The Hanged Man (The Braddock & Gray Case Files Book 6)

  The Hanged Man

  The Braddock & Gray Case Files

  H.P. Bayne

  Copyright © 2021 by H.P. Bayne

  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.

  Cover art by H.P. Bayne with images from depositphotos.com

  Contents

  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

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by H.P. Bayne

  1

  Ed Serco settled in against the thin mattress and pulled his blankets across his body.

  Though the moon was at three-quarters tonight, the night was bright. Moonlight hit the window in the cell, casting bar-shaped shadows along the opposite wall.

  He suppressed a delighted shudder. Was this what they saw all those years, the prisoners who’d once been forced to call this cell theirs?

  Moments like this, he was grateful for the nearby presence of Kevin Davis, his business partner—and partner in everything else besides—just down the hall. They’d put a lot of work into the place, getting it ready for a new kind of resident, and now they were so close.

  What had once been Pineview Prison was soon to be the Pineview Prison Hostel. Already they had a waiting list to get in. They’d been wise to arrange for a summer opening.

  It was all here. One hundred forty-two cells meant one hundred forty-two rooms for guests. The kitchen and cafeteria were already there and had only needed some new appliances and supplies and a good clean. Recreation rooms would retain their purpose. The central common areas between the tiered ranges would be an excellent party space on the youth side and a place for quieter gatherings on the family side. They’d spent more money there, putting up a soundproof wall to separate one area of the old prison from the next, ensuring the A-wing would be for the partiers and the B- and C-wings for families or travellers who wanted quiet or someplace to come and rest after a day of touring.

  The bones of the place were strong. The roof had needed some repairs, but nothing anywhere as significant as Ed had feared when they first looked at the place two years ago. It hadn’t been very long, after all, since Pineview had been a working federal prison.

  The government had since built a new one down the road after human rights organizations raised a ruckus about the state of the place. It was an old-school prison, built during Victorian times. Some changes had been made over the years, certainly—barred gates locking each cell had been replaced with doors of solid steel granting some measure of privacy and security to inmates, among other changes—but the place overall remained much as it ever was.

  Where he lay now provided another reminder of how much had changed. The Dead Man’s Cell.

  Or, as it was called during its run, Hell’s Gate.

  Though the death penalty had been abolished in the early seventies, the prison had seen its last hanging a full decade prior to that. In every instance the ultimate penalty was handed out, the condemned man spent his final days here, in this very cell.

  Possibly seeing exactly what Ed was right now.

  When another shudder seized him, he didn’t try to hold it back. He loved the deliciousness of it all, the history and the macabre feel of it.

  And then there was the other fact, the other major selling feature. The place was spectacularly haunted.

  Ed and Kevin had noticed something on their first visit here. They’d toured the place with their real estate agent and the building’s live-in caretaker, the latter being a man in his sixties who had once been an inmate here. The four of them had supposedly been the only people in the building, yet their tour was punctuated by the distant bang of a steel door or the thudding of overhead footsteps.

  “You get used to it,” Pip Devereux had said, his smile a knowing one. Given the years he’d spent in the place, Ed took him at his word.

  Part of the deal of ownership was to keep the history of the place alive, and a significant portion of the first year had been spent creating a museum in the former admin offices on the main floor. They’d kept Pip on, and he’d somewhat reluctantly agreed to run history tours by day and ghost tours by night. His own experience with the place would add a distinctly personal touch to the whole thing, they’d reasoned.

  Ed couldn’t wait to open, not just for the money it would finally return to him and Kevin, but—if he were being honest—for the added company. Even now, the nighttime noises were closing in, the creaks and groans, the clatters and thuds. He loved ghost stories, but living one wasn’t always quite so much fun.

  Ed did his best with what he had. Pip refused to stay in the main building after dark, making his home in the former warden’s offices. He felt a world away right now, leaving Ed and Kevin to battle the darkness alone.

  And tonight—their first full night here—Ed felt very alone.

  This had been Kevin’s idea, spending the night in the cells, and Ed had readily agreed.

  “If we’re going to have people stay, we should try it out ourselves first,” Kevin had said. While they’d spent some long hours and late nights in the place, they’d always headed for the peace and safety of home the moment the situation became too intense.

  Nothing dangerous had happened, of course. But Ed and Kevin had agreed they couldn’t ask people to stay without offering them some warning based in experience.

  So here they were, sampling the place for the first time in full, living the experience guests soon would be. For their dry run, they’d chosen the most disturbing part of the prison—death row. In turn, it was also the most paranormally active. Ed and Kevin kept doors to the cells closed yet routinely found several—and nearly every single one on this unit—open by morning. More than once, they’d heard footsteps and, most frighteningly, quiet voices coming from the death row cells.

