Cry Wolf

by Charlie Adhara

  Cooper couldn’t even bring himself to respond, stuck on the thought of Park studying wedding planning forums.

  “Unless you did want to do something traditional?” Park asked tentatively.

  “No,” Cooper said, then fell awkwardly silent again.

  “Okay,” Park said slowly. “Your heart is beating a mile a minute right now. Did you want to just skip the whole vow thing entirely? ’Cause I’m not going to be hurt—”

  “No, I want to vow,” Cooper said quickly. He took a deep breath and grabbed Park’s hand, looking him in the eye. “I really do want to. It’s just a list of things I love about you followed by some promises, right? How hard can it be?”

  Park studied him with a skeptical albeit fond look on his face. “For you?”

  Cooper scoffed. “I know what I love, Oliver. Right off the bat, you’ve got ten toes. Eight of them aren’t too weird. That’s eight lines right there. What’s next, your ankles? Those aren’t bad, either. Calves? Genuinely sexy.”

  “Okay, okay,” Park said hastily. “Let’s keep some mystery alive. I look forward to hearing your non-shallow list soon enough.” He squeezed their hands together and then let them drop so that only their pointer fingers were hooked around each other. He swung their arms gently between them as they both continued down the hall. “And for the record, my pinkie toes are not weird looking.”

  “Mmmm, but are they vow-worthy, though?” Cooper freed his hand reluctantly, knocked on James Finnigan’s hotel door just in case, and then unlocked it to let them in.

  The thing about big chain hotels was that no matter how fancy the lobby, the hotel room still looked like a hotel room. Inoffensive art, offensive carpeting, neutral bedding, risky curtains. Everything always just a tad dated. If not for the phone charger hanging from the wall by the bed and the front desk’s assurance they hadn’t been allowed in for the last three days, Cooper would have been worried the staff had already cleaned out the room, it was that neat. That...empty.

  “Where’s all his stuff?”

  “Well, the man’s place did just burn down.” Park said, opening the nightstand drawer to reveal a pair of glasses, Vaseline, a pack of gum, and a book on North American poisonous plants.

  “But he’s been living here for days. Where’s his empty water bottles, used coffee cups, underwear on the floor?” Cooper said, opening the desk drawer to find more of James’s belongings. A laptop charger—the Trust agents had likely confiscated the laptop itself, already—two more books, three pens in a row. “I mean come on, who the hell puts their pens in a drawer?”

  “Someone who likes order, control,” Park offered while Cooper searched the books: one on toxin-producing amphibians and the other on venomous snakes.

  “I’m sensing a theme in his reading material,” Cooper said, showing the titles to Park. The inside flap of each book was stamped with the National Zoo logo.

  “They must have some kind of reading section. Maybe at the visitor center? Or Sophie said they run a ton of educational programs and camps out of various buildings. Maybe they store these somewhere for reference and James borrowed them for some reason.”

  “Because he was intensely researching natural poisons? Or because he needed an excuse to return to that space?”

  “Worth checking out tomorrow,” Park said, and Cooper agreed.

  They made quick, methodical work of the rest of the room, finding nothing else of interest. The dresser drawers were full of neatly folded clothes, the closet jackets and shoes that had the laces tucked in. Cooper couldn’t help but think of the way James’s sneaker laces had floated in the pool.

  He shook the image out of his head and checked the bathroom. It was as painfully neat as the rest of the place, James’s personal toiletries upright in a little leather bag. He didn’t even need to sort through it to see there was nothing to find. Just every possible high-end hygiene product one might desire.

  Cooper was about to leave the bathroom when he noticed a small hotel-brand conditioner bottle sitting on the edge of the tub. Why would a man who brought much nicer products, who needed to control everything, use this shit—just the conditioner, no less—and then leave it out by itself?

  He picked the bottle up and shook it by his ear. He couldn’t hear anything. Unscrewing the cap, Cooper squeezed the conditioner carefully out into the sink until it was nearly empty. He looked inside and saw a very small silver key. The sort one might use in a gym locker.

