Page 42 of The Luminosity of Loriana Harper

“Nine years,” came a disembodied voice in the background. A woman? Hard to tell.

“I can try to get it working, but you’re likely better off getting a new machine and having the data ported over.”

Justin sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Well, Kennedy sayswhatever it takes,so you do whatever you need to do.”

Was Kennedy the boss?

“Can you give me the specs?” He fumbled around in the drawer until he came up with a notepad and pencil.

A laugh. A hearty laugh. That ended with a painful sigh. “Kennedy can’t even find the user’s manual.”

“Fair enough. What do you use it for?”

“Scheduling, appointments, client files…and a bunch of other stuff. Our accountant has her own computer that isn’t hooked up to this one.”

“Do you have a backup?”

“Like an external hard drive?”

“Yes.” At least they were able to have a dialogue.

“Sure. Just we haven’t used it in a while. I know everyone backs up to the cloud these days, but we prefer not to do that.”

“Do you have a server?”

“No.” A little wobblier. “Do we need one?”

God help me.

“Why don’t I come and see your set-up? We can go from there.”

“Great.” Another momentary pause. “Do you have snow tires?”

“Snow what?” His mind was still muddled.

“There’s almost a foot of snow, and it’s still falling. The ranch is north of Mission City. The roads should be plowed.”

Mitch slid out of bed and stalked to the window. He pulled back the curtain to reveal a winter wonderland. Snow. Everywhere. Lots of it. “Yes, I have snow tires. Are you able to text me your location? Also, can you take a picture of the back of the computer? Anything with text or numbers?”

“Sure, of course. You don’t mind working on a Saturday?”

“Not at all.”Because I literally had nothing else to do. “I’m glad Loriana gave you my number. This is what I do. I’ll take care of you.”

“That’d be great. Thank you.”

“I need to grab breakfast, but I can be out there in an hour. It’s not too far from downtown Mission City, right?”

“Twenty minutes. Rainbow just made an enormous stack of egg sandwiches, and the coffee’s fresh, so just come. We’ll feed you.”

Rainbow? Her name had come up last night as well. Ah, right, the babysitter. “Okay, I’ll shower, dress, and head out.”

“Perfect. I’ll text you everything I can. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Justin signed off and Mitch wandered over to the bed. No way was he going to waste time making it. He stripped off his sleep pants and yanked his old T-shirt over his head, letting that drop to the floor as well. He hopped into the shower and cleaned himself as quickly as possible.

By the time he was out and dried off, Justin’d texted an address as well as several photos of the computer. Decent make, good model, and also seriously old. He had a potential replacement in inventory that was far more powerful, had better memory, and was Wi-Fi enabled. This beast was so old, it still required a cable to the modem. At least the modem was modern. Likely recently upgraded by their internet service provider.

---