I WHIPPED MY head north toward the scent, but it dissipated on an ocean breeze. He’d walked right behind me. Moving in the same direction Moira had on her run back to her car. He was following her, but he wasn’t running.
Tires compressed to a stop in front of me.
“Straight ahead.” Moira muted, like she was yelling at me from her driver’s seat through the open passenger window. “Get in.”
I stepped down into the street and my cane found her car. I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. The car started moving before I closed the door.
“Did you see that man walking away from me?” His scent was gone, but his aura still haunted me.
“What man?” I felt her head turn toward me.
“The same man behind us on the sidewalk today. I think he’s following you.” I took a deep breath to settle myself, realizing what I said next would be hard to believe. “I smelled him again tonight. Twice.”
“You mean the man I couldn’t find when you asked me to look for him?” Disbelief.
“I didn’t imagine him, dammit!” The anger from feeling isolated and useless over the last hour minutes bubbled out of me. “It’s the guy. He passed by the car after you got out of it. Then he walked behind me while I was waiting for you on the curb just now.”
“Good.”
“What?” Was she making fun of me?
“Shay met a man at La Valencia tonight. The two of them were waiting for the valet when I ran to my car. They’re still there.” The car slowed. “Whoa. They weren’t waiting for a valet. They were waiting for the man’s driver. He’s driving a Mercedes Benz Maybach.”
“Check your rearview mirror for headlights. Is anyone following you?”
“There are all sorts of headlights behind me, but none of them are following us. We’re on Restaurant Row.”
“Have you had any unsatisfied clients in the last few months? Someone angry with you? Did Rachel Donnelly’s family hold you responsible for what happened?”
“Thanks for bringing that up.” Hurt. “I don’t have any angry clients. No one is following either one of us.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. There’s nothing you could have done to save Rachel Donnelly.” I’d let my mouth run before my brain could catch up. Not for the first time. Still, that didn’t change the reality of the Invisible Man. “But there was a man following you. The same one I sensed earlier today. Don’t just blow it off.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I think your imagination has gotten the better of you.” Pedantic, like she was speaking to a child. I liked her angry much better. “I know your sense of smell is incredible. You show it off every time I go to your house, but you’re not a bloodhound. You can’t identify someone solely by their scent. You use deduction as much as smell when you recognize me. Very few people come to your house. So, when I come by, you smell a familiar, but not necessarily distinct, scent and deduce that it’s me.”
“You’re wrong.” But she’d planted a seed of doubt in my belief of my newfound capabilities.
I could pretend that I could differentiate someone’s unique odor but I really didn’t have any proof. The man I smelled today could have been different from the one who walked by my car window and he could have been different from the man who walked behind me a minute ago.
But my gut told me all three encounters were the same man and he’d followed Moira to and from La Valencia tonight.
“What happened to your sunglasses and why is your ear bleeding?” Moira’s voice rose.
“Nothing.” I took out the tissue the woman I knocked over gave me and dabbed my ear.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Not a big deal. I bumped into something.” The truth was too painful. “Why didn’t you text me updates or return my calls?”
“I turned off my phone—Wait. There they go. Down Prospect.” The car accelerated then went down a slight incline. “Write down this plate number.”
She called out the license plate number, and I dictated it into my phone.
A right turn down a sharper incline. A few seconds later, a left turn.
“Coast Boulevard?” I asked.
“Yep. Along the ocean.”
“What happened when Shay got to La Valencia?”
“She took the elevator up to the tenth floor and was let into the Sky Suite.” The car jostled over a pothole.
“Who did she meet there?”
“I can’t be sure. If I’d continued down the hall, it would have been obvious that I was following her. But when she returned to the lobby forty-five minutes later, she was with the man who got into the Maybach.”
“What does he look like?” But I doubted she’d describe someone I knew or knew of. I grew up in the tract home section of La Jolla and worked on Prospect Street for many years. But the world inside La Valencia Hotel was one I’d never ventured into. It was way out of my reach. The same zip code as the house I grew up in, but millions of dollars away.
“Early forties. Five-ten. Brown and brown. Decent shape, but not a gym rat. Navy blue tailored Italian suit.” Her voice went up at the end of “suit” like she was going to add something, but she stopped talking.
“But what? You were going to say something else.”
“He’s wearing Italian, but it looks more like Canali than Brioni.”
“Speak English.”
“His suit is expensive, but not elite expensive. Not in the league of someone who pays $1,000 a night for a hotel suite and is driven around in a Maybach.”
“I never knew you were so up on fashion and what constitutes upper elite,” I said.
“I’ve lived in La Jolla a long time. Granted, in my late husband’s family house that was paid off decades before I set foot in it. But some things rub off on you if you pay attention.”
The first thing I ever learned about Moira was that she paid attention. All the time.
“Maybe he’s slumming in his casual Italian suit instead of his showoff clothes.”
