“It is,” said Pia, who was seeing Nano from a new perspective after the strange episode with the Chinese runner. She didn’t like the feeling. She got out of the car, and Paul did, too.

“So stay in touch,” he said, leaning on the car’s roof. “No pressure, remember.”

“I have your card,” said Pia. She remembered she was wearing a Boulder Memorial lab coat, and slipped it off. Folding it over, she held it out to Paul. “This is yours,” she added.

“Not mine personally. I’d say it belongs to Mr. Noakes, in which case, you can keep it. Seriously, keep it as a souvenir of your visit to Memorial.”

“I have plenty of lab coats. I really don’t need it. It’s going to go to waste.”

Pia continued to hold out the coat, but Paul refused to take it. Instead he just smiled and raised his arms as if in surrender.

Pia relented and unfolded the coat to put it back on. As she did so, something fell out and landed on the tarmac of the parking lot. It was the first blood-collecting vacuum tube used on the runner. Pia had forgotten she had jammed it in her pocket. The tube bounced on its rubber stopper. Responding by reflex, Pia reached down and snatched up the tube before it could bounce again and break. She held it up, and both Paul and Pia could see that the tube was intact.

Paul walked around and Pia offered him the tube.

“Hey, clever you! I never knew you kept back a blood sample.”

“I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t do it deliberately. I stuck it in my pocket to keep it out of the way when I was drawing the second and third samples.”

“Great to have this, since they confiscated the other two. I’ll keep it, if you don’t mind. It will be interesting to see if it’s normal, which is what I suspect, since he was acting so normal himself.”

“Please,” said Pia. She thought about checking out the blood herself, but she knew there was a chance it could get confiscated on her way into Nano. She thought it would be in safe hands with Paul.

“Just don’t use it all up,” she said. “I might want to look at it, too.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“You want my mobile number?” she said.

“Absolutely,” Paul said. He got out his own phone to add it directly into his contacts.

Pia told Paul her cell phone number. She had yet to change from a New York plan. Paul took it down and put the sample of blood in his own lab coat. He gave Pia a salute of sorts and a friendly smile before climbing back into his car to drive out of the parking lot.