  “Hello,” Cooper murmured. In his periphery, he sensed Park come into the bathroom and shut the light off. “What are you—”

  Cooper felt Park’s hand cover his mouth and he looked up at him in shock but didn’t try to pull away. Park slowly backed Cooper up and into the bathtub. He pulled the curtain carefully halfway closed behind them and only then released his hand from Cooper’s mouth, letting it drop to hover almost defensively at his hip instead. With his other hand, he tapped his own lips with one finger. Quiet.

  Well, no shit. Cooper strained his ears to hear what Park did, but it was only a full minute later that he heard the hotel room door open and close slowly with the softest click. Careful footsteps moved into the hotel room...

  ...and right into the bathroom. Cooper cut his breath. The shower curtain was too opaque to see through, but it wasn’t hard to track their visitor’s movements through the room, searching through the same bag of toiletries Cooper just had. He looked down at the open bottle he still held in his hand and more importantly the key that was one movement away from rattling. Would the visitor notice the conditioner he’d poured into the sink? Would it make them suspicious? Would they take a closer look in the tub?

  The footsteps moved out of the bathroom toward the rest of the hotel room, and Cooper exhaled silently. When he heard the desk drawer being opened and searched, he slipped the bottle into his pocket.

  Park gestured in a complicated way. I’ll go out, you stay here.

  Cooper gestured in a simple way with his middle finger, then suggested his own plan. I go. You stay. Come after.

  Park frowned but nodded in agreement. It was the better plan, though more dangerous for Cooper. Everyone knew you sent out the pawn and kept your stronger player as the surprise weapon. Ace in the hole.

  They quietly got out of the tub, and while Park waited in the bathroom door, unseen but easily able to snag anyone who passed, Cooper made his way down the hall to peer around the corner. Their visitor had his back to him, searching the nightstand drawer. He appeared to be a white man, a good few inches shorter than Cooper, but much broader and very fit. A boxer’s build. He was also wearing a balaclava and black latex gloves. Probably not housekeeping then.

  Cooper was just weighing his options when the man whipped around, ripping the nightstand lamp out of the wall as he spun and flung it directly at his head. It was an awkwardly shaped and clumsy weapon, easy enough to dodge, but that was clearly the tactic. As Cooper was ducking, the man was already moving forward and had one hand wrapped around Cooper’s throat, silencing his shout. Meanwhile his foot kicked out to sweep the ankles, but Cooper was familiar with this exact sequence of moves and was ready for it.

  As soon as the man’s ankle hooked around his—when his balance was at its most precarious—Cooper threw his dead weight into the fall, knocking the man down with him. They both hit the ground hard, and the man grunted in surprise.

  Cooper used the moment to roll on top, sitting on the man’s stomach. Too high up. The flexible, short-legged bastard swung his hips up, locking his calves around Cooper’s neck, and on the downswing yanked him down, flat on his back, the man practically straddling his head.

  Familiar eyes stared down at him from above the facemask.

  “Neil?” Cooper wheezed out.

  The eyes widened right before the man was seemingly plucked from the air, his weight disappearing from Cooper’s chest and crashing somewhere acros
s the room. In his place stood Park, looking down at Cooper and offering him a hand up.

  “Can we please just go with my plan next time?” he said mildly, not even winded.

  “What are you talking about?” Cooper let Park help him to his feet and then batted his hands away when they started searching anxiously for injuries. “My plan worked perfectly.”

  “Oh? How do you figure that?”

  “‘Cause I was too distracted to notice the stronger player come up behind me. Ace in the hole,” the visitor said, picking himself up from where Park had tossed him against the wall.

  Park stiffened, preparing for retaliation, but Cooper put a reassuring hand on his arm. The man pulled his balaclava off, mussing his hair, and made a huge show of rubbing at his own clavicle, wincing. What a faker. Cooper couldn’t help but notice how his feet were already back in fighting stance.

  “They say the day your student bests you with your own moves you’ll burst with pride, but I got to tell you, the only thing bursting is my shoulder right out of its socket.”

