Apparently, one did not arrive fashionably late to a conservation gala. When Cooper and Park showed up—still very much on time despite second showers, some spot cleaning and quite a lot of emergency ironing—the Smithsonian Natural History rotunda was already teeming with people.
It had been a long time since Cooper had last been here, but he remembered this room directly at the museum’s entrance. An enormous, four-story, round space all white stone and marble, with two levels of overlooking balconies, and columns out the wazoo. The room was lit dramatically by blue and purple lights and vague hints of nature were projected all over the stone balconies and ceiling. Everyone appeared to be in tuxedos or long dresses, and though some people had incorporated little hints of animal print into their attire, no one was wearing anything remotely Halloween-y. Close call, there.
In fact, the creepiest thing about the room was the taxidermy elephant near the center, beneath which an empty stage had been set up. Across the space, under one of the balconies, musicians were performing big-band music and waitstaff flitted through the crowd with platters of hors d’oeuvres. There was a small number of tables and chairs scattered around the room as well, but the majority of people appeared to be standing or even dancing in the center.
Cooper eyed the elephant. “Odd choice of venue, isn’t it? Help us save animals, while enjoying a cocktail under this poached one.”
“Maybe it’s part of their point,” Park said. “Or maybe it was just cheaper to have it here. Either way, I don’t think tonight’s animal guests mind.”
Cooper raised an eyebrow. “Why Oliver, making digs at yonder gentry? The riffraff is rubbing off on you.”
“Yes, you are. Approximately once a day. But I was actually referring to nonhuman animals.” Park said, waving the pamphlet they’d been handed at the door. “Apparently you can get your picture with two different special guests.”
“Is that—are they okay, do you think?”
“The people must be entertained. And according to the schedule, the animals’ gig is only an hour,” Park said, still reading. “There’s the raffle draw soon, and then a short screening followed by some words from Genevieve. Also, a silent auction, so if you want to bid on one of these resort getaways or oil paintings of flamingos, now would be a good time to tell me.”
“You’re about to own a resort,” Cooper reminded him.
“We’re about to own a resort,” Park corrected, scanning the auction offerings. “And I was thinking more along the lines of a honeymoon. There must be a place somewhere in here you can’t manage to stumble upon a murder plot. Look, three nights in Paris? Mmm, perhaps not. Knowing you, the hotel will end up being in the Rue Morgue.” Park effortlessly snagged a couple of miniature squares of baklava from a passing waiter and handed one to Cooper.
“Hirano isn’t scheduled to speak?” Cooper asked, nibbling at his, tasting cinnamon and walnuts.
“Not that it says here. But she must be around. We should speak to her soon. As well as Arthur Crane.” A frown line appeared between Park’s eyes. Cooper had filled him in on what Neil had said about Cola. Like Cooper, Park found it perplexing more than anything else.
Cooper wanted to promise him they would speak to Arthur and get all the answers Park wanted, but of course he couldn’t. Instead, Cooper did a scan around them briefly, then reached up and thumbed away the tiniest flake of phyllo from Park’s lip. The frown line disappeared and Park’s gaze shot to him, surprised.
“You had a little something,” Cooper said, bringing his thumb to his own lips and sucking it clean. Park watched and his eyes got a bit more gold.
“Thank you,” he said. His voice was still slightly rough from earlier, and it sent an embarrassing wave of smugness through Cooper. Park cleared his throat. “We should—”
“Yes,” Cooper agreed quickly, in danger of getting distracted.
Together they stepped out of the shadows beneath the balcony by the entrance and began to thread through the crowd, looking for Hirano or either of the Cranes. What Cooper wasn’t expecting was someone else to find them first.
“Well, well, well, look who decided to show his face after all.”
Cooper turned to find Sophie, resplendent in some kind of flowy, cobalt blue, fuchsia and yellow patterned dress, her hair now in long braids worn half up, half down.
“We’re working,” Cooper protested, allowing Sophie to buss his cheek. “You look gorgeous.”
“So do you.” She winked and pulled Park in for a quick kiss as well. “You’re not here to discover another body, are you? Because the keepers have their hands full keeping the critters calm as it is. These people came with an agenda: to get shitfaced and touch animals.”
“Why does everyone keep implying I go places to find bodies? We’re just here to ask a few questions.”
“Well, come this way and answer a few questions first,” Sophie said. “Your dad has been driving me up a wall trying to find out about this case of yours.”
Cooper stared at her. “He’s here? How? Why?”
“Just because you spat at my offer of free tickets doesn’t mean everyone hates an open bar, light refreshments and rubbing shoulders,” Sophie said, guiding them through the room to one of the other arches leading to a far emptier hall that seemed to contain dinosaur bones, of all things.
