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

The feeling was immediate.

  Like moving through quicksand. Sully hadn’t even rounded the corner into the cell, and already he felt like he might as well be inside. The energy was so intense, the space couldn’t even hold it. It spilled out onto the catwalk, into the surrounding atmosphere, spreading its poison like snake venom through a bloodstream.

  He’d come this far, and he wasn’t sure he could take another step.

  Dez waited with him there. “Can you do this from out here?”

  Sully considered it, going so far as to briefly entertain the notion. But in the end, he knew better.

  He shook his head. “I need to see inside.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing you will see. Why put yourself through it if you don’t have to?”

  The answer was he did have to. The closer he’d come, the more he sensed it. Something more than fear, anger and hate. This was desperation and terror.

  This was the unmistakable feeling of murder.

  Shoring up what courage he could find, he took a breath and two steps forward—enough to put him at the cell’s doorway.

  At first, all he saw were Kevin and Leanna crammed into the cell.

  “I need you two out of here,” Sully said.

  Leanna’s brows lifted. Sully guessed she wasn’t used to being told what to do on a ghost job.

  “Pardon me?” she said.

  “Dez and I need in there for a minute, and there’s not enough space for all of us to fit.” He didn’t state the other possibility, that if something started throwing him around, everyone inside could become bowling pins.

  Kevin stepped out without a problem, just a shrug and a smile. Leanna wasn’t moving.

  “I’m a professional investigator,” she said. “I need to be in on whatever it is you’re doing.”

  Sully opened his mouth to argue, but Dez dropped a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “Fine,” Dez said. “You want to stay, stay. You’ve been warned.”

  Leanna smirked. “Is that a threat?”

  “We’re not the threat. We’re trying to warn you.”

  Sully had stopped paying attention to Leanna though. He was more interested in what was forming behind her.

  It appeared as only a shadow, like a form backlit by intense light. At first, he thought it was simply incredibly tall. Then he realized his mistake.

  Its feet dangled two feet from the floor.

  Sully pushed into the cell without thinking about it, eyes and attention fully fixed on the presence. He strained to make out features—a face, primarily—but it remained blurred and in shadow, no matter how close he got. The one thing he was certain of was the neck.

  It was bent. Twisted.

  He’d been hanged.

  And he was still hanging.

  Next to him, Leanna said something, her voice lifting at the end. A question. He hadn’t heard, didn’t care. He was transfixed by this dark energy, by the sudden utter need to see and understand. He stared up into the space where its face should be, willing himself to see, willing the ghost to reveal itself to him.

  Seconds passed, maybe longer. Nothing happened.

  Then, finally, something did. Something dark and evil moved behind him, surrounding him with spirit energy. Within the same moment, the shadow in front of him changed. It bent, shimmered, darkened even further. The room in his peripheral vision whirled as if he’d been spinning in circles and had only just stopped. Yet the ghost remained stationery, the one constant in this cell.

  The quicksand feeling was back, only now it had become bottomless. It suctioned at his legs, dragging him down.

  Was the presence getting taller or was Sully sinking that far?

  His perspective changed again. He wasn’t only being towed down but back, and the ghost was growing smaller. For a moment, he stopped seeing anything at all.

  When his eyes snapped open, he found himself lying on a cool cement floor, coughing hard. Dez, Kevin and Leanna—along with a couple of dead people—stared down at him. He tried to sit up, but Dez held him down.

  “Stay there for a minute,” he said.

  Sully dragged in one long breath, easing the coughing fit. He lifted an arm to rub through his hair. The limb felt both tingly and heavy. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?” Leanna asked. “You weren’t breathing.”

  Sully forced his eyes away from the pair of ghosts—neither was the one from the cell, nor did they seem to be an immediate threat—and stared at Leanna. “What?”

  She nodded. It was impossible to ignore the excitement in her expression. “Yeah, you were gasping for air, like you were being strangled. Your brother dragged you into the hall when you started to pass out. What happened? What did you see? You were looking at something.”

