CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Ella gunned the sheriff's cruiser down a country road. Her headlights beamed a slim tunnel that did little to light up the skeletal trees that clawed at the sky on either side.

The old sanatorium wasn't exactly hiding, because a quick online search coughed up enough dirt to help her find the place in the flesh. The Westmire Sanitorium, situated at 1428 Old Mill Road. It was a mental hospital that'd shut its doors back when lobotomies were still considered modern medicine, and the place was way out in the sticks, a good half-hour from the nearest paved street. Its location made sense; this was where they used to stash the people society couldn't deal with. Out of sight, out of mind, with nothing but the trees and cow dung for company.

Dusk turned to evening as Ella steered into the overgrown parking lot. She killed the engine and sat for a minute, staring at the hulking brick monstrosity that loomed over the treeline. It was a real Gothic horror show; broken windows gaped like missing teeth while kudzu vines strangled the walls. She peered through the windshield, trying to reconcile the crumbling facade with the images she'd seen online.

Ella had never bought into that paranormal garbage. Ghosts, goblins, things that went bump in the night. But something about this place tripped her creep meter. Not because she expected a poltergeist to leap out and shout boo, but because a flesh-and-blood killer could be lurking inside, waiting to paint the walls red.

She climbed out, checked her Glock, clicked on her Maglite. The beam cut lit up a weed-choked path to what remained of the front doors. Ella followed it, sidestepping fallen branches and divots. She took a moment to survey the scene, mentally cataloging exit routes and potential ambush points. With any luck, there'd be no need for either, because Carter Langley wouldn't have any idea someone was on his tail.

Gun drawn, Ella picked her way up the cracked stone steps, sidestepping clumps of dead leaves and jagged bits of fallen masonry. The massive oak doors were boarded over, a big red ‘X' spray-painted across the rotten timbers. For a moment, she thought of Luca, probably at Carter Langley's front door by now. The thought of her partner brought a wry smile to her lips, there and gone in a flash. She hoped he was having better luck over at Langley's house, though she knew luck had little to do with it. Luca was sharp, sharper than he let on. He'd be fine.

Ella gave the rusted doorknob an experimental twist. Locked, of course. And by the looks of the padlock, she'd need a pair of bolt cutters to get it open.

She peered through the filth-caked windows, but all she saw was darkness thicker than tar. So she began skirting around the outside for another way in.

Bingo, a shattered window on the ground floor, just big enough for her to shimmy through if she sucked everything in. With a grunt, she hoisted herself up onto the ledge, using the jacket as a cushion, then maneuvered one leg over the sill and slid through the opening. Ella bit back a curse as she landed hard on her ankle. She knelt there for a moment, waiting for the ache to subside and listening intently for any signs that her less-than-stealthy entrance had been noticed.

But the only sound was the thump of her own heartbeat in her ears and the faint, mournful whistle of wind through broken glass. Small mercies.

She pushed herself to her feet, retrieved her gun and flashlight, and held both at the ready as she swept the beam across the room. This was some kind of reception area. A large, open space with a vaulted ceiling and tiled walls that might have been white once upon a time. Now they were a dingy, nicotine-stain yellow, the tiles cracked and peeling like sunburned skin.

A towering mahogany reception desk hulked in the center of the room, boasting a surface buried under dead leaves and animal bones. Behind it, a staircase spiraled up into darkness, its iron railing eaten through with rust.

Ella swallowed hard. Something about this place was giving her the heebie-jeebies, and she hadn't even started searching yet. She forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath and remain focused. Langley could be anywhere in this labyrinthine hell-hole. If she let her guard down, even for a second, she might find herself on the wrong end of this freak's murder spree.

She crossed to the reception desk and shone her light over the scattered debris, looking for anything that might point to human activity. A footprint, a candy wrapper, a stray video camera. Anything.

But it was irritatingly devoid of recent life.

She tore her gaze away from the reception desk and played her flashlight beam across the walls, looking for a directory or a map. Something to give her a sense of the layout. But the only thing she found was a faded, peeling mural depicting what looked like a group of doctors and nurses standing around a patient in a straitjacket. Their smiles were a little too wide, their eyes a little too bright.

Ella gave herself a mental slap. Stay sharp, find Langley, slap the cuffs on. Simple as that.

The staircase seemed a logical starting point. She reasoned that she might as well start at the top and work her way down. If Langley was going to do a live-stream, he'd probably want to do it from one of the upper floors, where he could get a good vantage point.

Up she went, back to the wall, gun and light sweeping side-to-side. Her mouth tasted like pennies. The stairs creaked, and Ella winced at the noise, certain that it would echo through the entire building like thunder. But there was no help for it. Up was the only way forward. Her flashlight picked out details in the gloom; flaking plaster, mildew-spotted wallpaper, the occasional rust-brown smear that she tried very hard not to think about.

Finally, the staircase ended at a long, dark hallway lined with doors on either side. Cell doors, each with a small, barred window at eye level. Some hung open, others were shut tight, sealed with rust.

Ella paused at the top of the stairs and shone her light down the corridor. She'd seen this scene in a hundred horror movies before. Wheelchairs sat abandoned in the halls. An overturned med cart spilled amber pill vials across the floor. She fully expected a ghost to glide towards her or hear the rattle of chains from one of the cells.

Nothing so far.

She took a step forward, then another. She checked the first few cells and found only debris. A broken cot here, a rusted bedpan there. Remnants of the lives that had been lived and lost within these walls.

A sense of unease coiled in her gut. Not fear. Not anxiety. Ella did as little of those as possible. Maybe it was the dead silence or the history of this place, but something told her she was being watched.

She reached the end of the hallway and found herself in a large, open space that might have been a common room or a dining hall many years ago. Moonlight filtered in through the high, barred windows and painted everything in shades of silver. In the center of the room, illuminated by a shaft of pale light, was a single wooden chair.

It sat facing away from her, towards a bank of windows that looked out over the overgrown grounds.

Ella's heart kicked into overdrive, because she knew that someone had put that chair there, positioned it just so. Recently, too, judging by the lack of dust on its seat.

Ella approached the chair, Glock first. The room seemed to hold its breath. Or maybe that was just her, lungs aching from air she hadn't realized she'd trapped inside.

She circled around, ready to ventilate whatever maniac had arranged this little tableau. But the chair was empty. No grinning psycho, no Langley with his camera ready to catch her reaction for his scream stream.

Just a chair.

Ella let out a shaky exhale. Get it together. This place was in her head, under her skin like a splinter she couldn't dig out.

And then suddenly, CLANG.

The sound knifed through the dark. Ella whirled, gun up and hammer cocked.

There. At the far end of the hall. A figure. Tall and thin, more shadow than substance.

‘Freeze!' The word ripped from her throat, but the figure didn't freeze.

It moved. Darted back down the stairwell quick as a blink.

And Ella exploded in pursuit.

Time to catch this son of a bitch.