.CHAPTER 59.

IN THE IMMURING darkness, the private detective took an incredibly long drag of his cigar, upper eyelids drifting close as he felt the smoke heat his lungs and sheath his whole body in a buzzing satisfactory warmth.

Sitting in his aweary Toyota, Gary ignored the harsh bite of the incredibly cold air on his nose and cheeks as he warmed his body from within.  Gazing outside his window, he let his eyes roam the abandoned, crumbling building that had once been a mental asylum.

The towering, desolate edifice illuminated by the faint, silver beams of the moon seemed ghostlier and more haunting than Gary remembered. As a long trail of dark smoke from his cigar ascended towards the pitch-black sky, he recalled the little he'd read about the deinstitutionalization of the yawning, tardily disintegrating building before him.

Years ago, on a date that eluded him—Gary wasn't good with dates—th