A WHISPER OF BONE

CHAPTER ONE

New Haven, Connecticut

June 1885

Special Agent Ryan Nolan rolled his shoulders and knocked again.

“Open the door, Mr. Alcantra.” He tossed the brass key and its fob, letting them jangle and clank as they slapped back into his palm, his message clear. “There is no escaping this discussion.”

Taking a room at the expensive and exclusive Sea View Hotel was the water rat’s first mistake. Escorting loud and giggling paid female company through the lobby in broad daylight was his second. Mothers pushing wide-eyed children behind their skirts while fathers directed their ire at the hotel manager was never good for business. Complaint after complaint had been registered. But it was the many rough-sided crates the Spaniard carted through the lobby to his room that twisted a final knot in the manager’s cravat. He’d dispatched a kinetic chiroptera, an official cry for help.

The hotel’s mechanized bat had flapped its way to central New Haven, dropping a message down the Customs House chute, alerting the agents within to the peculiar behavior of a certain hotel guest they might wish to investigate. All notes were ignored until the third or fourth such missive arrived, whereupon Ryan imagined the receiving agent sighed heavily before flipping through pages listing the names of known and suspected smugglers. The half dozen red flags beside Mr. Francisco Alcantra’s name had snapped that agent wide awake. Soon, electrical signals traveled along south-bound wires to the Improbable Biologics Investigational Service—IBIS—and the resulting telegraph message landed on Ryan’s desk in the predawn hours alongside a train ticket and a sealed envelope.

The name inside was that of a Spanish man recently overheard bragging about the ungodly sum he’d been paid for his latest job and hinting at the existence of a cuélebre.

If there was any truth to this report at all, any positive proof of the giant, winged serpent-dragon of Iberian Celtic mythology’s presence on U.S. soil, the Spaniard was in for a world of pain under the Rare and Emergent Species Act of 1862.

Excitement had zipped through Ryan—no cryptobiologist could be indifferent—until he’d noted the destination.

New Haven.

Struck by sudden ossification, his heavy, cold heart had dropped to his toes, momentarily depriving the ice-cold blood in his lungs of oxygen.

Really, it had only been a matter of time. He’d forced his jaw to unlock and his diaphragm to drag in a deep breath. Any city with a port was bound to have trouble arrive on its shores. His hometown was no exception.

By the time the steam train chugged north, and an omnibus deposited him on Beach Street, the strain of mollifying affronted guests had taken its toll on the hotel manager, now bug-eyed, sweating bullets, and desperate to rid himself of “that Spanish scourge”.

With no more than the gold flash of a badge, a few hushed words, and a grateful glance from said manager, Ryan gained unfettered access to the smuggler’s room.

“There is a vile odor emanating from his room, but he refuses to let anyone enter.” The distressed man had shoved a key across the counter. “Please remove him, his guest, and the rest of his baggage.”

A decided possibility. But that would depend upon what Ryan found within.

The walls of the hotel hallway pressed in on him. At its end, a damp, salt-infused breeze drifted in through an open window carrying with it the garish sounds of the carousel. It wasn’t that he disliked New Haven itself—or in this case, nearby West Haven. Not exactly. Rather, associated memories forced him to confront certain uncomfortable truths of his existence and reminded him of local family members owed a visit.

But such dark musings were irrelevant to the task at hand. Time to roust the man who fancied himself a modern-day pirate.

Within, the low murmur of voices mixed with faint, if frantic, scrambling noises. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d rousted an undressed couple from bed. He smirked. In most circumstances, catching a man with his trousers down, distracted and off guard, made an arrest that much easier.

Ryan rapped on the door and called out, “Last chance, Mr. Alcantra.”

Inside, glass clinked. A thud sounded. Still the door didn’t open. Instead, he heard the rattle and scrape of a window sash rising. The Spaniard attempting a jump from the second floor?

Cursing, Ryan jammed the key home and twisted.

The door slammed open as a loud crack split the air—the report of an air gun discharging.

Ducking, he rushed into the room, quickly assessing the situation. Amidst a backdrop of open crates, a scatter of imported goods and general disarray, there was a woman collapsed upon the floor, laughing. A man slumped in a chair. And a third hooded individual leaned out the window with a grappling hook gun in her hands and a six-shooter in a holster belted low on her hips and tied securely to her thigh.

Her. Or so the curve of hips beneath close-fitting trousers suggested. A fashion choice he’d grown to appreciate during his days in the western territories, especially as worn by one particular woman. The one that got away.

