as I hoped just as hard that we didn’t have to face Barbara’s murderer down here in the dark.

Every step was a task. I stuck close to Ellis as he navigated the uneven floors littered with patches of gravel. On the way, I also made sure to step in the mud, just to see if it looked like the same gray mud from Joan’s shoes.

We passed the wooden door marked Delivery, which hid the dumbwaiter. Beyond it, the morgue door yawned open several inches.

“Why is that door always cracked?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

“Looks to me like the latch is broken,” Ellis said, examining it before pushing it open.

This time, he shined his light inside before he barged in. And as he did, a cold breeze trickled from the room.

It stole over my skin, raising goose bumps on my arms. “Do you feel that?”

“I do,” Ellis said, entering before me.

This was how he’d gotten so badly injured, by going where he might not be welcome. This time, I was going in too.

I forced myself past the threshold and aimed my light straight ahead. It landed on the body lockers, their metal doors clinging to rusted hinges. I shifted it to the steel autopsy table and to the discarded metal folding chair that had toppled Ellis the last time we were here.

“Looks good,” Ellis said, his light lingering on the rusted bolts securing the autopsy table to the linoleum floor. He hobbled deeper into the room, to the body drawers. He aimed his beam into the top left chamber then continued his probe across the upper row.

“Let me,” I urged, not at all eager to look at body drawers, but more than willing if it meant getting Ellis off his feet.

He nodded, trusting me.

I was glad for it.

“I can’t imagine how Brett and Cash thought it was a good idea to seal themselves up in here,” I said, easing open the far-left drawer in the middle row, cringing at the handwritten label on the outside of the body drawer that read Fitzgerald, Emmaline.

My blood froze when my light landed on what could very well be a brown skull jammed into the back.

It was old and rotting. What a terrible thing for a supposedly professional medical staff to leave behind.

“I don’t care what you do or don’t find in those drawers,” Frankie said from the doorway, rubbing his arms as if the room itself gave him chills. “We’re not alone down here.”

“Thanks for that,” I said, moving to the top row of drawers. We could always count on Frankie for nice thoughts.

Ellis hitched himself up on the autopsy table. As if that were the best place to take a seat. I supposed it did him good to get off that leg.

His crutch clattered as he tucked it next to him. “If Frankie wants to make himself useful, he could always go see what Tom and Joan are doing.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said, turning to the ghost, who appeared absolutely horrified. “You’re our perfect spy. Think about it. They’ll never know you’re there.” Heck, Tom didn’t even believe in him. “You can tell us where they go and if they’re headed our way.”

“Are you nuts?” Frankie gaped. “I saw where those two went. They went up to that floor with the torture chambers—”

“Medical exam rooms,” I corrected.

“The haunted teddy-bear-looking thing,” he continued. “Ahh.” He raised a hand before I could interrupt. “I saw you. That’s right. I watched you go down that second-floor hall before I got back to work. I don’t need that kind of messed-up stuff in my life.”

“As if that’s my fault,” I said.

“It is,” he declared in no uncertain terms. “If you’d followed me right then and there, maybe you could have kept the guards entertained while I sprung Scalieri free, and we could have sped out of here before this whole thing blew up in our faces.”

Except for one problem. “I told you that wasn’t the plan.”

Frankie spread his arms to the sides. “That’s not the point!”

“So is Frankie going to track the Burowskis?” Ellis prodded.

“We’re still in negotiations,” I told him.

“Ha.” Frankie crossed his arms over his chest. “You and your negotiations. There was never a chance on this one. I’m not wandering around this place alone. I’m not even setting foot inside the morgue. You’re wasting your breath. You’re talking crazy. You’re—”

A keening wail echoed down the hallway outside.

I froze. Ellis flicked off his light. And Frankie zipped into the room so fast I thought for a second he’d continue straight out the back wall.

“What was that?” Frankie hissed, looking for somewhere to hide.

“How should I know?” I mouthed, extinguishing my light as well.

The gray light of my gangster ghost cast shadows over the body drawers.

I sure hoped they were empty. We still didn’t know what was in the bottom row.

As my eyes adjusted, the outline of Ellis came into focus, lit up by the gray glow of Frankie. My boyfriend reached out his crutch and ever so gently closed the door to the morgue.

With us inside.

Frankie’s mouth formed an O as he shrank into a glowing ball of energy and retreated to the upper right corner of the morgue. Somehow he still managed to glare at me.

“Frank,” I whispered, motioning for him to turn my power off. He was beyond listening.

The wail sounded again. This time closer.

Stars. That didn’t sound good. But there was nowhere to go. A ghost might haunt this basement, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t follow us upstairs.

Was there truly any place safe within the asylum?

Calm down.

Focus.

I crouched down, wishing I could roll into a ball, as if that would make me less visible.

The temperature dropped, and I let out an involuntary gasp, drowned out by the pounding of my heart in my ears. Maybe it wasn’t Crazy Charlie. There were lots of other ghosts here. Although the ones I’d met didn’t seem like the wailing types.

A slow, wet smacking noise sounded from the other side of the door.

Whatever it was, it was close.

The wail sounded again, this time farther down the hall, toward the spiral staircase. I allowed myself a tiny gasp of relief.

Maybe it hadn’t noticed us. Ghosts were people too. I mean, sort of. It wasn’t like they had any special people-detecting powers. We were hidden. We’d stayed quiet.

Moments later, the air warmed and I shot to my feet.

Yes. Yes!

I hurried over to Ellis in the dark, using the faint glow of Frankie to guide me. When I drew near enough, Ellis reached out to me and took my hand. His were ice cold. Mine, as well.

“I think we’re all right,” I whispered, so, so glad for it.

Frankie remained wedged in the corner. “I think I just had a coronary.”

I didn’t remind him that his heart hadn’t beaten in almost a hundred years.

Ellis squeezed my hand. “I felt the ghost pass by,” he said, clearing his throat. “It was cold and empty and dark.”

“Ghost hunting is usually a lot more pleasant,” I said, trying to smile.

“I don’t know.” He let out a huff. “I’m starting to think I’ve been encouraging you to go into some pretty scary situations,” he admitted.

That was true of his job, too.

“Here,” I said, “give me your cell phone.”

He shot me a questioning look but did as I asked. I typed in his passcode and opened the ghost EVP app that Brett had sent. “This sort of worked upstairs. It might keep you in the loop.”

Stranger things had happened. Besides, we were stuck here while we waited for our killers to return to the murder scene next door.

The app gave off static, but it wasn’t loud enough to give us away to anybody alive, especially with the morgue door closed.

“Hold up,” Frankie said, coming down out of the corner. “That thing is an invasion of privacy. It’s bad enough Verity can hear me. I don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry eavesdropping on my business.”

“Hear,” a mechanical male voice sounded from the ghostbuster EVP.

“Hey, it worked,” I said. “Frankie was just complaining about you listening in on him.”

“Will you two stop horsing around?” Frankie asked.

“Prance,” the ghostbuster EVP detector chirped.

Ellis chuckled. “I don’t even want to know what Frankie’s doing now.”

“Frankie’s going to flatten you if you don’t think of a better way to get us out of here,” the gangster fumed.

“Look, I agree with you,” I said to the ghost. “Every minute we spend in this asylum lowers our chances of making it out. But the only way we’re leaving is if we solve Barbara’s murder first. So…”

Frankie gave me a death glare, refusing to take the hint.

So I stated it outright. “It would really help if you trailed our suspects.”

Frankie narrowed his eyes. “Fine,” he gritted out.

“Yippee,” the ghostbuster EVP detector chirped.

“I hate that thing,” Frankie said. “And right now, I’m not too fond of you either.”

“He’s going to do it,” I said to Ellis.

“I heard his yippee,” Ellis said, holding up his phone. “It’s nice to finally hear you talk, Frank.”

“As if I’d ever say yippee,” Frankie sneered.

“Yippee,” the device chirped.

“I never realized he was so motivated to help,” Ellis said, surprised.

The mobster rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky I’m the patient type.” I didn’t ask him since when. He pointed a finger at me. “It ain’t safe down here, and it ain’t safe upstairs, and it looks like I’m the only one who can break this case wide open.”

“Or at least spy on our suspects,” I supplied.

“That too,” he groused. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Truth be told, it surprised me as well. This was one of the rare times Frankie had ever voluntarily helped me. I hadn’t bribed him or threatened him. Sure, the ghost in the hallway had scared him, but he’d been in haunted places before with me. “I think I’m seeing real growth here,” I told him.

“Don’t start,” he warned as he began to fade. “If I get caught by Nurse Claymore…” he warned.

“I believe in you,” I said.

“Okay, well, if I get strapped down to a table and tortured by some crazy ghost, I’m blaming you,” he said, by way of parting.

“I’ll feel guilty, I promise,” I assured him, watching him go.

Ellis touched my hand. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” I wound my fingers through Ellis’s.

Bad things had happened here, and for all of Frankie’s blustering, he was smart to be cautious.

We would be too.

12

The morgue lay eerily quiet with Frankie gone. Ellis and I sat on the autopsy table in the dark, my thigh brushing his.

The hallway outside stood empty. Nothing stirred in the basement of the asylum.

It gave me a second to think, to recall the experiment I’d begun.

“There’s something I did on the way in here,” I said, flipping on my flashlight. The morgue door was closed, so a single beam of light shouldn’t tip anyone off to our location. Besides, it was aimed at my shoe. “I deliberately stepped in some puddles in the hall.”

Gray mud clung to the soles and squicked up the sides of my white Keds.

Ellis trained his own beam of light on the mess. It cleared off some shadows and gave us an even better view. “It looks like the same color of mud as on Joan’s shoes,” he said gravely.

“My thoughts exactly.” It differed from the brown mud we’d tracked in from outside. “I don’t know where else she’d get it. The second and third floors were dirty and cluttered, but dry.”

“No open windows with dirt and rain blowing in?” Ellis asked, thinking.

“No. In fact, it would be hard to create a mud puddle upstairs. The dirt on the floor wasn’t that thick. Besides, I was with Tom and Joan almost the entire time.”

Except for the time of the murder.

There was another thing. “Tom’s shoes looked clean as far as I could tell.” I wished I hadn’t been quite so eager to hit so many puddles. My shoes would never be the same. “Either he stepped more carefully than his wife did, or he was never down here.”

“She doesn’t seem the type to venture into the basement alone,” Ellis stated. “And even if she was, I’d peg him for a control freak and not the type to let his wife out of sight.”

“True,” I said, bracing an arm on the table. We both knew we needed more than that.

Ellis’s shoes were clean, at least on the outside edges I could see. As if reading my thoughts, he turned his booted foot sideways. Thick gray mud gripped the inside of the treads.

I considered it a moment. “So it is possible we didn’t see it on Tom.” Although merely having gray mud caked into his soles didn’t prove he was a murderer. “I suppose there could be other places with the same mud,” I said, echoing Ellis’s suspicion earlier. “But where?”

Ellis scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “This basement is…unique,” he said, putting it mildly.

I jumped down off the table. “So how did they get down here?” I asked, pacing. We’d taken the spiral stairs off the lobby. The rest of the place was a maze. It wouldn’t be easy to navigate. I paused. “If they had plans to buy the place, they might have the layout of the building and the property.”

Ellis ran a hand along his jaw. “True. But that doesn’t solve our timing issue. They had to get in and out quickly. And you left them all the way up on the third floor.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “They could have come down the body elevator.”

I stilled. “That’s terrible.”

“Think about it,” Ellis said, shifting on the table to keep an eye on me as I ventured to the wall directly behind where we’d been sitting. It connected to the Delivery area used to transport bodies to the morgue.

There was a rusted metal cover over a six-foot-wide window about waist high.

“Oh,” I murmured.

It was the right size for a prone body. It would also be a convenient height to slide said body straight onto a wheeled gurney and over to the autopsy table, or to one of the body vaults in the back wall.

“Barbara’s killer acted quickly,” Ellis said. “He or she had to have arrived at the boiler room minutes after we left, if it even took that long.”

Ellis was right. So maybe they did use the body chute. I stared at the rusted metal cover. “It’s hard to know if it’s been operated recently.”

“Still, you can’t get more convenient,” he said. “According to Barbara, it’s basically a dumbwaiter system that goes from the third floor straight down to the room next to this one.”

“Wouldn’t one person have to stay upstairs to work the ropes?” I asked. “You’d also need someone down in the basement standing by to open the door from the outside.”

“It could be automatic. Let’s look.” He gripped the handle at the bottom of the sliding metal door. It reminded me of a large grotesque rolltop desk.

Ellis shoved the door upward. It fought him, creaking on its hinges, and then it slowly rolled up.

Ellis shined his light inside, revealing a flat metal shelf in good shape save for the rust at the corners and more rust on the supports above. Coppery flecks had settled onto the shelf, blending into the dust and dirt.

Four rust-flecked pulleys worked the top of the unit, connected with thick ropes.

A wood slab underneath supported the body mover, and a pair of wood beams on either side framed it. They connected to a piece of timber parallel to the metal shelf and only about three feet above it. Enough room for a prone body and barely anything else.

“Okay, so it had to be one or the other,” Ellis murmured. “Perhaps one person to work the controls for the pulley system, the other inside.”

“You think it still works?” I asked, testing the ropes. They appeared strong despite their age. The pulleys were firmly connected as well.

“If it’s functional, this could very well be how the killer got down,” Ellis said, his light sweeping along the sides of the opening.

“As long as he or she doesn’t mind tight, dark places.” Cash and Brett sure hadn’t. They’d locked themselves in morgue drawers, which might even be worse.

“Tom or Joan could have come down through the morgue or even the Delivery room next to us,” Ellis theorized. “They could have killed Barbara and escaped back upstairs in minutes.”

“Only Brett and Cash were hiding in those body drawers,” I countered. I didn’t understand that, either. You couldn’t have gotten me in one of those drawers without a loaded pistol pointed at my head. “They would have heard the metal door sliding if someone came down in the dumbwaiter. Neither one mentioned it. They’re smart guys and it’s a basic observation.”

“So you think Brett and Cash are better suspects,” Ellis mused.

“They had a motive,” I reasoned, “if they were afraid Barbara would have them arrested and charged.”

“I’m not sure that’s enough motive for murder,” Ellis said, thinking out loud.

I didn’t want Brett or Cash to be guilty. Still, I had to say, “We know nothing about them or what other reasons they might have had to want Barbara dead.”

“Let’s piece together our timeline,” Ellis said. “We know Cash and Brett were down here when we first passed by the morgue with Barbara. They heard us come in the room.”

“And I’m saying they also would have heard Tom or Joan if one of them came this way.”

Ellis considered it a moment, then his eyes widened, and his fist slapped the table. “Maybe they did.”

Then it hit me. “Cash mentioned footsteps and a rattling noise he thought I made.”

“Could have been our killer,” Ellis concluded.

“So how does this thing work?” I asked, turning back to the chute. I saw no motorized levers next to the metal frame around the opening. “The asylum closed down in the 1950s, so there’s a good chance it’s automated.”

I passed my light over the wall by the entrance to the room. Nothing there.

“Let’s check inside the body chute,” Ellis suggested.

“Easy for you to say,” I joked. But he was right. There could be a button near the pullies. It was too tall for me to see clearly, so I ran a hand along the top, wincing when I encountered something hard and furry.

Ohmygosh. I whipped my hand back with a shriek. That definitely wasn’t a button or a lever.

“What is it?” Ellis nearly tumbled off the autopsy table.

“It’s okay,” I declared, holding my hand up in the air as if I could somehow quarantine that sick, soft, dead-mouse feeling. “Just…not what I was going for.”

I wiped my hand on my jean shorts, unable to get the feel of that hard, furry object—don’t think mouse—out of my mind.

“Just…take it slow,” Ellis said, wincing. He stood against the table, favoring his broken leg.

I could say the same thing to him. Although I didn’t think he’d appreciate it right now.

“Let me try a different way,” I said, grabbing the folding chair that had incapacitated Ellis when we’d first arrived. I steadied it outside the body elevator and hoped whatever ghost had flung it at my boyfriend was done playing games. I needed it to be steady, at least for a minute, as I climbed on top.

I shined my light over—sweet mercy—dozens of dead brown mice until I found a lever only a few inches from the marks in the dust where I’d grabbed hold of my little petrified rock of a rodent.

But more disturbing than the dead creatures or the spiderwebs strung between, under, and over them…the lever was clean.

No dust. No spiderwebs marred the simple metal switch.

“I think someone used this recently,” I said slowly.

“Then don’t touch it,” Ellis cautioned, grabbing for his crutch.

“It could easily have been Barbara, moving supplies from the basement to her ‘haunted’ first floor.”

“It’s possible,” Ellis conceded. “But you’d think she would have at least cleared the dead mice off.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

I hopped down off the chair and shined my light to guide him as he made his way over. He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket, and I redirected the light up onto the lever.

“A little more to the right,” he said, lifting his chin to inspect the device.

“That good?” I asked, following his instruction. I wasn’t tall enough to see the lever without the chair.

“I’ll test it, see if it’s operational,” he said, using the handkerchief to preserve any fingerprints.

I waited, holding my breath. Ellis let out a soft grunt. “I can’t get the lever to budge.”

Well, if it didn’t work for us, it most likely hadn’t worked for anyone else.

“Maybe there’s a trick to it,” I said as he tried again.

He winced, struggling. “I don’t know what,” he said, flexing his fingers. He studied the lever like it held some kind of secret. “It can’t have been this hard.”

“Maybe it’s stuck from the other side.” Something could be caught inside one of the gears. “Maybe our killer left a clue.”

I leaned inside and directed my light up against the top of the structure underneath the lever. If one of our suspects had gotten a piece of clothing stuck inside the mechanism or anything that tied them to this body mover, it could mean a big break in the case.

My light cast more shadows than it illuminated. It was a bad angle.

“Let me get a closer look.” I climbed onto the platform. It was relatively clean—or at least clear of dead, furry things. Except for the far corners.

Don’t think about it.

It was just a shelf. Used for transporting bodies. In a busy hospital where too many had died.

I lay back on my butt, almost prone, and directed the light up the inside wall, where there could easily be a button or lever or—

The shelf underneath me shifted.

I froze. “I felt something. Just now. Did you notice a—”

Ellis’s crutch clattered to the floor. “Get out of there, Verity,” he ordered, too calm, too clipped.

The drawer jolted and the ropes crackled above my head.

“I’m coming,” I said, tossing a leg out as the chute jerked up a foot. “Whoa!” I pulled my leg back in as the body elevator trundled upward. I scrambled to my hands and knees and watched Ellis’s face disappear as I rose above the opening. He looked as helpless as I felt. Then the platform rose beyond the opening to the morgue, and all I saw was the inner wall of the chute rushing past.

“Ellis!” I screamed, not caring who heard me.

My light trained on the crisscross of ancient wooden beams inside the chute, and all I could think was what if it stops? What if it shut down between floors, leaving me trapped in this hole?

Worse: what if it kept going? It could take me somewhere I really didn’t want to go. The ghosts had to be very aware of this body mover, given the number of newly dead it had carried, and now I was in it, and I still had Frankie’s power, and there was no telling what would pop out at me, and I had nowhere to go.

Nowhere but up, up, up.

“Ellis!” I called as the platform ground to a halt in front of a rusted metal door.

“Verity!” His voice echoed up the chute. “Are you all right?”

“I am,” I said, hoping that would stay true. “I’m going to figure out a way to get back down. Don’t worry.”

“Too late,” Ellis said from below.

Well, it wasn’t as if he could make it up to the third floor with that leg of his. “I’ll holler if I need help.”

I reached out and thrust my fingers under the metal door. There was no handle on this side, so I’d have to improvise. I dug the keys out of my pocket and jammed one in between the panels. It hitched in there good and I pulled up. My key began to bend. I worried for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to drive my car when we got out of here, but it was my strongest, thickest key and this was my only shot at getting out on my own terms. I pulled harder. The key bent farther. And then the door lifted slightly.

Yes! I shoved my fingers underneath and pulled hard. The door moved, and I kept working it more and more until I couldn’t even feel my fingers gripping the metal anymore.

I crouched on my knees, working to get a better angle when I knocked something with my hand. Glancing down, I realized—too late—that I’d sent my car keys tumbling off the edge.

My heart dropped. Or maybe that was just the muscles in my chest twinging because I wasn’t in shape to hoist a rusty door open at this angle. Either way, I sure as heck wasn’t staying in a body elevator any longer. Gathering my strength for one more heave, I raised the door higher and saw I had an even bigger problem.

A large shadow shimmered into view directly outside. I watched in horror as it grew larger and larger in a narrow hallway lit by bulbs that hadn’t worked in decades. Not in my realm, at least.

The shadow took on the form of a person—a man with a wide girth, stubby limbs, and an overlarge head. He reminded me of Andre the Giant, with a great big scowl.

His eyes narrowed at me as he towered over the tiny escape hatch I’d opened. His voice was thick and deep, a melodious warning: “You don’t belong in there.”

13

“Believe me, I’m done with the ride,” I said as I scrambled out of the body elevator. From what I could tell, the chute ran down the center of the hospital, which put me in the middle of the third floor.

The giant ghost tilted his head and watched my every move. He didn’t appear overly friendly, but he wasn’t attacking either, and I was stuck. I didn’t know how to make the elevator go back down, nor was I game for another trip.

“I’m out, Ellis,” I called into the hole, keeping an eye on the specter looming in front of me. “I’ll be down soon.”

I just had to find my way alone through the asylum with a murderer on the loose.

And with a large menacing ghost blocking my way.

He wore a black suit jacket with an uneven collar and too-short sleeves. His white shirt lay open at the neck and appeared rough and cheap.

“My name is Verity,” I said, giving him a small wave. “Sorry to intrude. Are you a visitor as well?”

The ghost stared at me as if I’d just sprouted wings.

“I promise I’m not here to cause any trouble,” I added. At least not for him.

He said nothing. He had to be at least seven feet tall and as thick as a linebacker. Light, wiry hair stood from the man’s head at all angles, as if he’d never owned a brush or a mirror.

“Say, have you run into any other live people tonight?” I asked. He might be able to tell me what had happened earlier.

He ground his jaw and stared at the floor.

“You can tell me,” I pressed, observing the narrow hall behind him, the rows of doors that appeared to be patient rooms. “I’m only trying to help.”

The ghost clenched his fists at his sides so hard I could hear his knuckles cracking.

“Well, it was nice talking to you,” I said, trying to scoot around him. “You said I don’t belong here, and you couldn’t be more right about that. But I am glad I ran into you. You seem very nice.”

