Page 43 of Her Only Hero

“Nothing like waiting ‘til the last minute,” Lara added and pushed her glasses to the bridge of her nose.

“Lots of time,” he said.

I laughed. “Not really, Vinny. How about you pick up some roses, too? One for every blissful year.”

“Chocolate is always appreciated. So is a gift card,” Lara said.

“Five years is a milestone, Vin. I think you should write her a poem professing your undying love,” I added.

“Or your undying horniness,” Edward said as he walked by.

Lara and I cackled in laughter.

Vinny rolled his eyes. “You people are hysterical.”

“Give us a full report tomorrow,” Lara called out to Vinny as he walked out the door.

The analyzer hummed, only minutes away from completing its cycle. Hopefully soon, by the genius of modern technology, we’d catch a criminal.

“Where did Edward go?” I said.

“He has a meeting with Dr. Hamid. Computer software issues, I think.”

“Oh.” A powerful beat thumped deep in my chest. Shit. I willed my body to stop reacting to the mere mention of Aram’s name. I reached into my pocket and took out my cell phone.

—Hey, Patrick,

Hope you’re having a good day.

The results we’ve been waiting for are minutes away.

XO—

The sequencer machine made a grinding sound, and a high-pitched tone sliced the air. An alarm icon flashed on the screen, but I didn’t know why. Lara sprang from her stool and came over. She pushed a button to silence the alarm, and then scrolled to the error log.

“It says pump disabled and run aborted.”

“What? How can that be?” I swung open the front door of the machine and checked the sample trays, the electrodes at the back, the pump, and polymer bottle. I made sure no tubing hadbecome detached. “Everything seems okay,” I said and closed the lid. This was unbelievable. It’s like I had jinxed the analyzer by staring at it too hard. “Now what?”

The door to the lab opened, and Edward Ying entered. He reached behind the instrument and turned off the power switch.

“Wait. The results,” I said, but too late.

“We have to reboot. There are middleware issues affecting all departments, but I fixed it. I just got Dr. Hamid’s computer up and running. The results should be saved on the instrument’s hard drive,” Edward said.

The three of us watched the screen light up again and run through start-up checks. Finally, the home screen appeared. I held my breath as Edward brought up the day’s work list.

Empty.

The list was empty.

“Hmm,” Edward said and shrugged. “Must have been a glitch.”

“A glitch? Are the results gone?” Lara asked.

My insides sank.

“They probably are. We will have to repeat the tests on an overnight run,” Edward said. With a few taps on the screen, he started the reanalysis of the samples still in the instrument. All wasn’t lost, just delayed.

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