“Pia, is that you?”

“Yes Paul, it’s me, what’s up? What did you find out?”

“Okay, I can hear you. Listen. There was a problem with the blood.”

“Problem? What do you mean? What did they find?”

“They didn’t find anything, Pia. The blood never got tested. It never made it to the lab.”

“What do you mean? When we talked last night you said you’d just sent it. You expected some sort of results today.”

“I said I sent it, yes, but I was just saying what usually happened. Except it didn’t happen in this case.”

“So what the hell did happen?” Pia was mad, and even though she felt self-conscious yelling into her phone, standing by the side of a road, yell she did. She could hear Paul apologize on the other end, but that was no help. Except for her seeming success with Berman in scheduling another visit to his lair, nothing else was working out. And now there was a problem with the blood. It didn’t seem fair.

“I put the blood in the usual pouch and left it in the secure box outside for the courier. He picked it up and dropped it off at the lab. He’s our regular delivery guy and I trust him, but I also checked, and there is a record of his signature at the other end. That proves the blood was received, but after that, no one has any record of it. It didn’t make it to the lab.”

“How can that happen?” said Pia. “Paul, you should have walked it down to the lab yourself.”

“Come on, Pia, give me a break. This has never happened before. Sure, a sample gets mislabeled once in a while, but no blood sample has ever disappeared into thin air like that. Believe me, I’ve got them turning the place upside down over there. That lab does half its business with us, and I said we’d take our blood somewhere else if they don’t find it. I doubt Noakes would have it in him to do that, but I’ve made the threat on his behalf.”

“What was the label on the vial?”

“There was a standard bar code from the hospital. I wrote my name on another label, and ‘runner’ on it, as shorthand. There’s a lot of blood going over there with my name on it. I was trying to be careful, in case the bar code came off. Pia, I’m sorry this happened but it’s not the end of the world—”