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“Nothing fancy—just a couple of bagels with some cream cheese and coffee. I did throw some sugars and creams in the bag.”
She pointed to the coffee cups. “Are these the same?”
“Plain old black coffee.”
“Fine with me once I douse it with cream.”
She popped the lid on her coffee and dumped in three little containers of cream. “I’m systematically going through the files on the desktop. I haven’t even opened the hard drive yet to see what’s on there.”
“Discover anything so far?” He ripped into the bag and twisted two halves of a bagel apart.
“Nothing, but I’m only on the third of seven folders.”
“I’ll help you as soon as I devour this bagel. In fact—” he reached out and hooked a finger beneath the sleeve of her nightshirt “—why don’t you take a shower and get dressed and let me take over folder duty.”
Her cheeks burned as she glanced down at the hem of her T-shirt where it hit her midthigh. “I completely forgot.”
“I know. You couldn’t wait to delve into that computer.” He licked some cream cheese from his thumb. “What am I looking for?”
“Formulas, calculations, numbers, any reference to T-101.”
“Agents’ names.”
“Yeah, that too.” She shoved the laptop in his direction. “I’ll make myself presentable.”
He grunted and started tapping at the keyboard, which was not the response she’d been fishing for.
Max didn’t play those games. He dealt in black and white, not subtleties.
She dug through her suitcase for clean clothes and retreated to the bathroom. This morning she washed her hair and scrubbed her body to remove all traces of Max that still clung to her from spending the night in the same bed with him. If someone had told her a month ago that she and Max Duvall would sleep in the same bed and actually sleep, she would’ve sent them to have their head examined.
She toweled off her hair and scrunched up her waves with some mousse on her hands. She pulled on the same jeans from yesterday, a white camisole and a blue V-neck sweater over it. She stroked on a little makeup and even added a swipe of lipstick. Just because Max didn’t actually voice his compliments, it didn’t mean he didn’t notice.
She stepped from the bathroom and folded her nightshirt on top of her suitcase. “Find anything?”
“I’m not as methodical as you, but I may have located some of the other agents. I entered the names I knew in the search engine, and they pop up in a few places.”
“While I understand your desire to warn the other agents, it’s more important right now for you to get an antidote flowing through your veins.” She hooked her thumbs in the front pockets of her jeans and sauntered to the credenza.
He lifted one shoulder. “I didn’t know what to enter in the search field for a formula or antidote. I entered what I knew.”
“Okay, then.” She leaned over his shoulder and peered at the screen. “What came up?”
He jabbed his finger at the display. “They come up in a database in some program, but I’m not sure how to launch it. It’s not some static file. It updates automatically.”
“Let me see if it looks familiar.” She wedged her hip on the arm of his chair, hunching forward. “Okay, I think we can open it with this database program.”
She clicked on a menu and selected the icon for the program. It launched a map of the world and she opened the file with the agents’ names Max had found from inside the program.
Red dots began flashing on the screen. A man’s face would appear and then zoom to a different area of the map.
She held her breath as the dots populated the map, and Max swore softly.
“It’s some kind of locator for the agents.”
When the last dot found its home, Ava expelled a long breath. “Are you on here?”
“I didn’t see myself.” He poked at the middle of New Mexico. “And there’s nothing coming up in our location.”
“How is this program tracking agents?”
“I’m not sure. I’m just relieved Tempest didn’t inject some kind of tracker beneath my skin. I’d been worried about that.”
