OK, I am sorry for the confusion....saying that mostly to myself. The issue was that I did have a project template that is in the root of the main project folder. Therefore if I saved something in the template (sometimes the project doesn't officially get named until later in the session), audio goes to the global folder also in the root. Duh! I went and checked some recent projects, and sure enough the files are where they should be, since I typically Save As with a new name and folder, which is all setup correctly.
I only discovered the issue of missing audio with 2 previous projects, and I suspect it has something to do with the way I saved them during those sessions. I have all of my projects backed up in the cloud to mix at home, and when I downloaded the project folder, the audio was missing. Well, only some of the audio. I'm not sure why they weren't saved properly when I did do the Save As, but probably something I overlooked.
Anyway, thanks again, issue resolved....long live Cakewalk!
Dave