Quiet, but pleasant enough. I mean, he hadn’t attacked me or yelled at me. And so far, he was nicer than some of the other ghosts—and live people—I’d met that night.

“Stop,” the ghost ordered. He closed the distance between us, and I flinched at the chill of him. I had no idea what kind of power he had or what he was capable of.

I backed up slowly as he reached a hand into his pocket. I recoiled as he drew out a delicate, precisely folded origami swan.

Wait. What?

He held it out to me, and I stared at the paper bird in his hand. I couldn’t have been more astonished if it had been a real bird.

“Is this—” I cleared my throat “—for me?”

He nodded without speaking.

All right. I rubbed my hands on my shorts because my skin had gone clammy and because I would have to accept this ghostly gift. Touching objects from the other side didn’t exactly feel like puppy fur and roses.

“Thank you,” I said, holding out a hand.

His fingers shook a little as he placed the little origami bird in the center of my palm. “It’s beautiful,” I murmured, even as the chill of it invaded my skin. Its head curved in a lovely bow, its three-dimensional beak open, its wings spread to fly. It was a miniature piece of art.

It was a shame I couldn’t keep it. My touch caused objects in the ghostly plane to fade and return to their owners in time.

I lifted my gaze to the ghost to see him watching me admire his gift. “Did you bring me up here?” I asked. “To give me this?” It wasn’t as if he went around carrying birds just in case he’d run into girls who rode up body movers.

He nodded without speaking.

“Why?” I pressed.

He didn’t know me. He’d never met me.

The ghost stood silent.

“Verity?” Ellis’s voice drifted up the shaft.

Stars. I’d forgotten all about Ellis in the basement. I didn’t want him trying to come for me. He needed to be there if the killers returned to the body in the boiler room, and he’d never make it up to the third floor anyway with that broken leg.

I should get back down there. But I didn’t want to dismiss this ghost so quickly. He hadn’t spoken, but it seemed as if he had something to say.

“It might be a second,” I called down to Ellis, keeping an eye on the humongous ghost. “I’ve met a new…friend.” Might as well be optimistic about it.

“You’re not here to make friends.” His warning echoed up from the basement.

Now he sounded like Frankie.

“Don’t mind the guy in the morgue,” I said, mustering up a companionable smile, like we were two friends meeting on the street—old pals—instead of an interloper and an inmate facing off in an abandoned hallway. With a bird.

A furrow formed between his brows. “Who is he?”

“My friend. It scared him when I went up in the body elevator.”

I hadn’t been too happy about it, either.

He blinked slowly. “Most people go down.”

“Ah,” I said, trying to pretend it was normal when his beady eyes flicked all over me. There was something worrisome, something off about him, and it didn’t help that I was alone with him in the hall. That he’d brought me here.

Still, he hadn’t made any aggressive moves.

Yet.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

“So you live up here?” I asked, by way of conversation.

Now that he’d gotten me onto the third floor, he didn’t seem to have a plan. He simply watched me, like I was on the other side of the glass at the zoo.

His lip curled. Not a sneer. Not a friendly look, either.

I had no idea why he’d singled me out, but if I could get him talking, maybe he could tell me a little more about what had happened on the third floor, even what Tom and Joan had been up to after I’d left.

I worked up a smile. “It’s a nice hallway.” Once you got past the dirt and the rotting mattress. My stomach danced. “Cozy rooms.” At least I could say that about the one I’d seen, with the pretty young woman writing It’s not my fault over and over.

The muscles in his huge neck flexed and he let out a low, growling breath. “Thank you for keeping the people out of my room.”

“Oh.” Blood pounded in my ears. His must be the first room I’d encountered with Tom and Joan, the one I’d claimed was locked. “You’re welcome.” That was unexpected. His voice sounded rusty as if he hadn’t used it in a long time. I tried to stay calm. Didn’t really pull it off. “You should be able to make your art in peace,” I said, even as the bird began to fade in my hand.

He scratched his head with gigantic sausage fingers. “I’m not an artist. I have books.” He looked down at the floor as if the admission had made him shy.

He was my kind of guy.

“Bye.” He turned and floated away from me. I hadn’t even gotten his name.

“Well, hold on,” I said, forcing my legs to move, to go after him. He still intimidated the heck out of me, but he didn’t seem to mean any harm. And if he’d been watching us, there was a good chance he’d seen what the Burowskis did after I left the third floor. “Did you see what happened to the people I didn’t let into your room?”

Maybe he’d seen Tom or Joan go down the body chute.

“I’m not allowed to leave my room,” he said, disappearing through the door near the stairwell.

But he had.

I hurried to catch up, dodging the metal chair in the hall. “I won’t tell anybody you left,” I said, pressing close to his battered wooden door. “Or that you even leave sometimes,” I added on a whisper. It was his secret, not mine. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get out once in a while? To spend eternity in a room, even with books, couldn’t feel good.

The ghost didn’t answer.

I rested a palm flat against the battered wood. Frankie would say I had other things to do. That I needed to let the lonely ghost live his afterlife. But this man had brought me up here to thank me. He’d reached out, and he obviously didn’t know what to do next.

I knocked gently on his door. “I’m still here if you want to talk.”

A howling wind rushed against the trees outside. Rain pounded the windows, and the ghost remained silent.

“I enjoyed meeting you,” I added.

It was true. Except for when he’d scared the socks off me.

“I just want to read in peace,” he said thickly.

I rested my fingertips on the door. I understood the feeling, wanting to stay with the very real people he found between the pages. But books were a pleasure, not all there was to life. “What book are you reading?” I asked, tracing a finger over a knot in the wood.

After a long silence, he answered, “The Count of Monte Cristo.”

About a man who escaped his one-room prison and did amazing things.

“I like how he learns all those languages in prison,” I said, eyeing the deserted hallway, the double row of locked doors. “He must have been very smart.”

“It’s easy to study when there’s nothing else to do,” he said simply.

He’d been kept in here too long. No wonder he was socially rusty. “Can I come in?”

“No.”

I nodded. “I understand.” I’d kept Tom and Joan out of his room because I felt he shouldn’t be bothered, and now I was the one hovering outside, wanting something.

I chewed my lip. Part of me wanted to give him back his peace and quiet. The trouble was, this was more than just a friendly chat. I was part of a group being kept against our will, and if this ghost had any information that might help us get out, then I had to pry it out of him. I had a responsibility to Ellis and Cash and Brett, to Joan and Tom (if he wasn’t guilty), and even to Barbara, who lay dead downstairs.

“I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable,” I said to the ghost. “But I’m trapped in here with some people I don’t know, and one of them may have killed somebody. I’m scared, and I need your help.”

He didn’t respond.

Why should he? The problems of the living didn’t impact him. Nobody could murder him. And he was already trapped in this asylum.

I pushed away from the door, a hollow feeling gnawing at me. I’d just missed an opportunity I’d never planned to have, but it was a loss all the same.

“Well, dang it all to Sunday.” I placed my hands on my hips, not sure what to do next. Abandon the giant ghost and my chance to learn about Tom and Joan’s movements on the third floor? Get my butt back down to Ellis? He was probably climbing the walls worried about me, or perhaps even now pegging the killer returning to the scene of the crime.

The lock on the door rattled.

I dropped my hands and watched it open slowly.

I made no move. I didn’t push.

The giant stood warily, peeking out from behind the scarred wood door as if holding a shield. “I’m scared, too.”

I understood. “What’s your name?”

“Levi,” he murmured as if he wasn’t used to saying it.

Bookcases lined the walls behind him, stuffed full. More volumes lay stacked in neat piles next to the bookcases. A worn wingback chair hunkered by the window next to a birdcage with two ghostly cardinals inside.

“You have pretty birds,” I told him.

He shifted uncomfortably. “Their names are Jim and Billy Bones. They were hurt. I fixed them up and they decided to stay.”

“I rescued a skunk named Lucy,” I said, smiling at the thought of her. “When she was a baby, she used to like to hide in my sock drawer. I think it made her feel safe.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in the start of a brief grin.

He glanced over his shoulder, to the safety that lay behind him. “You shouldn’t be in here. Nobody’s supposed to be in my room except for the doctor and the nurse.”

“I’ll stay outside,” I promised. I wouldn’t do anything to upset him. “I can also lock your door if you want. That way no living people will be able to come inside,” I added. “I lied to those two people earlier, but now I have keys I can use to keep you safe.” Hopefully one of Barbara’s would work. If not, I’d find one that would.

This was important. He deserved a safe place.

Levi nodded his head over and over. “There’s also Mr. Rink. You should lock his room, too.” He shifted his gaze to the floor. “He cries. I hear him.”

That was the man Nurse Claymore had mentioned. The one who cut himself from the stress of living visitors. “Where is he?”

Levi hid his face behind the door until I only saw tufts of hair sticking out. “Down past the body elevator. The pretty lady next door knows.”

“Is she friends with him?”

He let out a low huff. “She tries to help the sad ones.”

Well, I could certainly respect that. “How can I meet her?”

“She walks up and down the halls. She can’t help herself.”

I hoped she’d been taking invigorating strolls, but I somehow doubted it. “What is her name?” I would have asked her directly, but she’d disappeared the minute I tried to talk to her.

“I don’t know.” Levi clicked his door closed, the lock twisting in the other realm. “I hide from her. I hide from everybody.”

I placed a hand on his door as if I could give him a comforting touch that way. “I’m sorry you have to hide.”

“Nobody should see me.”

“That’s not true at all. I’d like to see you again.” If he’d let me.

He gave no response.

That was fine. “Thank you for talking with me.” He’d already given enough of himself. He’d sought me out to thank me when he didn’t like going out at all. He’d spoken to me when it was obvious he didn’t interact much with others.

I pulled Barbara’s keys out of my pocket, careful to touch them through the rag I’d wrapped them in. I started with the smaller ones first and soon found a key that fit Levi’s door. I twisted the key and heard the lock click. “Now it’s locked on my side as well. Nobody else will disturb you.”

He didn’t respond.

“I enjoyed meeting you,” I told him and was surprised to hear a low, throaty sound right on the other side of the door. It sounded like thank you.

I steadied myself and walked next door. I knocked, and when I received no response, I opened the door and stepped into the spartan room I’d seen earlier that night. The walls glowed with an eerie, ghostly light. I didn’t see the petite ghost in the long black dress. The narrow bed against the wall lay empty. Rain pounded the glass in a window overlooking the graveyard out back. A modest desk stood in front of it, the fountain pen resting in its holder. Yet I could feel her presence.

I walked over to the desk. It’s not my fault. She’d written the words over and over. I wondered if she believed them.

“It’s not your fault,” I repeated.

“Get out.” The frail woman I’d seen before stood in the open door, her face a mask of hate. Blood streaked in rivulets down her forehead, into her eyes, down her cheeks and to the collar at her throat.

“I’m sorry!” I said, stumbling back, knocking her ghost pen off the desk, which sent a wet shock straight to my bones. “You scared me!”

She reared back, and for a second, I thought she would blow straight through me. Then I saw her hands clutching the doorframe so hard her fingers had gone white. She steadied herself. I watched her struggle for calm. “My apologies,” she said at last. “I don’t want to be a person who frightens.”

She forced herself off the door, unsteady on her feet. Blood dripped from her forehead onto the floor and disappeared.

“I’m sorry too,” I said, “I shouldn’t have entered your private space without permission.” I approached her slowly as I spoke, wishing I could help her to her bed. “You should lie down.”

The corner of her lip curled, and she huffed. She rubbed the blood on her forehead, smearing it into a messy streak. “I’m not a wilting flower.” She moved to her desk and sat with her back straight. I could tell it cost her. She closed her eyes, breathing hard as if willing the pain and the bleeding to stop. “You should leave until I’m more presentable.”

Perhaps. But I didn’t want to leave her alone and in pain.

I sat on the remains of the bed. The rusted metal frame creaked under my weight. “Who did this to you?”

Fingers fumbling, she tried to arrange her hair over the gaping wound. She failed. “I was restless. Dr. Anderson ordered a procedure to calm me down.”

Oh, my God. They’d drilled into her skull.

“That’s awful,” I whispered on a breath. I would have thought he was more advanced, that his level of caring didn’t stretch to such barbaric practices. He’d claimed to have the patients’ best interests at heart.

He’d said he was treating them. Perhaps by the standards of his time, he was.

“Oh…” I trailed off.

“Juliet,” she finished for me.

“Juliet,” I repeated, feeling so terrible for her and everyone in this place.

She gave a small snort at my obvious horror. “I was one of the lucky ones. I died on the table before it could take. Or I’d be like poor Mr. Rink down the hall.” She shuddered and eyed me cautiously. “He has no mind left.”

“I’m so sorry you died that way.” I couldn’t imagine the horror.

She looked down at her hands. “My mother always said I had a weak heart. I’m glad for it now.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, repeating myself, my mind scrambling for what I could do for Juliet. For any of them. Dr. Anderson was in charge of this hospital. He was the dominant ghost. There was no way to protect her from his efforts to care for her. She had to live with her tormentor and, I assumed, relive her torment here. “Is there any way you can leave?” I pressed.

She kept her eyes averted. “None.” The blood began to dry and fade. “I’m trapped until the doctor deems me well enough to go into the light.”

“I have keys now,” I said, reaching for them in my pocket. “I’ll lock the door. That should at least keep the living out of your room.” It sounded like a small comfort, even to my ears.

She managed a smile for me. “Thank you.” I nodded and moved to stand so I could lock her away. The irony did not escape me. “I used to be the one to help scared women,” she added wistfully.

I sat back down. Let her talk.

She threaded her hands together. “Ladies used to come to me when they were at their lowest, when they felt they couldn’t live in this place even one more day. We talked. I did my best to help them feel better.”

“That’s…that’s good.” I could understand the need.

Her eyes met mine. “You may come into my room,” she said. “The door is always open to women who need help. But please don’t disturb Levi or Mr. Rink.”

I nodded. “I met Levi. He’s kind.”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “Then you’re one of the few. He always stays in his room.”

“Why don’t they let him out?” I asked. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him.

“They say they can’t have patients wandering the halls. It’s not safe.”

“So the solution is to lock him up for eternity?” I huffed.

“Unfortunately, Levi is used to it,” she confided. “His parents committed him when he was a boy. They said he’d grown to seven feet by the time he was twelve years old. He’d become something nobody understood. So they kept him here.”

“Poor man,” I said on a whisper.

“Yes,” she agreed.

I held my hands against my knees and decided to press my luck. “It doesn’t seem like you belong here, either.”

She stood and turned away from me to face the window. “I made a mistake.”

I fidgeted, the rusty bed creaking under me. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I made too hasty of a marriage.”

“Plenty of people have done that,” I assured her. “I almost made a similar mistake myself.”

She stared out the window at the rain. “He fell out of love with me. Or maybe he never loved me.” She lowered her head. “He soon had a paramour. He loved her madly, if rumors were to be believed. But he couldn’t divorce me. It wasn’t done. So he abandoned me here.”

“Wait.” I stood up, the bed rattling. “You’re here because some guy wanted to date?”

She pressed her fingers on the window as the rain traced rivulets down the glass. “He had me declared insane so that the marriage could be annulled. Then he married her.”

“That can’t have been legal,” I protested. “Not even…when?”

“1897,” she supplied.

“Even then,” I insisted.

“I am told I’m deficient,” she said as if it had been recited to her over and over again. “I am too strong-willed.” She turned to face me. The blood had faded completely now, but I could still see the raw wound on the left side of her forehead, near her hairline. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t be here. What happened to me was wrong.” She pressed her lips together. “It’s not my fault.”

I nodded, wishing I could hug her. “I suppose you have to remind yourself of that sometimes.”

“Yes,” she said quickly.

“It’s not your fault,” I assured her.

She made another attempt to arrange her hair over the wound. “I stayed who I am despite my husband. Despite the doctors and the treatments and all the years I’ve been locked up. Dr. Anderson wasn’t the first.” She drew her head high. “I helped other girls. There were a lot of us at one time, committed for being difficult or sad or for being widows who grieved too loud or too long.”

“You’re a good person,” I assured her. “I’m glad you could help the women here.”

Her lips tilted up, rueful. “I had nowhere else to go.”

“You do now,” I said, venturing closer. “You can go to the light.” I wasn’t an expert on how to do it, but I could try to help.

“The doctor won’t let me,” she said, as if that was that. “And I confess there is comfort in that.” She sighed. “I do not wish to see anyone from my former life.”

“You can’t know what will happen.” Even if they were there, she could try to avoid them.

“I refuse to take the chance,” she insisted.

Most people talked about the light as a place of peace and love. I didn’t want to say it so plainly, but, “I doubt your jerk of an ex-husband is—”

“I wish to stay here,” she said firmly. “Mr. Rink needs me. Even Levi,” she said, glancing at the wall that divided them. “He feels better knowing I’m here, that he’s not alone.”

“You deserve better,” I told her. “You need to think of yourself for once.” It seemed like no one else ever had.

“Well—” she smiled gently, her hands pressed to her skirts “—you seem to be over your fright.”

It was true. I wasn’t scared anymore. At least not of her, not when she was trying to mother me. “Levi said you walk the halls.”

She glanced at the door. “I check on the others. Only the sickest are left, and Nurse Claymore has her hands full.”

Still helping. I wouldn’t argue with her about it anymore.

“You realize Nurse Claymore is a doctor, too,” I said.

Juliet looked at me as if I’d told her Nurse Claymore could fly. “She’s a woman.”

We’d fight that battle later.

“Did you see a man and a woman earlier this evening?” I asked, hoping. Ghosts could be squirrely when it came to timelines. They didn’t always watch the clock as closely as the living.

She watched me carefully. “There was a couple in the empty room facing the front.”

“Yes.” I’d put them there. “I think they left down the body elevator.”

“No,” she said, blowing my theory with a single word.

“Are you absolutely certain?” I pressed. The body elevator had been used recently, at least Ellis and I strongly suspected it.

“Positive,” she assured me. “I watched them to make certain they would not disturb Mr. Rink. The couple went downstairs but used a different way.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Show me?”

She smiled demurely and led the way.

14

“I feel as if I am on an adventure,” the ghost confided, leading me down the dark hallway. She glowed gray against the night, her black dress trailing out behind her, as if on an invisible wind.

“I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night,” I said, going for honesty as well.

Juliet laughed, clear and bright. “Oh, how I’ve missed having another woman to talk with.”

“There aren’t any others here?” I asked, trying to keep up. She was moving fast.

She turned, and I nearly passed straight through her. “None healthy enough to truly keep me company,” she said, wringing her hands. “I know that shouldn’t matter.” She lifted her chin. “It doesn’t.”

Lightning flashed outside, lighting up the ruined hall.

“Everybody needs a break sometimes.” Being “on” all the time would burn a person out quicker than anything.

She turned and glided through the chair in the middle of the hallway. I stepped around it as we continued on. It bothered me deeply that there were no healthy women left. It seemed Dr. Anderson had been working hard to treat them all.

And then there was Juliet…

She’d shown amazing resilience for a woman who had been abandoned in a mental asylum. She had a kind way about her. She cared. And her nighttime wanderings were about to be very beneficial to me and everyone else trapped in this place.

She led me past the body elevator and toward a small alcove that separated the north and south hallways. The remains of a wooden nurses’ desk hunkered next to a drinking fountain that had collapsed from the wall in a rusted heap. Next to it, faded black lettering on a wooden door read Staff.

Juliet motioned for me to open the door. “Go on,” she said when I hesitated.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

I had to be prepared for whatever lurked on the other side. Dr. Anderson told me he’d confined the patients to their rooms, but I’d met two already that had gotten around it. Perhaps three if you counted Crazy Charlie wandering past while we hid in the morgue.

And then there was Nurse Claymore. If I ran into her in the staff area, that would be the end of our investigation. Claymore would send Juliet back to her room, and I’d have some explaining to do.

“It’s all right,” Juliet said, chewing her lip, not convincing anybody.

“Here goes nothing.” I opened the door and saw no ghosts, thank God—just a glowing, steep staircase leading down into the darkness.

Come to think of it, that wasn’t much better.

“It’s the staff stairwell,” Juliet explained. “A quick way for them to move between floors. Patients aren’t allowed.”

I couldn’t stop the tickle of a smile. “Since when has that ever stopped you?”

She let out a small laugh. “It hasn’t. It wouldn’t. Except I…I’d rather not intrude on a friend.”

“Is she the one haunting this space?” I asked, taking in the gray glow over old brick walls and wooden steps polished smooth and dipping in the middle from decades of foot traffic.

“Yes. Her name is Loretta.” Juliet’s breath hitched. “It’s—a terrible thing.” She threaded her hands together in front of her. “She was my best friend.”

I didn’t like how she used the word was. A chill blew up from the depths. “Is she down there now?”

Juliet gave a small shiver. “I think so. What’s left of her, anyway.”

I shot her a questioning look.

She averted her eyes. “She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

“How can you know that?” I asked. It had to be lonely for Loretta, down in a stairwell all by herself.

“She told me so. She chased me out.” The ghost touched her fingers to her chest. “Loretta was a good person. Only she had what they call paranoia. She believed everyone was out to get her, even me sometimes. I wasn’t,” she added quickly.

“I believe you,” I told the ghost.

“Loretta said too much of what was on her mind. I didn’t always believe her. And I told her that the last time, right before she died. She’s never forgiven me.”

“I’m so sorry.” I eyed the gray, glowing descent into heaven knew where. A locked door? A pit with an angry ghost at the bottom of it?

“They gave her ice-cold baths,” Juliet said, folding her arms over her chest. “Therapy for the overactive mind.” She winced. “They’d leave her in there for hours, overnight sometimes.”

I closed my eyes. “Dr. Anderson?” I’d really wanted to like him.

“And Nurse Claymore,” she added, “although she was just following orders. She worships him.”

That was as dangerous as his misguided treatments. “And poor Loretta?” I asked, sick at the idea she’d have to stay here, for all these years after her death, still trapped in this cycle.

“They were coming to take her for another bath,” Juliet murmured, her voice breaking through the silence of the dark. “She hanged herself in the stairwell instead. I think she wanted the staff to find her that way, to show them what they made her do.”

“Do you…visit her?” Maybe she could still make things right. That was one of the good things about being a ghost—there was always another chance.

Juliet touched a hand to her forehead. “I’ve tried.” She shook her head slightly. “She was so upset. So violated. Seeing me makes her angrier somehow. I want to help, but I don’t know how.”

“I understand there was no escape when you were alive, but now that Loretta is gone, we may be able to help her leave the stairwell and this asylum.”

