"I’m sorry. I haven't had a friend in far more than three years, and it'll take some getting used to. Your help is much appreciated, and I agree it’s too early to ask someone out. Hell, I don't have any money anyway. Let's get back to our investigation. Tiffany never made the flight. What did you find out?"
"She placed an order at a bar, handed over her credit card and disappeared. That’s probably when she left the airport."
"What's the next step?"
"If I was a cop, I’d ask to see the airport's security camera footage. We have to find out how she got from here back to Toulouse Street."
As he drove back, Landry called Tiffany and asked if she used Uber. It turned out she had, and she forwarded the emailed receipt she’d received. He tracked down Abraham, the driver who picked her up at the airport at 6:44 p.m. and dropped her in front of the Jackson Brewery thirty-seven minutes later.
"Something was off about her," Abraham said. "I get a lot of drunks, but she was like in a trance or something. She entered her destination as the Superdome, but when she got in my car, she wanted to go to Toulouse Street. She didn’t have an address, so I dropped her on Chartres and pointed her toward Toulouse. I left her standing on the curb like she wondered what to do next."
Landry and Jack reviewed what they knew. Jack saw Tiffany at the building minutes after being dropped off. She unlocked the door and went in. Within three hours a person attacked her.
Landry voiced unanswered questions. Who was inside? Were they waiting for her, or was she in the wrong place at the wrong time? If someone was lying in wait, how could they know she was coming? And how did the perpetrator escape after the attack?
Jack added, “And who unlocked the gate? Did the Realtor forget? Did an unseen force arrange it?”
Landry snapped his head up. “Damn, that’s my fault. When Cate gave me the code, I said it aloud in front of Tiffany.”
Jack said, "She must have retained it in her subconscious. We now have one logical answer, but maybe the rest aren’t. You're the ghost hunter; you’re accustomed to thinking outside the box. If something isn't possible, then you have to consider the impossible."
"You're beginning to sound like me. Go for it."
"Something took over Tiffany’s thoughts and actions while she sat at that bar in the airport. That something put her in an Uber, brought her downtown, and directed her to go inside."
"You’re suggesting someone waited for her —"
"Or not. What if she was alone?"
"Then who —"
"Or what attacked her? That's the question. Those dreams I had are hazy and hard to remember now. I blamed the booze, but now I realize there’s something else. The building calls to me, like I said. It's tried to get me inside the same as Tiffany.
“I had terrifying dreams about being inside. I walked up a stairway and stood on a balcony where someone waited — something pure evil. It was...there's just no way to describe how I felt when I sensed its presence. It wanted to kill me. I was going to die, Landry. That’s when the...the thing pushed me over the railing.”
"Is that when you woke up?"
"I woke up back in my box, like nothing happened. In my second dream, the only thing that kept me from falling to my death was my jacket snagged on the railing. I fell to the dirt down below. Later that morning when I was trying to sober up, I found the rip in my jacket. I tried to tell you that the other day, and you called me a liar. I'll never go inside again because something haunts the courtyard. A tangible, evil being.”
Landry said, "The balcony’s long gone. No dirt in the courtyard either; it's paved with flagstones. You fell into the dirt, so where was it?”
"Maybe it was in the past. When I stepped inside that building, perhaps I was in another time. If I were telling this story to anyone else, they'd think I was back on the sauce for sure. But you — you understand things aren't always what they appear. What I'm saying could be true, right?"
"It could, but that isn’t necessarily what happened. Thinking out of the box is important in my business, but I must eliminate the realities before considering the paranormal. Either something attacked Tiffany or she injured herself, but we need answers. Keep working while I call Detective Young for an update."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The detective told Landry they had struck out. There was no sign of a third party in the building. “You’re the only one who was there with her,” Young said. “Don’t leave town, Landry. Find out fast what happened that night because right now you’re the only suspect.”
After the call ended, Jack said they needed to work harder. “We have to prove the paranormal,” he said. “No one else was there that night. I don’t think you did it, so my theories may be right.”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’ve been an investigator for two days, and I’ve been at this for years. It’s way too early to jump to supernatural conclusions. Things that happen almost always can be explained. The cops didn’t find answers, and now it’s up to me. There just isn’t much time.”
Their long day was drawing to an end. It was late Friday afternoon, and Cate was coming for the weekend. Landry told Jack he worried about leaving him alone, but there was no way around it.