“Maybe so.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“What are you going to tell Turk about what you saw tonight?”
“I’m not going to tell him anything. He’ll get a report when I know exactly what’s going on. There’s nothing to tell, yet.”
“You’d better think of something.” I told her about my meeting with Turk.
“Why the hell did you go into Muldoon’s? You could have blown the whole surveillance and now you’ve freaked out the client.”
She was right, of course. I’d broken protocol. There wasn’t a good explanation for why. I could tell her I was worried about her safety, but was that the real reason? Or did it have as much to do with my need to be relevant again? To show I was needed, an asset, because of the special talents I’d honed for the last nine months? All of it or the one simple truth those talents screamed at me tonight?
“The Invisible Man.”
“The what?”
“I told you. I smelled the same guy I smelled today.”
“You’ve given him a name?” Incredulous. “This man who probably doesn’t even exist.”
“You asked why. I told you.” Moira would need more evidence to believe in the Invisible Man. I didn’t know how to get it for her. Until I did, I’d live in her reality. “I know I messed up with Turk. Now we have to deal with it. What are you going to tell him?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” A snap in her voice.
My body suddenly shifted right, then pressed against the seatback. Moira had turned left up a hill.
“Where are we going?”
“Looks like they’re probably headed back to La Valencia.”
“Roger.”
“Now where’s he going?” Moira asked herself after a brief silence. “He drove past La Valencia and turned right onto Ivanhoe.”
“He’s going to drop Shay off at her car in one of the bank parking lots on Cave Street.”
“What?” Moira, a hint of annoyance. “Why do you think that?”
“That’s where all the restaurant workers park at night.”
“Damn,” Moira muttered under her breath.
“He turned left onto Cave, didn’t he?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t follow him into the lot.”
“When did you start thinking that I was stupid?” Emphasis on the p in stupid.
I didn’t say anything, but thought back to this morning when I wished Moira would stop treating me with kid gloves. Sometimes wishes do come true. Unfortunately.
The car pulled to the right and stopped. A faint click from the dash or steering wheel like Moira turned off the headlights. She let the engine run.
“The Maybach just exited the parking lot.” A trace of excitement in Moira’s voice. “Probably headed back to La Valencia.”
“Shay’s car is a five-minute walk from La Valencia. Why the ten-minute roundabout drive to drop her by her car? Maybe the drive along the coast was a postcoital celebration.”
“Get down.” I heard Moira slide down in her seat. I ducked my head. The sound of a car passed by. “Okay,” Moira said. “She’s going down Ivanhoe towards Torrey Pines. I guess I’ll follow her.”
She started the car and made what felt like a three-point turn.
“Why you guess? Is there another option?”
“I’d like to follow the Maybach to see if it’s going somewhere other than the La Valencia. We need to find out more about the Italian Suit.” She let go an audible breath. “But Shay is the target, so we stay with her.”
If I could see, we’d be in two cars. One could follow the Maybach, the other, Shay. But that wasn’t an option anymore. All my ifs were followed by buts since I lost my eyesight.
I felt a turn to the right as we got onto Torrey Pines Road heading south. The car quickly accelerated.
“Gotta make the light to keep up with her.”
We drove for another six or seven minutes before Moira broke the silence again.
“Strange.”
“What?”
“She passed by the street that would take her to her apartment on La Jolla Hermosa.”
“Shit. Not another late-night rendezvous.”
A minute passed.
“This rendezvous is with Gelson’s,” Moira said.
“Expensive tastes.” Gelson’s was a high-end grocery chain from LA that had claimed turf in San Diego.
“Let’s see what she buys.” The car made a quick left.
“You sure you want to do that? You’ve already followed her on foot tonight. She may have caught a glimpse of you.” I rolled down my window knowing Moira wouldn’t take my advice. I wanted to be ready for the scent of the Invisible Man while I waited for Moira in the grocery store. If he showed, maybe I could get her that evidence she needed to believe me. I pulled out my phone, ready to take a picture of a man I couldn’t see.
The car slowed and pulled to a stop. Moira turned off the ignition.
“I’m a Girl Scout. Always prepared.” Her husky laugh. “I don’t want to miss it if she buys a pregnancy test or hair dye.”
I heard a shuffle like she was taking off her coat.
“Two-way jacket. White lining.” Another shuffle like she put the coat back on. “Don’t get freaked out, I’m going to put my hand on your seat and reach across you and get something out of the glove compartment. I’m not making a pass at you.”
“Darn.”
Moira got angry at me often. Luckily, the anger was usually short lived.
The edge of my seat compressed slightly and the scent of Moira’s coconut shampoo grew stronger. Click of the glove compartment door. A rustle, another click, then retreat of smell. She’d undoubtedly pulled out the Padres cap with a blond wig sticking down and fake eyeglasses I’d seen her wear on a few cases we’d worked together.
“Stay in the car this time.” Her door opened, slight shift of the car, then the door slammed shut.