The music and crowd sounds were muted here, and Cooper could see his dad and Dean standing in a small group of guests listening intently to a woman in a black zoo polo holding a very large snake. There were another three zoo personnel standing around as well, on hand to help and limiting the number of people who could walk up to the snake at once. Among them, Cooper recognized Ryan, who waved cheerfully, causing a number of the guests to look as well, including Dean and finally Ed, whose expression became almost comically surprised.
Dean walked over, Ed shuffling after him after a moment’s pause. “Damn! Looking snazzy, you two!” Dean said, snapping his fingers.
“Coop,” Ed said. “You look...so...” He just sort of trailed off blinking, bewildered. Then looked at Park. “Oliver.” He held out his hand as if to shake, then his arms went up for a hug, then dropped and fiddled indecisively with the lapel of his old suit jacket—the same one he’d worn for Dean and Sophie’s wedding and, very possibly, Cooper’s high school graduation.
Park smiled as if he and he alone hadn’t noticed the awkwardness. “It’s good to see you all again.”
“Are you here working? Is this the third leg of the quest?” Dean asked, then lowered his voice. “No one’s dead, are they?”
“We’re just here to support a good cause,” Park said mildly, Cooper being too busy gearing up for the biggest eye roll of his life to respond himself.
“Might as well get your money’s worth then,” Sophie said, gesturing as some of the guests left to return to the main room. “Come meet the python. She’s very mellow. Are you comfortable with snakes, Oliver?”
They all started to walk over to replace the guests who’d left, but Ed held Cooper back. “Just a minute, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Dad, now’s not a good time—”
“It’ll just take a sec. Gosh, Coop, I—” Ed stopped, clearly catching sight of the hand brace. He grabbed Cooper’s forearm and held it up so he could cup the hand between them. “What happened? What is this?”
“It’s nothing. A little sprain. I’m fine.”
Ed opened his mouth, closed it, nodded. “Of course you’re fine. You always are.”
He still held Cooper’s injured hand in his, though, as tenderly as he would a newborn. “Do you remember when you broke your wrist in second grade and didn’t tell anyone? Just came downstairs the next day with a bunch of socks taped around it. Your mom asked what happened and you said, ‘I fixed myself.’”
Ed laughed. “We all thought it was another one of your games you played in your head, and it took until that night, when you wouldn’t take it off to shower, to realize your whole goddamn hand was swinging by a thread. Christ, she was angry at you. Complained all week about it. I said, well, at least we never have to worry about him being too dependent, and she got angry at me, too. ‘He shouldn’t be afraid to show us when he’s hurt,’ that’s what she said. ‘His own parents. If he doesn’t even trust us to help him now, what about when he’s grown and scarier things happen? Will we even know he’s okay? Will anyone?’”
Cooper felt an unexpected tightening in his throat at the reminder that there was a time when his mother had once speculated what he’d be like as an adult, what their continued relationship would look like, and that ultimately she never got to find out.
Ed also seemed to need to take a breath. “When I saw you walk up before, you looked so...grown up. I know you’ve been grown up for a long time. Longer than maybe you should have had to be, I don’t know, but you look more settled in your skin now. Confident. Relaxed.”
Ed smoothed his hand over Cooper’s brace gently, then picked a tiny bit of fuzz out of the exposed Velcro. “I just think your mom would be really, really happy that you found someone you trust enough to see beneath the socks, you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah,” Cooper said, voice a little rough. “Okay.”
Ed patted his arm, giving them both a moment. “Anyway, all I wanted to say before was that Dean told me you’re freaking out about the wedding and what other people will think or want to happen.”
“Did he,” Cooper said, narrowing his eyes at an unsuspecting Dean petting the python’s back with two gentle fingers and laughing at something Park was saying. Judas.
“Don’t go getting mad at your brother now. He just told me so I’d back off, and he’s right. I’m sorry I’ve been making you feel like this has anything to do with anyone but you and Oliver. You just do whatever feels right and ignore what anyone else wants, including me. People will think what they think regardless, and that doesn’t mean they have any kind of special insight into who you are or what your relationship is, all right?”
Cooper nodded, not really sure what to say.
Still, that seemed to satisfy Ed. “Right,” he said. “That’s it. You ready to go see this snake or what?”
“In a minute, you go ahead,” Cooper said, and Ed escaped, perhaps just as grateful as Cooper was for a moment alone to regain his composure. If he walked over there right now, he might do something horrifying like start sniffling, or worse, hug someone. Unfortunately, his solitude didn’t last long.