“I think that would be best, for her at least,” she said, lighting up. “I would love to help set her free.”

“Then we’ll figure out a way,” I said, making a promise I had no idea how to keep. But heavens to God, these people had suffered enough. They deserved peace, whatever kind of afterlife they chose, not this eternal prison of the mind.

“I don’t think she’ll hurt you,” Juliet said weakly. “Those other two seemed to be all right.”

Yes, well, Tom and Joan weren’t tuned in to the other side. “Are you positive that couple you saw with me went down these stairs tonight?” Ghosts could be foggy on timelines and details, and I really didn’t want to go on a wild-goose chase down a haunted stairwell.

“It was them,” Juliet confirmed. “The man called the woman Joan. He was barking a lot of orders at her.” She cringed. “I couldn’t forget them. He reminded me of my former husband.”

For once, I was glad Tom was a jerk.

“Thank you,” I said. If these stairs led down to the basement, I’d be one step closer to figuring out how someone killed Barbara. It made sense that Tom and Joan would use a back way even if it wasn’t the one I’d thought.

The air chilled as soon as I passed the threshold and placed my foot on the first step. I shivered and took two more down.

Juliet stood glowing in the doorway. “If you see Loretta, please tell her I’m sorry.” Her eyes went glassy. “I wasn’t there when they took her. I didn’t stop them. I—”

“It’s okay,” I said, stopping her. “We’ll make this right.” Somehow. I turned away from her and continued to make my way down the stairs.

Frankie was going to kill me for promising to fix things. Ellis was still in the basement, worried sick. And, well, I’d have to tackle the haunted staircase before I saw either one of them again.

“God go with you,” Juliet said, making the sign of the cross as she faded away.

I’d need all the help I could get.

The door creaked closed behind me. I braced my hands on the brick walls on either side, which glowed gray in the ghostly light.

“Loretta?” I called. The steep stairs took me down, twisted to the right, then drove down once more.

“I’m on your side, Loretta.” Every move I made stirred up dust that tickled my nose.

Ghostly lightbulbs shone from wire cages as I wound deeper into the heart of the asylum—until I reached a small landing with a door.

The stairs continued down, but I stopped on the landing and peeked out the door. It appeared to be the second floor. Voices echoed from down the hall to my right. It sounded like an excited ghost hunter, and I had to admit, it cheered me a little.

I clicked on my flashlight, shined it up ahead, and in the glow of my beam, I saw the shadow of the main staircase ahead and to the right.

Which meant my staircase was an express route to all floors.

And so far, Loretta—not to mention the Burowskis—was nowhere to be found.

I ducked back inside, my mind racing. This could very well be the route Tom and Joan had used to reach the basement to murder Barbara. I should have timed myself coming down. In fact, I would. Later. I’d hurry down as fast as possible and see how long it might have taken them.

In the meantime, I was proud I’d kept my wits about me and my hands off the metal banister—lest I disturb any fingerprints the police might need later.

I started down once more. I had this handled.

My confidence built as I reached the door marked Lobby. This all made sense—the route, the ease in getting downstairs.

A polished metal mirror hung next to this door, a quick way to make one’s self presentable for the public. I ran a finger over the hammered metal. It wouldn’t be glass. That could break and injure patients. Some could even use it as a weapon. It glowed as bright as the walls of the stairwell, and I smiled into my wavy reflection, pleased at the discovery of the hallway, excited to be doing something useful instead of waiting in the basement. I didn’t know how Ellis handled stakeouts. I was almost glad to be up here, that Levi had sought my company and lifted me in the body elevator. I—

My image faded and was replaced by a face that was not my own. I watched as my skin went gray and my cheekbones sank. My bright eyes faded to black, their sockets hollowing down to the skull.

I shrieked, turned, and saw it was real. My hands had gone skeletal; my arms felt weak. My neck felt tight, squeezed. I touched my fingers to the skin there and almost expected to feel a rope noose.

“Loretta?” I whispered.

The pressure around my throat intensified.

I choked, gasping for air as I made a break for the lobby. But the door refused to open. A watery gray mist flowed down the stairwell directly at me. It filled the entire space, and my blood froze when I heard an icy cackle.

I ran. A thin laugh echoed behind me as I dashed down the stairs, clutching my throat, fighting to breathe.

“Get out,” a cold voice sounded in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

I tried. I ran, choking, struggling.

Down to the basement that smelled like old brick and wet and rot. I flung open the door and ran into a dark, closed-in hallway. It felt like being buried alive.

I ran through puddles, through soft earth that felt ready to open and swallow me. I ran with a hand against the wall, turned, ran again, turned. Cripes. This place was like a maze, but I had to get out of that stairwell with that mist and the awful image of my face. With all that rot and death and I hadn’t even seen Loretta…unless that was her, and if it was, she was the queen of all head games.

Stop.

I couldn’t help anybody if I let myself get carried away by a hallucination.

I forced myself to slow. But I couldn’t make myself quit moving, not until I shined my light behind me onto an empty hallway. Safe. I transferred the light to my hands—pink and healthy—and my arms. I touched my face and willed it not to be all sunken and dead and, Lord almighty, that felt real. I planted my back against the damp brick wall and took a steadying breath.

I’d probably run right through any footprints Tom and Joan might have left.

Dang it all.

I punched a fist against the wall behind me. I knew better than that!

Barbara deserved better than that.

Even if she was a pain in the keister.

I rested my head against the wall, looking up at the shadows cast on the ceiling. I was smarter than this. I’d been through enough investigations and solved plenty of cases under trying circumstances.

I doubted any official forensics experts ever had to survive haunted hallways while preserving evidence.

And now I was…

Alone.

I aimed my light down both directions of the deserted basement hallway. It couldn’t have been far to the morgue, not if Tom and Joan had chosen this route to kill Barbara. Of course, they hadn’t panicked and started running this way and that. But I had, and now I was lost.

I looked for footprints on the earthen floor and found none.

All right.

I didn’t want to call for Ellis. He was hiding on a stakeout. And I was a woman alone in a place with a killer, so shouting for anybody was a bad idea.

With any luck, I’d find Ellis before the killer found me. But first, I needed to get moving.

I chose to go right.

The staff stairs had plunged through the very center of the building, and the boiler room where Barbara died had been somewhere north of the lobby. Heaven knew where I’d run, but if I’d gone catawampus, it would be best to pick a direction and try to stick to the north side, wherever that might be.

I passed a room marked Storage.

This basement couldn’t be more than a football field large, although with the winding passages, I could wander for quite a while before I found my way to the morgue. Then I came to a place where four hallways intersected.

Lovely.

“Frankie?” I whispered, wishing he had some kind of ghost spidey sense that told him when I was in trouble.

Then again, knowing Frankie, he’d use it to avoid me.

“Frank,” I tried again, choosing to press straight ahead. I’d go in clear lines. That way, I could map it out in my head. My sense of direction wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t terrible, either. I had to keep a clear head about this.

I pressed down a hall that seemed to lead nowhere. No doors opened off it. I didn’t even see any modern-day lights on the ceiling. This was the wrong way, a dead end, a—

I sensed movement behind me, heard a sound like lips smacking.

I turned. “Frankie?” I asked, even though I knew it wasn’t.

Behind me stood the ghost of a skinny young man overdue for a haircut. His face was all angles, his eyes wild and excited, like he’d just discovered the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. And he held a large silver carving knife.

15

Yikes. For once, Barbara had told the truth. She did have a knife-wielding escapee in her basement. And now I was trapped with him.

“You’d better watch it with that knife,” I said, backing away slowly.

Running wouldn’t help. The ghost could easily disappear and reappear at will, and I’d rather not provoke him. The man’s knife looked sharp. It was serrated, made to cut through flesh and bone.

The thin, quivering ghost smacked his lips, a wet sucking sound, and it struck me hard; he was the predator and I was prey.

I glanced behind me at the dark tangle of hallways. There would be no help for me there. I tried for a smile and managed a grimace.

“I really would love it if you lowered that knife,” I said as if we were making small talk outside the library in Sugarland.

He cackled with glee as if he enjoyed my obvious distress, which was now, okay, starting to border on panic. He closed in on me fast.

“I don’t like sharp objects,” I protested, my voice going higher as I drew back and he pressed closer, well into my personal space.

He broke into a hearty grin, inches away from me, his breath cold and sickeningly sweet against my cheek.

“I’m looking for my friend,” I managed. My elbow scraped the wall as I took another stiff step backward. I couldn’t let him corner me, either. I fought to keep my breath even, my mind clear.

I could scream for Ellis, but he couldn’t fight off a ghost. And by the time he got here…

As much as I hated to admit it, only one person could help me now. “Frankie!” I screamed.

No response.

“My friend will be here any second,” I said, making conversation as I felt the cold tip of the knife at my ribs. I sidestepped it.

Because, sure, Frankie always showed up when I needed him. “Frankie!” I called again, startling the ghost with the knife.

I never should have gone down the haunted staircase. I never should have left Juliet. At least she could have run interference for me. This ghost didn’t want to speak. He wanted to stab. “You’re scaring me,” I said to him. Might as well admit it. “I don’t like your knife.”

He drew back and looked at the immense cleaver in his grip as if he’d forgotten it was there.

“That knife—” I let out a stuttered breath “—is a menace.”

Then he tried to hand it to me.

I was so shocked, at first I didn’t take it.

We stared at each other for a moment. Him, offering his prize thrust sideways with mostly the blade first. Me, too petrified to even speak.

Which was really saying something.

“Wait,” I said, recovering a little. “If you’re offering”—I held out a shaking hand—“I’d love to hold your knife.”

My touch would make it disappear.

Sure, it would take a few minutes for that to happen, but if I was in control of the knife, then it also meant Crazy Charlie couldn’t stab me with it.

He let me take it. I gripped the handle, and the cold shock of it seared up my arm. It would eventually go back to him, but if I could hold on to it long enough for it to fade out of existence temporarily, I might find an opportunity to escape. It was a start.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to act casual like I was watching someone’s pet for them. I thought he might want to take the knife back right away, but he didn’t seem to care at all that I had it. He backed away and smiled shyly like he’d just given me a gift.

This was no origami bird.

“You are Charlie, right?” I asked.

He smiled shyly.

The doctor thought he’d run away. I wondered what else the doctor had told me that wasn’t true.

“You know, I’ve heard stories about you,” I said to Charlie, tucking his weapon behind me, trying to ignore the wet, invasive chill going up my arm, seeping into my shoulder. “Interesting ones.” I couldn’t quite call them good. “Lots of people know you’re here.”

Ghosts usually liked to be remembered.

This guy just watched me.

It occurred to me that he could use a haircut. His uneven locks had obviously been trimmed in-house and not very well.

“Dr. Anderson thinks you ran away. Did you hide down here instead?” Poor Charlie might have seen it as a last resort, a way to escape those old-timey medical treatments. If that was the case, I didn’t blame him.

He seemed a little scared of me now that he’d given me his butcher blade.

“Did you see a man and a woman passing this way?” I asked. If anything prompted him to speak, perhaps it would be strangers in his domain. “They would have come down the same stairs as I did,” I added, in case he’d been stalking me for a while.

He moved his head, but I couldn’t tell if it meant yes or no.

“We think they may have hurt a lady down in the boiler room. Killed her, actually. Did you see anything?”

Charlie tilted his head and looked at me.

“I’m trying to get back to my friend in the morgue,” I said, gesturing with my knife hand, immediately regretting it.

But he didn’t snatch my prize away. He didn’t attack me either. He merely turned and glided away.

“Um, Charlie,” I said, keeping up with him, but giving him a bit of distance at the same time. “Do you want me to follow you? Does that mean you know where Ellis is?”

Or had Charlie had enough of me?

He didn’t pause, didn’t turn. He simply glided down the darkened hallway. A dark substance matted the hair at the base of his skull. Blood?

It didn’t matter.

Charlie seemed like a decent guy so far, and I really didn’t want to be alone. “I’m just going to come with you anyway,” I said. It seemed polite to give him a heads-up.

He continued on as if he hadn’t heard me.

So I followed. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. One direction was as good as the next, and at least Charlie seemed to have a plan.

“I won’t tell the institution staff I saw you if you’d prefer it. I can keep a secret.”

He’d obviously been hiding down here for a long time.

Up ahead, another hallway intersected ours. I had no clue where any of it led. Charlie turned left without hesitation.

Okay, so he knew where we were going. Or at least where he was going.

“In fact, you don’t have to hide,” I added. “There are plenty of nice places you could haunt. Lots of ghosts prefer neat old hotels or restaurants, or hey…”

He sped up his pace and I jogged to keep up.

“Funny,” I said, stepping lightly, avoiding the puddles, not above making awkward conversation. “All those stories about Crazy Charlie chasing people around with a meat cleaver, and here I’m the one following you down the dark haunted hallway with a big scary knife.” My stomach pinched. What a dumb thing to say. I tried to correct myself. “Not that you always chase people with your knife, because obviously, you didn’t do that to me.”

I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut.

“Why aren’t you talking?” I asked, immediately regretting that as well.

Charlie glided on. He’d be right to leave me behind. It was like I had this superpower ability to talk to people, but if they didn’t engage right away, it backfired on me and made my brain spew.

“I’m going to shut up now,” I muttered as Charlie made a sharp right down another hallway, and I stepped into a deep, mucky puddle. “Ew,” I said, wiping my foot on a patch of gravel. The knife had mostly disappeared in my hand, so I let it go and watched it disintegrate the rest of the way. I wouldn’t miss the cold, wet feeling. “Hey, thanks for slowing down for me,” I said to the ghost. Then I saw it. Dead ahead. “It’s the circular staircase!”

Well, a circular staircase.

Charlie grinned at me like he’d known it all along, which he probably had. If he’d been mortal, I’d have given him a victorious tap on the shoulder as I dashed past him. “Is this the one that comes down from the lobby?”

If so, I knew where we were.

“I think it is!” I bypassed the circular stairs and took a left down the hallway. “I think I love you!”

The ghost treated me to a wavering smile as I rushed past a mucky old storage room and, next, the door marked Delivery.

And beyond it, “The morgue!” I said, excited enough to hug somebody.

I heard sounds from inside the morgue, which was just lovely. Then Ellis swung open the door. “Verity!” he said, shining his flashlight in my face, but I didn’t even care. I rushed him and hugged him hard, steadying him as he stumbled back. “Whoops!” I smiled up at him. “I’m just so glad to see you.”

“What the hell happened?” he asked, with equal amounts of joy and frustration as he pulled me toward the autopsy table and closed the door behind us.

I drew him down for a quick kiss. Then a longer one. God, it felt good to be back. Ellis was so solid, so real. It felt right to be back with him, where I belonged.

Frankie let out a cry from somewhere near the ceiling. “Look out! It’s Crazy Charlie!”

Oh, sure. Now my gangster cared.

I pulled away and gave Ellis one more kiss, a sweet one this time. “Don’t worry,” I said, running a finger down his T-shirt, enjoying the solid feel of him. “I took Charlie’s knife.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ellis said, and I reveled in it. It was hard to surprise Ellis.

Frankie, however, was not amused. “This is why I don’t like going adventuring with you,” the gangster muttered from a spot in the tippy-top corner of the room, above the body lockers.

“Did you learn anything from the Burowskis?” I asked him.

“I learned Tom is a jerk and Joan is a flake,” Frankie grumbled. “Then they went into the creepiest examination room I’ve ever seen, and I left them to it.”

“Agent 007 you are not,” I told him.

“Sit down and tell me where you’ve been,” Ellis said.

“Deal,” I told him. “You too, Frankie,” I added to the ghost, who didn’t appear at all ready to come down off the ceiling.

Charlie stood in the doorway, looking at Frankie like the gangster would rush down and bite him. “Don’t worry. Frankie is mostly friendly,” I assured Charlie.

The thin, quiet ghost didn’t appear convinced, and I couldn’t blame him.

So we left it at that, the two ghosts sizing each other up while I told Ellis everything that had happened since I’d gone up the body elevator. I told the story down to the smallest detail, knowing Ellis might put together clues I hadn’t, and when I finished, we both sat back and thought for a moment.

Ellis rubbed a hand over his chin. “What if the ghosts are the key?” He paused to think. “They have to know more than they’re letting on.”

Perhaps. Still, I found myself playing devil’s advocate. “Juliet was helpful in showing me the haunted stairs,” I conceded, “and Charlie got me here. Other than that, though, none of them witnessed anything more than Tom and Joan taking a staircase that would have eventually led them to the basement.”

It wasn’t a strong case for murder, not at all.

“It would help if we found fingerprints,” Ellis pointed out.

“I didn’t touch anything,” I assured him.

“Does anyone care that we’re completely neglecting Bruno Scalieri?” Frankie drawled from the ceiling.

Not really. “I never agreed to help him escape,” I reminded my ghost. “Besides, the place is on lockdown. You can’t even get yourself out now.”

“It’s like you enjoy taunting me,” the ghost muttered.

“Meanwhile, you left Tom and Joan.”

Frankie had the courtesy to look guilty for a moment. “I had to. Tom was way too interested in gross things in jars.”

Charlie glided through the wall that separated the morgue from the boiler room and disappeared.

I glanced up at Frankie. “Where do you think he’s going?”

Ellis perked up.

“Who cares, as long as he’s leaving,” Frankie said, coming down off the wall.

“Charlie doesn’t deserve that kind of attitude,” I said, in case the other ghost was listening. I thought for a moment, then sat up straighter. “Maybe he wants to show us something in the boiler room. While he was helping me find my way back, I asked him about Barbara’s murder.”

Ellis considered it. “Nobody has come down to tamper with the body. And there’s not much I can determine without forensics.”

“We can check my phone,” I suggested.

“Also follow up with this Charlie guy to see if he can point out anything that’s unusual. I mean, he lives down here, right?”

“We’re on it,” I said, hopping down from the table.

“Oh, and look what I found while I was trying to get you back down in the body elevator,” Ellis said, handing me the car keys that I’d dropped down the chute.

“Thanks,” I said, slipping them into my pocket, ten kinds of relieved. “Maybe things are starting to go our way,” I added, heading to the boiler room.

“We can only hope,” Ellis cautioned as I used Barbara’s keys to open the door I’d locked, and we braced ourselves to walk back in on the murder scene.

16

Ellis directed his light inside. Barbara’s body lay still and silent where I’d left it. The pool of dark red blood on the earthen floor had seeped onto the bottom of nearby boxes, soaking them.

I held back while Ellis inspected the body. “It appears Barbara died of blunt force trauma to the head.”

“I figured,” I told him, “although I didn’t look closely.” The fact that she didn’t have a pulse had been enough for me.

Rather than think too hard on that, I made my way to the box of plumbing supplies where I’d hidden my cell phone. It was still there, braced up against the cardboard, underneath a bag of rubber gaskets.

“It’s still recording,” I said, relieved to have my phone back. And that my plan had worked.

“Can I see?” Ellis asked.

“You’re the police,” I said as he took my phone and set the recording back to the beginning. We heard the muffled sounds of me hiding the device in the cardboard box.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” my voice echoed from the recording. Then the sound of jangling keys as I locked Barbara’s body into the boiler room.

Then nothing. Just dead space.

Ellis fast-forwarded through the parts of the recording with no sound while Frankie glided over to inspect the body. He whistled low under his breath and glanced up at me. “This isn’t a simple murder,” he said, the warning clear in his eyes. “This is rage.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, joining him.

“Easy.”

I hated the fact he’d lived with such wrath and violence he would know immediately what murderous rage looked like. I wanted to comfort him somehow, which was ridiculous because the gangster saw nothing wrong with his life. He’d endured the worst of it long before I’d ever been born.

“Take another look,” the gangster prompted.

I did. “Silver and white soul traces are normal, aren’t they?” I’d seen them on every fresh body I’d encountered, as long as the person still lay where they died. Soul traces, as they’d been explained to me, were remnants of the spirit leaving for a better place.

“Forget the soul traces. Look at her head,” Frankie said as if giving me the paint-by-numbers version. “You don’t need to use that much force to kill somebody. This wasn’t a simple hit. There was a lot of rage behind this one. I’m betting it didn’t show up on her soul traces because she was dead before she knew it.”

“That’s terrible.” Although I supposed it was a blessing. Sort of.

“I think I found something,” Ellis said from near the box where I’d left my phone.

He turned the volume up. Heavy static took over my cell phone recording, and a muffled voice spoke a single word.

“Sllllow.”

“That was a ghost,” I said quickly. It was an EVP like Brett and Cash had been after. The voice had a rusty, ethereal quality to it.

Besides that, I’d locked the door and there had been no jangle of keys on the recording, no sound of locks being picked and a door squeaking open. No footsteps entering.

“How far in is the recording?” I asked.

“An hour,” Ellis replied warily. “I was on guard at that point.”

“Rewind,” Frankie ordered, but Ellis was already doing it. He played it again.

“Dooon’t.”

“It said go,” Frankie stated, excited.

“I heard don’t,” I told them.

“Sounds like slow,” Ellis said at the same time.

“Frankie said go,” I translated.

Ellis flipped on his ghost-hunter phone app. “Go,” it chirped.

“Well, would you look at that.” He held up his phone, amused.

Frankie huffed. “I ain’t a circus act.”

“Play the recording for the app,” I suggested.

We did. Several times. The app didn’t care.

“Told you it was a piece of junk,” Frankie said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why don’t you turn the app off for now?” I suggested to Ellis. It wasn’t telling us anything useful, and we needed Frankie to stay focused. “It could have been ‘don’t,’ ‘slow’ or ‘go.’ Or even something else,” I told them both.

We played it again. And again. The sound was muffled, the word short. It didn’t help that the ghost seemed to have kicked up tons of static.

Ellis held up the phone. “This is an actual ghost recording,” he said, like a kid at Christmas.

“You have an actual ghost right here,” Frankie said dryly.

“We can isolate this in the crime lab,” Ellis continued, “see if there’s anything subtle in the background we’ve missed. Perhaps something from a live person.”

“Maybe there’s more,” I said.

We let the recording play. The static cut abruptly, and silence overtook the room once more. Ellis drew his finger across the screen, searching for any more sound on the recording.

Ellis hitched himself up on his crutch as we scrolled and scrolled and listened to…nothing. His leg had to be hurting. I looked around and didn’t see Charlie anywhere.

There was no use standing around with the body. “Let’s get you back to the autopsy table,” I said, hoping he’d accept that comfort.

“There isn’t much else we can do in here,” Ellis said, “for now, at least.”

I locked up the murder scene once more and then joined Ellis and Frankie back in the morgue. Ellis was playing the recording back again as I closed the door.

“Flooow.”