A reflection that cost Ryan a precious moment.

“Stop! U.S. Customs!” He drew his Eagle B29 sidearm and ran forward.

The woman glanced over her shoulder offering him a glimpse of dark eyes framed by long lashes and lips that pulled in a smirk as she tossed something onto the floor that snatched his feet from beneath him to send him careening, arms windmilling. Crash! He landed—hard—atop a scattering of small, round seedpods. Embarrassed victim to a classic delay tactic. Yet one that granted her all the time she needed to secure her grappling gun, clip a hook to the front of a five-point harness strapped about her body, seize the handle of a large canvas bag and leap.

He pushed off the floor, lunged for the window and took aim.

Suspended from a wire cable, the woman zipped through the air, a dark blur soaring over the crowds of people below. Hoots, hollers, and screams of delight erupted as tourists caught sight of the figure overhead, numbering her flight among the many spontaneous performances that drew visitors to Savin Rock Park.

Was it wrong of him to take dark pleasure in disabusing them of that notion? He squeezed the trigger—bang!—firing a dart that skewered the woman’s thigh and guaranteed her a world of pain.

The crowd gasped, searching for the source of the sound, not quite convinced they’d heard the report of a gun. Especially as the fleeing figure gave no indication she possessed any nerve endings.

A string of curses fell from his lips as she drew a knife from her boot and sliced through the rope from which she hung, dropping to the ground in a crouch. Plucking the dart from her leg, she sprinted along the tree-lined path and climbed into a waiting steam carriage. Within moments, the vehicle lurched into motion and disappeared from view.

Wonderful, a criminal with a sky-high pain threshold. She ought to be on the ground, writhing in agony. An unsettling beginning. Dammit. He clenched his jaw, both annoyed that he’d not pursued her yet secure in the knowledge his primary directive was to apprehend one Francisco Alcantra. Speaking of…

“Who is she?” He turned toward the man at the table, reaching to shake the man’s shoulder, to wake him from his silent stupor.

But his hand hovered in the air and his next words caught in his throat as he reassessed everything about this assignment. There was a bullet hole in the man’s forehead, one so recent the trickle of blood between his eyes had yet to dry. All while the woman on the floor laughed and sang a song of sixpence.

The scene before him was both disquieting and absurd. He didn’t relish informing the hotel manager of the violent death that had occurred on his watch. The resulting histrionics would be the least of his problems.

Ryan tipped the dead man’s chin up, making a positive identification from the tintype included with the IBIS directives. He sighed heavily. Of course it would be the Spaniard, Francisco Alcantra, the man responsible for this landslide of events. The complications and questions just kept piling up. He’d located the smuggler, but now hunted a murderer and possible thief, given the bag gripped in her fist as she jumped from the hotel window. His sole witness a warbling madwoman.

By how many minutes had Ryan missed the sound of a pistol’s discharge? For this hole in Alcantra’s forehead was not the work of an air rifle, but a handgun. Had the death shot been fired by the woman who’d leapt from the window? Likely, given no weapon was readily visible in the room and the female on the floor appeared all but insensible. Not that he had entirely discounted her. Yet.

He holstered his weapon and ran a hand through his hair. So much for an open and shut case. Was it too much to hope that there would at least be evidence of a dragon species tucked somewhere inside one of the many crates lining the walls? Given the dead man’s occupation and the oversized canvas bag hauled away by a likely murderess, the contents of this room would need to be inventoried and thoroughly searched to discover what was taken in hopes of determining why the meeting had taken a deadly turn. Was it as simple as a dispute over the agreed upon fee? Or had the woman desired something Mr. Alcantra refused to sell? And so on.

Regardless, before the rude interruption of the Spaniard’s death, it appeared the threesome had gathered about the table to take tea. Two empty cups, a third untouched. Wait. Not tea. At least not of the Camellia sinensis variety. Ryan squinted at the green-tinged liquid that sat cooling in footed Spanish silver colonial teacups. he plucked the lid from the kettle that hung over a small burner. Inside, bits of cactus floated.

Peyote. A powerful hallucinogen.

Unwise, consuming a mind-altering substance during a business negotiation. Then again, Mr. Alcantra’s whispers about his imports—such as a cuélebre—had landed him on a list of wanted smugglers. Shrewd, he was not.

Ryan considered the sights before him. Everything spoke of confidence. From the casual manner in which the scene was set, he suspected the Spaniard believed the meeting a mere formality. That the murderess had arrived to collect her goods, only to discover the man wished to entice her into an additional transaction. A fancy hotel room with a large bed. Two pretty women in attendance. A little mescaline to lower barriers and enhance the overall sensual experience.