“Everything okay?” Ryan had snuck up behind him and was blinking at him with that wide-eyed puppy-dog look. “It looked like you guys were getting pretty intense over here.”
“Fine. Just having a personal conversation,” Cooper said with more edge than he’d intended, and immediately felt bad when Ryan’s face fell. “Sorry. Long day.”
“No apology necessary,” Ryan said genuinely, tucking his surfer hair back behind his ears, and Cooper might think it made him look oddly sweet and pretty if he wasn’t still a little irritated by his presence. “I can’t imagine all the stress you’re under right now. They really keep you working all hours.”
Cooper forced himself to smile. “You too. I didn’t think this would be your usual gig,” he said, gesturing toward the snake.
“It’s not,” Ryan agreed. “But Niko disappeared an hour ago and Genevieve is freaking out and we’re all operating short staffed after—”
Ryan seemed to realize what he was saying and stopped, a very pink blush appearing over his entire cheeks and, amusingly, the tip of his nose. “Not that this is more important than a man’s life and what you’re doing,” he said hastily. “I don’t think I’ve really quite processed what’s happened to James.”
“Were you close?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah, we hung out a couple of times.” Ryan looked a little sheepish. “I mean, I guess that’s not really close. But he was a pretty reserved guy. Felt more comfortable with animals than humans. He and I probably talked more than he did with anyone else at work, besides Niko, of course.”
Cooper frowned. “I didn’t realize James and Ms. Hirano knew each other well.” In fact he was sure she’d said they hadn’t. Which meant someone was lying to him.
Ryan shrugged. “I know they talked outside of work. He was friends with Niko’s girlfriend, too. I saw her and him together a couple times in town.”
“James and Niko’s girlfriend?” Cooper asked, trying to keep up.
“Yeah. Or, uh, partner, I guess?” Ryan said, scratching at the back of his neck and squinting. “They’ve been together for years. Met back when Niko was a documentarian, around the same time of her accident.”
Cooper hummed, thinking. “I heard her mention an accident, as well,” he said. “Can I ask what happened?”
Ryan looked surprised, then laughed. “I don’t know why I thought you knew. It’s pretty common knowledge around certain circles. She wrote about it in her book. Do you know she has a book?”
“My Year with Wolves, right?”
“Yeah, well, those wolves she spent that year with? Had enough. Turned on her one day. Messed her up pretty bad.”
“God,” Cooper said, reflexively smoothing his shirt over his own scars. “That’s horrible. Why?”
Ryan blinked a couple of times as if he didn’t understand the question. “Why? She got too close, and they reacted. That can be the trouble with working long term with wild animals,” he said, gestured toward the snake that was now draped over Sophie’s arm and seemed to be examining Park. “Even experts like us are in danger of forgetting these aren’t your pets or friends or family. Living with them like that for a year, with limited human contact? Big mistake.”
Ryan smiled brightly at Cooper very suddenly. “Although one good thing that came out of it was that’s how she met her partner.”
“Because of a wolf attack?” Cooper asked.
“Actually, yeah. She, like found her out in the woods, or something. Saved her life. Niko moved into her cabin ‘just until she was well enough to travel.’ Never moved out. Typical, right?”
Cooper hummed an acknowledgment but wasn’t sure what Ryan meant. Typical of who? Hirano? Lesbians? Lonely off-the-grid cabin-dwellers?
Ryan was still talking. “You get little bits of that in the book, too. It’s really quite an interesting read.”
“Sounds like it. I picked up a copy this afternoon,” Cooper said. And then Park had promptly put it back down, but he didn’t need to add that part. “I was surprised to see a name I recognized in the acknowledgments. Has Ms. Hirano ever mentioned someone named Dr. Freeman to you?”
“Emily Freeman?” Ryan asked, and Cooper blinked in shock, not having really expected that to go anywhere. “Sure. I’ve met her myself a couple of times.”
“You have? When?”
Ryan frowned. “Our wolves got real sick a while ago and Niko called her in to consult. She’s a gifted pathologist, and there’s not much about the species she doesn’t know.”
Cooper could feel his pulse in his ears. He was as alert as if Freeman had walked into the room herself. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, no.” Ryan laughed. “Why would you?”
“Did she figure out what was wrong? With the wolves, I mean.”
“Yeah, tainted meat, apparently. But not before three of them died. Niko took it hard. The thing is, no one even thought it was that bad. I mean, they’d just sort of been unwell for a couple weeks. Then suddenly within like two hours their systems started shutting down one after another. Animals are like that. They hide stuff well. Their keeper was still sacked, though. Everyone said if he’d caught it earlier, called Dr. Freeman in sooner, all four wolves could have lived.” Ryan’s face twisted slightly.
