“Okay, time for me to drink and for you to talk,” Alana announces. “Tell me your story.”

“I’ve never been to West Africa.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why the WHO?”

“You ever been to Montreal in February?”

She swallows such a big sip of vodka that her throat burns. “Bullshit.”

“You’d be surprised what a Quebec winter can drive you to.”

“For real, Byron.”

He studies the label on his beer bottle. “I was at McGill University for seven years—on a full professor tenure track—but I got tired of academic life. Too competitive and cutthroat, even for me. Besides, I always preferred fieldwork. One day, three years ago, a colleague at the WHO made me an offer I could have easily refused—for even less money than my academic salary—but I took it.” He hesitates. “I needed a change.”

“What about the wife and kids?”

“No kids. Dana and I tried for a while, but . . . just wasn’t to be. Maybe for the best, because we didn’t last.” He looks down again. “Apparently I’m not the easiest guy to get along with.”

“You?” Alana feigns shock. “Hard to even fathom.”

Byron grins self-consciously. “Dana and I were still colleagues at the university. It was hard after we split. That, more than anything, sent me to Geneva. I needed a fresh start or change of scenery or whatever you want to call it.”

“Aha! You’re still in love with her!” Alana wags a finger at him. Tomorrow she knows she’s going to be embarrassed by her behavior, but right now she doesn’t care. “Admit it!”

He rolls his shoulders. “Change isn’t easy for me. Plus, you might not have noticed, but I’m kind of stubborn.”

“No! The shocking revelations are coming fast and furious.”

“Okay, okay.” He laughs. “This soul-baring is exhausting. Your turn. Tell me about you and Nico.”

“There’s not much to say.”

His grin widens. “That’s kind of cute.”

“What is?”

“The way your eye twitches when you lie.”

She doesn’t even bother denying it. “I met Nico when I started at the WHO. We dated on and off for a year or so, but it ended about eight years ago.”

“It’s not really over, though, is it?”

“Yes, it is. He’s married with kids.”

“That doesn’t always make a difference.”

“Well, it sure as fuck does for me!” She slams her glass down, spilling some vodka.

He reaches out and touches her wrist, so fleetingly that she wonders if she imagined it. “I know how it feels, Alana.”

Her face heats up, and she suddenly feels almost sober.

She’s thankful when he changes subjects. “It’s pretty obvious that Yasin Ahmed was no terrorist,” he says.

“Yeah, it looks more and more like the poor kid was our actual Patient Zero.”

“So where did he get his infection from?” he asks. “The Black Death hasn’t existed in hundreds of years. Not even in a lab.”

“Got to be the construction site. It’s an eight-hundred-year-old monastery they ripped apart. One that, according to Brother Silvio, barely survived the Black Death. God knows what the excavators dug into over there.”