  Cooper attempted a smile, but it felt weak and wrong on his face. Blood was rushing in his ears, adrenaline raging, and he thought it was only partially due to the fight. “You’ve gotten slow. What happened to always assume everything’s a trap?”

  “What happened to I’m never going to trust anyone enough to be their bait?” the man shot back. His eyes flicked over Park with that same calculating stare Cooper remembered so well. Like he was determining what part of you to eat now and what to save for tomorrow.

  “Never always comes sooner than you think,” Cooper said with a casual shrug, and Park shifted meaningfully beside him. “This is Oliver Park, my partner. Oliver, this is...what are you going by these days?”

  “Still going by Brat yourself, are you?” the man said, without sparing Cooper a glance. He crossed the room to shake Park’s hand. “You can call me Neil, for now. Neil Gerhart. Sorry about before. I hope I didn’t scare you too badly.” His voice was friendly and sounded genuine if you didn’t know him well enough to hear him testing Park’s pride, or to catch the flex in his arm as he squeezed his hand. “But you don’t strike me as the skittish type.”

  Park merely looked as amused as he always did when someone was attempting to establish a hierarchy with him. “On the contrary, I’m as timid as a mouse,” he murmured.

  Neil’s eyes narrowed.

  “Oliver, I told you I was assigned undercover for a bit with the FBI,” Cooper said hastily. “I worked most of my cases under Neil.” He immediately wished he’d picked a different way of saying that, and added, “He was my supervisory agent.”

  “Now it seems like we might get the chance to work together again. Assuming, that is, you’re in here investigating the murder of James Finnigan and not to put a mint on his pillow.”

  * * *

  Neil took them to a very well lit and touristy bar because he claimed no one on his current undercover case would be caught dead in a place like this. “Though maybe that’s not the reassurance it once was, after poor Jamesy boy,” he’d added, toasting the victim and sipping on his cider.

  They sat in a booth, with Park and Cooper on one side, Neil on the other. It was difficult to say whether he’d changed in the five or so years since Cooper had last seen him. The trouble was, Neil was always changing, even back then. The darling of undercover, his ability to completely lose himself in any identity, to shift his mannerisms, personality, and core appearance so fundamentally it was unnerving, had been used as a gold standard to rookies like Cooper. To be partnered with him, fresh out of grad school, was an honor and a test. Or so he’d been told by everyone over and over. A test of what, Cooper had never asked.

  Neil’s hair was blond now. Dyed, though Cooper only knew because he remembered the natural gray of his chest hair, the way it had felt springy and tough under Cooper’s hands, his cheek, his lips. Neil had been almost twenty years older than Cooper then, so had to be in his mid-to-late fifties now. Looked it too, though Cooper would attribute that more to whatever role he was currently playing than the natural aging process. He had seen Neil look both decades younger and decades older than he did right now at various points in the four years they’d known one another. There had been a joke in the agency then, that there was no real Neil. That he was just a computer-programmed series of walking, talking skin suits the FBI trotted out for their most unethical work. The closer Cooper had gotten, the less he saw the humor in it.

  “So, let me guess,” Neil said. “You’re working the death.”

  Cooper shrugged. He’d rather look hostile than get caught up in admitting they weren’t working anything, just spending their free time snooping in the name of justice. A rather appalling hobby that Cooper should try quitting or at least start getting paid for. “I take it you’re not?”

  “Ever hear of Genevieve Crane?”

  Cooper glanced at Park compulsively. That woman again. For someone with a reputation for not showing up to her own shoots, she was certainly playing a leading role in multiple conversations he was having today.

  “The name isn’t big, but you’d recognize her if you saw her,” Neil continued, not waiting for a response. “She used to be an actress on one of those over-the-top-sexy, spooky high school shows with hot-adult casts, Mom, My Boyfriend’s a Minotaur, or something like that.

  “Labyrinth of Love,” Park said, naming the show Ryan had mentioned.

  “That’s the one. After seven glorious seasons of getting erotically gored by Mikey the Minotaur and making bank on the con circuit, the show got canceled. She did a sprinkling of guest roles here and there until she became the Ambassador of the Wild.”

