He waited until he returned from San Francisco and, nerves burning, offered another casual dinner invitation. Mystifyingly, she said yes.
Every missile in his dating arsenal — name dropping, offers of career help, hints of a possible invitation to an exotic locale, any reference to his massive wealth — landed with a thud. Halfway through the second dinner, he began to suspect he just wasn’t all that interesting. But then she mentioned a Snowy Owl, and he responded with a memory of looking out the window of a hotel room in Manhattan at five in the morning, at the snowflakes just beginning to fall.
What did it look like? she asked, watching him like a bird dog as he struggled to describe in detail something he had looked at for about three seconds. He recalled his early days in finance, when he had neither the skill nor the confidence to pull off a slam dunk; so he winged it, hesitating to cross his fingers and jump, knowing one bad move could sink the deal. Mostly, he waited.
The prince and the swan maiden danced together, bathed in moonlight. Adam watched them, remembering the lengths to which he had gone just so he could say something that might entice her to dine with him again. He lunched with a butterfly biologist in Mexico City. A fog expert gave him a tutorial in London. He added a day to his Vancouver trip so he could see the Northern Lights, knowing if he looked at them on the internet and tried to pass it off as a personal experience she’d be onto him in a heartbeat.
And that was what led to the near calamity.
His trip to Zurich had been so heavily scheduled he never left the hotel. He could have simply come up with an interesting memory, but instead he called Giselle, who took care of his gifts. A bracelet, he said. Stunning but understated. Valuable but not flashy.
As always, they had dinner on the patio. When he pulled the box out of his pocket her smile disappeared. What’s that for? she asked.
I thought you’d like it, he said. Open it.
At least he had the sense not to have it heavily wrapped. She tipped the lid with one finger, as if it might contain live ammunition, and stiffened when she saw the graceful swirl of gold. She looked up, her eyes filled with betrayal.
A spangle of dread flashed through his stomach. I’m sorry, he said quickly. That was stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.
She remained immobile, her arctic eyes level, as if she were continuing to look at him only to keep him safely in her line of sight. He reached out, covered the box with his hand, and pulled it back to his pocket. Frantically he regrouped and came up with only one possible maneuver: partial honesty.
I don’t have a lot of time, he said. I travel. I’m always in meetings. I was walking by a shop and saw that bracelet and thought of you. I would give a bracelet like that to my assistant or my daughter, so I thought it would be all right.
How do you think of me? she asked flatly. Like your assistant, or like your daughter?
I don’t know how I think of you, he said. I think of you as my zookeeper. As someone I enjoy having dinner with. I like that you don’t want anything from me. Everyone wants something from me.
After a long moment her stare became less frosty. She took a sip of wine. Well, she said. I wanted a tree from you.
But you didn’t know you wanted it, he replied.
A month later she arrived for their ninth dinner with red-rimmed eyes. What’s wrong? he asked, alarmed. What happened?
The female toucan died, she said. Her mate is grieving.
I’m sorry, he said. What can I do?
Nothing. He has to mourn her.
Her wine disappeared at a surprising clip, so he asked Maria to bring another bottle with dinner. Alcohol seemed to have no effect on her cognitive function; it just propelled her more smoothly forward, allowing her to glide past questions that normally would have brought the evening to a screeching halt. Did you ever lose someone? he asked, the second bottle gone, knowing full well she was an orphan and personal questions were out of bounds.
No, she answered, then she leaned toward him and said, I’d like to see your bedroom.
His dealmaking prowess vanished. You mean now? he asked.
“This is a fabulous performance,” whispered Kaplan’s perfectly coiffed wife, her heavy diamond pendant suspended above her cleavage. The dancers leapt and pirouetted through the hovering mist, the music reaching its crescendo as the swan maiden flung herself into a billowing silk lake; and Adam saw nothing but Luna shedding her reticence like snakeskin, leading him into a realm of silent sensation where he, who had seen and done it all, had never been before.