Ellis frowned. “Maybe it’s saying no.”

No doubt, if we listened to it again, we’d hear even more possibilities. “I have a better idea than waiting to get this to a crime lab,” I said, knowing Ellis wouldn’t like what I was about to suggest. “I can play it for the ghosts. Or even the ghost hunters. They might have some kind of special equipment.” The packs on their backs were big enough.

Ellis gave me a sharp look. “We just got you back,” he warned. “I don’t want you running all over, looking for those ghost hunters.”

But he had to admit it was a smart move. “They know more about EVPs than we do,” I pointed out. “They are our best shot at learning what the recording really says,” I added, going for wild optimism. “This could be the clue that gets us out of here.”

Ellis appeared less than impressed. “As long as you’re not handing our evidence to the killers,” he drawled.

He had to point that out.

“I really don’t think Brett or Cash did it,” I said, sounding lame even to my own ears. I’d been wrong about murderers before.

“Will you bet our lives on that?” Ellis challenged.

Sometimes I really didn’t like his logical brain.

“I get you,” I said. I really did. “But in this case, we need more than pure calculation. We need a lucky break.” And that would only come if we took a calculated risk. We couldn’t afford to dismiss Brett and Cash or the help they could provide. “We need to work together if we want to get out of here.”

“Verity…” Ellis shook his head.

“I think Charlie led us to the boiler room because he was trying to help,” I insisted. “That ghost on the recording said something that could be a clue.” We couldn’t ignore that. “You guys haven’t seen what I have upstairs. Dr. Anderson seems to have a good enough heart, but he doesn’t think like we do. We can’t just sit back and let him keep us here. This is a very bad place.”

“Oh, I get it.” Frankie stopped and turned to face me. “You’re gonna get everyone out except poor Bruno Scalieri, who did nothing to you.”

“He threatened to kill me,” I pointed out.

“But did he do it?” Frankie challenged. “He did not.”

“Because his leg was chained to the table,” I corrected. “Bruno Scalieri is not getting out. But the rest of these ghosts deserve a choice.”

“We’ll do our best to make that happen,” Ellis promised while Frankie groaned.

“You’re not even a ghost hunter.” Frankie threw up his hands at Ellis.

“You’re not even a ghost hunter,” I said, giving Ellis a kiss on the cheek.

Ellis laced his pinkie finger with mine. “I’m a cop.” He shrugged. “We work every day to make a difference. This is the same.”

I was so lucky to have him.

“I’m surrounded by a bunch of crazy do-gooders,” Frankie fumed.

He was the one who’d gotten us into this mess.

“Circus,” chimed the ghost-hunter app.

“Yeah, and I’m living in the big tent,” Frankie groused.

“Whoops.” Ellis checked his phone. “I must not have turned it off properly.” He messed with his screen.

“Give me a half hour to find Brett and Cash,” I said. “I heard them on the second floor when I was coming down the stairwell. They might still be there.”

“Take a look, and if they’re not there, come on back,” Ellis urged.

“I will,” I promised. We’d be smart. Ellis would know exactly where I was.

“And take Frankie,” he added.

Frankie crossed his arms over his chest as if daring me to make him. “I am not her servant. I’ll go if I want to.”

I rested a hand on my hip. “So do you want to?”

“I’d rather dance naked through Times Square.”

“Fine. You win.” I wasn’t going to push it. With my luck, he’d find bomb-making materials in the custodian’s closet and blow a hole in the wall for Scalieri to escape.

I turned to Ellis. “Frankie can stay with you and run ghostly interference if you get into a bad situation,” I said, earning a harrumph from the ghost. I gave the gangster a sharp look. “As for your part, Frankie, I expect you to follow any ghosts who show themselves. And be sure to ask them if they saw anything or if it’s them on the recording.”

The gangster nodded like a surly teenager. “The quicker we solve this, the faster I can get Scalieri out,” he grumbled.

“That’s the spirit,” I said.

I might even run into Dr. Anderson or Nurse Claymore in the treatment areas upstairs. It seemed to be the place where they did most of their work, I thought with a shudder. Even still, I had to maintain my focus. Yes, they’d subjected their patients to questionable, downright cruel treatments, but they could well hold the key to this mystery. Both of them seemed to care deeply about what happened at this hospital. Nurse Claymore, in particular, had an eye on things. And Dr. Anderson held the key to the front door.

I couldn’t forget that.

We’d solve Barbara’s murder and help the ghosts here find a way out of this terrible place. I clung to that thought as I kissed Ellis goodbye and made my way down the darkened hallway toward the spiral stairs.

I opened the door to the lobby. It lay dark, quiet. And then I heard the voices upstairs.

“Don’t do it!” cried a man.

It came from the second floor.

“I have to!”

That was Brett.

“Brett?” I called, heading for the main staircase.

“No, please. Listen,” a voice echoed down.

I took the stairs two at a time. That was Cash.

“It’s wrong. It’s all wrong,” Cash cried.

The voices were coming from the south hall, from the part I hadn’t explored yet. A ghostly glow flooded out from a doorway at the far end. “Stop!” Cash screamed as I rushed in to save him.

17

I dashed down the darkened hallway toward the ghostly light pouring from a room at the far end.

Heaven help all of us. I had no special strength, no insight, no skill to solve whatever problem Brett and Cash were trying to face. The only thing I had going for me was my ability to see the other side. And at that moment, I probably didn’t want to witness the horrors going on in that room.

Cash uttered a sharp cry, and I feared I’d be too late. Still, I didn’t dare call out to reassure him.

I crunched over broken glass, nearly tripping over a prostrate IV holder. It skidded into the wall, making way too much noise. Stars, I should have been more careful coming up the stairs. They could be in there with the killer, and I didn’t want to announce my presence any more than I already had.

I stopped, doubled back, and grabbed the discarded IV holder. It was metal. It was long. It was the only thing even remotely weaponlike at my disposal. I hefted it, prepared to defend myself if it came to that. Ellis would be ticked that I was jumping into the middle of this, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

The glowing room up ahead and to the right had gone deathly silent.

I slowed as I drew near. I didn’t want to make more noise than I had already.

“Cash?” Brett warbled, his voice sounding wet and shaky.

If he’d just killed his partner, I’d be nuts to try to go up against him with a half-rotted medical device.

I clutched my weapon tight and stopped outside the door. My palms had gone slick against the metal. I could turn around and leave. It would be the smart thing to do.

But then I’d be no further than when I started, and we’d never get out of here. I curled a hand around the doorjamb.

“Something’s out there,” Cash whispered, breathless.

I readjusted my grip on my weapon. Thank God he wasn’t lying dead on the floor.

“You getting a reading?” Cash pressed.

“No,” Brett hissed.

That was because it was me.

I straightened, letting out the breath I’d been holding. “You’re both alive.” I braved the doorway and immediately regretted it when a metal chair whizzed past my hip. “Hey, now!” It could have hit me. Would have if I hadn’t dodged sideways. “What’s the deal?”

The men stood ready to defend themselves in a patient examination room that glowed brightly with ghostly energy.

“Stay back,” Brett ordered. He wore night-vision goggles and wielded a pointy metal rod that glowed red at the end.

Along the back wall stood a line of bathtubs. In our world, rust streaked down the cracked porcelain, forming pools on the dirty, cracked tile floor. In the ghostly realm, a large vat of ice stood next to each sterile white tub. Straps lay slack, ready to bind a patient inside.

“Believe me, I’m not the scariest thing in this room,” I told them.

Large glass picture windows were painted over in black, blocking any view of escape and the outside.

This must be where they’d taken Loretta, the place where she’d faced treatments she had deemed worse than death. A thick tarp shrouded the tub at the far-left corner of the row, and I swore I heard a faint splashing coming from inside.

My gut went cold. “Who’s in the tub?”

If somebody was trapped in there, we needed to get them out.

“Nobody,” Cash said, barely glancing at it. He adjusted his night-vision goggles and pointed his camera at me. “Now, stop where you are.”

“Cash, there’s somebody in the tub. I can hear splashing,” I told him.

But he wasn’t listening. “We’ve got you dead to rights,” Cash insisted. “You kill us, you’re on video. It’s uploading to the cloud right now.”

Oh, come on. “You really think I’m the killer?” That hurt. I mean, I could name a few people who didn’t like me—Ellis’s mother being a prime example—but even Virginia Wydell hadn’t pegged me for a cold-blooded murderer. Brett backed up a step. Cash’s hand shook as he filmed me, ready for me to make my homicidal move. I rested a hand on my hip. “If I was going to murder you, I’d have done it by now, and I wouldn’t have used an IV rack.” I abandoned it by the door and approached the two men. “I also know you’re not recording to the cloud because we have no Wi-Fi in this place.”

Brett cursed under his breath.

“And if you somehow found a Wi-Fi hookup, you would have called the police when you realized you were trapped in here with a killer.” At least I hoped that was the case. There was enthusiastic ghost hunting and then there was unhealthy obsession. “Stop the retreat or one of you is going to stumble backward into an empty tub.”

Cash lowered his camera. “Now you sound more like my mother than a killer.”

I’d take that.

“She still could be the killer, man,” Brett said, refusing to lower his pointy stick.

“Nah.” Cash shook his head. “No way she could even hide a weapon in those tight shorts.”

“Hey, now, that’s inappropriate,” I warned.

“Plus, she’s here with the police.” Cash gestured helplessly. “Officer Wydell showed me his badge.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I read an article about him this past summer. He solved a murder on some train.”

“I helped him with that,” I said, hooking my thumbs into the pockets of my appropriately modest jean shorts, hoping I didn’t sound too braggy. These guys needed to trust me. “It was a double murder involving a ghost,” I added. Okay, so maybe I was a little proud.

Brett grinned at that. “Well, if that don’t beat all,” he said, lowering the wand.

So that was the way to his heart—killer spooks. He’d make some lady very happy.

They’d found one of the most haunted rooms I’d seen tonight. “I didn’t mean to barge in and freak you out,” I explained, “but you sounded like you were in trouble.”

Cash glanced at his partner. “We heard rushing water.”

“And a scream,” Brett added. “I wanted to turn on some very specific equipment.”

“And I still think that’s a horrible idea,” Cash said to his partner.

Brett sighed. “This was one of the rooms where they did experimental treatments,” he said, motioning to thick ropes rotting on hooks along the right wall. “They’d tie women up on the floor by that drain,” he added, pointing to a rusty hole in the concrete floor.

“This is what you do in your spare time?” I asked. “Pursue these people who lived and died so tragically?”

“We’re not gawking,” Brett insisted. “We’re not in here because we enjoy these stories or look at this place as some sort of ghost shrine. We’re here because we want to learn more about the people who lived and died here.”

“We’ve developed scientific equipment to measure their presence, and we want to tell their stories,” Cash added.

That made more sense. “I get it.” I nodded. “I really do.”

Brett let out a harsh breath. “People are trapped here.”

“I know,” I said, thinking of Loretta in the stairwell, of Levi locked in his room upstairs. Charlie, who had supposedly gone missing, now wandering the basement. I looked to the tub in the corner and saw the canvas shift. There was something, someone underneath.

We couldn’t just leave her—or him—there.

“Turn on your instruments and come with me,” I said, starting for the tub in the corner.

Cash hefted the camera once more.

“That’s where we got the big reading,” Brett said on an exhale.

“We’re not going to try your experimental machine on it,” Cash warned, “we’re not.”

“How else do we know if it works?” Brett snapped.

“These are people,” Cash shot back.

“Guys.” I stopped several yards away from the tub. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

But Brett was already distracted, staring at a box tied to his belt. “We just jumped from a three to a seven,” he said quickly, excited.

“No way.” Cash crowded next to him to see, excited as a kid with a new puppy. “Highest we got downstairs was a four.”

“What does your new machine do?” I pressed.

Brett looked up and he took a second to process my question. “Oh,” he said, “it measures the spectramanomic frequency of the beta waves emitted by spectral entities and uses a magnetic pulse to intensify the signal.”

He’d lost me on spectramanomic. “Give me the simple version,” I pressed.

The guys exchanged a look. “That was the simple version,” Brett said, not even bothering to sugarcoat it.

I started to speak, but Cash broke in, “Look, it basically magnifies a ghost. But like I told Brett, that’s a bad idea in a haunted asylum.”

“Because we need to test it out on ghost crickets or something,” Brett said, throwing up a hand like an Italian grandmother.

“We could visit a haunted convent,” Cash suggested, “ask really nicely if any of the nuns would let us use it.”

“Or maybe we could ask some nice old lady about ghost kittens,” Brett added sarcastically.

“I know a ghost horse,” I told him.

“This is beside the point,” Cash said. “That device is too dangerous. I forbid you to use it,” he said to his friend.

Brett snorted. “Says the guy who forgot his spectrometer at Denny’s last week.”

A low moan sounded from the tub behind me, echoing off the concrete and tile.

“Shit,” Cash said under his breath.

“You heard it too?” I asked, turning.

“Hell yes,” Brett choked out.

Water splashed inside the tub.

“I heard that, too!” Brett gasped, pointing his stick at the tub.

“If someone’s trapped in there, we need to get her out,” I said, sounding much braver than I felt.

Nerves quivering, I approached the tub, with Brett and Cash right behind me. I could hear my breath, wet in my ears.

“We can really get her out?” Brett whispered.

“I hope so,” I said, bracing myself against the chill of the air surrounding the tub. Goose bumps danced up my arms. “I’ve helped a ghost to the light before.”

This could even be Juliet’s friend Loretta. Maybe all she needed was a little understanding, someone to show her the way to a better place. I couldn’t imagine her wanting to stay trapped in a cycle she’d killed herself to escape.

“Put it down, Brett,” Cash hissed.

The pipes groaned, and ghostly water began rushing into the tub.

A woman sobbed and pushed against the tarp.

“Heaven almighty!” I ripped the tarp from the tub in this realm and the ghostly one. The pain of it shot down my arm and hollowed my chest. I fell back, heart racing, as the ghost of a woman shot up from the tub with a shrill scream.

She wore a soaking white gown that looked more like a nurse’s uniform, along with a crooked white cap with a cross on it. Her face was bloated like a drowning victim, her hair torn out in spots. Her maniacal stare focused on me.

“Get in the tub!” she ordered.

“Oh, heck no.” I stumbled back, straight into Brett, who aimed his pointy stick at her and fired a blast of energy. I saw the impact of the invisible beam he sent her, watched her image flutter like a rock tossed in a pond, then grow more substantial.

She reached for me.

“Talk to us,” Brett called, feeding her power. “It’s okay.”

It was not okay. We didn’t need her stronger. We needed her gone. Suddenly, I was moving closer to the tub against my will, my feet dragging across the floor.

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God,” I repeated like a mantra. The soles of my sneakers skidded against the old linoleum as I fought the unseen force.

And just when I thought she had me, the energy grew and overtook her. Cash grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back as I watched the ripple overtake the ghost and swallow her up until only darkness remained.

“That was awful,” I stammered, steadying myself against the young ghost hunter in the dark. I couldn’t believe she’d grabbed me like that. I fought off the chill and the lingering effects of her shimmering energy.

“The meter’s back down to zero,” Brett reported.

The spirit had fled.

“She was after us,” Cash said, breathing hard.

“After me,” I corrected.

“Maybe after me now that I zapped her,” Brett worried.

Dang, it was dark. Dark was great. Dark meant we were alone.

“She was bad,” Cash warned. “Evil.”

“Well, wait. Maybe not evil,” I said. At least I hoped not. “You can’t just assume evil. But she wasn’t our friend.”

“She tried to drag you in with some crazy ghost tractor beam,” Brett practically shouted.

“And you wanted to make her stronger,” Cash accused his friend.

“It worked for a brief time,” I said, “then it seems the enhanced energy was too much for the ghost and burned her out.”

“Okay, I didn’t want to mention this before, but I kind of used it on the doors downstairs when Verity was trapped in that hallway,” Brett admitted.

“You what?” Cash balked.

“I saw the ghostly glow on the locks get brighter,” I said, remembering. “Then it burned itself out.”

Kind of like what happened just now.

Cash cursed under his breath. “We can’t count on zapping every ghost we see. In fact, we need to get out of the asylum before this one gets her energy back.” I jumped when he placed something plastic in my hands. “Here. Night-vision goggles. I always carry a spare.”

“Thanks,” I said, putting them on, shocked when my world went to green on black. “Okay, this is neat,” I said, seeing Cash next to me and, beside him, Brett checking the meter attached to his belt.

“How did you see before?” Cash asked as if the question had just occurred to him.

I explained how the ghost side lit up for me, and how Brett’s invention had ultimately consumed the energy rather than growing it.

“This is terrible.” Brett’s shoulders slumped. “It was supposed to be my big breakthrough, but all I’ve done is make us a target for a big bad ghost.”

“It’s genius,” I countered. “It could be our way to leave the asylum tonight.”

Brett merely shook his head, still caught up in his invention’s perceived failure, while Cash’s face lit up. “We can use it to weaken the dominant ghost’s hold on the doors.”

“Or the windows, or whatever spot is the least haunted.”

“I’ve got an app for that,” Cash said, “or at least the measuring equipment. App sounds sexier, though.”

Brett made a weak gesture. “I’ll have to charge the battery back up.”

“How long will that take?” I asked.

“About a half hour,” he said, recovering his enthusiasm. “Hey, at least it does something useful.”

“We may only have one shot at this,” I said, my mind already working ahead.

“Yeah,” Cash agreed, “I don’t think the ghost who’s keeping us here is going to let us zap his energy twice.”

“If we don’t escape quickly, he’ll probably snap my stick in half,” Brett said.

“Then we’ll have two angry monsters to deal with,” Cash quipped.

“And a killer,” Brett added.

These boys needed to look on the bright side. If we did it right, one chance would be all we’d need. “We can pull this off,” I said. “As soon as you charge up the battery, we’ll get everybody out.”

“In the meantime, I’ll check the doors and windows downstairs,” Cash volunteered. “There might be an exit that’s weaker than the rest.”

“If there is, we’ll find it,” Brett vowed. “What?” he said at Cash’s pointed stare. “I can move and charge at the same time.”

“Sounds good,” I told them. “While you’re doing that, I’ll relay our plan to Ellis and track down the Burowskis.”

Cash took my arm. “Hold up. You want to invite the killers?”

I stiffened in his grip. “We don’t know that either of them murdered Barbara.”

“Process of elimination, babe,” Brett said, tucking his long wand into a carrying case by the door.

“We can’t just leave them here,” I said. “Once we escape, we can let the police sort it out.”

“It’s dangerous to go look for a couple of murderers,” Cash warned.

“You want to go with me?” I asked. I wouldn’t mind having company. Unless Cash was the killer, but I didn’t think he was.

Maybe I’d just made a big mistake.

“I’ll work with Brett to get us out of here,” Cash said, ending the debate. “I have priorities.”

I did, too, and every life mattered. “I’ll search the second and third floors for the Burowskis, then meet you on the first.”

“Just make it quick,” Brett warned. “And if you see that sopping wet ghost, run.”

“I also have to go into the basement and get Ellis,” I murmured.

“Keep it to half an hour,” Cash prodded. “The smartest thing we can do is get out of here as soon as we can.”

“I’ll make it work,” I promised, checking my watch.

“Here,” Brett said, digging into his case and coming up with what appeared to be a walkie-talkie. “This is one of our spare radios. You can use it to communicate with us.” He turned a knob, and static spurted out, followed by more knob turning, and then silence. “Hit the red button to talk. Hit the green button to tune in to our Ghost Hunter App. We’re beta testing it on our B frequency.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking it. I hardly needed an app to talk to the dead, but I would take the radio.

“Our radios have the admin version of the app,” Cash explained like it was a special thing. “It’ll give you another channel to talk to us if you get too much static on the first.” He pushed the green button, and lo and behold, the line was clear and free of static. “It’s quiet for now, but if there are any spirits around, you’ll probably want to avoid the green button and call us on the main channel.”

Brett pushed the red button on his radio. “Boo,” he said, his voice clear on my end. “Admin signal covers at least a half mile, so you’ll be set here.”

“Thanks,” I said, glad to have two ways to reach them. “You guys really do think of everything.”

“We’re scientists,” Cash said as if that explained everything.

I walked with them down the length of the south hall, toward the main staircase.

“Tom?” I called into each room. “Joan?”

Only I saw no ghostly light, nor any sign of the Burowskis. At least the night-vision goggles made it easier to see in the dark.

“You really should come with us,” Brett said, pausing at the main staircase. “We’ll even go down with you to get Officer Wydell.”

“It’s fine,” I said, getting a creepy feeling. I’d spoken too fast earlier. I’d told them where Ellis was. That was really bad if they were the killers.

Ellis could take care of himself, but still…

I glanced down the north side of the hallway and caught a faint glow coming from under one of the doors.

“Want to check out one more room with me?” I asked.

“No,” Cash said. “We have a job to do.”

They did, and so did I.

“I’ll be fine,” I said to them and to myself. I could handle this. If our plan with Brett’s device worked, we’d be out soon. “We’ll make this work.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Brett warned.

“Ha,” I said, brushing off his concern, not wanting to think about how close we were, and how that was when things usually fell apart.

18

This was the right thing to do.

If we were leaving, I needed to get Tom and Joan out with us. Yes, they might be killers, but ironically, that made it even more important to find them. If they were guilty, I couldn’t just leave them here to destroy evidence. They could break into the boiler room and contaminate the crime scene. They could wipe down the banisters in the haunted staircase. Worse, they could cover tracks we didn’t even know they’d left.

Plus, call me crazy, but I didn’t want to leave them to the mercy of Dr. Anderson.

The first two rooms I passed lay dark. The night-vision glasses came in handy as I investigated each. The first appeared to be a dental examination room. If the dust on the floor was any indication, I’d say the room hadn’t seen any living visitors in quite some time. It appeared abandoned by the dead as well. At least for now.

The second room held two long tables cluttered with dusty beakers and lab trays that were littered with debris and the occasional dead bug.

The next room glowed with ghostly energy. I slowed, pulling off my night-vision goggles before entering.

A woman lay on a hospital gurney parked in front of the large window wall facing the front of the property. Rain pelted the glass, and I could see she’d been tied down with canvas straps. Tubes hooked into each of her wrists and also her neck. A dark liquid passed into her, pumped by a metal machine parked at her side. It made an awful whirring noise, and for a second, I thought she lay dead.

Then her fingers twitched.

I stiffened and scanned the room for the person who had done this to her. No doubt Dr. Anderson or Nurse Claymore.

But we were alone.

“Hello,” I said to the helpless woman, my voice warbly as I approached her.

