The mechanic beside him added:
“Depending on the circuit, moisture can change the electrical signal or create a path where there shouldn’t be one.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
For a moment, everyone studied the connector.
Ace felt a familiar frustration rising.
He’d authorized replacement after replacement because each suggested explanation sounded reasonable.
The work had been performed by people who knew motorcycles.
Nobody had intentionally wasted his time.
But they had been searching for permanently defective components.
If Emma was right, the problem might not be a component that was permanently defective at all.
It might be a connection that failed only when moisture reached a particular spot.
The difference seemed small.
The consequences were enormous.
Ace studied Emma’s expression.
“How do we prove it?”
She straightened slightly.
“I need one more thing.”
“A spray bottle.”
The garage fell quiet for half a second.
Then a mechanic near the back burst out laughing.
“A spray bottle?”
The man looked from her to the custom Harley.
Then he grinned.
“You fixing motorcycles or watering flowers?”
A few mechanics chuckled.
The laughter was quieter than before, but it carried the same assumption: a girl with a pink toolbox couldn’t possibly know something seventeen experienced men had missed.
Emma ignored him.
She looked toward Ace.
“Do you have one?”
Ace considered her request.
He didn’t answer immediately.
The Harley was his motorcycle, and deliberately putting water near its electrical connections sounded like the kind of thing a mechanic might warn an inexperienced person never to do.
Yet there was a clear logic behind what she wanted.
If moisture caused the failure, perhaps a carefully controlled amount could reproduce it.
He glanced toward the senior mechanic.