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“She and Alex are at the park. They should be back any minute. In fact, let me text him to let him know you’re here. I know he’ll want to see you.”

Ian grinned boyishly, and he and his sister chatted and poked jokingly at each other for the next few minutes.

Piper reeled at this relaxed, happy side of him. The family man. He wascharmingwhen he wasn’t in mission mode. What else about him didn’t she know? Intense curiosity to find out filled her.

Katie had just returned from a kitchen that looked straight out of a science fiction future with glasses of water for her and Ian when the front door opened. A handsome, dark-haired man and arguably the cutest toddler Piper had ever seen blew through the door, laughing together.

“Un-cuh Ian!” the little girl squealed. Like her mother, she launched herself at Ian and wrapped her little arms around his neck as if she was going to strangle him. The sight of him with a child wrapped in his powerful arms melted Piper’s ovaries on the spot.

Alex—that must be the famous Doctor Alex Peters, a legend within Doctors Unlimited—clapped Ian on the shoulder. “Good to see you, bro.”

The two men traded interesting looks. Mutual respect, but something more. An acknowledgement that they were natural enemies who had incongruously become friends. Frowning, Piper glanced back and forth between them, trying to suss out what she’d just seen.

Alex asked, “How’s the knife wound? No pain or complications from being back out in the field with it?” Wasthisthe fiancé who’d stabbed Ian and left that fresh, red scar on his belly?

There was that weird look again from Ian. “Nah. It’s good. I’m sorry to report that your attempt to gut me has officially failed.”

She’d half-thought Ian was kidding when he’d said his future brother-in-law had stabbed him. Apparently not.

Both men looked over at Katie affectionately. Comprehension burst across Piper’s brain. The two men might not particularly like each other, but they both loved Katie. For her sake, they were willing to put aside their differences and get along.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Ian,” Katie announced. “I wanted to talk with you about the wedding. It’s in October, and I need you to arrange your work schedule to be home for it?—“

Alex interrupted gently. “If I’m not mistaken, this isn’t entirely a social call to spoil your niece, is it, Ian?”

Katie sighed and stepped forward to lift the toddler out of her brother’s arms. “C’mon, Dawn. Let’s get you some lunch while the boys go talk business.”

Piper couldn’t blame Katie for assuming that it was just the boys on a job. Alex gestured for Ian to follow him to what turned out to be an office, and Piper trailed along, hating feeling like a third wheel.

Alex closed the office door behind them and Ian surprised her by saying, “Alex, this is Piper Roth, my partner.”

“We’ve never met, but I’ve seen your name on the Doctors Unlimited roster.” He stuck out his hand, and she shook it, a little startled. For a surgeon, he had a hell of a strong grip. And a shooter’s callous at the base of his thumb. How did he get a hold of the D.U. roster, anyway? That was supposed to be confidential.

Ian interrupted her perplexed ruminations with, “We’re tracking a terrorist who appears to have designed a weaponizable virus and disappeared with a lot of it. We need to pick up his trail and are hoping you can help.”

“What can you tell me about this terrorist?”

Piper listened as Ian recited what they knew about Yusef Abahdi and where they’d last seen him.

Alex looked over at her expectantly. “Talk to me about the virus.”

How did he know about her biomedical background? It wasn’t something that came up in casual conversation.

Suspicious and a little creeped out, she answered, “The virus appears genetically engineered with material gathered from Ebola and Lassa patients. Some or all of the Scientist’s research notes are being analyzed as we speak.”

Alex’s attention swung back to Ian. “You said he had a lot of it. Are we talking samples in petri dishes, or gallons of it ready for dispersion?”

“Gallons. He put three big coolers in the back of his vehicle.”

“He won’t have flown commercially, then. He either drove to a destination in Africa somewhere or he took a private flight to his final destination.”

Ian asked, “Can we track his flight?”

Alex shook his head in the negative. “Huge chunks of African airspace don’t have radar coverage. It’s been rumored for years that commercial-sized aircraft fly back and forth illegallybetween Africa and South America without ever being spotted on radar.”

“I was hoping you might be able to track his money” Ian responded.

Alex nodded. “It’s the logical way to proceed. Guy like him, though, might be getting paid in cash. Could be hard to spot.”