  Death row was the most sought-after set of rooms in the place, and Hell’s Gate the most wanted of them all.

  As the night closed over them and the moon tracked across the sky, Ed was tempted to call out to Kevin in his nearby cell for the reminder he had some company nearby. But the thought of breaking the silence seemed unthinkable.

  The air felt heavy now, as if it had undergone a molecular change. Heavy and cold and wrong.

  Ed shifted beneath the covers on the cot, rolling onto his side and bringing his knees to his chest. He pulled the blankets up farther, covering as much of himself as he could without obscuring his sight. The need to see was suddenly more important than ever, as if he might miss an approaching threat.

  It made no sense, but there it was. During all the hours they’d spent here over the past two years, he’d never witnessed anything actually happening with his own eyes. Why he thought he would see anything now was beyond him.

  And then the footsteps started.

  They came, he believed, from the stairs coming up from the main floor. They moved slowly, methodically
, the pace solid and as rhythmical as a dripping tap. Foot over foot, moving higher and higher, the sound echoing through the concrete, metal and stone structure.

  He guessed they’d reached the top when they paused, as if the walker was questioning which way to go next.

  Another footstep sounded. And another. And another.

  Coming closer.

  Ed burrowed down even farther beneath the blankets, breaths coming in short, sharp puffs. He thought about Kevin, resting a few doors down and even closer to the top of the stairs. Was he okay? Ed wanted to call out but he couldn’t form the words, couldn’t make a single audible sound.

  A few more footsteps before pausing again, somewhere down the hall. Ed couldn’t shake the uncomfortable thought someone was looking in on Kevin.

  His mouth opened and closed without sound.

  Maybe it was Pip. A simple explanation. He did say he made a couple of rounds each night to ensure all was well in the place. Of course, he’d said he would skip the A-wing where Ed and Kevin were staying, but maybe he’d forgotten. Habit and all that.

  No worries. If this was Pip, he’d notice Kevin in the other cell, recall he had company and go back downstairs and out of this wing.

  Another thud sounded. Then another.

  Not toward the stairs. Coming closer.

  Coming Ed’s way.

  Shivers racked his body as he held tight to the blankets. His pulse pounded in his ears, clouding over so much other noise. But not the footsteps. Nothing could drown them out.

  Another step. And another and another. Putting cell after cell behind them.

  Boots. He could tell now they were boots.

  Pip wore trainers.

  Oh hell.

  Several more steps fell until they stopped finally. Right outside Ed’s door.

  He’d kept the door open partway, uncertain whether he’d feel more comfortable if he were less boxed in or if he had a view to the dark spaces beyond. Neither had felt like a great option, so he’d left it halfway. Now nothing was protection enough from the darkness of the place. From the watcher at the door.

  His fingers bunched up the blankets as the presence hovered there, where it had stopped, mere feet away. Ed managed at last to choke out a single word, a question he hoped would come with a positive answer.

  “Pip?”

  No answer came, which was answer enough.

  And then a footstep sounded inside the cell.

  Ed gasped, saucer-wide eyes flitting around the space, seeking out the maker of the noises.

  Nothing showed. Nothing.

  He was alone, but he wasn’t.

  More steps. Closer and closer.

  Closing the distance.

  Moaning, Ed threw the covers over his head. As a child, he’d hidden this way from the bumps in the night in his old home, a Victorian mansion his parents owned. It had been haunted as this place was, and he’d learned to cope with it over time. But that had been different. An old woman’s ghost was a far cry from whatever would be haunting a former men’s prison.

  Another short footstep, close enough Ed could hear the light brush of a boot’s toe against painted concrete. It was beside him now, standing directly over him. Eyeing his trembling form beneath the blankets. He knew it was watching him without having to see. He knew it because he could sense it.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Please, leave me alone.”

  Movement next to him stilled. All sound stopped. The air seemed to change, although he couldn’t explain in what way or how he could tell.

  Long, breathless seconds passed, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.

  He’d been holding his breath, and now he allowed the air to leave his lungs in a violent whoosh.

  Then something seized his throat.

  Vice-like, it squeezed, painfully compressing his windpipe. Though his mouth formed a scream, nothing came out, the grip on his throat constricting all sound. He clawed at his own neck, struggling to break a grip he couldn’t locate, while the rest of his body flailed against the mattress.

  He hadn’t taken in a breath before the attack, and he had no air to sustain him. Already lights danced in his eyes, giving him something to look at besides this terrifying emptiness next to the bed.

  His chin was wrenched up as he was lifted. Lifted by the neck by this invisible force.

