Lily leaned her hip against the edge of her desk and folded her arms in annoyance. "Oh, for heaven's sake. I expect Rosa to become hysterical but not you, Phillip. Why would Miller want to kidnap me? I don't know anything about this project; I came in late and know less than both of you. I would think he'd want one of you."

"I still think we should put a team on you," Phillip said.

"A team?" Lily's eyebrow rose even higher. "My family would have been happy with a bodyguard. What do you mean 'a team'?"

"Captain Miller is the leader of an elite group of soldiers, all with backgrounds in Special Forces," Colonel Higgens said. "A single bodyguard isn't going to be able to protect you from them. I have a team of soldiers, highly trained, ready and available to help out."

"This doesn't make sense to me. Why would Miller come after me? He knows I don't know anything, I couldn't possibly help him in any way. And it isn't as if I'm in the military, I'm a civilian. You can't possibly justify the use of soldiers in guarding me. I think we're all overreacting to my father's disappearance. We're all a little on edge but I think asking soldiers to guard me is a bit much. Phillip, if you're really worried, to ease your mind, I'll ask Arly to find me someone. But I have to go through all the security here and having someone with me will be a major hassle."

"I can find you someone with security clearance," Thornton offered.

"Just let me get to work." Lily smiled to take the sting out of her words. "You know I appreciate your concern, I really do, but Captain Miller only saw me a couple of times. I doubt if I made any impression on him whatsoever."

Thornton knew when he was defeated. "I still want you to do your best with this thing, Lily, look through anything your father had and try to figure out what the heck he did. It's important."

"Everything is important. All right," Lily conceded with a sigh. "In my spare time, as if I have any, I'll poke around and see if I can come up with anything."

Thornton ushered Higgens out of the office ahead of him, then turned back abruptly. "Oh, Lily, I totally forgot. The annual black tie fundraiser is Thursday night. Your father was going to give a speech."

Lily was looking at him, her face very still, her heart suddenly pounding hard. In that moment she knew for certain Phillip Thornton had been involved in her father's death. It was in the guilt swamping him. It was in the way his gaze slid away from hers. In the sudden smell of sweat on his body. Her fingers tightened around the back of her chair, holding her in place. She was afraid to move, afraid to speak, certain she would say something to give her sudden knowledge away. She had been suspicious, but now she knew. She had known Phillip Thornton most of her life. Lily managed a brief nod.

"You know how important this event is to our company and the individual researchers. More than sixty percent of our funding can come from this one event. We'll have some very important people and several generals there, including McEntire and Ranier, and I'll need you to help out. You know the drill, you've been to so many."

"I completely forgot about the entire thing, Phillip."

"It's understandable, Lily," he said, "and I wouldn't ask if it wasn't necessary. Everyone will expect you to be there."

She nodded. She'd been flooded with condolences, from the president to lab technicians. She knew she would be expected at such a public event. "I'll go, Phillip, of course I'll go."

"And you'll give a speech?" They both knew with her father's disappearance, her plea would bring in even more money than usual. Everyone was searching for a way to show support to Lily and she knew it would happen at the fundraiser.

"Sure, Phillip." She waved him out of her office. General Ranier would be there and he always asked her to dance. The fundraiser would give her the perfect opportunity to read the general and find out if he, like his colleague General McEntire, was involved. Lily had completely forgotten about Donovans's most important event of the year. It would be the first time she ever attended such a huge function without her father. The thought saddened her. She sat for a moment at her desk, mourning him, missing him.

Lily put her grief aside, not wanting to broadcast too loudly and risk making a connection with Ryland. If he thought she was upset or in danger, he would find a way to get to her. It surprised her that she was that certain of him, that she knew he would come.

She spent several hours working in her laboratory, losing herself in formulas and patterns. When she finally realized how much time had gone by, Lily was annoyed with herself. She hastily tidied up her notes and hurried through the halls to the elevator until she was on ground level. The hospital was small but had equipment that would make any hospital or trauma center weep with envy. Lily signed in, going through the security checks to access the records she needed. She read through every entry she could find pertaining to Ryland and his men. Then she began researching the staff, checking entries to find who had been on duty when each man was brought in, looking for a pattern. Lily always saw the patterns and there certainly was one. She scanned the pertinent entries, noting names, and hurried back down to the lower laboratories, this time heading for her father's office.

Lily could still smell her father's pipe just like in his office at home. No one had cleaned his desk, although his papers had obviously been gone through. She went directly to his desk and turned on his computer. As she drew the keyboard out she knocked the mouse onto the floor beneath the desk.

Hissing her annoyance, Lily felt under the desk with her foot, her gaze glued to the screen in front of her. Her toes hit a cement block hard enough to send a jolt of pain up her leg. Lily peered under the desk. The mouse was all the way to the back, close to the wall. She crawled under the desk to retrieve the item, dragging it toward her by the cord. Lily had started to inch out from under the desk when the corner of the cement block caught her eye. It wasn't flush with the wall.

Lily sat on the floor staring at it for a moment. She had to duck her head beneath the desktop as she crawled in deeper. It wasn't easy to pull out the cement block; it appeared to be wedged in tight, but she took her time, working it loose. When she finally managed to pull it free, she saw at once her father had hollowed out an area behind the block to create a small space. There was a miniature voice-activated recorder lying against the wall.

Without warning, alarms shrieked throughout the buildings. Startled, she half sat, bumping her head on the edge of the desktop. She could hear the guards running in the hall outside the office. Lily listened to the alarm for a moment but there was no announcement of danger so she ignored the commotion to pry the recorder away from the wall.

She let her breath out slowly as she curled her fingers around it. It was very dark beneath the desk but she felt a tiny disk, so small she nearly missed it. There was no covering, nothing to protect it from dust or grime. She could see a disk was in the machine already and Lily dropped the second small diskette into the pocket of her white coat as she crawled out from under the desk.

Lily's hands were shaking as she sat in her father's desk and bent close to the small recorder. Nothing happened when she tried to play back the disk. Muttering curses under her breath, she rummaged through the drawers for batteries. There were no batteries of any size in the top drawers. Lily clutched the recorder in one hand and bent to search the lower drawers.

She knew even before she turned, half rising to meet the impending threat, already knowing it was too late. She'd been so caught up in wanting to hear her father's voice, hoping for evidence against his murderers, that she hadn't paid attention to her own warning system. She swung her head, caught a blurred glimpse of a man. Waves of violence, of evil washed over her just before everything exploded. A large fist smashed squarely into the side of her temple. Everything went black and tiny shooting stars burst behind her eyes. Lily caught at her attacker, raking her fingernails across his face, tearing at his shirt as she went down. She couldn't see him, but she heard his vicious curse and felt the second blow snap her head back and then she collapsed on the floor.