They started out. Katie told them about the founding of the city, some of her great stories about the Baroness de Pontalba and how buildings she’d had constructed in the 1840s still formed two sides of Jackson Square, allowing for shops, apartments, restaurants and museums. She talked about the War of 1812, the Civil War, the changes of flags over the city...

And when they went by Lafitte’s, she talked about the Lafitte brothers, the good and the bad, the triumphant and the sad. But just as she was ending that segment of her talk, she went silent for a minute, so long that the father cleared his throat and said, “Miss?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m so sorry. Lost my train of thought there for a minute,” Katie said. But she looked at Dan and gave a nod, indicating he needed to look to the street.

He turned his head in the direction she’d gestured to, and she knew he saw what she wanted him to see.

Mabel was strolling down the street, arm in arm with a man.

The man was in breeches, a white shirt, vest, socks and short boots; he wore a jaunty tricorn hat.

It was Gray Simmons, one of the ghosts of the city Katie had come to know.

A man who had lost his life at the Battle of New Orleans but remained to see that the city he had loved so much and died for grew and hopefully would prosper. A pirate, and a hero. That all depended on one’s viewpoint, he had told her once.

“I’ll jump off,” Dan murmured to Katie.

She nodded and slowed the carriage, and Dan jumped off, waving to her crew.

“He, uh, had a meeting,” Katie explained, and she quickly went on to talk about Lafitte and his pirating ways and his meetings with Jackson.

Maybe not the murder and mayhem of the Axeman, but the teenaged boy was mollified.

Apparently, he liked pirates.

“Darling!” Mabel said, greeting him, leaning toward him to give him a ghostly kiss on the cheek. “How lovely! I was hoping to run into you today.”

“Nothing from the city cops or agents, or whatever the rest of them are, eh?” the man at her side asked.

Dan was standing in the street, looking quite the idiot, he thought, reacting to people that no one else could see.

“Er, in here!” he said, indicating the courtyard area of the bar, empty now. The bar had barely opened, and while a bar might have patrons at any time during opening hours, which were almost all of them, it didn’t mean they’d be busy this early.

Shielded by plants, he indicated one of the benches and pulled out his phone. That way he’d appear much less suspicious.

The ghosts took seats across from him.