“You disagree?” Cooper asked.
“Oh, no. I don’t know. Probably. We’re supposed to record every little behavioral change for exactly this reason and it turns out the wolves’ keeper had been slacking. But he totally freaked out on Niko after. Accused her of setting him up. Stealing the records. Intentionally tampering with the meat. There was no basis for it. Just crazy, bitter stuff, really. I thought he was going to hit her, no joke, but she just stood there staring him down like—well, if looks could kill and all that. Niko loved those wolves. If you ask me, that’s the real reason he was fired.” Ryan shrugged. “James was his replacement, actually.”
The dull crackle of a speaker turning on caught Cooper off guard. Genevieve’s voice echoed suddenly through the rotunda, slightly muffled here in the hall, declaring it was time to announce the raffle winners. The first prize of the night...
“Why the interest in Dr. Freeman?” Ryan continued over the speaker, his expression now curious and a little eager. “Is she involved in your case? Is that why you’re asking these questions?”
“No. Not at all.” Cook shook his head firmly. She couldn’t be.
Under other circumstances, he might consider it. Freeman was a gifted pathologist with an expertise with wolves who had spent four months doing who knew what with a dead man’s biological samples. She’d openly admitted to wanting the existence of werewolves to come into the public knowledge.
Now a werewolf was murdered. His body posed in an extremely public way. His face and body affected by some mystery toxin to make his inhumanness obvious, and Freeman’s name kept popping up in odd connections to the coworkers of the victims. Hell, never mind consider it—she’d be Cooper’s number one suspect.
But the woman was in custody. Talk about an airtight alibi. And there were other people who wanted James dead. Arthur Crane, for example, who they still needed to talk to.
“Hey! That’s you!” Ryan said.
Cooper blinked at him. “Sorry?”
Ryan pointed up, and it took Cooper a moment to realize he was referring to Genevieve’s voice, still ringing out over the speakers.
...third raffle winner of the night is Cooper Dayton. Cooper Dayton, congratulations and please come to the stage beneath the elephant to collect your prize.
“I didn’t enter a raffle,” Cooper said, confused.
“Your name gets put in when you buy a ticket,” Ryan said, clapping, presumably in congratulations. “Some of the prizes are big-money items. Hope you get a good one!”
“Thanks,” Cooper said, feeling a sliver of excitement despite himself. Who didn’t like winning something? He said goodbye to Ryan and caught Park’s attention, gesturing that he was leaving. Park nodded, leaning down to say something to Cooper’s family and the zookeeper, while gracefully extricating himself from the snake, which had at some point ended up wrapped around his arm.
Cooper walked to the doorway that led back to the rotunda and looked around the room while he waited for Park. The announcements had stopped and the band had picked up the music again. This time a woman was singing along, and a number of people had paired up and started slowly two stepping around the dance floor. He watched them, humming along under his breath.
Would I grant all your wishes, and be proud of the task...
Finally, Park appeared at his elbow. “Making a new friend back there?” Cooper asked, amused, as they walked back into the main room.
“My energy must be very soothing to ill-tempered creatures prone to biting.” Park looked at him slyly out of the corner of his eye. “At least that’s what Dean claimed, and your father said to stop teasing you.”
“Nice,” Cooper said as they tried to pick their way through the dancing couples to the stage. “And you defended my name then and there, or does that part come in a minute?”
Park adopted a scandalized expression. “By admitting you bite me all the time? I didn’t think you’d want them to know. But I suppose I can go back...”
He looked over his shoulder, and Cooper grabbed his arm. “All right, all right.”
His uninjured hand slid down into Park’s and gave it a squeeze, but when he started to pull away, Park held on. He tugged Cooper gently, questioningly toward him, glancing at a dancing couple and then back at Cooper. Quirked an eyebrow. “Yes? No? I saw you tapping your toes.”
Cooper felt a little flushed. He looked around them but stepped hesitantly forward and let Park pull him into a dance position. Cooper felt very stiff in his arms and unsure where to look, but Park seemed perfectly at ease and patiently shuffled them across the floor toward the elephant stage, stepping in time to the music.
...only forever, if someone should ask.
Cooper couldn’t help glancing up and found Park staring down at him with a smile. Cooper cleared his throat. “Anyway, while you were yukking it up with a snake in the hand and two snakes in the grass, some of us were working.” He recapped what Ryan had told him, watching Park’s face turn more and more grim.
