“Who knows? Time doesn’t mean much to me. I dream stuff so real about that building it about scares me to death.” He reached into his box, pulled out a can of beer, and took a swig.
Tiffany leaned up and whispered something in Landry’s ear. Then she asked Jack exactly where the sign on the building had been.
He pointed. “Up high on the stone just below where the roof eave is. It was long and narrow, centered under the middle one of those little windows up top.”
She gave Landry a satisfied smile. “He gave you the precise location I whispered. Now do you believe me?”
He laughed and fibbed that he was convinced. Corroboration from a drunk was barely better than nothing. Tiffany seemed so sincere, so mystified and so nervous that he wanted to believe her story, but in this business, there was no room for his wants. From personal experience he’d become a believer in the supernatural, and his fans relied upon Landry to separate unexplainable mysteries from hocus-pocus, tall tales and rumors.
Something had changed about the building. Nailed to the gate was a for sale sign with a Realtor’s name and number, and a lockbox so agents could get in.
Prospects always wanted a walk-through. That meant instead of its being off-limits, Landry could now get inside and poke around. He wasn’t a buyer, although he didn’t mind posing as one if it did the job.
He asked Jack how long the sign had been there. He said people had come and gone over the past few days, and yesterday a woman had hung the sign.
“Let’s peek inside,” Landry said to Tiffany. “It can’t be so scary in the daytime.”
Her emphatic answer proved she didn’t agree with his last statement.
Jack said, “You can’t get in because the door’s locked. I tried it this morning, just for kicks. But you won’t catch me going back in by myself. I guarantee the place is haunted. I saw ghosts. A girl and an old woman who said something to me. Scared the crap out of me.”
“When were you inside?”
“I don’t know. Sometime after I saw you in there, I guess. I was up on that balcony in the courtyard —"
Landry stopped him. “There hasn’t been a balcony or stairway for years, and so you couldn’t have stood on it. You’re lying. I can’t imagine why, but you are. Come on, Tiffany. Let’s go.”
Jack stared blankly at them. “Maybe you’re right. Sometimes I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. But I sure thought I was in there.”
As they walked away, he shouted, “Wait! Look here! I tore my jacket. That old woman pushed me off the balcony, and I tore my jacket. Look here!” They turned back and saw Jack holding up a coat with a rip in the side. “That proves it!”
Landry shot back, “So you tore your jacket. That’s not proof.”
“Wait. I want to ask him something,” Tiffany said as she ran back.
“You say there was a girl. What did she look like?”
“Uh, she was young and pretty. She had beautiful chocolate skin and she was wearing a white dress.”
She knelt and patted his shoulder. “You’re not lying, because I saw her too.”
Mr. B’s Bistro had a thirty-minute wait for tables. Instead they went into the bar, he chatted with his friend the bartender, and soon they had a tiny corner table by a window overlooking Royal Street.
“You must come here a lot,” she said, and he admitted although he enjoyed it, the dining room traffic often forced him to eat elsewhere.
“The Quarter’s full of wonderful restaurants, and the Brennan family’s been part of the New Orleans dining tradition for decades. I love some of their other places, but this one’s my favorite lunch spot.” The waiter came, they ordered Abita Ambers, and she asked him what he recommended.
“Are you a crawfish fan?” the server asked.
“I’m from LA. This is my second time in Louisiana. What do you think?”
He laughed. “Okay, no crawfish. Try the gulf redfish. We can fix it any way you like.”
Landry’s phone rang; he looked at the screen and excused himself. Cate rarely called during the day, and she was surprised to hear he was having lunch with Tiffany from the ghost tour. He explained the situation and she said, “How weird you were just at the building. I was calling to let you know that it’s on the market.”
“How do you know that? The sign just went up yesterday.”
“Because of Dad’s real estate work. He’s got all these online services that alert him when properties that meet certain criteria go on the market.”
Cate’s father was Madison John Adams, a wealthy and prominent Galveston psychiatrist who also bought distressed properties and tax liens. He paid pennies on the dollar and made money when owners repaid their overdue taxes or when he sold the real estate. Doc Adams owned several hundred parcels, many of them in south Louisiana, and he always looked for the next bargain.
Landry told her he had to get back to the table but asked if she could figure out a way to get him into that old building alone. She said she’d try.
An hour later she texted.
4-6-9-1.
That’s the code to the lockbox on the front gate.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He read Cate’s text aloud, and they wondered how she got the code so fast. No one appreciated Cate Adams’s resourcefulness more than Landry, but even he was surprised.
He looked at Tiffany. “Now we can get in. Are you sure you won’t go?”
“Yes! That place terrifies me. You don’t understand —"
“I do, but I was hoping by facing reality — it’s just a decaying old building with an eerie past, like a hundred other structures
