Coldhearted (9781311888433) (30 page)

“
Aren’t you going inside?”
she asked.

He tugged on his shirt. “It’s red,” he
whined. “It’s like walking into a lions’ den, and saying, ‘Hey,
lions, we’re cool, right? You won’t rip me from limb to limb,
right?’”

Edie shook her head and sighed, watching her
breath escape. “You’re being ridiculous, Quinn. Trust me. The color
of your shirt has nothing to do with whether you live or die.”

He wobbled his head. “Yeah, I know. It’s
just…I’d feel better if I was wearing a different shirt.”

“
You could always take it
off,” she suggested innocently.

Quinn grinned. “I knew it. You just want to
see me naked.”

She sighed, aggravated. “Yes, Quinn, it is my
greatest wish in life to see you without a shirt on in a creepy,
abandoned mental asylum. You got me.”

“
All right, fine!” Quinn
fumed, and began walking toward the entrance. “But if I die, I want
them to play ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ by
Foreigner.”

She’d yet to move and furrowed her brow in
disbelief. “Really?”

He halted and turned around to face her.
“Yeah, it’s an awesome song. Don’t judge me.”

“
All right, fine, whatever
you want. It’s your funeral.”

He started walking again. She caught up and
followed beside him. They were silently walking side by side, until
she stopped, and pulled him to a halt.

“
Can I ask you a
question?”

He smiled. “Yes, I’d be happy to be the
father of your children.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Quinn. Why did you
hook up with Rochelle when you knew she was dating Mason? Didn’t
you feel that was wrong?”

“
That’s precisely why I did
it,” he admitted with absolutely no shame. “I’m attracted to girls
who are attached. Single girls don’t interest me.”

She was confused and disgusted. “That’s
horrible, Quinn. So you’re saying if I were to break up with Mason
and stayed single, you’d want nothing to do with me?”

“
Look, I get a thrill out of
taking another guy’s girl.” He gave an unapologetic shrug. “It’s
probably some kind of caveman thing or something. When Rochelle and
Mason broke up, I was done with her.”

“
So that’s why you won’t
give Candie the time of day because she’s single?”

Quinn nodded. “That. And she’s clingier than
Saran Wrap. At least that’s what the other guys say.” He shook his
head. “I don’t want a commitment. I just want to have fun.”

She wagged her finger at him. “You know, one
day Quinn, you’re going to meet a girl and fall so madly in love,
you won’t even be able to get back up.”

He smiled. “How do you know I haven’t
already?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “If that
were true, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be with her.”

“
And if you loved Mason, you
wouldn’t be here, either,” he threw out. “Where is your boyfriend,
by the way?” He pretended like he was looking for Mason, shielding
his eyes. “Where’s good ol’ Mason Fenwick?” He lowered his hand.
“What lie did you tell him?”

Busted. “I told him I was sick with the flu.”
She pointed a threatening finger at the muscled football player.
“And you’d better not say a word to him, or anyone else beyond
who’s here, about me being at this sanatorium. I’m not here for
fun. I’m here to find a way to rid me of this ghost, once and for
all. Now are you going to continue to be a jerk, or are you going
to help me?”

“
Jeez.” He held up his hands
in a submissive gesture. “Don’t worry. I’m not a blabbermouth. It’s
cool. You know, you’re scary when you’re determined.”

“
Well, at least you find me
less attractive.”

“
Au contraire, ma petite
fleur,” he said in a deep, exotic voice.

She’d let him walk a few feet, before saying
in astonishment, “You speak French?!”

He stopped and turned toward her. “I’m full
of surprises, Edie.” He smirked. “Get to know me better and you’ll
discover more of my hidden talents.” He wiggled his eyebrows
suggestively at her.

She said nothing and brushed past him,
entering the sanatorium. The others had been making their way back
with a look on their faces to suggest that they’d been worrying
about Edie and Quinn. When they discovered the pair to be all
right, everyone except Jules began their pre-investigative routine:
checking and rechecking their equipment, talking among
themselves.