The audience rose to their feet, clapping and shouting. Startled, Adam rose as well, surprised to see the prince and the swan maiden standing together center stage, reunited and smiling for all the world to see. He wasn’t surprised, he corrected himself, because luck was what you made it, and life imitated art, and a truly great love surmounted all the odds stacked against it.
Chapter 9
Iris’s small yellow Cape was brightly lit, the driveway and both sides of the main road lined by cars. Ned’s Chevy was nowhere to be seen. Luna followed Paul and Anna Lee inside, wearing a short summer dress Iris’s friend had delivered an hour before. “Iris says get gussied up!” the girl had ordered, then handed Luna a bag. “Here are some shoes, one of those sizes oughtta fit you.”
The house was filled with people, all chatting and laughing. Glowing in a cloud of chiffon, Iris beckoned them into the kitchen and pointed to the bar in the corner. “Why, Luna, don’t y’all look like a prize petunia!” she cried. “Wait ’til you see what I done to Ned! Get a drink first, and there’s food in the living room.”
Luna made her way to the bar. “You want some wine, honey?” asked an elderly woman, and poured her a glass. “Here, baby, have a cheese ball. I don’t recognize you, are you Paul and Anna Lee’s friend?”
Soon she was deep in conversation with a circle of people all happy to swap wildlife stories, all asking if her dress belonged to Iris. They handed her plates of food, refilled her glass, and wanted to know if she had heard about the latest treatment for roundworms. Eventually she glanced at the clock and was stricken with guilt, imagining Ned standing alone in a corner, or holed up in a room with a TV. She excused herself, and walked to the deck. He wasn’t there, so she tried the living room.
He wasn’t there, either. People of all ages talked in pairs and in groups. Five teenagers, exotically dressed and coiffed, vied for the attention of a handsome man. Luna started down a hallway, then stopped and turned around.
The ponytail was gone. So were the shorts and T-shirt. Ned was dressed in a pair of belted chinos, brown loafers, and a white linen shirt. His hair was short and tousled. He finished his sentence, and the five girls burst into gales of laughter. He adjusted his glasses and caught sight of Luna, clad in her summer dress and heels. Slowly his grin disappeared. The girls followed the direction of his gaze, and glared at her.
“Lord have mercy,” said Anna Lee, as she and Paul appeared. “Sweetheart, I do believe you lost your groupies.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” said Paul.
The country western music stopped. There was a hammer of drums, and the scratch of vinyl. “Finally!” cried one of the girls. “Something we can dance to!”
“Come on, Ned!” encouraged another, as they dragged him past Luna and toward the deck.
“But I can’t dance!” he protested, and then he was gone.
Luna edged her way around the flailing crowd, and leaned on the railing at the corner of the deck. She spotted Ned: generous, dependable, surprisingly handsome Ned. The song ended, replaced by a low, melancholy beat. He met her eyes, extricated himself from his dance partners, and threaded his way toward her. When he held out his hands, she stepped into his solid warmth.
He wrapped his arms around her. Her spinning world slowed. She began to relax, and knew it was a mistake.
“I’m going to get you to Hélène’s,” he said.
“No,” she said, pulling back. “Thank you for everythi
ng you’ve done for Mars and me, but I’ve lined up all my rides. You need to go home. We don’t need your help anymore.”
He looked at her with surprise and dismay. “Like I said,” she added. “If you get into any trouble, tell them it was me.”
Paul and Anna Lee appeared. “Gotta go,” said Anna Lee. “Critters are up early. Who’s comin’ with us?”
“I am,” said Luna. “Ned’s staying here.”
She followed them through the crowd. Ned watched her leave, until the bright cluster of teenagers hid him from view.
• • •
Gunderman sat at the laminated plywood desk in his motel room, staring at his computer screen and munching distractedly on his cheeseburger dinner. He had spent two hours on the phone, filling folders with information about everyone involved in the case. Luna Burke was not only a Missing Person, but now wanted for questioning in the theft — not disappearance — of a protected species. Gunderman wondered if her husband was responsible for the upgrade. He began reconstructing Luna Burke’s route, and dialed the number of a Tallahassee songbird rehabilitator named Carlene Reynolds.
