I clutched the old photo and drove to the spot near Jake's place.
He was waiting for me outside a tiny diner, his face ashen, dark circles bruising his eyes—exactly like mine. And in his hand, he held a crumpled black plastic bag, its contents hidden but heavy enough to make his arm hang limp. A sick feeling coiled in my gut.
"Ethan," he said, his voice hollow, "we're so fucked this time."
He didn't waste any time. He dumped the bag's contents onto the sidewalk between us, and my blood turned to ice.
It was a single red stiletto. Scuffed, faded, the heel chipped—identical to the ones on the ghost, the ones on the mummy in the wall.
"Whose… whose is this?" I stammered, stumbling backward like the shoe itself could burn me.
Jake's eyes were red-rimmed, wild. "How the hell should I know? Someone banged on my door last night—her—asking for Li Xiumei, just like at the condo. Knocked for hours. I didn't dare open it, didn't dare make a sound. When the sun came up, I ran out to find a damn priest or something—and this was sitting on my welcome mat."
A chill ran down my spine, sharp and cold. So it wasn't just me. She'd hunted him down, too.
"She came to my place," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Knocked all night. Same time, same question."
Jake swayed on his feet, like the words had sucker-punched him. We stood there in silence, two grown men frozen with fear, the diner's neon sign flickering overhead. There was no one to call, no one to help. Cops would think we were crazy—hell, they already had, when we'd showed them the condo footage, when we'd rambled about a ghost girl who didn't show up on camera. They'd suggested a psych eval, patted us on the back, and sent us on our way.
"Wait a second," I said, my brain finally catching up. "Aren't you living with your girlfriend? Was she there last night? Did she hear it too?"
Jake's face twisted into something ugly—fear mixed with despair. "She was there. Slept through the whole thing. Thought I was losing my mind when I told her. Tried to open the door to prove no one was there. I had to tackle her to stop her." He ran a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling. "Said I was paranoid. Said I needed meds."
My skin crawled. The knocking—only we could hear it. Just me and Jake, the two idiots who'd opened the door that first night at Maplewood Estates.
"Did you call Pete and Leo?" I asked, my voice tight.
Jake nodded, his jaw set. "They're fine. Slept like babies. No knocks, no ghosts, nothing. It's just us, Ethan. Just us." He sounded like he was begging me to contradict him, to say it wasn't true. But I couldn't. We both knew the truth. We'd opened the door. We'd let her in. Now she wouldn't let us go.
I pulled the old photo out of my pocket and handed it to him. His reaction was instantaneous—he flinched like it burned him, his eyes widening until they looked like they'd pop out of his skull.
"Where the fuck did you get this?" he gasped.
"On my doormat," I said. "Same as your shoe. She's not just haunting us—she's sending us messages. She doesn't want us to walk away."
Jake let out a bitter laugh, half hysteria, half rage. "We're real estate agents, for Christ's sake! Not ghost hunters! Not detectives! What the hell does she want from us?"
I didn't have an answer. But I knew one thing for sure. "We need to find out who that woman was. The mummy in the wall. If we don't… I don't think we're gonna make it." One night of knocking had turned us into hollow shells. A week? A month? I didn't want to imagine it.
We stumbled into the diner, ordered greasy fried rice that sat like lead in our stomachs, and stared at each other across the Formica table, trying to figure out how to dig up the dirt on a dead woman—a dead woman the cops were keeping quiet about. There was only one way to get that info, and it was risky as hell.
"Hey," Jake said, suddenly leaning forward, his voice low. "Remember that house you sold in Garden Ridge? The one the cop bought? You two had beers a couple times, right?"
My mind raced, then clicked. Yeah. I remembered. The seller had been desperate to move abroad, slashing the price to $900k. I'd listed it for $1.05 million, sold it to the cop for $1.02 million, and pocketed a fat commission split with Jake. The guy—Liu, I called him Detective Liu—had been so grateful, he'd bought me dinner twice, rambled about wanting to be "friends outside work." We weren't close, not by a long shot. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. He answered on the third ring, his voice gruff. I didn't beat around the bush—told him we needed a favor, that it was life or death. He hesitated, then sighed, said he couldn't leak case info, that it was grounds for dismissal. But then he paused, cleared his throat, and said, "I guess old friends can help each other out… for a price."
I knew exactly what that meant. No favors without grease. I told him we'd cover it—whatever it took. We made plans to meet that night at Imperial Garden, a fancy restaurant where a single meal cost more than our monthly rent. Detective Liu was a shark, but he was our only shot.
Jake and I got to the restaurant an hour early, pacing the lobby like caged animals. When Detective Liu finally showed up, he was wearing a tailored suit, a gold watch glinting on his wrist. Jake didn't waste time—he pulled a pack of premium cigarettes out of his pocket, pressed it into Detective Liu's hand, and smiled like we were old pals. "Detective Liu, heard you liked a good smoke. Just a little something for our new friendship."
Detective Liu weighed the pack in his hand, a slow smile spreading across his face. He pocketed it, clapped Jake on the back. "You boys know how to make a guy feel welcome. Alright—what's the deal?"
We led him to a private booth, ordered expensive whiskey, and waited until the waiter left before leaning in. Detective Liu's smile faded, his face turning serious. "The woman you found in the wall? I dug into it for you. But this stays between us. If word gets out I told you this, I lose my badge. Understand?"
Jake and I nodded so fast our necks cracked. "Lips sealed," I said. "Swear it."
Detective Liu took a sip of his whiskey, then leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. The words hit us like a freight train.
"Her name was Li Xiumei. And fifteen years ago? She was one of the most wanted women in the city. A suspect in a triple homicide. The cops chased her for years. But no one ever found her." He paused, his eyes glinting with something like grim satisfaction. "Turns out they didn't need to. She was already dead. Buried in that wall, rotting away, while the whole city looked for her."