“
I thought you’d been
ghost-napped,” Jules said to Edie, readjusting her
glasses.

Edie waved a dismissive hand at Jules. “I was
just talking with Quinn.”

Jules’s eyes widened. “You’re not pregnant,
are you? Because Quinn’s one smooth talker.”

Edie crossed her wrists over her stomach in
an X motion. “No way! Besides we were outside, where it’s freezing
cold. And we were gone for only five minutes.”

“
I don’t need that long,”
Quinn said, smug.

Unbeknownst to Edie, he’d been standing
behind her and Jules, listening in, as he quietly dug into his
duffel bag. Finally, he retrieved a video camera and turned it on
Edie, recording.

“
Well, Edwina St. John, this
is your first ghost hunt. How do you feel?”

Suddenly, the lights went off, and something
cold and hard was being pressed into her hand.

“
A flashlight,” Jules said.
“We investigate in the dark. Our cameras are equipped with night
vision.”

“
No, give her a camera,”
Gunnar said, sounding far away. “I’m guessing she’ll get the most
activity. I want to capture some spectacular evidence this time
guys. This sanatorium has a long and sinister past; tales of
torture, experimentation, rape, and murder. It’s the perfect
hotspot for spectral phenomena. If there aren’t any trapped ghosts
here, then I give up.”

Edie exchanged the flashlight for a camera
with Jules showing her how it worked. It seemed simple enough. Edie
scanned the area that they were in with the night vision bathing
everything and everyone in an eerie green glow. She turned the
camera on Quinn, staring at her intently.

She remembered his question from earlier. “I
feel scared and excited at the same time,” she said truthfully.

Everyone chuckled in agreement.

“
Welcome to our world,”
Gunnar said.

She watched him in her camera turn to face
the long, dark corridor ahead.

“
Well, let’s get to work,”
he said.

****

It looked like Grimsby Sanatorium had been
abandoned in a hurry. Medical texts were still on the shelves,
covered in dust and spider webs. Syringes—big, fat syringes—were
positioned on metal trays, as if they were ready to inject the
residents with sedatives or some other drug, causing paralysis, so
they wouldn’t be a bother to the staff. Flasks of amber-colored
liquids were open, lined in rows along a counter. Flies and other
insects had been caught in the solutions and died instantly from
its poisonous effects.

Dead rose petals were scattered along the
black and white tiled floor of the infirmary. Rusted metal-framed
beds on rollers were stuck against the wall with mattresses
splattered in blood and other filth. In one small room, an elevated
chair with a leather strap on each armrest and straps to confine
the ankles below, told the tale of a revolving door of residents,
who for some reason or another had been tied down, forced to sit
for hours, unable to move while they’d been poked and prodded by
experimental doctors, seeking answers to the questions of
insanity.

She could hear their screams. No, it wasn’t
ghosts. Her imagination was just running wild, envisioning herself
back in time when the sanatorium had been in operation, where men
and women and perhaps children had been treated as prisoners,
denied access to the outside world, all because they’d had the
unfortunate fate to be claimed by a psychosis that the medical
community had deemed too threatening to be allowed among the sane
members of mankind.

What was sanity? What was insanity? What
right had these medical professionals had in determining the fate
of someone who’d thought differently, acted differently than their
peers? They couldn’t have all been dangerous. They couldn’t have
all been a threat to society. Who’d judged them? Who’d forced them
against their will to a life of confinement, torture, and
inevitably, death?

Unfortunately no one was talking. Gunnar and
the other ghost hunters had been asking these very questions. He
and the others had been taking EMF sweeps, temperature readings,
thermal images, and EVPs, hoping to receive “ghost talk,” as Bree
had called it.

But Grimsby Sanatorium was silent and
seemingly vacant of specters.

“
Why don’t we let Edie try?”
Gunnar suggested. She found him among the others with her camera.
His was turned on her, expectant. “I was sure given the account of
rape in the infirmary someone would’ve made contact, but...” He
sighed and Edie could see his breath. It’d been cold from the very
start of their investigation, but now it was positively frigid.
“Are you up for it, Edie?”