She had to be in her seventies or eighties, her cheekbones protruding harshly, her skin deeply creased and spotted with the marks of a hard life. Her ice gray hair was as long as a young girl’s. It tangled on the stained sheet under her and reached limply toward the bare linoleum floor.

“Are you all right?” I asked gently, helplessly.

Of course she wasn’t all right. She was hooked up to Lord knew what, in an asylum known for cruel treatments. She didn’t even have a pillow, for goodness’ sake, or a proper hospital gown. She wore a simple white nightgown stained with old blood at the collar.

I reached out to smooth her hair, then thought better of it. The shock of it would not be a comfort.

“Perhaps I could…unhook you?” I offered. I didn’t know the first thing about needles or what this transfusion machine was supposed to do, and I certainly wouldn’t touch anything without her permission.

Then again, she was already dead. What harm could it do?

The woman sat straight up with a jerk, and I nearly had a heart attack. Her wrists shook against the straps tying them down, and her head whipped toward the window, to the wind shaking the glass, the rain pounding hard.

“Should I…untie you?” I offered.

She turned her head slowly. Her eyes were milky and expressionless, her gaze directed straight at me. “They’re coming for you, dear.” She began to cackle. The bed creaked as she flailed her arms and kicked her legs against her bonds. “You!” She twisted toward me and pointed her finger, the nails long and yellow.

“I’m fine,” I insisted, because I wanted it to be true. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to calm her or myself.

She stopped her laughing as quickly as she’d started. She just stared at me for a moment.

“See?” I asked, keeping my voice as even as I could, trying to ignore the whirr of the machine, the loud pounding of my heart in my chest. “We’re all good.”

She patted her hands on the bed railings, her nails clicking against the metal as she lay back down. She stared at the ceiling.

“All better,” I coaxed, not about to offer to untie her again. She wasn’t like the patients I’d met upstairs. It seemed this woman did have some sort of acute psychological issues. “You’re safe with me,” I assured her.

Her mouth tilted in a serene smile, and she turned her head to look at me. “I’m going to miss you when they take you away.”

I stiffened at the warning as she gently closed her eyes and appeared to find sleep, or at least calm in a place I did not want to visit.

“Miss,” a voice called from the doorway, taking about a year off my life. Nurse Claymore swept into the room, frowning. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Hello,” I said, startled. I’d been hoping to run into Dr. Anderson’s unsmiling second-in-command. I turned back to the woman on the bed. “I was just…comforting her.”

While she scared the living daylights out of me.

“She has everything she needs,” Nurse Claymore stated. She surveyed the room. “Where is your friend?”

Ah, Frankie. “Nowhere near Bruno Scalieri, I can assure you,” I said. At least I hoped.

“I appreciate your candor,” she said, drawing up next to me, her clipboard acting like a shield between us.

“I heard what happened,” I told her apologetically. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. You have better things to do than deal with Frankie.” We both did.

She drew a deep breath. “Thank you.” She shook her head slightly. “I would not presume to blame you for the actions of your man.”

It took everything I had not to correct her on that one.

“I didn’t mean to intrude on your treatment,” I explained, “but I saw her alone with all these tubes in her and it worried me.”

She turned to her patient. “Rest assured Mrs. Keel is in good hands. I know it appears strange. Barbaric even, to someone of your youth, with your lack of medical training. But transfusions have been proven to help cure conditions of the mind.”

“You’re giving her new blood?” I asked, cringing.

That certainly wouldn’t help. It could have even been what had killed her.

Nurse Claymore checked the readings on the machine and wrote them down on her clipboard. “I’ll ask you to leave now.”

Not yet. “I understand you’re a doctor,” I said, noticing her flinch when I said it.

“I’m not to be addressed as such,” she said stiffly. Her gaze darted to me. “I don’t have the title. And I don’t appreciate you speaking my business.”

I’d assumed she would be proud. “It’s an accomplishment. A powerful thing.” Especially for a woman of her time. She was a revolutionary. “You shouldn’t hide it. You could change how people think around here.”

She could show them what female doctors were really made of. And if she was following orders she didn’t agree with, she could stand up for her opinions too. Perhaps she could even help us escape this place.

Her expression went cold. “You’d be surprised at how little I can change.”

Maybe. Maybe not. “You don’t always have to do what Dr. Anderson says,” I ventured over the scratching of her pencil on the medical chart and the whirr of the machine. “I mean, you have the same medical training he does, right?”

“I do not have the same rights as a male doctor,” she snapped. “Please don’t pretend I am at liberty to make the same decisions.”

Yikes. Okay.

I hadn’t been able to help the woman in the tub or even Juliet’s friend Loretta. But I could say something now. “You can look and see for yourself what treatments help people and which ones hurt them.”

She didn’t look up from her notes. She just kept writing. “Mrs. Keel is very sick.” She glanced to the woman lying motionless on the gurney, with barely contained disgust. “She killed one of my nurses in the water-therapy room.”

“Oh.” I took a reflexive step back, remembering the ghost who had risen out of the tub. “Did your nurse have long dark hair? A thin frame?” And a glare that says she wants to tear you apart with her bare hands?

The lead in the nurse’s pencil snapped. She closed her eyes for a brief second as the ruined end of the pencil pressed against her chart. “Mary haunts a tub in the therapy room. Kindly leave her in peace.”

How terrible for her to have her friend so close yet be able to do nothing for her. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“Thank you,” she said simply, drawing another pencil from the pocket of her crisp white uniform. “I chose this life.” She began writing again. “I choose it still. But it is…hard.”

No kidding.

“You don’t have to keep doing this,” I told her. “You could help your patients go into the light instead.”

“I’m needed,” she said stoically. She finished with her clipboard and held it down to her side. “I don’t need to be in charge, and I don’t need to be addressed as doctor. I’m content,” she added, not fooling anybody. “But I know you want to leave, and I am sorry Dr. Anderson is keeping you here.”

“To tell you the truth, I did want to get the heck out of here at first. But now I want to help the souls who are trapped here. I’d like to help them move on. You too, if you’re willing.”

She tilted her head and looked at me as if she were seeing me for the first time. “Bless your heart.”

I was about to ask her what she meant by that. Because in the South, it could be anything from thank you to you’re a few crumbs short of a biscuit.

Then the radio at my belt crackled and Cash’s voice came through.

“Verity, I think we’ve found a good window!”

I scrambled for my belt and the volume button. But there was only one setting: loud.

“Get everybody rounded up and we should be able to bust out of here!” Cash gushed.

I hit the green button to turn on the ghost app and hopefully silence the radio.

This was bad. Here I was assuring the good nurse that I wanted to stay and help, and then Cash had to talk about our plan to break out from under the nose of her boss.

Nurse Claymore had heard everything.

Of course she’d heard everything.

“Ah,” I said, my brain scrambling to explain. “I do want to help the spirits here.” That part was true. “But I want to help my living friends, too.”

Her mouth formed a thin line. “There is no escape,” she said, voice stiff, eyes hard. “There never has been.”

Then Nurse Claymore’s eyes went wide, and for a second, I thought she was about to call down Dr. Anderson to get me. I followed her gaze and saw the last traces of her patient disappear.

Son of a gun. “Do you know where Mrs. Keel went?”

“No,” she said coldly. The metal needles on the end of the tubes clattered onto the floor, one pumping out a pool of blood, the other making a high-pitched sucking noise. Nurse Claymore’s jaw tightened. “The doctor is spending so much energy to rein in the living, he’s losing control of the dead.”

She said it like it was my fault.

If that was true, at least we’d bought Mrs. Keel some time away from that machine.

The ghost-hunter app beeped, and the green light flickered like mad. I was really starting to dislike being in constant communication.

Then I heard Ellis’s voice on the other end of the radio. “What are we going to do, Frankie?”

Oh no. I scrambled for my belt once more. The ghost-hunter app must have tapped into the microphone on Ellis’s phone, the one it used to listen for ghost frequencies. Ellis needed to check the permissions on his phone apps. So did I, but that didn’t help us now.

I heard the sound of Ellis’s crutch scraping against the autopsy table down in the morgue. Cripes. I had to turn this thing off!

Brett had said his radio carried the administrative version of the app. Evidently, it was collecting information from other phones running the app. There had to be some kind of crossed wires. At the very least, I should be able to turn it off. Ellis’s voice came through again. “You know, we’ve never really talked.”

Nurse Claymore looked ready to spit nails. “More friends?” she asked. Before I could answer, she added, “Please join them wherever they are, and kindly stay out of my examination rooms.”

“Wait.” I wanted to talk about what kind of power Dr. Anderson was using up and if she could tell me more about the patients we might be able to set free.

But her image was already fading. “I have a procedure I need to prepare for,” she said before she disappeared entirely.

My blood went cold as I wondered who she would work on next. I mean, I could escape this place—I hoped—but there were so many who couldn’t.

“Smoke,” the ghost app chirped.

“No, thanks,” Ellis said to Frankie. “Although I could use a shot of whiskey. Bet you could, too,” he added with a chuckle.

I pressed the green button. “Ellis?” I asked.

He gave no response.

This app connection definitely needed more work. And I had to get a handle on this radio. I couldn’t let it go off whenever. I had to be stealthy at times. And it would help if Cash or Brett or Ellis would stop broadcasting our plans all over kingdom come.

A cool breeze brushed my arm as the temperature in the examination room dropped. I was about to get a visit from another ghost, or maybe this was Nurse Claymore’s way of getting me out of her examination room. Either way, I was leaving. I still needed to find the Burowskis and fetch Ellis before the drowned ghost who had gone after us—Mary—regained her energy.

“I’m going,” I said to thin air. “I’m going!”

The hallway lay deserted. A few doors down, I spotted a door marked Janitorial.

Good enough.

I twisted the cold metal knob and let myself in. The room stood dark, deserted by the living and the dead. Metal shelves held bottles of cleaning liquids, most evaporated to dust. I sat on an overturned mop bucket and took my first really good look at the radio Cash had given to me.

The box was simple, almost too basic—a rectangle with a circular speaker and two modes: radio and ghost app. The blinking green light showed I had it on the ghost app, which Cash said was in beta testing. They’d been monitoring anyone using it, finding glitches. And this had to be the worst possible one.

A small screen on the back of the device showed me a readout of what appeared on Ellis’s app. A series of lines along the bottom pulsed and jumped with ghostly energy.

Ellis’s voice came through again. “I don’t even know how to start, Frank. I’m not usually much for sharing.”

And on the other end, Ellis’s screen flashed a single word as his app’s mechanical voice chirped it out loud, “Don’t.”

Yep. That had to be Frankie.

A string of administrative code ran underneath the small image that showed Ellis’s screen within the app. The slashes, shapes, and half words didn’t make a lick of sense to me. Then again, I never would have imagined anyone could create an app like this.

“The truth is—” Ellis sighed, his voice slow and resigned “—I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

Oh, my goodness. He was in pain. He’d tried to hide how much his leg hurt him, but I knew. It was obvious to anyone who looked at him.

“I hate that Verity is a ghost hunter.”

I froze.

“God, that felt good to admit.”

It couldn’t be true. Not really. My heart thudded, and my hands began to shake. I mean, he said he worried about me, and of course he did, but he’d also said how proud he was and how could he not tell me that he didn’t like me being a ghost hunter when that was what I did?

“Scary,” the app’s mechanical voice said.

Oh, and now Frankie was taking his side?

I wished the king of all apps could have let me talk as well as listen because if Ellis had to tell me something, he sure as heck needed to say it to my face instead of confiding in Frankie of all people. Frankie, who probably wasn’t even listening at this point and didn’t care about this case or my life or anything I cared about, and—

“Stubborn,” the app chirped.

“Hey,” I barked as the word flashed up on the screen.

Ellis sighed. “I told her I accepted this new career path. I thought I did.”

“Yes, you did tell me you were proud of me and that you were glad I could help people,” I pointed out, my voice echoing in the broom closet.

“I tried. At first, it seemed harmless.”

I leapt to my feet, itching to stand, to move. “Harmless?” I asked, pacing the small closet. I’d been in danger from my very first mission—the one he’d hired me to do.

“Then we arrived here, and it got really ugly,” Ellis added.

Of course. But that was the nature of the job. When I set things right, it tended to tick off scary, bad people. But it was part of my job and I liked it and I was good at it.

“Now she’s almost gotten killed twice, and I’m injured,” Ellis continued.

“The body chute didn’t kill me,” I said to the walls. It wasn’t like Ellis could hear me. “And Crazy Charlie gave me his knife instead of stabbing me.”

That was a total win.

“Crazy,” the app chirped.

“I know,” Ellis said, just assuming my friend was taking his side. “These things can hurt her, and us, and maybe even you,” he said to my ghost. “And worse, there’s no end in sight. She’s doing this for a living now.”

“Free,” the app chirped.

Frankie had better be talking about his freedom and not complaining about my lack of compensation on this job. The one I was doing for him.

I braced my forehead on the edge of the metal shelving.

How had this gotten so messed up?

Ellis sighed, as if he were wondering the same thing. “The worst thing is, I’m not even a part of it. I mean, I am and I’m not.”

“You are,” I said to the wall. “You are so much a part of everything I do.”

How could he not realize that?

“I’m locked out of it,” he said to the ghost. “The only thing I have is a dumb app. For all I know, you wandered off ten minutes ago.”

The app gave no response.

Hmm…Ellis might actually be right on that one.

“I’m stuck,” he said, and I heard the despair creeping into his voice. “Verity is trapped and in danger, and I’m sitting in a basement.”

“Guarding a murder scene,” I reminded him, even if he couldn’t hear.

“I trust that she’s going to be okay, but she flies off and goes adventuring, and I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. She goes up a body chute and then calls down to me like everything is just great because she ran into a ghost who haunts a lunatic asylum.”

To be fair, that one did work out.

I dropped back down onto the overturned bucket. But, still, I was starting to see his point.

“It’s something I can never be a part of,” he said, sounding more lost than anything.

It was just me who could see the ghosts, just me who could open up to the other side. I couldn’t fix that.

“A ghost could kill her right in front of me, and there would be nothing I could do to stop it.”

“Heavens.” I hung my head. He was right about that, even if it was the worst-case scenario. And it had almost happened once.

“Control,” the ghost app chirped.

It might have been the smartest thing Frankie had said all night.

Ellis needed to control situations. He liked to keep people safe. But he also liked to be the one in charge, and he was definitely not the one running my ghost adventures.

I wasn’t even the one in charge of those half the time.

“Every time she takes on a job, I try to downplay it in my mind,” Ellis said quickly, as if talking himself out of his precarious position. “But here, tonight, it’s in my face, and I’m just not sure I’m cut out to take it.”

I stood and switched off the radio entirely. I had to get down there and talk to him. I’d find the Burowskis, and then Ellis and I would have it out.

It was obvious he’d been having these kinds of issues for a while. There was absolutely no excuse for him to keep it from me. He couldn’t tell me he was fine, that he was proud, when he was having these kinds of doubts. It wasn’t healthy or right.

I pushed my way out of the janitor’s closet. It was as if he’d learned to communicate from…Virginia Wydell.

I made a face as I adjusted the night-vision goggles.

His mother was better at controlling than talking about feelings. We all saw how good she was at relationships.

I made my way down the north hall.

Ellis absolutely could not, should not say everything was fine while keeping such a big secret from me.

No.

He needed to understand that we wouldn’t have a decent chance at a future together if he wasn’t going to tell me how he really felt.

I poked my head into the next examination room and saw a bright, ghostly orb dancing near the ceiling.

Ellis wouldn’t be able to see that. He couldn’t experience it with me. And, yes, it bothered me too that I was alone in this.

The orb passed through the ceiling and onto the third floor.

But I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t suddenly give him power or make my job any less dangerous. He couldn’t either, but he could at least be honest with me.

I made my way down the hallway once more.

What else wasn’t he telling me?

That talk about me dying was in extremely poor taste. Especially since he was down in the basement—alone for all practical purposes—guarding a crime scene from a killer. Ellis could be the one killed on this job if he didn’t watch it. If he didn’t stay alert and aware and stop talking to my unhelpful ghost.

Or maybe I was just mad Ellis had confided in Frankie—Frankie of all people—instead of me.

Well, that was about to end as soon as I could manage it.

“We’re going to have a come to Jesus,” I vowed, even as my hands shook and my stomach danced at the thought. I couldn’t afford for it to go wrong, not with Ellis. He was my strength and my rock, and I couldn’t risk losing him. I also couldn’t believe he’d keep things from me.

Only he had.

“We are definitely going to talk.”

Ellis was going to tell me everything. His thoughts, his feelings. Whether he wanted to or not.

“We’ll work it out,” I vowed.

We always had.

And just when I thought things might possibly get better, a scream of terror echoed from the room up ahead. It sounded like Joan.

It sounded like I’d just found the Burowskis.

19

A second scream rang out seconds before I made it into the room and rushed inside. Bright lights exploded in my night-vision goggles, turning everything a harsh green. I whipped them off, my eyes struggling to adjust to the very real, extremely bright industrial floodlight trained onto an examination table.

The room buzzed harder and louder than an industrial bug zapper.

Where had anyone gotten power or equipment or…

My eyes focused, and I saw Joan, struggling and terrified, lying on that table under the light. At least I thought it was Joan. She wore the same black jeans and green top, only she had a canvas bag tied over her head.

She fought her bonds and let out another scream.

My goggles clattered to the floor as I rushed to her.

“I’ve got you!” I said, scanning the room for Tom or any other threats and, ohmygoodness, I saw him laid out on an examination table behind her.

He lay in the shadows beyond the glaring light, but what I could see was bad. He wore a metal hat with wires streaming from it. His teeth clenched a gnawed and gnarled piece of wood.

“Just give me a second.” I hurried to him and slipped off the helmet, my hair lifting from the static shock of standing next to him. I felt for a pulse at his neck, but I already knew he was gone from the way his eyes stared at the ceiling.

Yellow and white soul traces had begun to shimmer from his prone form.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, slipping the sheet from his body over his head.

“Verity,” Joan called after me, scared.

“I’m here,” I assured her, returning to her side.

My fingers shook as I pulled the bag off Joan’s head. “I’ve got you. I won’t leave you,” I said, struggling to untie the canvas straps holding Joan down.

“Help,” she whispered over the hum of the light. Her fingers clutched for me as I worked.

“What happened?” I said under my breath, very conscious of how vulnerable we were while I worked on her ties. I kept half an eye on the job, the other watching for Tom’s killer to leap out or a ghost to appear or… “Lie still,” I pressed as Joan yanked a tie, tightening what I’d just loosened.

“They hit me on the back of the head,” she said, lifting off the table. The sheet underneath was stained with blood. Although not much. Thank goodness. They hadn’t hit her hard enough. “They came at us in the dark,” she said, voice raw. “It was like they could see in the dark!”

“Sweet heaven.” Of course they could see.

They had night-vision goggles.

And they were waiting for me downstairs.

“This must be their light,” I said, eyeing the cord attached to a portable battery.

They’d come prepared. Who knew how long they’d been inside before we’d found them.

“Why did they come after you?” I demanded.

“I—” Joan stammered. “I don’t know.”

“I’m going to get you out of here,” I vowed.

I’d trusted Cash and Brett. I’d believed they were good guys. But not everyone was who or what they appeared to be, and I should know that by now.

I pulled the bag off Joan’s head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Where am I? Where’s Tom?”

“You’re in an examination room on the second floor,” I said, giving her the best version of the truth I could manage. I wasn’t sure how to tell her about her husband.

One step at a time.

“They came up so fast,” she said as I freed one hand.

“Try to get your other hand free while I untie your legs,” I said. I didn’t know how much time we had. Cash and Brett knew I was up here.

I froze. “I’ll bet they can track my radio.”

They were probably tracking Ellis right now through the ghost app.

“Hurry,” I urged. They could have been listening to us this entire time.

Ellis wouldn’t even see them coming. He thought they were on our side.

Joan had worked her hand free, and when we got her legs, I helped her down off the table. As she steadied herself, I tried to direct her away from Tom.

“Oh!” she cried, nearly collapsing when she saw his prone form under the sheet.

“I’m sorry.” I held her up. Barely. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. “We have to get out of here right now,” I urged. She moved toward him and away from the door. But he was gone now. For all we knew, he’d provoked the killers to give her a chance. We owed it to him to seize that opportunity. “He’d want you to live.”

She nodded, dazed, and I managed to scoop my night-vision goggles off the floor and lead her out of the room.

“Follow me,” I said, strapping on the goggles. Thank goodness I hadn’t broken them.

I yanked the radio off my belt and tossed it into the room with Tom. The ghost hunters might know I’d found Joan, but they didn’t have to know where we were going next.

Scratch that. Anyone with half a brain would guess my next move. I had to warn Ellis.

It was the only thing I could do.

“Ellis is down in the morgue,” I told Joan, leading her back to the main staircase.

I hoped we wouldn’t be too late.

It was bad enough Ellis didn’t like me ghost hunting, but if it killed him, I’d never forgive myself.

“Faster,” I said, dodging a rotting hospital gurney as we hurried for the main stairs.

“Wait.” Joan halted, tugging at my sleeve. She wiped the tears streaming down her face. “What if the ghosts hunters are on the first floor?”

They could be anywhere now. “We’ll keep the flashlights off. I’ll guide you.”

It wasn’t hard. She was like Jell-O.

Until she wasn’t. “No,” Joan said, digging in. “If I were them, I’d be waiting for us to go down the main staircase.”

“Well…” I had to give her that.

“There’s a staff stairwell,” she said, retreating to the wall, feeling her way along the passageway.

“The one you used to sneak around,” I muttered, taking her arm and leading her faster.

It was a good idea, even if I didn’t relish going down the haunted staircase again. “The catch is, I don’t know how to find the morgue if we go down that stairway.”

It wasn’t like I could count on Crazy Charlie hanging around. He’d have his knife back by now, and he might not be as accommodating the second time around.

“I can lead us to the morgue and the spiral staircase,” Joan assured me as we reached the stairwell door.

Because Joan could very well be one of the killers after all. “Let’s go,” I said, resolved as I reached for the rusted knob, checking the hallway one last time before we closed ourselves inside.

“Why are you so angry with me?” Joan asked in the dark.

I parked my night-vision goggles on my forehead and handed her my spare flashlight before she killed herself navigating a steep staircase in the dark.

“Earlier tonight, you denied sneaking into the basement when you clearly had,” I said, turning on my flashlight.

Her beam joined mine. “We weren’t exactly sneaking.”

“You lied about where you were,” I said, starting down.