“When I spoke to Cola about setting up an interview with Freeman tomorrow, I asked if she’d had any visitors,” Park said when Cooper was done. “But she hasn’t. No family, friends, colleagues. Accomplices,” he added pointedly. “Hasn’t tried to make contact with anyone at all since her arrest.”
The besides you hung in the air unspoken.
“What about the threat she warned about?” Park asked, clearly thinking of that same single meeting three months ago.
“What about it?”
“Well, we did wonder where she got her information. Maybe this is the connection we’ve been waiting for.”
Cooper frowned. “But if we’re taking Freeman at her word, I’m not being threatened.”
Park looked pointedly at Cooper’s injured wrist, resting on his shoulder.
“That was spur of the moment panic. Someone wanted that phone. Someone like Arthur Crane, who is the only person besides Eli we know for sure James was blackmailing. Which at the end of the day is the actual case we have. Someone murdered a blackmailer. All this other...weirdness is insubstantial at the moment.” Although now that it seemed certain Hirano had lied about knowing James, she was a possible third person with a motive. Not to mention the oddness around his predecessor’s departure. And what about her partner who had also been seen with James? She who had appeared in Hirano’s life after a wolf attack. What was her part in all of this?
Park was watching him with a thoughtful expression. “You’ve never doubted Eli is innocent. Why?”
“Eli and innocent are two words that have no business being neighbors,” Cooper said immediately, but then gave it some genuine thought. “I think it was extremely difficult for him to talk about his past. Especially to me. I don’t think he ever would have if he felt like he had any other possible option.”
“Maybe not. Though I think he’s more fond of you than you believe.” Park tilted his head a little. “And I think you’ve taken a shine to him yourself.”
“He’s a slippery, piquant bastard who believes a marquess’s rapier is an achievable personality type, and so horrifically attractive he looks like—like singing woodland creatures help him dress in the morning. I can’t stand him.”
“Clearly,” Park said, amused. “Sometimes I look like a woodland creature. And I helped you get dressed a couple hours ago. I can hum a little tune next time if it makes you feel special.”
“Why did you two break up?” Cooper asked.
Park looked surprised.
Cooper was surprised himself. He hadn’t really intended to ask. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”
“It was a long time ago,” Park said carefully. “There’s the reason we thought we were breaking up at the time, and then there’s the bigger, more vague and mature reason seen in retrospect.”
“I’ll take ‘leave the petty in the past’ for four hundred, Alex.”
Park thought about it. “I think... I think we were both too willing to see the other person the way they saw themselves. And the way we saw ourselves back then was...” He shook his head, then seemed to realize they’d both stopped dancing and spun Cooper gently toward the stage. “Or perhaps I just got sick of waking up to squirrels with a terrible tenor tying his shoes every morning.”
Cooper snorted and started to respond when a familiar ringing voice interrupted.
“Agent Park!” Genevieve Crane waved enthusiastically at him from the stage. She stepped carefully down to the floor with them, picking up her long slim-fitting black gown as she went, flashing an eye-wateringly high stiletto. “My goodness, you look handsome. And Agent...” She looked at Cooper blankly. “I’m so honored you came to say hello.”
“Actually I, um, won a raffle prize,” Cooper said. “Cooper Dayton.”
“Of course you did,” Genevieve agreed, snapping her fingers behind her and telling the woman who approached to, “Fetch Mr. Dayton his prize, would you?” Cooper wondered where Neil was. “I’m sorry you’ve caught me rather frazzled at the moment. I’m about to go up for the speech.”
“Experienced actresses still get stage fright?” Park remarked, and Genevieve eyed him as if unsure if she was being mocked or not. “Medea deserved better, but you acted the hell out of her,” Park added.
Genevieve’s face softened. “Oh, thank you, sweetheart. That’s so lovely to hear, especially when I’m so nervous. I suppose I’m more comfortable playing the vengeful woman than the conservation philanthropist.”
“Speaking of which, is your husband here?” Park asked, and Genevieve laughed.
“I haven’t poisoned him, if that’s what you’re asking, Agent Park,” she said, leaning forward to touch his arm, and Cooper was mildly surprised to realize it was more than a little flirtatious.
“No, well, you wouldn’t,” Park said. “Everyone he loves, though...” He winked and she laughed again, thoroughly at ease. Cooper hoped this was not the sort of seductive banter that had won him over, because from the outside looking in it was appalling.
“You know, I recently heard I might have a friend in common with your husband,” Park added smoothly.
Genevieve looked intrigued by the idea of being three degrees of separation from a Park of the Park Foundation.
“Margaret Cola? She mentioned seeing him a few days ago.”
“Oh,” Genevieve said, clearly disappointed. “Yes, of course. Arthur’s known her for years. They used to work together, I believe.”
Cooper exchanged looks with Park as the woman sent for the prize returned, handing it to Genevieve, who then handed it to Cooper. It was a flattish, rectangular package wrapped in expensive-looking matte-black wrapping paper. Unless it was a book of instructions on how to collect their resort tickets, he didn’t think he’d gotten one of the big-money prizes.
“Is Arthur here tonight?” Park asked.
“He’s supposed to be,” Genevieve said, scanning the people. “He wasn’t feeling terribly well, poor thing. Between you and me, he just doesn’t care for big crowds,” she added, sotto voce. “Everyone has abandoned me in my hour of need.”
“Ms. Hirano, too?” Cooper asked.
“Oh, I’m sure Niko is somewhere around here bleeding some poor sucker dry.” Genevieve laughed. “She’s much better at soliciting those...one-on-one donations. It makes me cringe, myself,” she admitted. “But Niko has plenty of practice, I suppose. She used to fund those little camping trips entirely on her own, you know.”
“For the documentaries?” Cooper asked, confused.
Genevieve looked around as if making sure no one could hear them, then said, “She hadn’t actually worked for a production company for years. Most of the film career she’s always going on about was just her squatting in national parks with a handheld camera.”
“That sounds like...passion.” Cooper couldn’t imagine it himself.
“Oh, I’d say it was an obsession,” Genevieve countered. “But then she’d do anything for her beloved wolves.” There was a strange bitter note to her voice.
“Not a wolf fan yourself?” Cooper asked half jokingly, half curious.
“Of course, I’m opposed to the endangerment of any species. Each and every one is critical to maintaining the balance of our ecosystem. But personally...no, I’m not much of a wolf lover.” Genevieve’s mouth tightened, gaze distant. “Cold, proud animals. You could drive yourself crazy trying to get them to care. Just look at what happened to Niko. After everything she gave up for that pack in the Yukon, they just chewed her up and spat her out. Not that it seems to have affected her devotion in the least.” She seemed to give herself a sort of internal shake and her expression turned a bit wry, a bit self-deprecating. “I guess I’m not quite as magnanimous. But you don’t become an actress without craving unconditional affection.”
The assistant hovering at Genevieve’s elbow cleared her throat pointedly. “Ah, that’s my cue, agents. Wish me luck.”
They said goodbye and watched her walk to the stage as the band finished up their song, and as the final chords faded, the chatter and hum of the crowd seemed to rise to fill the space. Then the lights all around them got even dimmer and the large screen hanging from one balcony lit up with Wild Nature’s logo. The crowd quieted gradually, filtering down until only the loudest, most unobservant people’s voices were left. Intro music started in loudspeakers around the room and a drone shot, flying through the zoo’s main entrance, appeared on screen.
As Genevieve’s voiceover began to lay out statistics, Cooper’s attention wandered back to the present in his hand. He started to open it.
“You are as impulsive as a child,” Park murmured, watching him out of the corner of his eye. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you patience is a virtue?”
“What in all the time we’ve known each other makes you think I care about being virtuous?” Cooper said, slitting his finger under the thick paper and flicking it open.
Park sighed. “If only I’d known all it took to get you excited about receiving gifts was a bit of wrapping, we could have two vases in the foyer right now.”
“I like to win,” Cooper said absently, pulling out... Hirano’s book.
“Oh, good,” Park said cheerfully. “I’m sure reading that won’t send you into a tailspin.”
Cooper cracked open the front cover and saw Hirano had signed it. Above, her short, choppy name was an inscription in cursive.
...the tainted will brush past the pack in darkness, passing burs to our fur, until the Moon rises again and in its light the sinners will be revealed for all to see...
“Um,” Cooper said, showing the page to Park, who read it with a frown. “More cheerful children’s tales?”
“Actually, I think it’s the same legend I was telling you about before,” Park said, studying the line. “The wording isn’t from any version I recognize, though. The concept of sin is very human. I’ve never seen it used in any wolf lore before.”
“I might have to actually read this now,” Cooper said, flipping through the pages, thinking about what Genevieve had said about Hirano, about wolves. Something slipped out to the floor, and Park swiftly bent to pick it up. When he straightened, he looked grim. “What?”
Park held up a single flat, dried-out coral rose.
Cooper stared at it, then silently opened the book again and turned through the pages, much more carefully this time. Every twenty pages or so was another pressed flower. All roses, all the same color, all missing any hint of stem.
“Who could have...” Cooper whispered.
He looked for Genevieve and realized he was not the only one watching her. One of the few people not turned toward the screen was standing on the other side of the stage opposite Cooper, and gazing a bit intensely at Genevieve. He recognized the same peroxide-blond buzz cut. The makeup assistant from earlier.
The one who had been standing outside of the wolf exhibit staring at Eli just before Cooper and Dean arrived.
Did people have their makeup redone on site? He knew they refreshed it occasionally over the course of a day. But if you got it professionally done for a big, fancy event, was that person just waiting around in the wings for...emergency powdering? He genuinely had no clue.
As he touched Park’s elbow and directed his attention to the woman, she turned and slipped through the crowd, heading toward the edge of the room. There she paused, standing back to one of the columns, and surveyed the gala. Cooper looked around too. Everyone in the room still appeared focused on the screen where a twenty-foot Genevieve was laughing prettily, crouched with an enormous tortoise. Her voice echoed so loudly off the tall stone walls that it sounded distorted, mechanical.
When Cooper turned back to the blond woman, he caught her slipping behind the velvet rope that blocked guests from wandering down the surrounding halls.
Cooper looked at Park, who was also watching the now empty archway. Park tilted his head. Follow? Cooper nodded.
It was easy to move through the room with everyone standing still and staring up. Moments later, Cooper and Park were stepping over the velvet rope too. There was a large dark hall running perpendicular to the rotunda, and directly across, another enormous archway. A large cream-and-gold plaque on the right-hand wall read Hall of Mammals.
Park inhaled, sniffing the air, and led him into a small foyer, glass cases on either side. There was enough light from the hall outside that Cooper could see the cases were full of taxidermy animals. A moose on his left. A walrus to his right. The cases were at least thirty feet tall, and a couple dozen other creatures of all sizes were positioned throughout, placed on shelves or held up by strings. From mice to bighorn sheep to a panda to a rhinoceros. There was even some kind of whale floating, uncased, directly above their heads, and a tiger positioned to look like it was leaping for it.
A prickle of unease and wrong started in Cooper’s throat, and he subconsciously stepped closer to Park, just enough to feel the warmth and constant movement of life radiating from him. Cooper supposed, like the elephant in the rotunda, many of these animals had been hunted, stripped of their skin and stuffed a long time ago, but it was still deeply depressing to be surrounded by dead creatures, so many of them endangered or perhaps even extinct by now. All clustered together unnaturally and positioned into a pantomime of life; any sense of majesty they might have possessed now tawdry, almost grotesque.
They kept walking, and the next room was a large hall but much darker. Here, Cooper could only see the enormous silhouettes of more animals. These all from Africa and not fully encased, but placed behind open-top glass barriers or high up enough not to need any protection at all. A giraffe overlooking all newcomers. A lion posed on top of an information stand. Each of them still, dark shadows. Even the digital informational screens were black, the only sources of light the dim security strips along the floor and the green glow of an occasional exit sign.
Cooper tapped his own ear, asking if Park could hear anything, and Park shook his head in the negative, but he was frowning.
“Something’s wrong,” he murmured to Cooper. “Something’s dead.”
“Everything, I hope,” Cooper whispered, glancing up as they passed under a whole tree branch, where the crouched outline of some kind of feline predator was posed alongside the limp, hanging body of a gazelle.
Park shook his head. “No, it’s—I don’t know. There are too many...unfamiliar, confusing smells in here. I’m having a hard time separating everything. But there’s something...fresh. Bad.”
They continued walking slowly, Park sniffing the air as he went. The rooms appeared to be divided into continents, Africa taking up the largest hall, then to the left a smaller section of rooms for Australia, that led into South America and so on. As they stepped into the North American section, greeted by a standing grizzly bear, Cooper got the feeling they were beginning to circle back around toward Africa, and still had found no sign of the woman.
Then Park stopped abruptly.
There, on top of the information stand, was a gray wolf posed to forever howl at the ceiling panels. Just below it, seated on a large square stone bench, back to them, was a figure. A human figure in dark clothes. His head was tilted back, and he appeared to be staring up at the wolf, hands resting on the bench at either side of him, long fingers curled upward, as if begging for penance.
Cooper took a tentative couple steps forward and recognized the long gray hair pulled into a fashionable topknot. He could also hear the faint drip drip of something spilling slowly to the floor.
“Mr. Crane?”
Park grabbed his arm before he could get closer. “Blood,” he said, grimly moving in front of Cooper, widely circling around Crane.
Cooper followed at his heels, watching for any sign of movement. But Arthur Crane was as still as the hundreds of dark, watching animals around them.
As they came around the front, Cooper could see the shadowy puddle at Crane’s feet and his once-white tuxedo shirt stained deep red. His face twisted into that same partial transformation, inhuman eyes half open in death.
“God,” Cooper exhaled. “Is he...”
It seemed obvious, but they had to check. Park stepped forward and checked his pulse. Cooper noticed Crane’s fingers, which had seemed unnaturally long, were actually fully clawed.
“Yes, he’s dead,” Park said, crouching to get a better look at the torso. “Four deep lacerations, just like James.”
“Slipped like James too,” Cooper said, taking a step closer. “The blood pool is so...neat. He must not have been moving at the time of death. Perhaps whatever is forcing the slip is a sedative as well,” he thought out loud.
“Would make sense,” Park agreed. “Here, does this look familiar?” He directed Cooper’s attention to Arthur’s left hand, clawed fingers slightly curled around something.
“James’s phone,” Cooper confirmed. “That’s the same one I found in the croc exhibit this morning. So Arthur bashed me over the head to protect whatever James had on him from getting out. Probably set both fires looking for the damn thing, too, knowing he had to cover his scent.”
“But it looks like he’s not our kill—” Park stopped and whipped his head around, eyes glowing gold.
Cooper looked around, too. “What?” he asked, scanning the room for whatever Park had sensed, expecting to see someone watching them. The problem was the whole room was full of dark shapes watching them. Bobcats, deer, wolves, bears, buffalo, raccoons. Everywhere he looked there was an animal posed in unnatural stillness...
Then one of the shadows shifted its weight.
“Oliver—” Cooper started, scrambling back. Park stood, but the shadow was already barreling toward them.
A pitch-black wolf slammed into Cooper at full speed, knocking Hirano’s book out of his hands and throwing them both directly into the case containing the grizzly bear. The glass cracked without shattering, and every trace of air was knocked clean out of Cooper’s lungs. He could only wheeze painfully, entire chest consumed by that aching fire, as the wolf scrambled upright on top of him. Fur in his mouth, warm breath on his face.
Not like this. Not like this.
Without thinking, Cooper shot his arm up between them, hand grabbing blindly and landing on the wolf’s throat. He squeezed desperately.
“No,” Cooper gasped with the precious little air he’d regained.
The wolf stilled, as if surprised, and stared down at him. Cooper just registered bright blue-gray eyes before a dark blur knocked the wolf from his chest with a furious snarl.
Cooper rolled and scrambled across the floor away from the sounds of growling and the thumps of bodies against glass. Using the wall, he dragged himself to standing just in time to see both Park in fur and the black wolf standing on their hind legs wrestling, teeth bared and snapping at each other’s faces before they both tipped over into the same display case Cooper had slammed into before. This time the already weakened glass gave out and they knocked into the bear, which swayed precariously before also falling, taking out the remaining glass with an ear-piercing shatter.
Cooper started forward to help when he heard a voice shout his name.
“Cooper?” His father was in the entryway, mouth open in shock. The black wolf scrambled out from beneath the bear and ran at Ed, who just stood there, unmoving.
Cooper leapt forward, but Park beat him there, jumping on the wolf’s back and rolling them both over in a tumble of fur, claws and teeth, and shattering a second case, this time knocking over a caribou.
There was a sharp yelp of pain and Cooper’s heart jumped into his throat. He couldn’t explain exactly how he knew that was Park, but he did.
“No!” Cooper shouted, running toward the sound. “Leave him!”
The black wolf emerged stumbling from the case and made eye contact with Cooper for a moment before darting around him to Arthur Crane’s body, grabbing the phone in its mouth and sprinting down the other end of the room and out of sight.
Cooper couldn’t follow. Not when Park was hurt. He hurried to the fallen caribou and found Park pinned underneath.
“Hold on, hold on. I got you,” Cooper said, trying to lift the animal’s stuffed body, but it was absurdly heavy.
Then his dad was beside him. “Count of three,” Ed said. “One. Two.” They lifted the caribou together, standing it upright, and Cooper knelt on the ground.
Park blinked at him woozily, then lifted his head like he was going to try to get up.
“Stop that,” Cooper said, running his hands over Park’s body, searching for injuries. Only when he didn’t find anything obvious—such as an antler running through him like a Park kebab—could Cooper breathe again. “Always have to be a hero.”
Park squinted at him, then his eyes flicked to the left just before Genevieve’s piercing voice rang through the room.
“What the hell happened in here? What—?”
Cooper stood, belatedly remembering who else was in the room with them, but it was too late. Genevieve had seen Arthur Crane’s body, knocked to his back during the fight. His bloody shirt and shifted face in plain view.
Genevieve started to scream.