Edie nodded, knowing everyone had their
cameras on her, so they could see her reaction. They were standing
where the residents had slept, their rooms or more precisely, their
cells. Edie entered one where Gunnar had said a murder had been
committed by two male residents, who’d fought and killed each other
over the affections of a female resident. She’d been pregnant by
one and later hanged herself over the ordeal, killing herself and
the unborn child.

Edie entered room number 314, alone. The bed
had been removed, as well as any other personal effects. The only
remains that’d been left were white chalk marks on the gray wall,
forming the same words, over and over again, from top to bottom,
left to right.

Edie recognized the passage from
Thessalonians:

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven
with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the
sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise
first
.

Edie was shivering, her teeth chattering. She
wanted to flee, to go back to the warmth of her bed, but she needed
to talk to this woman, who’d taken her bed sheets, manufactured a
noose, and secured it to the now hollow pipes above, killing
herself.

Her name was Lavinia.

“
Lavinia?” Edie called out.
She was holding the camera in one hand, targeting the pipes above.
Her other hand held out the digital voice recorder. “Lavinia, are
you here?”

Edie tried to sound like Gunnar and the
others, so confident in how they’d been trying to communicate with
the dead, but being a novice, she sounded unsure, like Lavinia had
never really died in this room, and the thought of her ghost
wandering around, was absurd.

Edie focused on the repeating passage along
the walls. “Did you like reading the Bible? Did you write this on
the wall before you died? Can you write something else for us?”

“
Good, good,” Rory muttered,
approving of Edie’s method, as he stood outside the room with the
others.

“
Maybe we’ll get some
automatic writing,” Bree said, sounding excited.

“
Is there a piece of chalk
lying on the floor, Edie?” Amee asked.

Before Edie could look, Jules almost shouted,
“I can see it in the corner over there.”

Edie looked around, but couldn’t see
anything, except spider webs and dust. And a few splatters of dried
blood.

Quinn came inside the room, crouched down,
and picked something up. “Here,” he said, handing the piece of
chalk to Edie. “Hold out your hand and see if Lavinia takes it from
you.”

She did, feeling again, absurd, even though
she knew full well the capabilities of a ghost, having Tristan
Lockhart in her life. For some reason, she didn’t sense Lavinia was
even around or any other ghosts; that frustrated Edie because she
desperately wanted to talk to them about ridding herself of
Tristan. And for some odd reason, he’d yet to make an appearance,
scaring the crap out of everyone. Of course it was only a matter of
time. Unless Edie had been right and he was scared of this place;
scared of what Edie may uncover that would lead to the failure of
his diabolical plan, whatever that was. Were the ghosts of Grimsby
Sanatorium keeping him away? Or was he just waiting to surprise
them all by making a grand entrance?

It wouldn’t surprise Edie.

And Edie was further unsurprised when Lavinia
didn’t grace them with her presence. The piece of chalk stayed in
her hand and the repeating passage on the walls remained
unchanged.

Edie found Quinn’s hand and gave him the
chalk. “Why don’t you try?” she suggested, aiming her camera at
him. “Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to a girl.”

He grinned. “Well, I do have a way with the
ladies.” He held out his hand with the chalk. “Oh, Lavinia,
darling, can you take this chalk and write something on the wall
for me? It can be anything, Lavinia. I just want to know you’re
here. I want to meet you.”

Smooth talker.

They waited for several minutes but nothing
happened. Apparently Lavinia was the one woman who could resist
Quinn McDermott.

Gunnar stepped into the room. “Edie, play
back your recording. Let’s see if we got anything.”

Her fingers were too cold and stiff to work
the device, so Quinn helped her out. It was a long recording and
the only voices on it were those of the living.

“
Sorry,” Edie apologized to
Gunnar. “Guess I’ve jinxed everything.”

Gunnar shook his head. “No, no, don’t say
that. We’ll move on, okay?”