RUBY HILL
One reunion. One ghost. One night that will change everything...
From her earliest memories, Ashley Pearce has been drawn to Ruby Hill Lunatic Asylum, and she's not the only one. Decades after the abandoned hospital ended its institutional reign of torture and neglect, something lurks in the shadows. Since she’s a paranormal investigator, it's Ashley's job to find out what.
Crime scene expert Corbin Malone doesn't believe in ghosts. A born skeptic, he has no interest in entertaining the hype surrounding the mysterious deaths at Ruby Hill, but he won't turn his back while more women die. He agrees to an overnight investigation, never expecting his first encounter would be with the woman he pushed away a year ago. But when he discovers Ashley is a target, he learns his greatest fear isn't living with his own demons, but losing her for good.
EXCERPT
Visions of the crime scene photos made an unwelcome reappearance in his mind’s eye. Young women—beautiful young women. Death hadn’t changed that. “In both cases, heart stopped. Sudden cardiac arrest. No known cause. No family history. No leads.”
She nodded, unimpressed. But then again, she subscribed to the boogieman camp. “So a ghost did it.”
He expected her to claim victory with that sentiment, but instead her words harbored bitter undertones. The shift threw him off balance. The whole damn place had that effect on him. The air felt as if it bred illness rather than oxygen—darkness gathering like rain clouds, too fat with their wares to find the sky.
He’d choke on the toxicity.
Is that what Cash had done?
Though the air boiled, inexplicable cold sluiced Corbin’s spine. He glanced toward a window. Dusty and broken, it had a morbid effect on the sunshine attempting to filter through from outside, where the world lazed deep orange. The thought of darkness on the other side made him shudder. When he turned to shut the front door, he realized the darkness on the inside was far worse.