  Dez spun on her, holding up a palm for pause. “Hold on. Give him a minute, all right?” Turning back to Sully, he asked, “You okay?”

  Sully gave it a moment’s thought before nodding. “Yeah, I’m good. Help me up?”

  Dez stood and offered a hand, lifting Sully to his feet. A dizzy spell hit, and he didn’t fight it as Dez pressed him up against a wall and held him there. When his head cleared, he opened his eyes to find Leanna charging forward.

  “Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “Oh my God! Are you seeing this?”

  Sully wasn’t seeing it, whatever it was, but he imagined he’d be forced to since Leanna was currently recording something below his jawline.

  Dez’s brows lowered and his mouth dropped open. He laid a hand along Sully’s jaw and gently turned his head to the side and up. “Jesus, Sull.”

  Given his position, all Sully could do was cast Dez a questioning side-eye. “What?”

  Leanna’s phone beeped as she finished whatever she was recording. As Dez released him, Leanna turned the phone so Sully could see.

  An image of his own throat showed on the screen. Along the top of his neck, right beneath the jaw, was a deep red line. And he knew without further thought what had created it.

  It was the mark of a hangman’s noose.

  6

  “That wasn’t there before, right?” Leanna said. “I mean, I’m sure of it. I’m sure it wasn’t there before.”

  Leanna paced away a few steps, her fingers tapping on her screen. Dez guessed she was searching for previous footage of Sully to make sure these marks were new.

  Dez already knew the answer. While Leanna—and even Kevin, judging by his expression—found this exciting, this sort of thing had become far too common a staple in his and Sully’s diet of the paranormal. Dez had lost count of the number of times one or both of them had been attacked by a ghost. Excitement was the last thing on his mind. All he wanted was to grab Sully and run. Get the hell out of here and not look back.

  “There!” Leanna said. “See?” She showed Kevin something on her screen and attempted to show Dez and Sully. Dez spotted a zoomed-in, paused image of Sully’s clear throat before turning his attention from Leanna to Sully.

  “I mean, it might be a little hard to tell because of the beard, but the mark there now is really obvious,” she said. “Nothing like it was present earlier.”

  Dez eyed Sully. “We need to rethink this.”

  “What’s to rethink?” Sully said. “If anything, this proves why we need to see this through. I’m now the second person in as many days to be strangled in that cell.”

  “Why now?” Kevin asked. “I mean, Ed and I had been inside the cell multiple times, and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  Sully fielded Kevin’s comment. “Could be because you’ve been renovating. Ghosts don’t always respond well to change.”

  “We’ve been renovating for the better part of two years.”

  “And you’re getting closer to reopening. Maybe they’re aware and they’re reacting. Ghosts aren’t stupid, and they’re not always oblivious to what’s going on around them. Those who consciously exist in our world can hear and see us the same way they would have when they wer
e alive. If you guys have been talking about reopening, they’ve probably heard you. Might be at least a few of them aren’t happy about it—including whoever is inside that cell.” He jutted his chin in the direction of Hell’s Gate.

  In Dez’s mind, the name was a good fit.

  “They’re not always aware of us though,” Leanna said. “It could be whoever it is still sees the cell as it once was and dislikes anyone inside. Or maybe whatever’s inside is nothing more than the manifestation of all of the negative energy in this place.”

  Dez cast Sully a questioning gaze, but he was too busy staring at Leanne in bemusement to notice. Typically, when Sully provided a diagnosis, people listened. They didn’t try to come up with their own theories.

  Of course, Leanna wasn’t a client. And she’d already professed her opinion that she was every bit the expert Sully was.

  Kevin cast one more sideways glance at Hell’s Gate, then stepped away briskly. “We should continue the tour. The basement contains an area once used as the Hole. Plus there’s a laundry area down there where a couple of particularly brutal homicides took place.”

