Ruby Hill (Entangled Ever After) Read Online Free Page B

forehead. Six months had not cooled her anger over his blaming her for Cash’s death, nor had it made her stop loving Corbin, either. It hadn’t let her stop loving him. But he didn’t respect what she did, and Cash’s death—at her hands, as Corbin said—was a terrible wall that could never be scaled. So why did she desperately want Corbin at her side? It was more than the buddy system they’d established. They needed to get out of there—she to her team, him to his job—but then they’d go their separate ways. Ruby Hill, like Cash, would always be between them.
    But there was something else there—something that made her want him despite the chasm they couldn’t cross. Something that made him look at her the way he did. Something that ignored darkness and transformed small bits of light into blinding sun.
    Something that gave her hope.
    In her heart, she couldn’t shake Corbin.
    In reality, he’d disappeared without a trace. She took a step in the direction she’d last seen him.
    A whisper echoed from behind.
    Ash-ley.
    Her name, so faint. Had she really heard anything? Adrenaline shot through her, but it had been there all along, not far from the surface. She wouldn’t readily admit how uncomfortable Ruby Hill made her. She’d been to many purportedly haunted locations, but no other place had fostered such a strong personal connection.
    Ashley believed locations held the deep roots of their past. Ruby Hill Lunatic Asylum, like so many other psychiatric hospitals built in the second half of the nineteenth century, was slated as a place of healing. Situated in the foothills of the Appalachians, the hospital offered its residents ample fresh air and endless views of the rolling countryside. Perhaps, at one time, it had indeed been a place of solace, but overcrowding quickly led to abuse and neglect. Violently disturbed criminals were housed among the general population—many of whose only crimes were being poor, orphaned, or homeless—a situation leading to horrific experiences for the innocent.
    Some of the greatest atrocities, however, were those put on the residents by the doctors and staff. Shock therapy and lobotomies were both very much in vogue, and from what she understood they remained a constant threat long after losing favor with the medical community. Mental health care was deinstitutionalized in the nineteen-sixties, leading the asylum to close its doors in the nineteen-eighties. And while Ashley hadn’t even been alive during the time Ruby Hill was in operation, her fascination ran blood deep.
    Several generations back on her father’s side, her distant great-grandfather, Sidney J. Pearce, founded and served a long tenure as head administrator of Ruby Hill. The house of its own brand of ill-repute continued to employ a number of her relatives through the years. The stories she’d heard—often relayed with a cool, clinical detachment—raised unease and fear in her unlike any of its ghosts.
    Ashley grew up with a need from childhood to right the many wrongs caused by her family business. She had no question as to whether Ruby Hill was haunted, but also believed the resident evil had once roamed the halls, very much alive.
    Her thoughts turned to Corbin. She understood his skepticism. Perhaps, if she told him her family’s history with the place, he’d understand her need to believe. Because without ghosts walking the halls of Ruby Hill, there would be no redemption for her. But he’d shared his own family history there—a truly bitter piece of irony, if not for the fact most of their small town probably had roots in the asylum walls—and it hadn’t led to his understanding. If anything, it further embittered his loss.
    Losing Corbin left a hole in her—one she wasn’t sure she knew how to fill. They hadn’t been together more than a few months, but it was long enough to know they clicked in every possible way but one. That one way hadn’t mattered until Cash died.
    Now, for Corbin,