Dr. Elizabeth Finney, emergency room physician, twenty-nine, blonde hair, blue eyes, average height; Janie’s roommate from college; stubborn and, similarly to Quinn Sullivan, covertly noble. Married to Nico Moretti—aka Niccolò Manganiello—celebrity comedian, thirty, black hair, green eyes, medium build, and enough charisma to indiscriminately paralyze women, men, and house pets.
Dr. Sandra Fielding-Greene, child psychiatrist, thirty, red hair, green eyes, five foot seven; works with Elizabeth at the hospital; altruistic, fun-loving, wickedly clever. Married to Alex Greene, genius, world-class hacker, twenty-three, black hair, dark blue eyes, six foot two; mistrusting and resourceful.
Ashley Winston, pediatric intensive care nurse, twenty-six, brown hair, blue eyes, five foot eight; worked with Sandra and Elizabeth at the hospital until recently; sassy bookworm. Involved with Dr. Drew Runous, federal game warden, PhD biologist, thirty-one, blonde hair, blue eyes, six foot four; reserved and intense.
Marie Harris, freelance journalist and artist, thirty, blonde hair, blue eyes, average height, headstrong, food enthusiast. I met Marie when she was doing an article on women of the CIA and brought her into the knitting circle. She was involved with a chef for a prolonged period, David Carter, but they’d split about a year ago.
And lastly, Kat Tanner—aka Kathleen Tyson—administrative assistant, twenty-three, brown hair, brown eyes, five foot four. Kat had worked with Janie for a number of years at an architecture firm before Janie went to work for Quinn at his security company. Little known fact: Kat is the heiress to a vast pharmaceutical fortune, and her family was based out of Boston. She doesn’t speak of it, or them.
“You’re early!” Sandra rushed forward as soon as she spotted me and stopped short of wrapping me in a hug. I understood her surprise. I was never early. People with children are only ever early by accident.
“Goodness, Fiona. What’s the deal with the cake? That’s the largest cake I’ve ever seen.”
“My neighbor accidentally ate a slice of the coconut cake I made yesterday, so he went out and bought this one to replace it.” I handed Greg the cake so I could accept Sandra’s hug.
“He has a habit of overcompensation,” Greg added with a note of cheerful sarcasm.
I gave him a warning look. He winked at me, the stinker.
“Well, hello, Mr. Fiona.” Sandra grinned at my husband, using the name she’d assigned him years ago. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Are you still trying to teach Grace how to code?”
“If she doesn’t learn about data structures at home, she’ll just learn about it on the streets.”
Sandra laughed. This was Greg’s stock answer for all the age-inappropriate activities he tried to teach the kids. Most of them were odd, but benign, like computer programming. However some—like coaching them to win every argument by declaring, That sounds like something Hitler would say—were much less benign.
“Are you back for good?”
Back for good meant a month, maybe two, if we were lucky.
“No, just twenty-four hours.”
“E-gads! How long was the flight?”
“Twenty-two hours,” he answered smoothly, like it was no big deal. For him it wasn’t a big deal. His longest trip home had taken three days. That was four years ago when he’d traveled home from Nepal. One leg of his journey was by pack mule.
Greg had informed me in the car on the way over that the company had evacuated all rig workers from the site for four days and given them comp time. Instead of staying in South Africa, he’d decided to jump on a plane so we could spend a day and a half together. The older I get the more I understood everything is relative. One person’s travel horror story is another person’s dream vacation.
“Why are you holding them hostage at the door?” Elizabeth appeared and reprimanded Sandra, reaching for my arm and pulling me forward.
“I’m not holding them hostage, I’m welcoming them.”
“For the record, I do not feel adequately welcomed,” Greg piped in with his typical contrariness.
I patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll survive.”
“I will suffer through. Where are the men folk?”
“Around,” Elizabeth said distractedly as she guided me away. “Sorry, Greg, we need Fiona. We’re having a crisis.”
“No one is better in a crisis than Fiona.” I glanced at Sandra as she said this, lifting her chin toward the cake in Greg’s possession. “Be a dear and put the cake in the kitchen?”
“Fine,” he mock-grumbled. “But if you don’t return my wife to me in a half hour, I will orchestrate a new crisis.”
“Such as?” Elizabeth paused, obviously wanting to hear whatever humorous thing Greg was about to say. He had this reputation with my friends—hilariously wrong in the head—and they often compared his jokes to a clown car accident, unfortunate but funny.
“Where’s Alex?”
Sandra gave Greg the side-eye. “What do you want with my husband?”
“I thought we might check out what the Senate has been up to.”
Elizabeth didn’t comprehend his horrid threat. “Meaning?”
“Don’t you dare.” Sandra narrowed her eyes, administering a piercing squint at my husband; of course she would catch on at once because terrible minds think alike.
I gave him a withering look and tossed over my shoulder, “No hacking into government websites again, Greg.”