“Maybe they just took him.” Luca stayed by the door. “I know there are people in the world who will traffic someone with this kind of skill. A person who can come up with a unique formula they can exploit, and then they sell whoever it is to the highest bidder. Someone who will force them to create another drug or biological weapon for them.”
That was incredibly specific, leading her to believe this wasn’t just knowledge but something he had experienced personally. “If Dr. Torres isn’t here, that doesn’t mean he’s in danger. Or that he got kidnapped. Maybe he saw them coming and ran.”
“Unless he’s already at the police station telling them what happened, we have to assume that he’s in danger. At the very least, he might be on the run.” Luca shifted away from the door. “I need to look around some more and check to make sure he doesn’t have security cameras we can take a look at.”
Kira looked back at the walls. “This isn’t what he was working on for Francisco. It’s something else entirely. But I would need some time to figure out precisely what everything means.”
It almost looked like a kind of chemical formula. But she didn’t know what he was using for the code that kept the substances a secret from her. Considering someone had broken in and ransacked his house, Torres might have been clever to keep his work a secret by making the compounds a code only he knew.
She shook her head and muttered to herself, “What on earth was he doing?”
“I’d love to know who he was doing it for,” Luca said. “Or who he might’ve sold this formula to.”
He ducked out of the room. Kira spent a few more minutes looking at the equations on the walls, catching places where Torres had run into a block that meant his formula wouldn’t work. On more than one occasion, he’d backtracked and chosen a different direction. Some of them involving radical leaps she wasn’t sure she would have made.
Whatever he was working on, it was far beyond her scope of practice as the head of an emergency department. So much of what she did was routine illnesses and injuries. Broken arms and stomach bugs. She’d considered that to be a good thing as well as bad, but this wasn’t the kind of break from monotony that she was looking for. Kira had no desire to get into creating new drugs or chemical compounds.
If she’d known about this when she’d been trying to get information from Dr. Torres, she could have asked him about it. The fact the man kept so much to himself didn’t bode well in a city where anything could be going on.
She went back to the study, looking around at the papers. Whoever had been searching here would have taken all of this if it were relevant. But still…She crouched and lifted a paper from the floor. Who printed out their cell phone bill these days?
“Find something?”
She shook her head and dropped the paper. “Do I need to wipe my prints from all of this?” She hadn’t touched much, but it would be clear that she’d been here.
“When the police get here, I’m going to inform them that we looked around. It’s natural to come inside and walk through the house when you’re trying to find someone you believe is in danger.”
“Okay.” That made sense.
She didn’t want to feel out of her depth, but this was Luca’s world, not hers. Kira had spent years avoiding anything about her past. Now that it was standing in front of her, she was having a hard time knitting their worlds together. Things were colliding inside her heart and mind in ways she hadn’t expected, leading her to almost take out her frustration on him.
And yet he’d made no attempt to separate himself from her.
“I didn’t even realize until now…” She stopped, unsure she even wanted to say it. Hadn’t been planning to.
“What didn’t you realize?” He had his phone out, probably ready to call the police and inform them what had happened.
“That I’ve been avoiding everything I was for the past few years. Working here and having a quiet life. Maybe I was just burying my head in the sand and trying to forget who I was.”
“I can tell you over and over that you didn’t do anything wrong, but you’re the one who’s going to have to believe it.”
This was probably something that would be far better to unpack with a psychologist rather than the guy she liked a whole lot.
“Change is always an upset to your life, no matter if it’s good or bad. Some people love when change happens, and others are surprised by it.” Luca eased closer and touched his lips to hers in a sweet, quick kiss. “I happen to like surprises.”
“I don’t think I like surprises, but I did like you bringing over breakfast.” She didn’t want to make it sound like he always had to do things for her, so she said, “Next time, I’ll bring the food. I should make you my chana masala.”
“It’s a date.” He smiled gently. “I’m going to call the cops and report this. Someone needs to be looking for Dr. Torres.”
Kira wandered through the house, confirming there was no one inside. It seemed strange to move through someone else’s personal space when they hadn’t invited her to be here. She wouldn’t want someone walking like this through her house, but taking a moment to process her thoughts was something she needed right now.
As she walked back down the stairs, her phone rang, and Jordan’s name showed up on the screen. “What’s up?”
Two phone calls in one day was more than unusual.
“Figured you’d want a heads-up. Someone is snooping around in your bank accounts, probably trying to dig up information on you.”
Kira frowned. “Luca’s friend is supposed be doing that on the foundation.”