The wealthy McNamara clan -- plus a few angry ex-wives -- gather on the eve of the city's centennial. When writer Olivia Wright tries to add flesh and blood to the memoirs of the family matriarch, she finds more blood than she bargained for.

The horrific Cerro Grande Fire in Los Alamos, New Mexico, was just the beginning. When reporter Patrice Kelsey follows the trail of stolen infectious tissue to Washington, D.C., she finds herself playing a life and death game on the world stage, where biology, medicine, politics and international intrigue intersect and threaten to destroy all she holds dear.

When Seattle investigative reporter Carly Benton discovers that protected witnesses are turning up dead, she starts a desperate search for one witness--her sister. Then her only ally, the deputy U.S marshal who knows where Miranda is hiding, is also murdered. With serious reservations, Carly joins Jack Fallon, a mysterious stranger who is suspected of murdering one of the witnesses. He and his shadowy network are trying to find the remaining witnesses to a violent crime five years earlier....