  He clawed further, accomplishing nothing more.

  Ed’s vision darkened, erasing the moonlit reflection on the wall and turning the world black.

  Higher and higher he was lifted from the bed. He stopped struggling as unconsciousness closed in.

  The last thing he was aware of was Kevin screaming his name.

  2

  Sullivan Gray arrived at his boss’s office to find their client already waiting.

  A slight but tall man stood from his chair and extended a hand in Sully’s direction. “I’m so glad to meet you,” he said before Sully could get in a word of introduction. “You have no idea how glad.”

  Sully met the handshake and tried for an introduction anyway. “I’m Sull—”

  “I know who you are, Sullivan. You’re the reason I’m here.”

  Behind the man, Sully’s brother, Dez Braddock, shot him a knowing smile and a raised brow. Their boss, Lachlan Fields, smirked, the picture of satisfaction. He wore the same expression every time a new job came in. Sully knew why. While many private investigators were forced to shutter within their first year due to lack of business, Fields Investigations never suffered for work. Lachlan’s storied past in the Kimotan Rapids Police Department and his reputation as a brilliant investigator had kept his doors open for years, but Sully’s own set of skills had drawn an influx of business for him over the recent ones.

  Being the only PI firm in town to boast an investigator who saw the ghosts of homicide victims had its advantages.

  “Call me Sully,” he said. “Nearly everyone does.”

  The new client had yet to release his hand. “I will, thank you. Call me Ed. I hope you can help us. I really, really hope.”

  “Ed?” Lachlan said. “Since the boys are both here, perhaps you can fill us in?”

  The words seemed to act as a signal for Ed. He let go and returned to his chair, keeping his eyes on Sully, who circled behind him and took the remaining seat across from Lachlan.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself properly a moment ago. I’m Ed Serco. My partner, Kevin Davis, and I own a hostel that’s about to open. Kevin’s taking things in a very different direction than I am, and I’m not sure how it will impact your ability to do the job.”

  “First things first, Ed,” Lachlan said. “Tell us your problem. Take a deep breath and start at the beginning.”

  Ed nodded and followed Lachlan’s instruction about the breath, closing his eyes as he did so. When he reopened them, his gaze fixed once again on Sully. “Kevin and I met when I was still managing the Parkway Hotel downtown. My family owns the chain, and I was given that one to manage. Kevin was hired on as events coordinator a little more than five years ago, and we started seeing each other shortly after.

  “My father made working for him very difficult, and Kevin and I decided we wanted to go our own way in business. To be clear, my father isn’t a bigot. He’s very accepting of who I am, and he’s fine with Kevin being my partner. He’s just a difficult man who insists on having everything done exactly as he wishes. There’s no room to spread one’s wings or explore one’s own creativity with him. Kevin and I wanted those opportunities, so we made the difficult decision to go our own way.”

  Dez leaned up against the wall, his full six-and-a-half-foot, muscular frame on display. “Doing what?”

  “Two years ago, we purchased the former Pineview Prison from the federal government. They’d asked for offers, and my father helped us with the bid. We were successful. Kevin and I have kept the place largely as is but have been fixing it up for use as a hostel. We have a museum on the site, which the federal government has helped us fu
nd and research, and we’ll be running historical and ghost tours as well.”

  Ed paused for a breath, and a proud smile formed. “Our bookings for both rooms and tours have been through the roof. Pineview Prison Hostel shows every indication of being a success. We’ve done the calculations, and if everything goes off without a hitch and continues at the current pace, we stand every chance of being able to pay my father back in full within the first couple of years. And we’ll make decent profits for ourselves quite soon afterward.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Lachlan asked.

  Ed’s face fell. “Things are not going off without a hitch. Our first guests come in less than a week, and we’ve come up against one massive problem.”

  “Since you’re here, I’m guessing your problem involves a ghost,” Sully concluded.

  Ed’s lips pinched together for a moment. “And a bad one.”

  Lachlan snorted. “In a prison? Who knew?”

  Ed met his eye. “We knew the prison was haunted almost as soon as we started working on it. Doesn’t bother either of us. We’ve become nearly as accustomed to the noises and eccentricities of the place as our live-in caretaker. We don’t want to lose that piece of its character. It’s a big part of the draw, I’m convinced. The issue isn’t the ghosts in general. It’s one particular ghost.”

  He paused again. This time, he pulled aside the collar of his shirt.

  Sully leaned forward as Dez came away from the wall for a closer look himself. Ed’s neck was mottled with scratches and bruises. Most disturbing was one deep bruise circling Ed’s throat, right below the jawline.

  To Sully, it looked like a ligature mark.