But the water rat had badly misjudged and had paid for it with his life.

Still, many questions remained. And, as the situation reputedly involved a rare or emergent species, IBIS protocol dictated that Ryan remain in New Haven until the case was solved. So much for a brief visit to his childhood home. Against his screaming instincts, he would stay with family, kill two birds with one stone.

The tea did, at least, explain the state of his single witness. The half-dressed, cackling woman sprawled upon the floor, blonde curls cascading over the deep, red pile of the carpet, was oblivious to all save the images conjured by her drugged brain that were, seemingly, projected on the ceiling. A victim of circumstance? Spared an end similar to the Spaniard’s by Ryan’s timely arrival? Given her befuddled state and the precise placement of the bullet in the Spaniard’s forehead, she ranked low on his list of suspects.

A niggling sense of recognition gnawed at him. Then her head turned, and bright blue eyes met his.

“Well, Polly, put the kettle on!” She grinned up at him. “If it isn’t Ryan Nolan.”

His eyebrows crashed together. “Rose?”

Of all the women in New Haven, what were the odds he would find his ex-fiancée here on a hotel floor, drugged?

He glanced at her hand—a wedding band. Married.

In their youth, she’d been known as the Wild Irish Rose. Suitors had trailed behind her in Wooster Square, a dozen deep. Confident of his prospects, Ryan himself had courted her, presenting her with bits of sea glass and heart-shaped rocks collected on the shore. And it had worked. He’d slipped a ring on her finger, fulling intending to make her his wife.

Until his world unraveled. The morning of his mother’s funeral, at the very moment Rose ought to have stood with him graveside, she’d been sighted returning from Long Wharf after spending the night in Captain Donovan’s stateroom.

After that, the bloom was off the rose, with all of Wooster Square Society focusing all attention on the wild. As for Ryan? He extended her the benefit of the doubt, sat in her family’s parlor for hours awaiting an explanation. But none ever came. She’d returned his ring, refused to speak with him. Taking that as a tacit admission of guilt, he’d left for Ireland three days later and never returned to New Haven.

Until today.

As to her eventual fate? He’d assumed her father would buy her a suitable husband—but married to a smuggler? To Francisco Alcantra? That didn’t sit right.

There was one person who could answer all his questions involving local society. Not that the woman he called grandmother ever bestowed her knowledge freely. No, the vain, rapacious old woman filed away every dusty rumor that struck her as curious or valuable in that knife-sharp mind of hers, storing it until its revelation would inflict maximum effect. He could ask, certainly, but the price of such information would come at a steep price. One he refused to pay.

With a heavy exhale, he asked, “What do you know of Mr. Alcantra?” Given the drug she’d imbibed, coherence was probably too much to expect. He bent to lift Rose off the floor, grateful she was mostly dressed, freeing him from any later implications of impropriety.

“Cisco?” She patted his cheek. “A large seagull pecked his eye out.”

“A seagull?” Confusion wrinkled his brow. He set her down on a tangle of sweat-stained sheets, a questionable improvement over the floor. “A bird.” Had the mescaline given the murderess wings in Rose’s mind?

She flapped a hand. “The one that flew away. Out the window. Voomph!” A statement made with much conviction and a roll of the eyes. As if he were the unbalanced one. “Vicious demons, those salty feathered fiends. But no worries, Cisco will sort it out with an eye patch. All the ladies will sigh.”

Over a dead man? “Including you?”

“Me?” She giggled and winked. “Never. But more will make him all the merrier!”

He thought of the three teacups. Of the possible assumptions implied therein.

“Is that so?” Something oily and fetid twisted through his innards. How deeply was she entwined in this mess? Openly cavorting in a popular hotel with a known smuggler who may or may not be her husband. Sipping peyote tea in the presence of a murderess. What more disappointing facts would he learn?

Pity was an uncomfortable sensation when it lodged against suspicious disapproval before backing misplaced loyalty against a wall.

Aether, there was little hope of extracting any useful information from Rose until she was in possession of all her faculties. Which might be quite some time, judging from her flushed face, dilated pupils, and the irregular pulse throbbing at her neck.

He couldn’t let her go. But he couldn’t keep her here. Not like this.

“And where are you residing these days?” Fingers crossed there was a responsible adult to whom he could deliver her.

“A house on Olive Street serves as a proper birdcage.”