“Officer Gunderman, lemme tell you somethin’,” she said. “I meet rehabbers at conferences all over the country, and every time I meet one I say, ‘Come on by if you’re in the neighborhood.’ So how am I supposed to know who’s gonna stay a regular rehabber, and who’s gonna turn into the runaway wife of some rich dickweed? I don’t know beans about eagles, but I do know that she did not steal that bird, her husband did. Anyway, I got work to do, so do you mind?”
He followed Luna Burke’s trail to Georgia, where she had been caught on a police cruiser’s camera. The grainy photograph showed a shadowed figure sitting in a perfectly restored 1957 Chevrolet, emerging from the driveway of a bat researcher.
“Of course she stayed here,” Esther Poparov said briskly. “She and her friend and the bird spent the night, then they left in the morning for New Mexico. I had no idea there were all these issues, as obviously I have better things to do than watch trash TV. What I can tell you is this kidnapping story is a bunch of bullshit. Is there anything else?”
Rehabbers had online chat groups and listservs, but they were like secret societies. Outsiders — especially state and federal wildlife officers — never made it past the virtual door. He called the rehabbers with whom he was friendly, but they all professed total ignorance. Even his rehabber friend Beth was uncharacteristically brusque.
“No idea,” she said. “Gotta go, I just took in a window strike.”
The Chevy was owned by a young man named Ned Harrelson, who, it seemed, also owned the 1968 Cadillac in which she may have been riding through Florida. He tapped his keyboard and a series of photos of a long-haired young man with horn-rimmed glasses appeared on the screen. Gunderman closed the profile he had created of Luna Burke, and opened the adjoining one of Ned Harrelson.
Well-to-do Ann Arbor family, excellent schools, excellent grades, computer science major, gamer, loner, coder, partner in a growing tech company, Florida resident for the past five years, no record. Not even a parking ticket. Nothing to show he might ever allow himself to become an accessory to a felony. He stared at the rumpled, bespectacled Ned Harrelson, then called up a photo of the dazzling, bejeweled Luna Burke.
Bad luck, he thought. Odds were the guy had simply volunteered at the wrong place at the wrong time, and good luck saying no to her.
Gunderman shut down his computer. He rose and snapped on the television to catch the news. Harrelson could be on his way back to Florida by now. Some of these quiet types take a walk on the wild side, his criminal psychology professor had told him, but normally they don’t stay for long.
As for Luna Burke, he thought, she’s not going to New Mexico. She’s heading north. If she has a personal attachment to the male eagle, she has one to its mate. Either she’s going to bring the male home to Pennsylvania and face the consequences, or she’s going to try to pick up the female and keep going. If that were the case, her destination was a mystery. He didn’t even have a theory. He climbed into bed, snapped off the light, and went to sleep.
• • •
Warren lay naked in bed, laughing uproariously. “You should’ve seen him,” he gasped. “I’m lucky I didn’t fall out of the tree!”
Seized by another spasm of laughter he threw out one arm, sending a half-empty bottle of wine thudding to the floor. The armadillo slowly making its way across the bedroom flew into the air and landed on all fours, quivering, then scuttled out the door.
“Ha ha ha!” cried Warren helplessly, doubling over. “He looked exactly like that! Awww, sorry, Jacques, I didn’t mean to scare you!”
“Admit it — you two have been practicing that all afternoon!” cried Harper, cackling uncontrollably, the bedsheet slipping off one large, rounded breast.
“Hours! We spent hours, and now I’m going to have a heart attack!”
“If you were going to have a heart attack, champ,” chortled Harper, one eyebrow raised salaciously, “you’d’ve had it twenty minutes ago.”
“Good point!” he replied. He reached over the side of the bed, picked up the fallen wine bottle, and held it up. He poured the remainder into two glasses on the bedside table, and offered one to Harper.
“To the gods of justice and mirth,” he said. “And to you, the goddess of everything else!”
They tapped their glasses and emptied them. “Everything except for wine,” said Harper. “Page the god of wine and tell him we need more!”
“All in good time, Your Goddessness,” said Warren. “First: what else did you bring me, besides your luscious self?”