  Dez loathed the idea, and judging from Sully’s expression, so did he. This time, Sully did meet Dez’s eye, both with lifted brows. They waited to speak until Kevin and Leanna moved past them.

  “Sully?”

  “I know. But I need to see it. Better to know fully what we’re up against before we turn up here in the middle of the night.”

  “With a crew who are going to go all out trying to piss these ghosts off.” Dez rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

  They followed Kevin, Dez making sure to set himself up directly behind Sully. Sure, he couldn’t directly stop ghostly attacks, but he’d at least be able to see if anything else came at Sully. The event in the cell had been terrifying, watching him struggling to breathe, the expression on his face suggesting he was completely oblivious to the physical world around him. He hadn’t struggled or tried to call out for help. Dez worried if something similar happened, and he wasn’t there to see, he might not get to Sully in time.

  No way in hell.

  He knew he was walking too close when Sully turned with an amused grin. “I’m okay, D.”

  Dez frowned. “Yeah, and we’re going to keep it that way.”

  Kevin led them to the ground floor, then past a set of doors in a heavy wall. He explained they were leaving the section intended for the younger, partying crowd and entering the main part of the hostel. Dez doubted Kevin shared his views, but the idea of a bunch of drunk, college-age kids taunting whatever resided within Hell’s Gate wasn’t good. If it treated quiet and respectful bystanders this way, what would it do to anyone who poked at it?

  Casting a glance at the back of Leanna’s head, Dez suspected they would soon find out.

  Kevin led them to the end of the lower tier, toward another gate left open. “I have to admit, the basement makes me nervous. Always gives me the sensation of being watched.”

  This time, when Dez shifted closer to Sully, it wasn’t for Sully’s benefit.

  They took the stairs down, and another wide hall opened around them. Kevin showed them into a large, empty room to the right.

  “This is the laundry area. Prison staff picked a couple of inmates with better security ratings to collect and wash dirty laundry each week and to distribute the clean. Prison officials never confirmed this for us, but the story goes that this room was used to deliver punishments—both by guards and by other inmates. Not all of them survived.”

  Dez stepped next to Sully to see his face. His eyes had fixed on a corner of the room that to Dez appeared empty.

  “Two,” Sully said.

  Dez didn’t ask what he meant. He didn’t need to. “They dangerous?”

  “They’re not happy we’re here, if that’s what you’re wondering. Whether they’ll try to hurt us, I can’t say. Given they’ve been murdered, I think it pays to be careful. They’re scared and they feel trapped in here. Could cause them to lash out at a perceived threat.”

  Dez packed the information away in his growing list of things he needed to know and wished he didn’t.

  Kevin finally led them from the room. He took them next across the hall to an industrial-sized kitchen, marked as such by rows of stainless-steel counters. What looked to be brand-new appliances stood in the gaps between cupboards. No doubt thanks to Ed and Kevin, the room had been outfitted and decorated to resemble the kitchen at a high-end hotel.

  “Two more in here,” Sully muttered, only loud enough for Dez to hear. Dez had noticed Sully was keeping the conversation between the two of them now, purposefully avoiding bringing Kevin and Leanna in. Dez didn’t blame him. It was clear they didn’t share his or Sully’s views on ghosts, more entertainment for them than real people with real problems.

  Dez ducked slightly, keeping his question between the two of them. “You’re not planning on trying to help all of them, are you? That’s how many now?”

  “Like I said, I stopped counting.”

  “My point exactly. This seems a little beyond you.”

  “Honestly, I don’t get the impression most of them want help. They stayed behind by choice. I think the idea of crossing over and what that might mean is scarier than staying. I’m not about to argue. They’re here and we’re stuck with them. It’s their world, and they don’t want us in it.” He turned a humourless smile on Dez. “Sad thing is, by trying to get the living to leave, they’ll only encourage them to stay. Every time they throw something or attack someone or make noise, it only draws in more people like Leanna. But the men I’m seeing aren’t the types to stay quiet either, so they really have just trapped themselves, in every possible way.”

