The woman who answered the door of Heath Champion’s luxurious Lincoln Park home was several inches shorter than Piper, with curly auburn hair and a friendly smile. Nothing about her well-scrubbed, girl-next-door appearance matched Piper’s preconceived notion about what the wife of a megasuccessful sports agent would look like.

“You’re Piper,” she said. “I’ve heard all about you. I’m Annabelle.”

“And so the warriors meet,” a male voice said from inside the house.

Annabelle laughed, stepped aside to let Piper enter, and took Piper’s black bomber jacket.

The luxurious hallway of the house, with its tumbled marble floors, modernistic bronze chandelier, and S-shaped staircase, would have been intimidating if it weren’t for a purple stuffed puppy, discarded marker pens, an unidentifiable Lego structure, and the array of sneakers scattered around. “Thanks for letting me charge in so early,” Piper said.

Heath appeared from around the corner, a curly-haired toddler wearing a pink tutu and a blue flannel pajama top at his side. “What’s up? You sounded mysterious on the phone.”

Piper shot Annabelle an apologetic look and sidestepped a black-and-gold Star Wars figure. “Maybe we should talk in private.”

Heath retrieved his cell phone from the toddler. “Annabelle would just worm it out of me after you leave.”

“That’s true,” Annabelle said with a self-satisfied smile.

Heath grinned. “My wife has built her business on keeping other people’s secrets. She’s a matchmaker. Perfect for You. You might have heard of it.”

“Of course.” Piper had done some research on Heath since their first meeting and unearthed a very interesting story about the way he’d met Annabelle Granger Champion.

They settled at a lacquered kitchen table in front of long windows looking out on a fall garden. As the toddler, whose name was Lila, consumed a bowl of raspberries, Piper told Heath and Annabelle about last night’s attack on Coop. Both were understandably concerned. “Are you sure he’s okay?” Annabelle said.

“He refused to go to the ER, but I think so.” She handed a wayward berry back to the toddler, who gave her a gooey, raspberry-flecked smile. “He thinks it was a random mugging, but I’m not so sure. I thought you might be more cooperative about telling me who his enemies are than he’s going to be.”

“He doesn’t have a lot of them,” Heath said. “A couple of players might hold a few grudges, but that’s part of the game. There’s a sports reporter who hates his guts because Coop publicly called him out for stupidity. Complete moron, but I don’t see why he’d wait so long to retaliate.”

“What about women?”

Heath looked at Annabelle, who took over the conversation. “You mean his Hollywood lineup? The breakups were painful for a couple of them, but he was never a jerk, and I don’t believe any of them are out for revenge.”