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His thu to lift her eyelids for a brief inspection of her pupils

"I've checked you out and given you so to help clear the tranquilizers out of your system The weakness ear off You'll be fine I prolare "I have no idea where I am or why those men broke into my house I was shot

Twice! And I have no clue why I' through the door right now, there's nothing I can do to protectway fronored "How's your head?" he asked in a near whisper

Noelle felt tears stinging her eyes in the face of her confusion and helplessness, but blinked the elephants," she rin kicked up one shadowed cheekbone "That bad, eh?"

"I've had worse--400 arunted and went to refill the glass at the cheap motel room sink

"Where are we?" asked Noelle

The clink of ice and the hiss of water filled the stale air "Off I-70 not far froet you completely out of town I had to make sure you were okay and find out if there were anyelectronic format"

Noelle blinked in confusion "My work? What work?" She'd been working on at least a half dozen projects, none of which would interest anyone without a burning love for Latin, Cyrillic script, or differential equations

He turned Her eyes bad adjusted to the light and she could now h they were still a bit fuzzy without the aid of her glasses He was fairly tall--ear with a -sleeved shirt There was a gun neatly hol-stered under his left ar into the small of his back His shoulders were as wide as her arh he didn't have the visible bulk of a professional wrestler, she could tell that his practical clothing hid a lot more than just skin and bones

His face was shadoith stubble that was only a little shorter than the close-cropped hair on his head At his teht on black water At soreasepaint off his face, and it made him look more human than he had in the darkness of Noelle's basement

He had the kind of masculinity that could s or care about eneral do a serious double take Noelle did just that

It shocked her to be looking at hi hi Looking at hiainst her was another Maybe it was just the drugs talking, or ainst that brick wall during a li haywire, but she was seeing David No-Last-Na, physically appealingher current situation, that itself was enough to make Noelle question her sanity

David stepped closer and she watched as a sparkling bead of water ran down the side of the glass, over his tanned fingers and dripped onto the gaudy orange-and-red carpet

She was suddenly quite thirsty again

"I've been given clearance to know about your ith encryption algorithms for the gled to sit up, but her numb muscles refused, and she wanted to screa," she snapped "The truth is I'ave it up once I found out the US Ar the bill"

"And all the files froave it up? Where are they?"

"What little I did docureat ones and zeros party in the sky"

"Bullshit" His voice was quiet, but his tone was still harsh enough to convey his disbelief

"Excuse me?"

"I was informed about your work on project Cobweb You were offered a lot of money to do the work You wouldn't have just thrown that all away"

"I've never heard of project Cobweb"

"Not the narant money to complete your research"

"Grant ave her a casual shrug of indifference "Call it Fred for all I care My question is, where are the files?"

"I told you I deleted everything that was on s down until I'ive the final report, unless they are truly complex, and I was only half-finished with that project"

David stood silent for ato determine the truth of her words He ran a hand over his short, dark hair and shook his head "The laptop hard drive?"

Noelle nodded

"Are you sure there are no other backup copies of the work anywhere? Backup files on a network server? Disks?