  “Is that an elected position?” Cooper said.

  Neil snorted. “It’s basically the pretty face some conservationist orgs paid to deliver some pleading lines in their ads. Pose with an elephant for an educational video. Drum up some money for the earth. But, you know, make it hot so people care.” He twirled the bottle of cider between his fingers. “Thing is, she sampled her own product, so to speak. Developed a real passion for saving the animals.”

  “Which animals?” Park asked.

  “Well, I saw her kill an ant once, but everything else seems pretty beloved,” Neil said. “She started her own conservation charity: Wild Nature. Makes her own educational videos now by partnering with various zoos and orgs around the world. Puts on events for her rich industry friends. Spends a few months a year organizing some auction or party. Raises buckets of money in one night. People show up in their five-grand dresses and sign their one-grand checks. Get a cute little tax deduction. Go home knowing they’ve saved a turtle apiece and can rest easy until Wild Nature’s next boozy bash. Earth, you’re welcome.”

  “But at least you’re not cynical about it,” Cooper said. “What’s the FBI’s interest?”

  “Same thing the FBI’s always interested in, one way or another: Where’s the money going?”

  “Not to the ants, I’m guessing,” Park murmured.

  “A percentage of it, sure. But this year just over three million dollars has gone the way of the dodo. Kapoof.” Neil mimicked an explosion with one hand that transitioned into a little bow. “Enter yours truly, J.T. Armstrong, Genevieve Crane’s PA. I’ve been trying to get a peek at Wild Nature’s financials, but her husband, Arthur, sits on those like a dragon on its hoard.”

  “So ex-actress runs an embezzlement scam under the guise of a conservation charity. Possibly with the help of her husband,” Cooper summarized. “What does any of this have to do with James Finnigan?”

  Neil shrugged. “Maybe nothing. But Genevieve has been filming this video series all over the zoo for months, doing some behind-the-scenes shit—day in the life of a veterinarian, zoo’s deadliest snakes, whatever. A month ago or so, James starts showing up at these sets. He’s a keeper there, so I figure it’s no big deal. Lots of the
personnel get involved, help out. Arthur doesn’t normally come along to those things, but one day he swings by early to pick Ginny up and sees James. I’m telling you, I thought the guy was going to have a heart attack. Just white as a sheet.”

  “He didn’t say why?” Cooper asked.

  “He didn’t say jack shit for the rest of the day. Just stood there like he was waiting for a bomb to drop. After that, James started coming to every single shoot. Genevieve’s second shadow. He’s everywhere she is.”

  “Harassing her?” Park asked.

  “I don’t think so. They hardly ever spoke.”

  “And what did Genevieve think was happening?” Park pressed.

  Neil frowned at him. “I’m her PA, not her pen pal. She’s not going to confide her feelings to me.”

  Cooper bristled, feeling a surge of defensive anger for Park at Neil’s dismissive tone, but tamped it down quickly, reflexively. It would be seen for what it was—a weak spot—and Cooper remembered not to reveal his weak spots to Neil at the same deep, instinctual level a solider remembered to duck when a door slammed. “What about Arthur and James, they ever talk?”

  “I couldn’t even catch Arthur looking at James. They acted like the other didn’t exist. And aside from turning up at every shoot, Arthur went back to being his usual self. That is, until the fight.”

  Cooper glanced at Park, surprised. “Arthur and James fought?”

  “No, Arthur and Genevieve. Yesterday, Arthur just snapped. We were in the museum, overseeing setup for the gala, and Arthur comes in. He’s raving. I’m telling you he’s normally a real quiet guy, standoffish but really...controlled. Not then. Absolutely lost it. Said they were leaving. Going back to California. Forget the fucking gala. There wasn’t a moment to lose.”

  “And?” Cooper prompted.

  “And she says hell no. She tells him she’s leaving before the gala over her dead body. They scream some more, but in the end, they stay.” Neil tapped on the table thoughtfully. “How was he killed? James.”