Page 15 of Ash and Poison

“Murder. I thought so,” I said with a frown. “She was a patient here, wasn’t she? So, did you find anything?”

“I had to—” He stopped talking with a hiss. “Damn. You’re dangerous.”

I shrugged. “If you want to talk about it, you can. I’m very good at keeping secrets.”

He didn’t say anything more. We waited in silence until the cops arrived.

“Who discovered the dead body?”

“The guard,” I said, feeling Asher’s eyes on me.

“And you are?” another one asked.

“I’m a psychiatrist here. Dr. Diya Sharma.”

“I’m Sheriff Bricks.” The blond man pushed his hand forward.

“Sheriff?” I asked, a bit surprised.

“Easy to get promoted when you’re stuck in Hollow Heights all your life,” he said with a smile. He had such a beautiful smile, too.

“Easy to get promoted when your brother paid to become the Mayor, and you lick asses like a pro,” Asher grumbled under his breath. Sheriff Bricks’ eyes flickered to him for a second, the muscle in his jaw ticking, before he turned away.

“Do you want anything else?”

I hated cops on principle, but I had to work with them for now to protect my hide.

“We need to process the scene. When I’m done here, I need to talk with your staff and patients.”

“Staff, yes, but patients… I’m not so sure, Sheriff.”

“Call me Vincent.”

Asher scoffed.

With a nod to me, Vincent walked into Doctor T’s cottage, and soon I heard a curse. “Dammit. A fucking mess.”

“You know him.”

Without a word, Asher walked away, and I followed him.

“So, what happened to this friend? Riley… Right?” I asked when we reached the yard. Asher shook his head with a frown. “Tell me.”

“If you tell me what made you skip out on your luxurious little life in New York and hide in this asylum, I’ll tell you all about Riley.”

My body stiffened, but my smile never slipped. “Aw, here we are, finally talking after all these months, opening up to each other. Such amazing progress in a day.”

“You’re very sarcastic for someone who witnessed a murder last night.”

“Well, as long as I wasn’t the one dead, I don’t care,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “I hope it’ll stay that way, Maddox. For your own good.”

“Now I want to see what you’d do if it didn’t stay that way,” he said, eyeing me with a leer.

“Yeah? Curiosity killed the cat. Also, don’t you want to finish what you started? Or do you want to fail because of moi?”

He gave me a cold look before he stormed off.

I knew we weren’t done yet. He would come back.