“No luck, just voice mail. If it was Pia, she’d pick up the phone.” Paul looked at George. He was a mess and had obviously pulled on the nearest clothes he could find, sweatpants and a sweatshirt over a cotton T-shirt. Paul would not have been caught dead in such an outfit, especially since George was wearing dress shoes with white socks. George noticed Paul looking at his feet.

“I know. I got the wrong shoes. My sneakers were wet after I went for a run in the rain. But after you called and after I cleared the trip with my chief resident, I flew out the door to catch the next flight to Denver, which was leaving in an hour. I came with nothing, but I did make the flight. I’ll need to pick up some stuff. But we have to put our heads together first. So tell me everything again, but fill in the details.”

The men took seats after Paul gave George a Coke. George had asked for one, saying he needed a quick caffeine hit. Then Paul went through the whole story, beginning at the end, the time thirty hours before, when Pia had texted Paul that she was coming right back to his apartment. George nodded every now and then, as if to say, “Got it.” Then Paul was finished.

“So you don’t know what she found at Nano?”

“No, but I think it was something extraordinary as she was so fired up she didn’t want to take the time to explain. She told me she’d tell me everything when she came back and that she would be coming back as soon as she could, apparently after doing something with the blood samples. I believed her. Unfortunately. And she sent me a text that she was on her way. I’m sure that was her.”

“Do you have even the slightest notion of what she might have found?”

“Only a very vague idea. She suspected Nano might have been pushing the envelope with human experimentation of some kind.”

“You mean with the nanorobots she was working with?”

“I don’t know any details. All we know is that there were some athletes involved somehow, one of which Pia had come upon while running and a second one. You remember all this, don’t you?”

“Yeah, of course. So what else happened the night she disappeared that you know of?”

Paul told George about the iris scanner situation, about the camera, and about Pia testing the idea with photos of her own eyes, and then apparently going off to Berman’s to get appropriate photos of the CEO.

“Damn,” said George with emphasis. “That’s so Pia. She puts herself in jeopardy back at that asshole’s house just to get photos so she could sneak around Nano?”