Chapter 15 #2
“I never met my mom and don’t have the first clue how to find her, if I even wanted to.
Which I don’t.” The words were coming out quickly now that he’d started talking.
“Amir’s three years older, and he got into the wrong crowd.
I saw everything he was doing and tried to make better choices, but life is life.
The day after I graduated, I walked into the Army recruiting office. The rest, as they say, is history.”
But it wasn’t all of it.
“I’m sorry you had to do that alone. It should be a celebration with your family.”
Luca shrugged. “My father died two years before I finished high school, and Amir got custody of me after. For all the good it did. In that community? We were pegged as terrorists by everyone, all because of a war going on in a country we’d never been to. A war that had nothing to do with us.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“It was the middle of the night. The FBI kicked the door in and raided our apartment. Someone had put money in an account that had my father’s name on it, but he swore he had no idea where it came from.
The funds had come from accounts connected to ISIS, and they said my father had researched training camps on the computer.
They let him go a couple of weeks later, but he was never the same.
” Luca had to swallow so he could continue.
“He lost his business. No one in the neighborhood would speak to him. He killed himself about a month after.”
A tear spilled from the corner of Kira’s eye. Luca swiped it away with his thumb.
“I’m so sorry.”
He tried to smile. “Thank you.”
He looked out her window at the house, wanting to get to work rather than dwell on a past he couldn’t change. “This place looks like it belongs in Destiny’s neighborhood.”
“South Eagle is a little older, but it isn’t any less glamorous than North Eagle.” She pushed the door open, swiping her cheeks like she was trying to hide her reaction from him. “There are a lot of houses over a million dollars in both areas.”
“Probably because they all have this incredible view of the mountains.” He glanced at her across the hood of his truck and saw her nod. Then he spotted what was wrong. “The front door is open. Maybe you should stay in the truck.”
“If he’s hurt, you’ll want me with you inside the house.”
“Fine,” Luca said. “You can stay behind me.”
“Because of what I said at Destiny’s? Because that guy nearly killed me and so I might not be able to defend myself? Is that what you think?” She looked ready to cry again, but it had been an emotional day, and she was in need of rest.
“It’s so that I can point my gun at the bad guys instead of you.”
“Oh.”
Luca touched his lips to hers quickly, wanting to linger but knowing they didn’t have time. He wasn’t even sure they were safe right here. He turned back to the house, and she squeezed his side from behind him. That was all the reassurance she gave him that she understood what he’d said.
He stepped into the house first, easing the front door open with his gun.
“Should we call 911?” Kira whispered.
“We will. But I want to look around first.”
The issue of whether or not he believed the police in Renegade were corrupt didn’t need to come up now.
But they weren’t in Detective Martinelli’s jurisdiction here.
This part of the city was covered by a different police station, and the responding officers would come from there.
Detective Martinelli might not be able to smooth out any issues they ran into—or stop another officer from implicating them.
Because the fact was that with all the investigation and snooping they’d been doing into the syndicate, there was no way Luca and Kira could remain under the radar. Eventually someone would come gunning for them because they got too close to the truth.
Luca had her wait by the door while he searched the house.
When he came back to her, he said, “Torres isn’t here, but you should take a look at what I found.”
“In here.” Luca led her to a small study, an interior door open at the far end. He walked her to the door and stood to the side to let her go in.
“You were going to show me this office? It looks like everything Dr. Torres owns has been tossed from its place and onto the floor.”
The entire house looked like this. It was one of the few things that could have distracted her from the fact that she’d told Luca the worst part of her history.
In response, he had absorbed the news, deciding that getting to know each other better and spending even more time together was obviously the answer.
Maybe she hadn’t expected him to dump her then and there, but it was like her actions didn’t even faze him.
Then he’d reciprocated by telling her the darkest part of his story.
She couldn’t believe the racial profiling he’d endured.
Okay, so maybe she could believe it. But the idea they’d been falsely accused of a connection to terrorists that had his father seeing no other way out but taking his own life was beyond tragic. It had torn their family apart.
“Someone definitely broke in and tossed the place looking for something.” Luca waved her over to the open doorway. “But maybe they didn’t realize what they’d found.”
She frowned and stepped into the smaller room, barely bigger than a closet. Someone had drawn all over the walls in permanent marker. To anyone else it would’ve probably looked like the scribbles of somebody who might need the benefit of a ninety-day psych hold.
“Do you know what this is?”
She looked around, scanning the formulas and notes. Tracking the progression of Torres’s work to the inevitable breakthrough. “If they were looking for this, they probably just took pictures of it.”
“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.”
“Well, someone is checking out everyone, and you’re included.” Jordan went quiet for a second. “I’ve gotta go. The boss is headed this way.”
The call ended.
She headed down the stairs and found Luca by the door.
Before she could ask him why Jamie was looking through her bank accounts, he said, “The police are on their way, and Hammer just called me. The Marshals showed up and whisked Francisco away. He said Butler heard that Torres was gone, and told him what you said about Francisco’s condition being good.
” Luca shrugged. “I guess they decided to pull the plug on the operation.”
“Francisco wasn’t nearly strong enough to be moved.” She shook her head. “They should have called me and asked for permission to do that.”
“They’re the federal government.” He shrugged. “Do they ask for permission?”
Given his history, she figured that was a loaded question.
“Maybe not, but a little professional courtesy wouldn’t go amiss. Kind of like not informing someone you’re snooping through their bank accounts. I’m guessing you’re probably trying to find out if I’m connected to any of this?”
Luca said, “How did you find out someone is looking through your bank accounts?”
“Isn’t that what your friend does?”
“She’s looking into the foundation. She’d only be looking at your accounts if that’s where her donation money went.”
“I’m not trying to jump to conclusions. It might not be your friend doing it, but someone is rooting around in my personal business.
” She had worked hard to secure herself a nest egg.
And the way the world was these days made it hard to trust that any of it was completely secure.
“Jordan just told me. She keeps an eye on all my stuff from her CIA computer.”
“Could she tell who’s doing it?”
“She had to go. But hopefully I’ll find out more later.” Kira sent her a text. “I’m sure she’ll get back to me when she’s able to.”
“How about you stick with me right now? Then you’ll know for sure that there’s at least someone in your life that you can trust a hundred percent.”
Kira wasn’t sure she needed more evidence to be convinced that was true. She already believed it. But if she was with him, then she wouldn’t be at home alone, worrying that, at any moment, someone was going to break the door down and toss her stuff all over the place…
Then kidnap her.
“Okay,” Kira said. “It seems like it’s probably safe for me if I’m standing next to you.”
“I can’t promise nothing’s going to happen. But we’re going to look for Dr. Torres, and if anything does happen, you can be certain I’ll do what it takes to keep you safe.”
“Nothing about any of this makes any sense. Least of all you.”
Luca slid his arms around her and tugged her to him, hugging her in a way that made her feel safer than she’d felt in a long time. Smiling at her.
That was how the two uniformed officers found them.