  Dez glanced around the room, skin crawling all over again at the thought of the things he couldn’t see. “Where a life sentence is truly a life sentence.” He gazed back at Sully. “So to confirm, you’re not going to try to help them all.”

  Sully shook his head. “I plan on clearing out whatever was in that cell on death row. Other than that, I’ll have to leave the offer open to come back if they need me, but I see my job as helping the ghosts who want it, not forcing it on others. Homicide victims have had enough choice ripped away from them. They don’t need more—not unless they’re hurting others.”

  Kevin showed them one last area—a small range of cells on the other end of the lowermost floor. Dubbed the Hole, this was where prisoners were kept when they got too out of hand to manage. It acted as punishment when Victorian-era beatings and corporal punishment had finally been outlawed. Dez wondered whether being locked away in a small, windowless room would truly have been any better than a few licks from a strap.

  “Any more?” Dez asked Sully.

  He supposed he should have anticipated the answer. “Don’t ask.”

  Kevin led them from the basement, back up the stairs, though the main floor ranges and back into the hall leading from the prison proper to the administration area. Along the way, he mentioned something about other buildings on the property once containing the medical unit and a shop. But nothing outside the main building was open to the public, so Dez stopped listening. As far as he was concerned, he and Sully had enough on their hands with the main institution.

  Back inside administration, Ed was waiting for them. With Kevin and Leanna engaged heavily in conversation, Ed approached Dez and Sully. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’ve got some work to do,” Dez said.

  “I saw something in the cell,” Sully added. “You and Kevin need to stay out of there until I can clear it. Will you do that?”

  Ed nodded quickly. “Oh, hell, yes, I can do that. What did you see?”

  “Just a shadow—enough to tell me it was a homicide though. Because of the way my abilities work, I wouldn’t have seen anything at all otherwise.”

  Dez noticed Sully didn’t mention all the other homicide victims on the site. Unlike Kevin, Ed wouldn’t enjoy knowing.

  “Wha
t kind of history do you guys have as to the occupants of each of the cells?” Sully asked. “Do you have the old prison records?”

  “We have some, just not much by way of personal information. We do have a list of everyone who was executed at Pineview.”

  “If this man was murdered, then he wasn’t executed. Do you have lists of those who were killed here?”

  Ed’s face scrunched in thought. “I think we might. Admittedly, I didn’t go through everything the prison gave us. We used the things we knew would fit well in the museum, but there are some things we didn’t finish sorting through yet.”

  “So it’s possible you do have some personal info on the inmates?” Dez asked.

  “No. The correctional service made it clear they weren’t at liberty to release those details to us, which was fine by me. Like I said, we have the list of executed, for sure. All public-record stuff.”

  Sully straightened. “How about a record of those initially sentenced to die? That would give us names of those who would have stayed on death row—even if they weren’t ultimately put to death. Even if we have to do a little more digging from there, it would at least be a starting point.”

  Ed appeared to be giving this some thought. “I can certainly check into it. Anything I have, you’re obviously welcome to.”

  As loath as Dez was to extend their stay, he knew how busy Ed and Kevin would be in the coming week. “If it would help, Sully and I could go through whatever records you have. We could borrow or photograph anything we think would help us. Might be easier than making you go through it and guess at what would be most useful to us.”

  Ed gave it a couple of seconds’ thought before nodding enthusiastically. “Yes, that would be perfectly fine. Follow me. We’ve stored the additional historical items downstairs, in the old emergency response team’s guardroom.”

  They’d nearly reached the door when Leanna called out from behind them, “Where are you going?”

  Dez gritted his teeth. Less than an hour in this woman’s company, and she was fraying every nerve.

  Ed, it seemed, was far more patient. He turned with a smile and told her what they were going to do.