She let out a low huff. “I was terrified. Tom was embarrassed that the stairwell scared him. He hates being embarrassed.” Her words ended on a sob. “Hated,” she corrected. “Oh, my goodness,” she added weakly.

“I’m sorry.” Darn it. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through.

She stifled a sob and continued. “Tom wanted to look at the records Barbara kept in the storage room in the basement,” she said, the soles of her shoes grinding against the dusty stairs. “He agreed to let me talk all night to Rodger after we did that. I was okay with his plan until we reached the lobby level.”

She slowed as we approached that very level, her light bouncing off the mirror that had terrified me earlier. “Right here,” she said as if daring the ghost of Loretta to appear. “A cold wind hit us. I swore it chased us. Straight down.”

“I believe you,” I said. As I uttered the words, a low hiss echoed down the staircase. “It’s probably a ghost named Loretta. From what I gather, she feels like she has no escape,” I said into the dark, hoping the poor, abused woman could hear me. “Just like us right now. But we’ll make it right.” Joan slipped her hand into mine and I clutched it hard. “That’s a promise to both of you.”

This couldn’t continue. It wouldn’t.

I nearly shrieked when a ghost with streaming hair appeared in the mirror.

A noose curled loosely around her neck, and I could see where it had cut deep into her throat. “You!” she hissed, pointing directly at us.

“I didn’t do anything,” I protested.

“What?” Joan implored as I grabbed her arm and ran straight past the ghost, down the stairs, down to the basement.

We had to get to Ellis. Failure was not an option, and Lord help us if Loretta followed us down there.

“I hate the basement!” Joan cried, and I pulled her along, down, down. “I hate it!”

We’d find Ellis. We’d get out of here. We’d catch Cash and Brett and we’d somehow convince Dr. Anderson to free the souls trapped here. And teach Nurse Claymore she really could make a difference.

Then I’d figure out what to do about Scalieri.

And try to save my relationship.

“I don’t want to see ghosts anymore!” Joan sobbed as we reached the bottom of the stairs.

“At the moment, I’m not too crazy about it myself.” I slammed the door closed behind us.

As if that would stop a ghost.

“Where to next?” I pressed, trying to help her keep her focus.

Joan nodded and kept nodding until I began to fear she couldn’t speak. She raised a shaking hand. “This way,” she said, pointing right.

“Let’s go,” I said, and Joan—true to her word—led us through the maze of passageways.

I sure hoped she was in her right mind because we couldn’t afford to get lost.

Our lights bounced off the walls as we dodged puddles and crunched over patches of gravel. Passageways branched off to our left and right. Then, up ahead, I saw the spiral staircase.

I could have kissed her. “You did it!” I said to Joan.

But as I spoke, the ghost of Crazy Charlie shimmered into existence at the bottom of the stairs. His lip curled, and he held up his knife.

“Remember me?” I implored him.

He raised the knife.

“He’s going to stab us!” Joan shrieked.

“You can see him?” I demanded as she took off and ran down the passageway to our left. Of all the times for her to actually see a ghost. “Joan!” I called after her. She couldn’t go running off with a killer on the loose just because another killer appeared in front of us. Not when the killer in front of us was a ghost. He couldn’t even stab her. But he could kill me, so I tried to smile at him. I raised both my hands.

“Charlie, you’ve got to remember me,” I pleaded, ignoring the way he pointed directly at me and hollered something angry, something I couldn’t understand.

“You’re upset!” I said, trying to sound calm. “I get it.”

I was in big trouble here.

“Let’s all just relax,” I said as I heard a foot grind on the gravel behind me. I turned to look, and everything went black.

20

I woke up under a bright light that stung my eyes and made them water. Above me shone a round examination light with so many bulbs inside it looked like a bug’s eye. I squinted through the glare and detected skeleton-like broken filaments and a rusted metal frame.

I struggled to sit up, but I couldn’t move. Thick canvas straps secured my wrists to the bed rails. I was tied just like Joan had been. And Tom, before he’d been electrocuted.

Do not panic.

My fingers scrabbled against the rusted metal bed of a very real hospital gurney. I lay prone, helpless.

I turned away to get relief from the brightness, and the back of my head seared with pain. Someone had bashed me from behind. It had to be Brett or Cash. Probably both of them.

“Okay, guys,” I called, fighting to keep my voice even and my head on straight. “I don’t know what your game is…”

Or how I could get out of this.

Maybe I could appeal to Brett’s intellect. Or Cash’s fear for his scholarship. They had their whole futures ahead of them, and murder would look terrible on anyone’s permanent record.

Except they’d already killed Barbara. And Tom.

And they knew I knew the truth.

“Guys?” I worked to keep a friendly tone as I searched for any sign of them beyond the blinding light. “What’s going on?” I croaked.

I tested the straps on my arms again. Tight. My legs had been bound as well.

I’d figure out a way to talk them out of this. It was the only thing I could do.

But they didn’t respond.

Had they left me alone?

As my eyes adjusted, I saw the shadow of a woman in a white uniform. Oh, thank goodness. “Nurse Claymore,” I called, and hoped against hope it would be her. We’d bonded somewhat in that last examination room, and while I didn’t think Nurse Claymore was ever the type to be warm and fuzzy with me—or even tell me her first name—she did seem to have a soft spot for people who needed help. And I sure could use a hand here. “Nurse?” I called again.

This was her chance to make a difference. She might not be able to untie me, but she could at least alert Frankie, who could tell Ellis.

Through the app that the ghost hunters controlled. It wasn’t like I had a choice. No plan was perfect.

“Frankie!” I hollered.

“Shhh…” Nurse Claymore glided to my side, worry creasing her brow. If I’d been untied, I’d have reached out and hugged her. “You’re all right, Verity,” she assured me.

Actually, I wasn’t, but I would be soon.

“Oh, yes. I love you,” I said in a rush as she directed the light out of my eyes. “You’ve got to get me out of here.”

She seemed taken aback by my enthusiasm. “You’re just fine,” she instructed as if she could make me that way by will alone.

“I’m actually quite terrible,” I pointed out, “but I appreciate the thought.” Her manner was kind of mechanical, and not all that comforting, but she’d tried. And I liked that I had a stable, logical woman with me because she was going to have to do the impossible. She would have to figure out how to untie me when she couldn’t even touch the straps binding me down. “Okay,” I said, swallowing hard, “listen. We’re going to work through this, but I need your help.”

“You have it,” she assured me. She pulled up a medical cart next to the bed, full of sharp pointy tweezers and shots and, oh—a pair of scissors.

That was great. The ghost scissors wouldn’t do me much good, but I saw a rusted pair of real ones underneath. If she could just lean the tray to where I could grab them, I might be able to cut my way out.

“This could be tricky,” I said as she selected an instrument from the tray. “You don’t want to drop anything or we’ll really be sunk.”

“Don’t worry.” She turned to me. “I have it all under control.” Then she stabbed my arm with a monster of a needle.

What? “Oww!” My arm screamed like it was on fire. “Wha-what did you do?” This was nuts.

“I caught our killer,” she said simply.

She couldn’t possibly think… No. “Stop. Listen! The killers are the ghost hunters,” I said, talking fast because my head had started to go woozy. My arm felt numb. “They’re downstairs right now trying to escape. You heard them,” I said, my voice going wonky because my lips felt like they were detached from my body, and I couldn’t quite think straight.

But my words had hit home. I saw it in the set of her jaw.

She’d listened to the ghost hunters plotting when my radio had gone off.

Thank heaven my radio had blurted all our plans.

She knew the truth.

I flumped my head back on the pillow, sending waves of pain through my skull.

She knew. She had to know. So why was she doing this?

Nurse Claymore withdrew the needle from my arm and held it up next to her, observing me.

“Help me,” I said on my last good breath, “please.”

“I am,” she said coldly, clinically. “I’m helping you take the blame for what happened tonight.” She placed the syringe back on the tray. “It’s not like you’re the type to go quietly.”

“Wha—?” If my head could just stop hurting for a second, I could think straight. She wasn’t making sense.

A grin tickled the corner of her lip. “You don’t really think those two puny ghost hunters killed Barbara, do you?”

I stared at her. If not them, who else?

Then it dawned on me, and her smile widened at my recognition. “As a medical professional, I shouldn’t enjoy death, but I have to admit that Barbara woman had it coming.”

No. Oh, no, no, no.

Frankie had always said a powerful enough ghost could kill the living. I’d suspected ghosts in crimes before. And we’d seen massive energy inside this asylum tonight.

But Frankie always said the dead wouldn’t bother to kill the living because it took so much energy, and they didn’t care enough about us to flat out kill one of us.

So what was Nurse Claymore thinking? She had to be out of her mind to want to kill Barbara and me, and, oh my word, who else?

Nurse Claymore placed her syringe back on the cart beside the bed. “Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing. I will see that you are treated humanely.”

“You…” I forced the words out. I couldn’t feel my face or my tongue. “You can’t just go around killing people.”

But she could, and she had.

“I didn’t do anything,” I slurred. Barbara had offended her. Tom wanted to turn her asylum into a resort.

But all I wanted to do was help the people here. Tell their stories.

Set them free.

A ragged moan sounded from the hallway.

The ghostly door lay closed, but the one in the mortal realm had long since fallen from its hinges. Through the transparent, gray wood, I could see the outline of a man.

“Glory be,” Claymore tsked as if the lost soul were a nuisance. “Mr. Rink is wandering again.”

He was the one who’d cut himself from stress, the man who lived on the third floor, the one Juliet had tried to protect. I’d thought Nurse Claymore had been concerned for his well-being, too. But maybe she was just trying to eliminate disruptions.

She opened the door to the hallway as Mr. Rink stumbled by, his dirty hospital gown slipping away from one bony shoulder.

Poor soul.

“Help!” I called, and he stopped. “Get help!” I hollered, my throat raw with the effort.

He stared at me with glassy eyes. Then he turned and continued down the hallway once more.

“You really expect an idiot like that to save you?” Nurse Claymore hissed.

“He’s not—” Sweet heaven. I slumped back onto the gurney.

“He’s out of his mind,” she said. “They all are.”

Mr. Rink couldn’t do anything to save me. He couldn’t even save himself.

“I’m not allowed to be a doctor. I’m not allowed to work on real patients. I have to work here,” she said, returning to me.

“Dr. Anderson gave you a chance.” My breath came in pants. “He trusts you.” And it seemed he’d been far too trusting. Did she get off on torture? On pain? “What are you doing to me?” I demanded, my voice slurred, my head pounding.

“Same thing I did to Mr. Rink,” she said, letting the door swing closed. “It’s a simple procedure. You’ll be pleased to know I learned it in medical school,” she added as if mocking my earlier belief in her. “Once I sever the neural connections of the frontal lobe, you’ll become as docile as that lamb.”

“You don’t—” I struggled for a breath “—need to do anything to me,” I said on an exhale.

She stood over me and looked down as if I were some sort of science experiment.

“You asked too many questions,” she said simply. “I can’t let you endanger my life here. I have to keep the ghosts in this place under control. I have to keep them from speaking with the doctor.” She turned back to her cart and retrieved another syringe. “I need to up your dose. You should be unconscious already.”

She really didn’t. “Please.”

She tested the syringe. “First this Barbara came and started looking for ghosts, trying to sell our stories, making the patients into monsters.” She shrugged. “That was fine. They are beasts. But I’m not.”

Barbara was going to portray her as the psychotic nurse.

How right Barbara had been.

“She made me so…angry.” Her mouth formed a tight line. “I acted without thinking. Then I had to lock you all in and try to figure out which one of you would take the blame for the killing.” She sighed. “I would have let you out afterward, but you had to go and tell Dr. Anderson about the murder before I could. You upset him, and he took control of everything.”

Nurse Claymore selected a small glass container of gray ghostly liquid.

Would it even work on me? I supposed it already had.

She inserted the needle and drew the liquid up into the syringe. “Then the Burowskis began prying into every corner, biding their time before they could bring more and more people into these rooms.” Her voice hardened. “Meanwhile, you started investigating…everything. Do you ever stop?” she asked sharply. “Did you realize how much I wanted to open the doors and shove you all out? I can’t keep control under these conditions. And if I can’t keep control, then Dr. Anderson…”

She was hiding something from the doctor. “You did something, something horrible, to someone,” I whispered. “That’s it, isn’t it? And you don’t want him to find out.”

She tilted her head as if conceding the point. “It was an accident,” she said, all logic, in control, as she measured the medicine into the syringe. “But then Mary discovered what happened,” she added, her expression darkening. “That nurse always had a troublesome conscience. It was a tragedy when she slipped into the tub.”

I’d seen Mary’s ghost. Hers wasn’t the image of a woman who’d had a minor accident. “You pushed her. You held her down.” I could see it in her now, the ruthlessness. The utter lack of humanity.

She shot me a cold look as she replaced the medicine container exactly where she’d found it. “That Loretta girl saw. At first, I didn’t think it would be an issue. She was pathologically paranoid, after all. But then she started talking. She told anyone who would listen.” She checked the syringe. “Thankfully, Juliet and Dr. Anderson never believed her, but Mr. Rink, well, I found a way to silence him without killing again.” Satisfied, she approached me, syringe in hand. “And now I will silence you the same way.”

A knock sounded at the door. “Nurse?” Dr. Anderson asked, poking his head in the door.

Oh, thank goodness. I was saved.

“In here!” I called. “She’s going to tell you I’m a killer, but I’m not. She—”

Claymore jammed the needle into my arm. I felt it like fire in my veins.

“I’m innocent. She killed Barbara. She’s trying to…cover it…up.” The pain left my head and I felt like I was floating.

“She’s in denial,” Claymore insisted. “A classic case of dissociative personality disorder. I’ve done the full write-up.” She handed the doctor the chart at the bottom of my gurney.

I opened my mouth to object, but nothing came out.

He took my chart with a nod and began to read. And while he did, Nurse Claymore placed the used syringe back on the tray, in perfect order.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.

“I never would have imagined,” the doctor murmured, scanning the pages. “I don’t know how I missed the pathology in this one.”

Nurse Claymore cast her eyes to the floor in humble servitude. “You only met her once. And you can’t prevent every bad thing in the world.” She turned to face me, the corner of her mouth ticking up. “Verity followed the woman, Barbara, downstairs to the boiler room,” she said as if it were fact. As if it were real. “Verity hit Barbara in the back of the head and murdered her. I saw it myself. That’s why I ordered the lockdown.”

I tried to tell the doctor it wasn’t true. My face was numb, but I forced my mouth to work up a stark denial. Only it came out like “Gnnnh,” and then she was talking again.

“This case is clear,” she said to the doctor. “This one has a savior complex. She has been trying to find a way to force your patients out of the asylum.” She treated me to a long cold look. “She feels she is freeing them,” she added as if the entire idea were preposterous. “She killed the woman because she felt her exploitation of the dead was cruel and killed the man because she heard of his plans to renovate this property.”

I tried again to tell him no, that everything she said was a lie, but I made no noise at all.

Claymore folded her hands in front of her and glanced toward the doctor. “You know that those driven by what they consider a righteous purpose and no moral safeguard of conscience can be the most dangerous cases.”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Terrible, but true.”

No. Actually, in my case, one hundred percent false. I had to talk to him. I had to make him understand. I struggled against the straps holding me down, but I could only manage to curl my fingers and feel the rough canvas of my restraints.

Ohmygod. I was completely immobilized.

I tried to scream, tried to yell, but all I could manage was a wide-eyed gurgle that horrified me down to my toes and only made Dr. Anderson shake his head sadly.

“So much pain. So much death,” he lamented.

He gave me one last pitiful glance before he signed the chart. “We can’t change what you did, young Verity,” he said, “but we can save you from yourself.”

What? No. He had to save me from Nurse Claymore. He was the only hope I had left!

He reached out to touch my head, then thought better of it. “You’re safe now,” he coaxed. “You won’t hurt anybody else.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.

I thrashed as hard as I could, but my body remained motionless, my wrists and ankles numb against the ties.

“She’s a fighter,” Claymore said as if I were a caught fish or a bug under glass.

The doctor turned away. “You can take it from here,” he said, moving to the sink to wash his hands.

“It would be my pleasure. You’re already so busy,” Nurse Claymore assured him, and there—I saw it—a wicked gleam in her eye. “I’ll make sure it’s done right.”

She was enjoying this.

The doctor gave a sharp nod. “Good work,” he said, leaving us—leaving me—the ghostly door snicking closed behind him.

21

Nurse Claymore treated me to a predatory smile.

She had me, and we both knew it.

No. No, she didn’t. This would not happen. It was wrong. It was inconceivable. This was—

Nurse Claymore swabbed my head with a ghostly cold gauze pad that chilled me to the bones. Her touch, combined with the alcohol smell, made my stomach turn.

“All I ever did was my job,” she said, turning the pad over and swabbing again. “You wanted to make me look like a monster.”

Hardly. I’d been on her side. I’d—well, I’d wanted to find a way out for the people trapped here. Apparently, she’d viewed that as threatening, even if I didn’t mean it that way.

She disposed of the pad in a small canister on the lower shelf of the cart. “I never had the choices you do. I was ahead of my time. I had to work to survive.”

And I admired Nurse Claymore’s trailblazing spirit but not the destination it had led her to. Somewhere along the line, she’d twisted it. Made her ambition into something ugly.

“I had to pretend to be a nurse, working on subhuman, incurable people,” she sneered.

She was sick, twisted beyond belief.

“My patients deserve to have dignity,” she stated, “so I tie them to their beds to keep order and calm.” She checked my bonds. “My patients deserve to be clearheaded and thoughtful,” she added. “Shock therapy gives them relief from their symptoms.”

“Tom,” I managed, lips tingling. It came out more like a groan, but she understood.

“Yes,” she said, adjusting the light so it glared back into my eyes. “He needed a good jolt. Too bad his heart couldn’t take it.”

She’d seared the life right out of him.

“And now he’s gone,” she added, with a flick of the wrist. “To the light. And he’ll never be allowed back inside this place again.” She looked me over. “Soon you can join him. Or you can stay here. Either way, you won’t be telling anybody about this.” The corner of her lip curled.

“Don’t worry.” She turned and lifted a small steel hammer from the cart next to her. “You won’t remember any of this.”

I tried to scream, but it came out like a gurgle, and she full-out smiled.

“Drills are more modern,” she said as if we were having a polite conversation, as if she wasn’t lifting an oversized steel ice pick from the table with her other hand. “But I haven’t quite got the hang of them yet.” She shook her head. “Juliet’s lobotomy was a disaster. Very embarrassing.”

She held the ice pick tightly as she closed in on me. “In any case, I find the old-fashioned method more personal. A nice little tap straight through your nasal cavity should do the trick. It won’t be my fault if it goes too deep and kills you.”

She tried to stifle a grin. “But if I do it right, you get to live. You’re not dangerous if you can’t talk or think.”

I tried to scream and failed. She chuckled.

“Cat got your tongue?” she prodded, drawing close. I felt the sharp prick of the ice-pick instrument against the soft skin on my upper lip. The ghostly metal stung me to the core.

“Wishing you hadn’t been so curious?” she teased, drawing closer to my right nostril. “Wish I hadn’t locked you in?” she taunted, taking aim.

“Stop!” A cold whoosh of air knocked the ice pick from her hand. It clattered onto the table, into my hair, the tip resting against my skull and stinging me hard.

I couldn’t move or talk, and I watched in utter shock as Mary, the drowned nurse, loomed over us, dripping filthy water.

“Leave me alone,” Nurse Claymore commanded. “I’m busy.”

The nurse cowered, but she held her ground against her boss, her soaking wet skirt slicking against my arm as she positioned herself between me and Nurse Claymore. As far as I was concerned, it was her Superwoman cape.

She drew up to her full height. “Don’t hurt her,” she warned, her voice watery, wild clumps of hair clinging to her bruised and battered skull.

Nurse Claymore backhanded her, knocking her to the floor. “That’s for interrupting me.”

I waited, praying for the drowned nurse to get back up, but she didn’t.

At least she’d created a diversion. Please let it be enough.

Because even as Nurse Claymore straightened her uniform, even as she directed a distasteful look at the cowering nurse, her ice-pick instrument seared into my hair.

It had touched me. It was still touching a part of me, which meant I had a chance.

If we could just hold out for a few minutes, it would disappear.

Maybe that was why the first dose of medicine didn’t work as Claymore had expected. Maybe I was neutralizing it with every second I lay on the table.

“I don’t understand the soft spot you have for these lunatics,” Claymore spat as the other nurse scrambled away on her hands and knees. “Your loyalty should have been to me, not to them.”

“Leave her alone!” Another voice rang out from the doorway.

A young woman stood with fists clenched. A noose dangled from her neck. She shook violently, but her gaze was steely, determined. Mr. Rink stood a little ways behind her, his expression vacant, yet grave. I could see a glimpse of the man he used to be.

Nurse Claymore chuckled. “Is this girls’ night out?” She waved a hand to the nurse on the floor. “You think you can save her?” she taunted. “I can’t kill either one of you again, but I can make your afterlives a living hell. Now go back to your stairwell,” Claymore ordered. “And you to your room, Mr. Rink. Or I may need to touch up my work.”

Mr. Rink disappeared. The girl did not.

She stood shivering, holding her ground. It had to be Loretta, Juliet’s friend, helping me. I had no idea why. She was the ghost in the mirror who’d scared my socks off earlier.

She swallowed hard. “I’ll tell.”

Claymore laughed. “Dr. Anderson didn’t believe you last time. Your own friend Juliet didn’t believe you. Why do you think anyone will care what you have to say now? You can barely make it out of the stairwell.”

“I—” Loretta raised a shaking hand to the noose at her throat. Her gaze went to the cowering woman on the floor.

“Go,” Claymore prodded, “or I’ll imprison this one in a puddle instead of a tub.”

Loretta vanished.

Claymore let out a long, ragged sigh. “You people always think you can get away with something.” She reached for the dripping woman on the floor. The drowned nurse cried out, trying to bat Claymore away as the charge nurse took hold of her form and forcibly shrank her manifestation down. “I try to be patient,” she said, grunting as she compacted her former nurse further. “I try to see it your way,” she pressed, shrinking her harder. “But then all you do is cause trouble.” She squished the poor woman down to a glowing orb of pure energy. “And I have to clean up your mess,” she said, plunking the poor ghost into a brown glass jar of swabbing alcohol. “Please learn your lesson this time,” she added, screwing the lid down tight.

Claymore smoothed her uniform. “Now,” she said, reaching for the ice pick in my hair.

Cripes. It was still there!

“Strange,” she said, turning it over in her hand. As she held it up, it was clear the tip had faded, and light shone through gaps in the middle. Yes!

