some thoughts about that, but he didn’t want to get her hopes up. “I’m going to let Mitch work on that. We have some work to do, too. I want to know who that woman was and why she had your keycard.”
Noelle let go of his hand and sighed as she lay back. “It was the mail room chick. I didn’t even think about her until now. The police told me someone used it, and I didn’t know there had been anyone but you.”
He sat down beside her, trying to focus on her face, but it was hard because there were her pretty nipples and they were a deep pink from the clamp and…damn it. Mail room chick. “Had you met her before?”
She shook her head. “No. We don’t get snail mail. We do everything on computers. But she had a couple of journals she said the company had ordered for our lab. She dropped them. That was when she took my keycard.”
“Did you get a good look at her?” They could get a sketch artist in and he could then use computer modeling to refine it. She thought she could avoid facial recognition software, but there were ways to work around her tech.
Noelle bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. I can probably give you a basic description. So the mail room woman was working for the gas company. It’s crazy how many people don’t want my work out in the world.”
He’d been thinking about it all night and whether or not Kyle had anything to do with the incident. Kyle hadn’t helped the woman who’d downloaded Noelle’s research. If he had, he would have told her they were in the building and that Hutch was on the move. She would have either avoided the server room until he was out or killed him there.
“We’re going to figure this out,” he promised her. “And honestly, now that you don’t have to go back to that building, Jessica probably isn’t a physical threat. She’ll have you where she wants you, on the outside. She might even think she’s gotten away with it. She doesn’t have to kill you. She can try to let the court system silence you.”
Not that he would let up on her protection. Another reason to go to Louisiana with her. He bet he and Armie LaVigne could bond over how to protect Noelle.
Noelle sat up suddenly, her eyes going wide. “Madison texted Cara my name.”
Oh, she’d put something together. He watched her as it was obvious her brain was working overtime. “Yes. Cara thinks she was interrupted. Likely it was when they took her and created the accident in her lab.”
“She was in the building when she sent it out.”
“Yes, according to the location service on her phone.”
“Could she have been in the locker room?” Noelle asked.
There was no way of knowing exactly where she was. “I suppose so.”
“Someone was going through lockers the day I got attacked. Madison’s locker. My locker. What if they were looking for something Madison left me? The woman hated me, but I might be the only person she would trust to go up against Jessica Layne. She always teased me for being all upright and honorable. And our lockers were close. What if she was running and she knew she only had a moment to hide something?”
“But they’ve searched the lockers. You’ve used yours. You would have found something.”
She shook her head. “But I didn’t look up. I might not even be tall enough to feel for it. Madison kept a magnetic box in her locker. Our lockers were done by a designer, and they have an almost cathedral shape to them. Up at the top, Madison found a metal fastener she could put the magnet on. It’s how she kept her expensive jewelry safe, but I never heard of anyone else using it like that.”
“How big was it? Big enough for a thumb drive?” He wasn’t interested in jewelry, but he would be in any type of data Madison might have pulled down when she’d figured out she was in danger. “How would she have gotten in your locker?”
“She was smart. She could have figured it out. Hell, she might have watched me and memorized the combo so she could play a prank or something. She did that a lot. Hutch, I think that’s where it is. If she left me something, it’s in that locker.”
Hutch felt his jaw tighten because that meant what had happened that day wasn’t