Harper swung her legs off the bed, rooted through the piles of clothing on the floor, and picked up a bag. She removed several neatly typed pages, and handed them to Warren.
“Untraceable. One of the tech guys doesn’t like the boss much, either. Itinerary, addresses, and that’s the new security firm.”
“Huh! I’ve got a friend who works there.”
“Any late-breaking news will be duly reported. For a price.”
Warren put the papers on the bedside table. “You are a remarkable woman,” he said, gazing at her appreciatively. “Truly remarkable. What are you doing hanging around with me?”
Harper snorted. “I’m not hanging around with you. I just show up every once in a while to take advantage of your gloriously evolved, lethal self.”
In a flash Warren rose to his knees, flipped her onto her stomach, and pinned her arms behind her. She struggled and he settled on top of her, laying one side of his bearded face against hers.
“You’re not taking advantage of me,” he said. “I’m taking advantage of you.”
Harper lay still. Slowly her eyes narrowed, and with a mighty heave she rolled them both off the bed. They crashed to the floor, Warren on his back beneath her. She turned over and slid forward, pinning his upper arms with her knees, then sat lightly on his chest. With a leisurely sigh she reached back, grabbed his scrotum, and squeezed. “Say uncle,” she said.
“Uncle!” said Warren, whose eyes were barely visible beneath her lush swath of pubic hair.
“I have just demonstrated one of the many advantages of being a big woman,” she said, loosening her grip. “Would you like me to let you up?”
“No, thanks. I like it down here.”
“You’re lying in a pool of wine.”
“It’s called marinating.”
She rose and offered her hand. He reached for it and they both returned to the bed, leaning companionably together.
“Enjoy me while you can, Panther Man. I’ll stick around until you’re finished messing with Matheson’s head, then I’m going to find homes for all those animals, get a grant, and move to the islands. The dolphins are calling me.”
“As well they should. By the way, I notice the god of wine has not responded.”
“I’ll get another bottle. For a price.”
“Heartless wench! Can’t you see
I’m an old man?”
“Old man!” scoffed Harper, clasping him by the beard. “Sergeant, this is no time to hold your fire.”
Warren turned toward her and kissed her neck. “Prepare for a full frontal assault,” he growled.
“Don’t limit yourself,” she replied.
Chapter 10
Anna Lee stood in her kitchen, holding a cup of coffee and looking worriedly at Luna. “I swore those three volunteers on your phone list to secrecy,” she said, “but dang if one didn’t spill the beans, and now everybody here knows who y’all are.”
“Even the Paulettes?” asked Luna.
“The Paulettes are now the Nedettes,” said Paul.
“The Paulettes ain’t the problem,” said Anna Lee.
“It’s Fish and Wildlife,” said Paul. “They’ve been saying they just wanted you for questioning, which wasn’t so bad.” He turned his laptop around to face her. “But now they’ve issued a warrant for your arrest.”
Luna stared at the screen. “‘Wanted for the theft of a protected species,’” she read aloud. “Does that mean the police have a warrant for me, too?”
“Probably. But it also means if you’re caught at a rehabber’s, the rehabber could lose their license.”
Luna swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’ll get out of here fast, and I’ll get rid of my phone so none of you can be linked with me.”
Anna Lee covered Luna’s hands with hers. “Sugar, that’s not what we’re sayin’,” she said. “We ain’t givin’ you the kiss-off. Y’all got 119 rehabbers on your phone list. We’re your family, and we’re going to git you and that bird to Hélène’s. It’s already arranged, your next stop is Sean’s.”
“Ned called this morning, and he said last night you gave him a mighty clear kiss-off,” said Paul. “So he’s going back to Florida, but first he’s going to bring you another vehicle.”
Luna sat on the ground of Paul and Anna Lee’s flight cage, hugging her knees and watching Mars on his perch in the sun. She worried constantly that he was becoming stressed by all the traveling, the different flight cages, and the air of tension surrounding him. But his appetite was healthy, and he acted unperturbed. Don’t you worry about that raptor bastard, Carlene had told her. He’s unflappable.
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