Not far away, then. But a birdcage? He knew both relief and worry simultaneously. “And what is its number?”

“Why? Wouldn’t you rather stay here? With me?” She lifted a leg and pointed a stockinged toe toward the ceiling, tracing a lazy circle of invitation in the air. Petticoats pooled at her hips as she slid her palms from her corseted waist upward to frame her breasts.

A move that left a bitter tang in his mouth. “Not an option, Rose.”

Her lips pursed into a pout. “I’ll do anything you—”

“No.” He turned away, hiding the curl of his lip.

A number of agents might mock him for failing to take full advantage of such an opportunity, but Ryan found such behavior distasteful. He was no monk; he merely preferred the women in his bed not to arrive there for the purpose of negotiating a business exchange. He refused to trade sex—or anything else—for the protection of a potentially complicit witness.

He studied the room. Open crates lined its edges, their lids propped against their sides. Packing material—various dried tropical leaves—littered the floor. Ignoring Rose, he examined one import item after another, wrinkling his nose at the foul odors of preservative that wafted upward, all while keeping his eyes peeled for a possible murder weapon.

There were bottles of thick and opaque glass, each corked, sealed with wax and labeled with a twist of twine and a brown-paper tag. Within floated dark and shadowy shapes. As he read the scrawled ink on each, he mourned the loss of life caused by those who believed severed parts of an exotic animal would cure ailments their physician could not. Much as he wished to stop his inventory, to leave the task to another, such was his job. It had to be done. He needed to know exactly what had been imported.

A few bottles held tantalizing clues to the existence of creatures not yet listed in the Linnaean classification literature and he set them aside for closer study. Such were the moments that defined his ambition and drove his career. Far too late for the individual animal sacrificed to provide the raw ingredients, but not necessarily for the population that provided them. IBIS would investigate and, if located, protect those who remained in the wild from a similar fate.

For now, he moved on, continuing his inspection of the room’s contents while Rose sang breathily, “Birds of a feather flock together, And so will pigs and swine.”

He found boxes filled with peyote buttons, with various seed pods. Bottles of tequila and mezcal. Packets of powders and pills. Rolls of musty furred, feathered, and scaly skins. Entire wings of brightly colored birds. Assorted eggs with both leathery and rigid shells. Dry bones. A bag of monkey feet. And entire dried animals—fish, turtles, lizards, snakes.

Only one creature still lived. An irate, hissing iguana locked inside a cage far too small. Perfect. His brother Liam, in one of his many efforts to guilt Ryan into a visit, had written at length about his son’s fascination with all things dragon-like. Meaning Owen, his ten-year-old nephew, was about to receive the gift of a lifetime. A smile tugged at his lips. The creature was bound to upset everyone else in the household, an unexpected bonus.

Archaeological artifacts were also among the collection. Ornaments of beaten gold and carved jade. An assemblage of ancient pottery.

Every last item in this room would interest and inflame all who worked within the walls of the Peabody Museum at Yale.

But they were Mexican exports, not Spanish goods.

So much for finding evidence of a cuélebre. Or the murder weapon.

Wait. What was that?

He tugged at a box shoved beneath the bed, pushed the lid aside. The box was only half full, its contents wrapped in newspaper—he unwrapped a gold torc, blinked and dragged his stunned gaze away to the top of the newspaper page—from Gijón, a coastal city in northern Spain, dated a few months past. Next, he unwrapped a bronze spearhead. Followed by a stone fragment with an eroded carving.

He almost set the stone aside when the sunlight pouring through the window cast curious shadows across its surface. He squinted. Tilted it back and forth. Was that a feathered wing protruding from a dragon’s back? His heart soared—a cuélebre!—then took a swan dive into a dark pit. If this was the cuélebre the smuggler had bragged about, then his mission was complete. There was no actual cryptid—living or dead—only a fanciful artistic rendering of one.

Still, all three items were Iberian, artifacts from continental Europe, likely modern-day Spain. Not even the same hemisphere as Mexico. Yet tucked among Mesoamerican commodities. Why?

He set his jaw. Several crates were only half full. What inventory was missing? What was in the canvas bag whisked away by the hooded presumed murderess? Was she the competition, a cryptid hunter sans ethics?

He straightened. “Have you met many of Mr. Alcantra’s customers, Rose?”

“Met the chickens,” she said. “But not the rooster.”

He sighed. So they were back to birds. “And where might this chicken coop be?”

“Oh? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander? As if I’d send a fox to chase the geese.” She cackled. “They bite, you know. