Death Becomes Him - 31

For the next week, Trent worked during the day as always, then came home and spent as much time as he could with Rory until exhaustion forced him to go to bed. The shipping company delivered everything they’d sent home from France, which made Trent quite popular when he distributed gifts to all his employees.

Late Wednesday afternoon, after awakening, Rory made a call to the Realtor handling the building that used to house his tour company. To his surprise, the rent hadn’t gone up as much as he’d feared. When he asked, and he did, why it was vacant, the Realtor’s only reply was that he couldn’t seem to keep tenants for more than the length of their six-month lease. He suggested, although Rory didn’t quite believe him, that for some it wasn’t a good location and for others it was too small a space for what they had envisioned.

Sounds like something is going on with it. It’s a prime location, or was when I rented it. Have things really changed that much since I’ve been gone?

With that thought in mind, he set up an appointment with the Realtor to look at the building the next evening, explaining that his business partner had a day job and would only be available then. When Trent came home, he told him what he’d done.

Trent’s first question was, “Will you be able to run the company only after dark? Last time you were there during the day, or at least the afternoon, to sell tickets for the tours.”

“True, but I can set up things up differently. Maybe hire someone to do that, or”—he rapped his fingers on the table pensively—“play off what I am. Go the whole ‘spooky’ route. Something like, ‘Since this business is owned by a vampire, it is open from after dark until midnight’. Done tongue in cheek of course. I really don’t want to scare people off. Then I’ll dress all in black, pretty much the way I did before, but add dark glasses. After all according to some myths vampires are sensitive to bright light.” He snorted softly. “As if.”

Trent nodded. “That could work. Where are you going to find decent tour guides?”

“I’ll start by seeing if any of my old ones are around and available.”

“They might not be willing to chance working for you again,” Trent pointed out. “When you disappeared it left them high and dry.”

“Yeah.” Rory sighed. “I’ll figure something out. The first thing is to find out if there’s some reason other than what the Realtor said for his having trouble keeping tenants.”

“You think there might be?”

Rory nodded. “Most people hang on to a spot in the Quarter once they get one. It’s a money-making area and you know it. His losing tenants so fast tells me there’s something going on, whether he’s aware of it or not.”

Trent chuckled. “Maybe it haunted.”

“If it is, I never felt it.”

“Still…” Trent looked skeptically at Rory.

Rory smiled wryly. “I know, I know, you’re still not convinced it was anything but my fertile imagination.”

“Let’s just say I’ll believe it when I see one.”

“Maybe,” Rory replied, grinning, “you will tomorrow night.”