Landry shot her a look of disapproval. “He’s in a perfect spot to watch the building, so why wouldn’t he know what goes on? Don’t sell him short.”
Unaccustomed to kindness, the homeless man smiled, extended a grimy hand, and said, “Jack Blair. Pleased to meet you.”
Landry shook it and introduced himself. Jack didn’t know him, and it gratified Landry to find someone in this town who didn’t know him.
“What’s been going on over there?” Landry asked, and Jack said it was deserted and had been for the few months he’d been living here.
“I always knew there was something weird about it,” he said. “Other homeless men like me learned there was no lock on the gate, and at first a few went in. Nobody ever stayed, though. Even on stormy nights they’d hightail it out of there fast. You’d think they’d have wanted a dry place, and I wanted one too, but...” He stopped and looked away.
“Why didn’t you go in?”
“Because by then the building was talking to me.”
Tiffany cried out, “He’s right! It talks to me too!”
The tour guide interrupted, saying their time was up and to follow him back to the cathedral. Only the older couple went along; Tiffany, Kayla, Landry and Cate stayed behind.
Landry asked Jack if the building was still unlocked.
“Yep. There’s a padlock and a chain, but it’s not snapped shut. But mister, you got no business going in there. As God is my witness, something evil lives inside that building. It’s real; I swear it. You may laugh at supernatural stuff, but you won’t be laughing if you go in there.”
Cate smiled when he insinuated Landry didn’t believe in the unknown. That was his business, his stock in trade. She’d seen things firsthand, but he was the expert.
Landry winked at her and said, “I have a healthy respect for things I don’t understand, but the paranormal interests me. I want to look inside. Anybody care to join me?”
Tiffany shook her head. “I believe Ross. This place is haunted. How else could a building in New Orleans I’ve never seen be in a dream?”
“That’s why I wish you and Jack would go inside with me. I’m interested in what you might experience in there.”
“You’re one crazy man,” Jack grunted, but Tiffany wondered if she should. Perhaps she could learn why the building was haunting her dreams.
Tiffany asked Jack if he recognized Landry, and he didn’t. “He’s a celebrity and a ghost hunter for a TV station that produces documentaries.”
“I’ll be darned! I see now why you want to go inside, but it doesn’t change how I feel about it. I’ve experienced enough from out here, with it coaxing me to come across the street. It wants something from me, and I don’t want to find out what.”
“How about you?” Landry asked Tiffany. “If you’ll go, my girlfriend Cate will come too.”
Cate’s eyes widened and she snapped, “Maybe your girlfriend Cate can make up her own mind about that.” She smiled at Tiffany. “If you want to go, I’ll come along. God knows I’ve followed Landry into some crazy stuff before. This is just one more.”
“It’s not that I want to. There’s something I can’t explain, like an urgency in my head that’s pulling me. Kayla, I’m scared. Come with me.”
Her friend would have no part of it and said she’d meet her in the bar at their hotel when Tiffany’s adventure was over.
“Don’t do it,” Jack insisted. “I’m warning you, don’t go in there.”
Landry removed the lock and pushed the gate open. As they stepped across the threshold and stood in a long dark passageway, a powerful gust of chilly air swept down the corridor and encircled them like a dust devil for several seconds. Tiffany flailed her arms and screamed, “Get me out of here!” Trembling, she collapsed to the stone floor and begged to leave.
“We shouldn’t have done this,” Cate said, helping her out to the street.
Landry followed. He could poke around the building another time. As usual, Cate was right — Tiffany was going through an emotional trial exacerbated by something within these walls. He had as much as insisted she come, and he apologized to her for his insensitivity.
The homeless man nodded as Landry described what had happened during the brief time they were inside.
“Why the hell did you go in there anyway? You should have listened to me.”
Tiffany asked them to walk with her to the end of the block. “I’ll be fine once I’m off this street,” she said, and declined Cate’s offer to accompany her to her hotel.
“I’d like to hear about your dreams,” Landry said as they reached the corner. “Could we get together before you leave town?”
“No. I understand why you’re interested. It’s what you do. But ‘ve been having these dreams since I was a child, and fifteen minutes ago I had a huge revelation. I don’t know why they happen, but now I know where. This place terrifies me, and I’m never coming back. Thanks for walking me to the corner.”
CHAPTER SIX
After staying up until two, they slept late on Sunday morning. Last night, a little shaken after the ghost tour, they had drunk a bottle of Chardonnay and tried to make sense of the evening.
Cate arose first, opening the tall doors that led from his bedroom to the balcony-cum-fire escape overlooking St. Philip Street. Landry squinted as bright rays of sunshine flooded the room. “Looks like another beautiful day,” she said, darting back inside as a guy across the street stepped onto his own balcony and looked at her. She laughed, “Guess I need to put on clothes before I open the doors.”
Ted Carpenter hosted a brunch at Brennan’s