She placed the instrument back on her cart. “Seems I’ll have to work faster with you,” she said, opening a drawer under the main tray, drawing out another ice-pick device, this one even longer than the last. “It hasn’t been sterilized,” she remarked, taking up the hammer once more, “but if you don’t say anything, then I won’t, either.”

I let out a yell that seared my throat.

“Dr. Anderson hates this part,” she said, concentrating her aim. “But I don’t mind it so much.”

Just when I thought all hope was lost, a huge, thickset ghost shimmered into existence behind her.

Levi!

“Leave the nice girl alone.” He gripped Claymore’s shoulder and turned her around. She stumbled, stabbing him in the shoulder. He let out a howl of pain.

“Levi,” Juliet cried, still half-transparent as she shimmered into being next to him.

While Juliet’s attention was on her injured friend, Claymore turned back to her cart. She quickly drew a needle full of a clear liquid.

“Watch out!” I tried to yell, but it came out a garble, and I watched helplessly as Claymore plunged the needle into Levi’s arm.

“Calm down,” she ordered.

He let out a roar of pain and yanked his arm away with the needle still in it, but the medicine was already doing its damage. He stumbled backward, and Juliet went with him.

“You’re fine,” Juliet insisted, even though he wasn’t. She led him to the floor, almost going down with him as she tried to keep an eye on Claymore. “What did you do with Loretta?” she demanded. “I didn’t believe her when she told me about you before. I should have. I believe her now!”

Too late.

“I’ll stop her,” Levi vowed, sitting up, barely able to hold himself upright. “You were right to get me to come.”

“You’re a freak who deserves to be locked up,” Claymore snapped at him. “And you.” She turned to Juliet. “I let you get away with too much because I felt sorry for you. But cross me once, and you’ll regret it forever.”

“I—” Juliet began.

A ghostly metal tray flew off a shelf near the door and struck Juliet in the back of the head. She dropped hard, next to an unmoving Levi.

Claymore sighed. “The work never ends.”

The door opened, and I heard another metal tray slide from the rack.

“Please,” Claymore barked at the intrusion. “I’m working.”

Dr. Anderson poked his head inside. “I heard a commotion,” he said, drawing back in shock at the sight of Levi and Juliet on the floor.

Claymore closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m so sorry you had to see this, Doctor. These patients were out of control. They were trying to escape.”

The doctor entered and took her by the shoulders as if to steady her. “Are you all right?”

She shook off his touch. “I’m fine. They think this—” she motioned to me “—this girl can lead them out. I told you she was trouble.” She drew a hand to her forehead. “They…attacked me.”

The doctor blinked in shock. “We need to get you more help.”

She nodded absently. “I’m fine. I can handle it.”

“No. This is too much,” he assured her. “You go take a break. I’ll settle the giant and the jilted wife back in their rooms.” He waved a hand, and both Levi and Juliet disappeared.

Now that was a powerful ghost.

“We can put off the lobotomy patient until tomorrow,” he said to Claymore.

Thank God and hallelujah.

Now if we could get the poor Nurse Mary out of the jar.

“Jar,” I managed. The sedative was wearing off. I still couldn’t hold a conversation, but maybe he could take the hint. If he could free Nurse Mary, she’d tell him everything. In fact, she was kind of my only hope at the moment because I wasn’t all that confident Nurse Claymore would put off my procedure no matter what the good doctor said.

As if she could read my mind, she picked up the ice pick once more. “I honestly don’t mind a little more work.” She drew up the hammer. “As soon as we complete the procedure, she won’t be able to speak to the dead anymore. We can regain order.”

“You truly are a saint,” Dr. Anderson said.

I bugged my eyes out at him, but he was looking at her. Admiring her.

That was it. I didn’t have anybody. Unless Frankie decided to show up, but last I’d heard, he was in the basement, dissecting my love life. Juliet and Levi had been banished to the third floor. Loretta was sulking back in the stairwell, through Claymore’s influence or her own insecurities, it hardly mattered. She wasn’t coming to save me.

And poor Nurse Mary was trapped in a jar.

“Jar…!” I managed again.

But the doctor wasn’t listening. Nobody was listening.

“I’ll let you get to work.” He turned away. He was leaving again. And as he did, he opened the door on the last person I ever expected to see.

22

Crazy Charlie stood in the doorway, eyes wild as if he were in a rage. He raised his knife, angry and out of control. He’d have scared the shorts off me if I hadn’t desperately needed someone to draw attention away from me.

Dr. Anderson took a quick step backward, out of Charlie’s reach. “What the—Charlie?” His shock turned to warmth. “I thought you escaped in 1917. We looked everywhere for you.”

Charlie moaned. His entire body shook as he stared at the doctor. His scraggly hair tangled in his eyes as he held aloft the sharp blade.

“Where on earth did you get this?” Dr. Anderson took the knife from his hand. “You’ll cut yourself.” He laid it on the counter behind him, out of reach.

Charlie stared down at his dirty hands.

Our crisis had been averted, which was really bad for me. Then I realized I was clenching my fists.

I could move my hands!

Dr. Anderson placed an arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “You’re shaking. Where have you been?”

Poor Charlie had probably been killed down in the basement. He might have been haunting his death spot or the place where he’d been buried. It was common enough with ghosts.

And if Dr. Anderson hadn’t realized he’d been here this entire time, poor Charlie could very well be another one of Nurse Claymore’s victims.

She sure didn’t appear happy to see him.

Claymore watched the entire scene unfold with a studied detachment. She clutched the lobotomizer in one hand and her hammer in the other. “Kindly restrain the patient in examination room B,” she said crisply. “I will see to him personally as soon as I’m finished here.”

Right after she swiveled that ice pick around in my brain. I swallowed hard.

Still, I had to be smart. If I was going to try to speak, I’d better be able to talk and talk fast, before Nurse Claymore hit me with another tranquilizing shot.

Luckily for me, the doctor wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he looked at Nurse Claymore like he didn’t quite understand why she’d want to tie Charlie up in the next room.

“This man’s not a danger to himself or anyone else,” he said with Charlie at his side. “In fact, if the weather were better, I’d take him outside for a walk.” He gave Charlie an affectionate squeeze. “I’d love to hear where you went. You had us worried sick.”

Charlie looked down to his stained hospital pants and reached into the pocket. He withdrew a mangled piece of cake with a candle smashed into the icing.

“Well, now that’s all smushed,” the doctor said, holding out a hand for the ruined dessert. “Let’s throw it away and I can get you another piece.”

Charlie’s face lit up.

“No,” Nurse Claymore snapped. Both men jolted at her harsh tone. She set her instruments down hard, rattling the cart next to my bed. “Charlie Whit deserves no cake. He gets nothing.”

“Remember what I said about kindness,” the doctor pressed.

Nurse Claymore calmly folded her hands in front of her. “That patient stole your birthday cake, Doctor. He ruined the surprise, and I will not allow him to be rewarded for it.”

The doctor forced a chuckle. “That was in 1917. And I did tell him I’d bring him a piece.” He smiled at Charlie, a true, genuine smile, and Charlie’s face lit up.

He then spared a glance for his nurse. “I thought you searched everywhere. You said Charlie had been spotted in town.”

I swallowed, testing my throat. It was now or never. My lips were still numb, and my face felt like it was floating somewhere between here and east Eden. But I had to speak or forever hold my peace.

“She killed him,” I grunted out.

The words were jumbly, garbled even to my own ear. But Dr. Anderson understood.

So did Nurse Claymore. She glared at me and reached for her medicine cart. “She’s deranged.”

Dr. Anderson’s eyes filled with pity and disbelief.

“Ask Charlie!” I pleaded, but then that was ridiculous. Charlie couldn’t speak. He couldn’t tell the doctor anything.

But then he grabbed the doctor’s arm. Charlie pointed directly at Nurse Claymore and grunted. Then he nodded his head yes.

“See!” I managed. “See!” Every word was a battle.

But Charlie was doing my talking for me. Face set in a scowl, breath coming hard, he shoved an accusing finger toward the nurse.

“Wait,” Dr. Anderson said as the young man he’d been so glad to see nodded his head harshly up and down and pointed desperately at Nurse Claymore.

Claymore crossed her arms over her chest. “This is ridiculous,” she said calmly, neatly. She took a step toward Charlie, and he cowered, covering his head.

The doctor took an interest in the back of his skull. “Charlie? You’re bleeding.” He bent toward his patient and brushed through the hair at the back of his neck. “This is a deep laceration. Did you fall?”

Charlie shook his head no. And then he made a slashing motion, imitating a strike to the head. It would be impossible to misinterpret his actions.

“She hit me too,” I warbled out before Nurse Claymore stuffed a wad of gauze into my mouth.

“Let the patient speak,” Dr. Anderson demanded.

“She’s insane,” Claymore declared.

“She sounded sane when she spoke to me earlier,” the doctor countered.

“He’s a lunatic,” Claymore deflected, pointing to the young man huddled next to the doctor.

“Charlie is schizophrenic and nonverbal, but he is hardly a lunatic.” Dr. Anderson looked at Nurse Claymore as if he were seeing her for the first time. “What is happening here, nurse?”

She drew her shoulders back. “I’m just trying to maintain order.”

Dr. Anderson patted Charlie on the shoulder, and then he walked past Nurse Claymore toward me. He reached for my gag.

Claymore inserted herself between me and the doctor. “It was an accident! He stole your cake. He ruined your birthday. I tried to subdue him, but he escaped and hid in the basement.”

“He must have been terrified,” Dr. Anderson accused. “Charlie can’t abide the dark.”

“He attacked me with the knife. I had to defend myself,” she declared.

“Then why didn’t you report it?” the doctor countered. He looked back at his patient sitting against the wall, calmly licking icing from his fingers. “Charlie has no history of violence.” He looked back at his nurse. “But you do.”

She stiffened. “That was one time. One patient. Before you even hired me here.”

He nodded. “I realize that.”

Maybe her gender hadn’t been the only reason she’d had trouble getting a doctor’s position.

“I’m the one person you can count on in this place,” she reminded him. “I’d never lie to you.”

He looked at her. “I think you just did.”

He reached past her and gently removed the gauze from my mouth. “Are you all right?” he asked me.

I nodded. My jaw ached, and my entire mouth felt like the Sahara and tasted like cotton, but considering how things could have turned out, I felt pretty good. “The jar,” I said, ten kinds of relieved when my voice came out weak, but clear. “Open the jar on the counter.”

The doctor’s brow furrowed. But Charlie saved me the trouble of explaining as he dutifully rose off the floor and retrieved the jar for Dr. Anderson.

He frowned, turning the jar over in his hands before he unscrewed the lid.

The ghost of Nurse Mary streamed from the jar with a harsh groan.

“Mary Francis!” Dr. Anderson let go of the jar, not even noticing when it shattered on the floor.

The nurse jumped at the noise. She cowered a few feet from him, dripping on the floor. “Don’t put me in the tub again,” she begged.

Claymore moved swiftly behind her nurse and grabbed her by the shoulders. “She’s delirious,” she stated. “I’m taking her out of here now.”

Dr. Anderson blocked the way. “Tell me what happened to you, Mary.”

The nurse stared at the puddles she was making on the floor and shivered.

“Mary?” Dr. Anderson prodded.

Her voice came like a whisper on the air. “Nurse Claymore killed me in the tub,” she sobbed. “Please don’t let her hurt me for telling you.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Claymore said, hurrying to her cart, scrambling through a drawer underneath her tray of horror.

“She was angry at Charlie, and at me for leaving a knife next to the cake for him to find,” Mary said quickly, her voice clear. “I went down to see if I could help her coax him back upstairs, and that’s when I caught her burying Charlie in the basement.” Charlie let out a sob. “I’m sorry,” she said to him. “I’m so sorry. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do, so I kept to my rounds. I just…I never expected to see such a thing. I was treating Loretta when Nurse Claymore confronted me and ordered me not to tell. But I had to tell. I was going to tell.”

“She killed you in front of Loretta,” I said, sad and horrified for both of them.

It was all starting to make sense now.

Loretta witnessed Nurse Mary’s murder. She knew about Charlie buried in the basement, but nobody believed her, not even her friend Juliet. Everyone thought Loretta was paranoid. And maybe she was—but not about this.

I looked at Nurse Claymore. “You killed Loretta to keep her quiet.”

Claymore stiffened. “Loretta hanged herself in the stairwell,” she declared.

I wasn’t sure how to prove her wrong until Loretta shimmered into view in the doorway.

She didn’t move, didn’t speak.

“Tell them,” I pressed. “They’ll listen to you now.”

A pained expression crossed her face and her image flickered.

“Tell me,” Dr. Anderson urged.

Loretta worried her hands. “Nurse Claymore strangled me and made it look like I went crazy and killed myself.” Her eyes held tears. “Maybe I am crazy, but I know what I saw.” She gulped. “Mr. Rink was the only one who believed me, and she lobotomized him!”

Nurse Claymore held her hands up as if she were the one under attack. “This is absurd. Preposterous. I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation.”

The doctor stood stock-still. “I want to know the truth,” he said to her.

She let out a small laugh. “Doctor, are you going to believe these patients, these people who have been committed to an asylum—”

“She tried to lobotomize me, too,” Juliet said from behind Loretta. “I never knew why.”

Loretta turned to her. “I should never have told you anything. If you hadn’t known…”

“I should have believed you,” Juliet said to her friend.

“I’m so sorry,” Loretta insisted as Juliet embraced her in a long-overdue hug.

Dr. Anderson closed his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” He opened them again to face the patients who had been so abused under his care. “I never imagined this could happen under my watch.” He looked absolutely crestfallen. Broken. “I have kept you here under Nurse Claymore’s insistence that you were all still unwell. I’ve done you each a horrible disservice.”

Charlie ambled up to him and took his hand.

“Please,” Claymore spat. “You can’t possibly believe such wild stories. I’m the only other doctor you could get to help you long-term. I’m the only one who cares how hard you work.” She strode toward him, prim. Controlled.

Holding a syringe behind her back.

Holy smokes. “She’s going to—”

Before I could finish, it vanished from her hand.

“Nurse!” the doctor admonished. “You would hurt me, too?” He deflated. “Worse than you already have?”

“It was for the patient,” she managed, desperate now.

“I thought you had my patients’ best interests at heart,” the doctor said, his voice laced with steel. “I thought you cared, that you deserved another chance. That you were worthy of trust. Instead, you used my confidence in your skills to hide your secrets and crimes.”

She folded her hands in front of her. “I’ll have you remember that I have served you faithfully for a century.”

He merely observed her, letting her speak.

“I’ve made a few mistakes along the way,” she conceded, “but not outright murder. Not several times. Not—”

He snapped his fingers and she disappeared.

That was one powerful ghost.

Dr. Anderson kept Charlie’s hand and led him over to me. “I’m sorry,” the doctor said as an unseen force cut through the canvas straps at my wrists and ankles.

“Thanks,” I said, struggling to sit. My head screamed, and my muscles ached in all the wrong places.

“He didn’t know,” Nurse Mary said to me as she moved to stand at his side. “Now he knows, and he can make things right.”

The doctor wore his pain for each of us to see. “My first priority is to do no harm. And I have done terrible, terrible harm.”

“Not you,” Loretta said, braving the doorway, stepping into the room.

“I put my faith in her,” he said, giving himself no excuse. “I gave her power she never should have controlled.”

He had. But none of us could have imagined the full depth of Nurse Claymore’s depravity. “She tricked me, too,” I said, hoping to help him feel a little better. I was also curious. “Where exactly is she?”

Hopefully, he’d sent her far, far away.

“Nurse Claymore is in a secure cell on the first floor,” the doctor assured me. “There is a wing under police guard.”

“I’m familiar,” I said, moving to dangle my feet over the side of the gurney.

“She has no power of her own,” the doctor explained. “I lent her the ability to move things on the mortal plane, to interact with the living. I wanted her to protect this place.”

“I suppose she did,” I said. “In her own way.”

The doctor’s jaw tightened. “We’ll turn her over to the authorities. She’ll receive her judgment and her punishment,” he assured me. “And in our world, the guilty are held for as long as it takes them to change.”

Mary let out an audible sigh of relief.

“The rest of you will be free to go,” he added. “Although I’d like to talk a little to each patient first, if only to apologize. I was wrong to keep you. I want you to go to the light.” He wiped a tear from his eye and clapped Charlie on the shoulder. “You don’t need to be fixed. You just need to be happy.”

23

Dr. Anderson lifted the lockdown measures, unblocking the exits so we could leave the asylum at last.

Well, soon.

First, I found Frankie and Ellis in the basement morgue, maintaining their watch. I informed them their duty had ended. The killer would not be returning to the scene of the crime. She had been found.

Ellis executed a quick check of the crime scene, making sure we left it secure, while Frankie searched the maze of corridors for Joan.

He found her huddled and weeping in a side tunnel, scared out of her mind. I knew the feeling well. Together, we calmed her down and got her out of there. Slowly, steadily, we helped an injured Ellis up to the first floor.

That was where we found Brett and Cash, who’d tried to jam themselves through a window that was too small for them. I’d been wrong about them, too quick to judge. We extricated the boys from the north hall, and then we did what had once been impossible—we walked straight out the front door.

Ellis organized the caravan out, with me driving the lead car and Joan riding with the ghost hunters. The creek still flowed high, but the rain had slackened to a dull drizzle, and the rushing water had receded enough for us to travel over the bridge again.

Our first stop was the small town police headquarters. There, we gave a full report of our encounters in the asylum and the deaths of Barbara and Tom.

The police did a lot of nodding and writing, but I had the feeling they didn’t truly believe our stories. They didn’t even ask for details. At least they agreed to send a patrol over.

They’d see soon enough.

The ghost hunters ferried Joan back to her hotel and took care of her while I got Ellis to the hospital. At last.

We were there for less than two hours (which is nothing in an ER waiting room) when my phone blew up with calls from the local sheriff’s office. They’d sent a pair of officers to the scene, and now they wanted to talk to us.

First thing in the morning, the sergeant on the phone demanded.

Ellis told them it should be sooner than that. But I—for one—was glad when the man didn’t listen.

Unfortunately, both Barbara and Tom could wait until morning.

The next morning, bright and early, I made sure to start the day by getting Ellis a hearty breakfast. He needed something to go with his antibiotics and pain pill—although he refused the pain pill.

He was “fine” now that he had a cast on his broken leg and a half dozen stitches under his arm. I hadn’t even known about the deep gash there or the blood that had soaked his undershirt. When pressed, he said he’d gotten it when the ghost—we’re assuming Claymore—had attacked him in the dark. I hadn’t noticed him favoring it with everything else going on, and while he was wearing a black T-shirt and jacket. And of course, Ellis hadn’t said a word.

The jerk.

I glanced over at him as I drove over the rain-soaked bridge and back to the asylum. We’d have our discussion. And soon.

Right now?

The local police were already on the scene.

Ellis made it up the asylum stairs with the help of a crutch, which he promptly handed off to me in favor of a scooter that allowed him to brace his bad leg up on wheels and maneuver with his good one.

The police had plenty of questions, and we gave our stories again. This time, they seemed to believe us—or at least the part about the living.

No one could explain the ghostly voice my iPhone had recorded at the scene. Well, no one except for Dr. Anderson. After I’d first met him and told him about Barbara’s murder, he’d gone down to investigate and let out an anguished “no” when he’d seen the violence of the crime and reacted to the senseless loss of life.

When the local police had finished with me, Ellis stayed with them while I went up to the third floor to find Juliet.

Her room stood empty. Even the desk lay bare, with no sign of the paper bearing those words she’d written so fiercely in the dark: It’s not my fault.

Instead, I heard the murmur of voices—and even a stifled laugh—coming from Levi’s room.

He wasn’t the type to entertain guests. Levi had made it clear that he didn’t abide company or interruptions. Or anyone in his space.

I went to his door and knocked gently.

After a few moments, he opened it. “Well, hello, Miss Verity.” Juliet stood behind him with a book in hand.

“Hi,” I said, startled at the sight. “I was actually looking for you both.”

Levi beckoned me inside, so I went. His sanctuary was filled from floor to ceiling with books, both in his world and mine. It smelled like old leather and coffee. The two ghost cardinals in the cage by the window chirped contentedly.

“This place is amazing,” I said, taking in the rows upon rows of books. He had a leather-bound copy of Treasure Island. Most likely a first printing. He had Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and A Study in Scarlet, the very first Sherlock Holmes book. Amazing. “These look like originals.”

“They were merely old books when they were given to me,” Levi said plainly.

“What will you do with them now?” I asked.

“I’m staying here,” Levi said. When I turned to him, surprised, he shrugged. “It’s the only place I know.”

“I’m staying, too,” Juliet said, smiling up at Levi. “It’s nice to finally get to know my neighbor. This is a good place now.”

“And Loretta?” I asked.

Juliet’s face lit up at the mention of her friend. “Loretta’s gone to the light,” Juliet said. “So has Nurse Mary. They both found peace. They were quite eager for it.”

“We have peace right here,” Levi said, handing her another book. “Look. This is the one I was telling you about.”

She took it eagerly. “I asked him how he named his birds,” she said, holding Treasure Island.

“Most of the other patients have gone,” Levi said. “Dr. Anderson helped them go to the light.” He glanced out the window. “All except Mr. Rink and Charlie. They weren’t ready yet. The doctor says he’s going to give them a different kind of therapy.”

Oh no. It scared me to think of what else the medical books from Dr. Anderson’s time recommended for people who were having trouble adjusting to life.

“There they go now,” he added, pointing out the window.

“He’s taking them out?” I followed Levi’s direction and saw a ghostly turn-of-the century Fiat parked along the side of the asylum. It had an open driver’s seat and a closed back carriage with a spare wheel attached to the side.

Dr. Anderson loaded the last of his suitcases onto the roof while Mr. Rink helped strap them down. The lobotomized Mr. Rink was barely recognizable in black pants and a plain white button-down shirt. He’d have to keep putting them on when he reverted back to the clothes he’d died in—but in the meantime, he looked good.

“Cutting-edge treatment, isn’t it?” Juliet drew up next to me.

“More like basic human interaction,” I said, relieved. Dr. Anderson cared. He really did.

“They said their goodbyes a few minutes ago,” Juliet added, watching out the window.

“You’re going to be okay?” I asked her.

“Yes.” She shared a glance with Levi. “For the first time, I think we’re both going to be just fine.”

“I’m going to see if I can go catch the doctor,” I told them.

“Come back and visit any time you want,” Levi called after me.

