Page 67 of A Breath of Life
I wanted to object, take Tallus home, and lock the doors, but I’d promised he could help locate Clarence.
I was not naïve. Discovering Clarence’s home address meant nothing. The guy was on the run, not lounging at home, binge-watchingSupernatural. When he didn’t answer his door, I would need to come up with an excuse for stage two in our plan.
How had I ended up in this nightmare?
18
Tallus
Someone was following us, and my PI boyfriend was utterly clueless.
Earlier, as Diem and I left the parking structure at headquarters, I noticed a guy sitting on a cement barrier, talking on the phone. The location was tucked away but not out of sight. For all intents and purposes, the man was unremarkable. Except his glittery gold Converse caught my attention.
I liked Converse. I owned several pairs for casual wear. With protanopia, my color spectrum was limited to blues, browns, and yellows, so when I shopped for footwear, I usually stuck to whites, blacks, or browns. Less chance of mismatching an outfit when Memphis wasn’t available to coordinate me.
When Converse released their Hi Glitter Gold All Stars, they tempted me, but by the time I decided I wanted to add them to my collection, the shoes were out of stock. I’d spent the money on a coupleof pairs of new SAXX instead because a guy needed new fashionable underwear from time to time. I regretted nothing.
The guy at headquarters, sitting on a cement barrier and chatting on his cell with the glittery Converse, had stood out for no other reason than he wore the shoes I’d once sought to own.
At the bus stop, as we’d waited for Buren and I’d paced the curb texting Memphis, a pair of shimmery gold Converse crossed my path. I’d halted and glanced up because what were the chances I’d seen two people in the span of an hour wearing the same unique shoes?
Although I hadn’t consciously taken in the man’s appearance back at headquarters, I knew it was the same guy. Same dark jeans. Same yellowish-looking tee. The same brimmed ballcap that cast a shadow over his face, making it impossible to get a clear view of his features. But the damn shoes told me it was him.
At the bus stop, the man stood apart from the crowd. He’d kept his chin down the entire time, scrolling on his phone like he had no care in the world.
Diem might not have thought I was the best investigator—and his arguments were usually valid—but my high school bullying days had left me adept at knowing when I was being followed, and the Converse-wearing guy pinged on my radar for two reasons. One, we were a long way from the Toronto Police Headquarters building. It had taken over twenty minutes for Diem to drive us to our rendezvous point. Two, if the guy had been at my place of work and was now here, he must have owned a vehicle since taking public transportation would have been much slower. If that was the case, why was he waiting for a bus?
I watched him without watching him, feigning interest in a textconversation.
Diem’s squirrely behavior mirrored that morning’s when he’d peered out the windows in search of a threat. Did he see the guy? A quick study of Diem told me no. My boyfriend seemed to be seeking someone at length when the danger was much closer.
I considered Diem’s earlier warnings and worries. Instead of immediately alerting him to Mr. Converse, I played the part of a cuddly boyfriend and burrowed into his arms. If the man with the gold shoes was indeed following us, I didn’t want him to know I’d figured him out.
When Buren showed up at the same time as the bus, I got distracted. Only after Buren took off and Diem suggested we head home did I see Mr. Hi Glitter himself less than ten feet away, still waiting for the bus that had come and gone, blending with the newly formed crowd.
It was why I’d suggested we eat at the restaurant. I wanted to test a theory and prove to myself I wasn’t imagining things. Ten minutes after we sat down, Gold Glitter Converse waltzed in as though he was a regular customer, looking for a meal.
I secretly congratulated myself on my well-honed detective skills.
Diem had situated himself so that he faced the door. I waited for him to notice the obvious tail, but he didn’t. He kept looking past the man to a threat that had yet to appear. It was true. Sometimes, we didn’t see what was right in front of our faces. I wanted to shake Diem and say,he’s right there, but I didn’t.
I waited. I observed. Even Echo gave no sign of recognition and dozed under the table.
Since my boyfriend had been less than forthcoming about his encounter the other night, I decided it was only fair that I do my own reconnaissance to see if I could figure out what this was all about.
We were in public. The sun was still up. People meandered the streets of downtown, and the restaurant was bustling with a dinner crowd. The man wasn’t about to make a move.
As we left the restaurant, I pretended to get a text from Memphis, but instead, I pulled up my camera app and snapped a picture of Hi Glitter. It wasn’t a great shot—he still wore the ballcap—but it was something.
Diem took us to Clarence Audraine’s address, obsessively checking the rearview mirror the entire way. I figured this would be the time we would lose our tail since the guy hadn’t left the restaurant with us.
After buzzing the correct unit a dozen times with no response, I nudged Diem. “Now what, big guy?”
Echo’s expression seemed to ask the same thing.
Diem didn’t answer and grumbled as he barreled from the vestibule and paced the exterior of the building, glancing at the row of third-floor balconies as though he might see Clarence lounging on a deck chair, enjoying a margarita.
“I don’t think he’s home, D.”
