Sweet Dreams. Stacey Keith

looked surprised. “You’re a movie buff.”

      Jake followed Chuck inside a lobby every bit as dusty as promised. His heart couldn’t have been beating any harder if he’d run a marathon. It was like finding Ali Baba’s cave or Atlantis or the lost library of Alexandria.

      Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he had to keep himself from spinning in circles and trying to see everything at once. The vaulted ceilings were high and heavily embellished in the sleek, angular Art Deco style—Hollywood starlets in cloche hats and drop-waist dresses smoking cigarettes in elegant filters. Men in spats and tux tails. The light fixtures may have been from an even earlier part of the last century.

      Chuck went on about the theater’s history, but Jake had trouble keeping up. He still couldn’t believe he’d discovered something that he’d pretty much given up trying to find. The theater was built in 1928, Chuck told him. Registered as a historic landmark, but vacant all these years because no one wanted to stake the money for a proper restoration. There was a photo upstairs of what the Regal looked like in its heyday with the soaring neon marquee and mosaic archways.

      Jake drifted into the vast auditorium and just stood there, basking. He looked at the dirty wall sconces, the ruined red velvet theater seats, the cratered floor.

      All he saw was beauty.

      Richard came up beside him, followed by Carmen with her clipboard.

      “What an absolute nightmare,” she muttered. “A money pit if ever I saw one.”

      “Buy it,” Jake said. “Whatever it takes. I won’t accept no for an answer.”