“I will!” I replied as I hurried for the side stairwell.

I made it down just as Dr. Anderson was opening the car door for Mr. Rink. A teddy bear sat in the front seat. It was the one I’d seen in the hall when I’d first arrived. Mr. Rink held the bear tight to his chest as Dr. Anderson closed the door.

“You’re leaving,” I said, in the observation of the century. He’d already started the car. Thank goodness the old ones needed to warm up a bit.

Dr. Anderson flashed a grin. “We’re heading down to Florida for some R and R,” he said while his patient settled in the passenger seat. “Mr. Rink always used to tell me he wanted to see Florida, and it’s been too long for me, too.” He closed the door on a grinning Mr. Rink, who turned his face up to the open sky. “We’re going to ride a fishing boat and drink lemonade on the beach,” the doctor added.

I couldn’t help but return his smile. “It’ll be good for you both.”

“It will,” Dr. Anderson agreed. “We’re enjoying the sunshine already,” he said, gesturing to the bright and sunny morning. It had turned out to be a glorious day.

It got even better when I saw a familiar figure in the back cab.

Charlie sat, buckled in, grinning as he ate a big plate full of cake.

“I had to stop by the bakery first thing this morning,” the doctor said, happily making his way around the front of the car to the driver’s seat. “Carter’s makes the best pies and cakes. And wouldn’t you know it—Myles Carter still oversees the operation. A century and counting! He operates a full kitchen on our side of the veil. Can you believe he’s still in business after all these years?”

“I’m glad,” I said as he hitched himself into the driver’s seat. Glad for Dr. Anderson, for Charlie, for Mr. Rink, and for all of the people who deserved to be happy and free.

But I still had a question. “What are we going to do about Nurse Claymore?”

The doctor pulled a lever up to engage the car. “The guards have her.” He hitched a thumb toward the old asylum. “They’re transporting her out.”

With Scalieri most likely.

“Thanks,” I said, getting ready to head over there.

“No,” the doctor said. “Thank you. For everything, Verity.”

“You’re very welcome,” I said. Everyone had what they deserved—a new start. I couldn’t be happier for them.

“Ready?” Dr. Anderson asked his companions. Charlie lifted a fork and Mr. Rink raised a hand to wave goodbye.

The old car rattled around the side of the asylum to begin its final trek down the long drive. I walked the same way and found Ellis out front, standing near the main steps.

He looked good. He had color back in his face, and the worst of the pain no longer etched his features.

I stopped at his side, enjoying the moment Dr. Anderson’s car disappeared into the trees at the edge of the property. “I think I just let two of our primary witnesses drive away.”

“I’m sure the authorities have it handled,” Ellis said.

And he was right. Only a few moments later, the ghostly doors opened, and Nurse Claymore was led out in handcuffs.

Ellis couldn’t see her. Or the two guards who flanked her on either side. So I took the liberty of describing it for him, with glee.

Claymore glared as she passed us. “I should have worked faster,” she ground out.

“Justice is served,” Ellis said, slipping his hand into mine. I gave him a squeeze. It was good to see Nurse Claymore finally getting what she deserved.

“Slam dunk,” the ghost app chirped from Ellis’s pocket.

Frankie shimmered into existence next to me, cigarette smoke trailing out his nose. “Did I tell you I can’t stand that app?”

“You might have mentioned it,” I remarked innocently.

He took another drag. “I just have one question for you, miss detective.”

“Shoot,” I told him. That morning I could handle anything. Even Frankie.

The gangster cocked his head to the side. “What about Scalieri?”

24

Ah, yes. Scalieri, the gangster who’d asked us there in the first place.

The local police chief wanted to bounce a few things off Ellis, so I let them have at it while I led Frankie behind a gnarled magnolia bush.

“Here’s the deal,” I said to the gangster. “I’m going to help Scalieri, but not by breaking him out of prison.”

Incarcerated ghosts remained in prison until they truly changed, and it was obvious Scalieri needed more time. Besides, I wasn’t going to do anything illegal.

Frankie huffed. “It’s too late to spring him. They sent in extra guards this morning. They’re moving him out.”

“So we sort of did our job,” I said hopefully. We’d gotten Scalieri away from Mint Julep Manor.

Frankie stubbed his cigarette out. “I’ll tell him that when they’re fitting him for a new leg cuff.”

Darn it. “Okay, well, you know what? Even if we don’t get what we need from Scalieri, I’m still going to help him as best I can.”

“Oh no.” Frankie closed his eyes.

“I’m going to get his mamma’s silver box back to him.” Stealing it had started his life of crime. And more than that, the box clearly meant something to him. Maybe it connected him to his past and the possibility of a better life, one where he lived up to his mamma’s expectations and dreams for him.

“That’s not the deal,” Frankie said, enunciating every word. Like I was six.

“It’s what he needs.” Or it wouldn’t mean so much to him. “I’m giving it to him, and I don’t even care if he gives us anything back.”

“Of course you don’t,” Frankie said, dragging a hand over his face.

“Scalieri needs to get out of prison the right way—by becoming a better person. And a good first step will be to make things right with his mamma, to correct his original mistake and have the chance to try to start fresh.”

Everyone deserved that chance.

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” the gangster said. “I’m not going.”

“I’m bringing your urn,” I stated in no uncertain terms. It would be good for him to see—as many times as I could show him—what it looked like to do a selfless act.

“Shoot me,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Just shoot me now.”

I cocked a brow. “I would, but somebody beat me to it.”

He rolled his eyes, but I also saw how the corner of his mouth twitched up.

“Now come on,” I said. Time was wasting. And we had one final job to do.

I let Ellis know our plans, then set out with Frankie for a small farmhouse outside Jackson, the place where Scalieri had grown up. It had been a simple enough location to research, with my sister’s help.

It had taken no time at all for Melody to give me the address, along with a heads-up that Lucy was now the official mascot of the Sugarland Library Friday Morning Mystery Book Club.

She was a smart little skunk.

Lucy always knew how to handle her business. As for me? Well, I only hoped the farmhouse Scalieri mentioned was still there. If they’d paved it over or turned it into a mini-mall, we would be out of luck.

Shoot, even if we found the place, there was no guarantee that the box would still be buried under the old oak. Someone else could have dug up the box during the last ninety years. It could have rusted away. Did silver rust?

The tree that marked the spot could be dead and gone.

For all my bravado with Frankie earlier, I just didn’t know.

Melody’s directions led us out to the country, to the end of a long dirt road.

There we found the remains of an old farmhouse. Next to that, as Scalieri had promised, stood a thick oak tree.

I let out a breath and smiled at Frankie, who crossed his arms and did his best to appear put out.

As if he had somewhere else to be.

Still, he didn’t say another word as he trailed me out to the spot in the yard and watched as I dug deep down.

And there, I found the silver box.

I brushed the dirt away from the tarnished lid. It was in very good condition, and inside I did a little dance. “It’s here. And it’s beautiful!”

“It’s still not the deal,” Frankie cautioned. But I could tell he was impressed.

I lifted the lid and inspected the tattered blue lining. There was nothing inside. Scalieri had stolen his mother’s money the day he broke her heart, and burying the empty box was his eleven-year-old’s attempt to hide the evidence. I glanced at the falling-down farmhouse. “I wonder if Mamma’s still here.”

Frankie shrugged.

For once, he was right. That part wasn’t up to us.

This would have to be enough.

25

We returned to the asylum just in time to see the local mortal police bringing two covered bodies out on stretchers.

They loaded them into waiting ambulances, their lights flashing, their sirens silent.

I made my way over to Ellis and kissed him on the cheek.

“Did you find the box?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, opening my bag to show it to him. Now the only trick would be getting it to Scalieri.

“I’m surprised they’re moving Tom and Barbara so fast,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the scene playing out on the lawn. “Don’t they have an investigation to perform?”

“My thoughts exactly,” my boyfriend said. “Their deaths have been ruled accidental.”

“You’re kidding.” The local police needed to take a second look.

“They’re claiming the blow to Barbara’s head could have come from a fall.”

“She didn’t fall,” I countered. “She was sitting next to the generator when I found her.”

“They have no evidence of a human killer.”

“That’s because there wasn’t one. Claymore hit her on the back of the head,” I said. “Just like she hit me.” I’d had a monster of a headache the night before to prove it.

Ellis clenched his jaw. “Tom also showed evidence of trauma at the back of the head. But they ruled his death an accidental electrocution.”

“In the middle of a power failure,” I added.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “In this case, I’m not going to argue. We caught the killer.”

And Nurse Claymore would serve time until she changed. It could mean eternity.

“Doesn’t it bother you to see the authorities overlook so much?” I asked as a police officer walked Joan out.

“It does,” Ellis gritted out. “But it’s part of ghost hunting, isn’t it? We can’t explain what really happened in a way anyone would believe us.”

“We have no proof,” I agreed. At least not in the real world. That little quirk of ghost hunting had been a constant struggle for me, and I hadn’t figured out a way to make it better.

At least Ellis understood now. And if he could learn to live with it, that was even better.

There were a lot of things Ellis needed to accept about my ghost hunting if we had any hope of succeeding as a couple.

We’d talk about it. Soon. In fact, we had a lot of things to talk about.

I spotted Joan standing by herself and walked over to give her a little hug. “How are you doing?”

“Terrible.” She sighed. “Tom and I had our problems, but I never thought it would end like this.”

“We’re so sorry for your loss,” I said.

She nodded gratefully.

“So what happens to the property now?” I asked as an officer locked the front door.

“I’m still going to buy it,” she vowed. “I’ll renovate it. Return it to its former glory. But not as a resort.” She looked up at the grand old building. “This will be a place of healing like it was originally intended to be. I’m going to make it a retreat center. I’ll restore the grounds. I’ll add flowers, maybe a memorial garden. I want to respect the ghosts who remain.”

“I like it,” I told her.

She eyed the place thoughtfully. “Are any of them staying?”

“Just Levi and Juliet on the third floor. They have rooms 300 and 302.”

“I’ll make sure to leave that space for them. And keep the third floor as a quiet area.”

“They’d appreciate that,” I said as the ambulance driver motioned to her. “You’ll want to keep the room with the books locked at all times. Levi has a valuable collection up there.”

“I will,” she promised.

I watched her go. This place would be in good hands. I could feel it. Joan’s brush with a real ghost seemed to have changed her. Or perhaps it was the loss of her husband. It seemed she would be the best caretaker for the property after all.

Shortly after Joan left, the ghostly doors to the asylum creaked open, and two guards accompanied a handcuffed Bruno Scalieri down the front stairs.

This was our chance.

I hurried over to the grim-faced trio.

“Stop,” I said, blocking their way at the bottom. I addressed the guard I’d met earlier. “I’m not done with this prisoner yet.”

“Sorry, lady,” he said, angling his prisoner around me and continuing on to a gray ghostly prison truck that stood parked out front—in the middle of my avocado green Cadillac! Well, that was fine because I wasn’t going anywhere until I talked to Scalieri.

I kept pace next to them. “I was promised the time I need with the prisoner,” I said, trying to reason with the guard who’d been kind to me before, a stout fellow with bushy eyebrows. “I’m allowed a second visit.”

“We’re on a schedule,” bushy eyebrows said, barely looking at me as they loaded a stone-faced Scalieri into the back of the van.

This wasn’t fair.

“We don’t have what Scalieri wants anyway,” Frankie hissed in my ear.

Maybe not, but I wasn’t giving up so easily. This was Frankie’s chance to learn what had happened the night he died. We’d come all this way. We’d braved the asylum. We’d fought off a murderous ghost. We had Scalieri right here, and we might not get that kind of opportunity again.

“Don’t you at least want to try?” I asked my ghost.

But Frankie stayed put.

The bushy-eyebrow guard closed the door on Scalieri, and on the answers we’d come to find.

He headed for the driver’s side of the truck.

I turned to the guard I’d met when we first arrived. “Inspector De Clercq promised me I’d have my time with Scalieri.”

“You did,” he said, drawing a clipboard from the back of his pants. “It says so right here.”

“I only met him once,” I insisted. “De Clercq said I could see him at least twice.”

And I would hold them to it. This was important. Vital.

The guard gave me a raised brow and checked the paperwork clipped behind his sign-in sheets.

Please let it be there.

Please.

Because De Clercq had gone to the light, and it wasn’t like I could find him now.

The guard frowned. He glanced up at me, then back at the paper, his frown deepening.

“Come on, Laskowitz.” Mr. Eyebrows leaned out of the driver’s side window and pounded a palm on the side of the police van. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“De Clercq left orders to give this Verity Long up to three visits,” Laskowitz said, holding up the clipboard.

“This would only be my second,” I stated primly. With any luck, I’d never need the third.

“Signed by De Clercq and the DA himself,” he added. The first guard looked at me in a new light. “What did you do for the old hardnose anyway?”

I shook my head. Smiled. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

26

The guard turned the lock and opened the doors to the prison truck. Scalieri sat on a gray metal bench in the back, cuffed to the floor with chains on his hands and feet.

He looked up at us expectantly, and for the first time, I saw the man behind the gangster. I saw a glimpse of regret and the man who craved approval from his long-dead mamma.

Or maybe I was just imagining things.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice raspy, his expectation almost palpable.

“To torture ourselves,” Frankie muttered, gliding next to me as I scrambled onto the trunk of my real-life car and hitched up into the ghostly truck. As the guard slammed the ghostly doors behind me, I took a seat on my car roof, which roughly lined up with the bench across from Scalieri. It was a little shorter than Scalieri, but then again, so was I.

“Frank,” I prodded. I rested my elbows on my knees as Frankie drew the ghostly version of the box out of my purse.

Scalieri stiffened. “Where did you find that?”

“Just where you said it would be,” I said, glancing at the closed truck door. “We’re alone. You don’t have to pretend you don’t want it.”

He snatched the box out of Frankie’s hand. “Did you see Mamma?”

“No,” I said gently. “But now that you have this, maybe you can.”

He could find a way to contact her, to start the conversation. This could be the beginning for him if he’d let it.

He turned the box over and over in his hands, inspecting every detail as if he couldn’t quite believe he had it back. “You didn’t need to go messing in my personal life.”

Why else did he even tell me about his personal life? “I hoped it would help you see that Frankie and I are on your side.”

“I would have broken you out,” Frankie said under his breath, “if Verity here hadn’t got us put on lockdown.”

“Hey—” I said. Just because it was true didn’t mean I appreciated the blame.

Scalieri ran his fingers over the box possessively. “Oh, I get it. You still think you can get information out of me when you didn’t hold up your side of the deal.”

“The box—” I began.

“Was not the deal,” he finished.

“Told you,” Frankie snapped.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. “The box was because I care.” Might as well be honest about it. “Yes, I want you to give us the information he needs about his past. Frankie needs to heal as well. But that’s not the only reason I helped you.”

Scalieri glared at me. “Then you’re a sucker.”

“Fine,” I conceded. Maybe I was a big fool, a hopeless Pollyanna, the butt of the joke.

I’d tried to do the right thing coming to this place, helping Frankie. I’d worked to do the right thing for Scalieri by keeping him in prison so he could change, by helping the ghosts in the asylum to be free to live their afterlives, by finding justice for those who were hurt by Nurse Claymore, by stopping her reign of terror and getting everyone what they needed.

Except for Frankie.

And me.

But I’d done the right thing and I refused to be sorry for it.

At the same time, I refused to believe this could be the end of the story. In fact, I was positive it wasn’t. This could be the first step for Scalieri, a way for him to start being the kind of man his mamma had wanted him to be. After all I’d done, it couldn’t end this way. “I’d like to make an appeal to your better nature,” I told Scalieri.

He huffed. “I don’t have one.”

I glanced to Frankie for help.

“I have to agree with him on that,” Frankie said.

“Well, heck.” I supposed there was nothing else to do.

I sat for a moment.

“Are we done here?” Scalieri prompted, pocketing the box.

“Yep,” Frankie said, moving to stand.

“No,” I said. But, truly, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was about to get up when a frigid breeze pricked the hair on the top of my head and chilled my left side to the bone.

I drew back as the image of a woman formed in front of the exit doors, a short, stout, barrel of a woman with piercing black eyes and stacked gray hair.

She clutched a shiny black handbag and glided straight toward Scalieri. For a second, I thought she was going to whack him with her purse. “So this is all you have to say?” she demanded in a heavy Italian accent.

Scalieri stared up at her, his mouth hanging open. “Mamma,” he croaked.

“I saw the girl dig up my box. I followed her. I saw her give it to you, and I thought eccoti, the boy has changed! He cares. He wants to do right, or he wouldn’t be thinking of his mamma anymore.”

“Look. I have it.” He drew the box from his jacket. “I’m going to fix things, Mamma,” he promised. “I have thirty-eight dollars in my pocket right now.”

She chuffed him playfully on the back of the head. “That’s a start, but that’s not what’s wrong. What about this lady who helped you? She wanted you to help her back, and you didn’t do it.”

“It wasn’t the deal,” he murmured, like a petulant child.

“You’re in her debt,” his mother said.

“That’s the way you can free yourself,” I reminded him, “by being a better man.”

“Don’t help me,” his mother said, taking a swipe at the back of my head. I ducked and felt the chilly breeze pass over me. “And put on a dress. I can see all the way to Rome with you wearing those shorts.”

“These are perfectly reasonable shorts. They’re from Old Navy,” I said primly.

Scalieri took a deep breath and straightened. “Mamma, can you wait outside for a minute?” He appeared distinctly uncomfortable. “With your permission, I would like to bring some honor back to our family.”

She looked at me and harrumphed. “A Scalieri always pays his debts.”

Scalieri cleared his throat. “Mamma, this is personal—” he leveled a finger at Frankie “—for him.”

“You’re going to spill?” Frankie gaped.

“Thank you,” I said at the same time.

“That’s a good boy,” his mamma said, reaching down to pat Scalieri on the cheek. “I’m proud of you.”

He shook his head. “Ma, I’m still going away for a long time.”

“You deserve it,” she stated. “And I’m going to come visit you wherever you go.”

“It might be someplace worse.” He frowned.

“That’s okay.” She drew a hankie from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “You’re my baby boy, and you’re starting to give your old mother hope.”

Scalieri stared at the floor, blinking hard as his mother passed through the back doors of the truck and out to wait in the yard.

“She’s sweet,” I said. “Direct, but sweet.” At least he knew where he stood.

“Si.” Scalieri nodded, still within himself. “Lei capisce.” He opened his eyes. “She has forgiven me.”

“Well, all right then,” Frankie said, crowding in next to me. “So, we did you a favor; you said you’d do us one.”

“Frankie,” I hissed.

It was too soon.

Scalieri’s expression hardened, and once again, I saw the jaded thug he’d become. “Don’t push it.”

Frankie stiffened next to me, and I wished I could have reached out and taken his hand.

Scalieri sized Frankie up. “After this, we’re even.”

“We are,” Frankie said cautiously.

Scalieri leaned forward, his chains clanking. “Then I hate to be the one to break up a happy family. But, Frank, it was your own brother who shot you.”

Frankie didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just stared straight ahead.

“Are you sure?” I asked Scalieri. There had to be some mistake. I mean, I’d never met Frankie’s brother, but I knew he haunted parts of Sugarland. Frankie had run into him when we’d solved the mystery at Southern Spirits. But surely he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger on his own flesh and blood.

Scalieri clasped his hands together. “Find him,” he challenged, motioning to my friend. “Ask him.”

But Frankie had already begun to fade away.

“Frankie,” I said, trying to get his attention. “Frank,” I called again.

He disappeared.

I turned back to Scalieri. “You’d better be right about this.” So help me.

He’d better be right.

“I’m sorry, signorina,” he said as the guard motioned me out of the van. “Some people don’t come from good families like mine.”

I watched him as the doors closed, as the guard locked the gangster in and tipped his hat to me.

“What happened?” Ellis asked as they drove off. His ghost app lay silent.

I wasn’t even sure how to explain when I was still putting it together myself. “I think I’m starting to understand why Frankie chose to forget.”

Note from Angie:

Thank you so much for joining Verity, Ellis, and Frankie on another adventure. I’ve loved writing the Southern Ghost Hunter series and readers like you are such a large part of that. I can’t get over the support you’ve shown for the series and for me as a writer. You are seriously the reason I’m able to do what I do. You are the best!

Rest assured I’m already hard at work on the next book which will take place entirely in Sugarland. And, well, between you, me, and the lamp post—Lucy is already taking over. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but I do know there’s no stopping that skunk! So I’m just going to go with it.

I don’t have a release date for the next book yet, but if you like these mysteries, and want to know when new ones come out, sign up for my newsletter. I don’t send newsletters often, but I do send them on the day each new book releases. In the meantime, your information will be kept safe by Lucy and a pack of highly trained guard skunks.

Happy reading,

Angie

Also by Angie Fox

Keep track of Angie's new book releases by receiving an email on release day. It's fast and easy to sign up for new release updates.

The following Angie Fox titles are also available in print format.

THE SOUTHERN GHOST HUNTER SERIES

Southern Spirits

A Ghostly Gift (short story)

The Skeleton in the Closet

Ghost of a Chance (short story)

The Haunted Heist

Deader Homes & Gardens

Dog Gone Ghost (short story)

Sweet Tea and Spirits

Murder on the Sugarland Express

Pecan Pies and Dead Guys

The Mint Julep Murders

THE ACCIDENTAL DEMON SLAYER SERIES

The Accidental Demon Slayer

The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

The Last of the Demon Slayers

My Big Fat Demon Slayer Wedding

Beverly Hills Demon Slayer

Night of the Living Demon Slayer

What To Expect When Your Demon Slayer is Expecting

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS:

A Little Night Magic: A collection of Southern Ghost Hunter and Accidental Demon Slayer short stories

About the Author

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Angie Fox writes sweet, fun, action-packed mysteries. Her characters are clever and fearless, but in real life, Angie is afraid of basements, bees, and going up stairs when it's dark behind her. Let’s face it: Angie wouldn’t last five minutes in one of her books.

Angie earned a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. During that time, she also skipped class for an entire week so she could read Anne Rice's vampire series straight through. Angie has always loved books and is shocked, honored and tickled pink that she now gets to write books for a living. Although, she did skip writing for a week this past fall so she could read Victoria Laurie's Abby Cooper psychic eye mysteries straight through.

Angie makes her home in St. Louis, Missouri with a football-addicted husband, two kids, and Moxie the dog.

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Copyright © 2019 by Angie Fox

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This edition published by arrangement with Moose Island Books.

The Mint Julep Murders

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-939661-58-6

Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- Foreword
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Also by Angie Fox
- About the Author
- Copyright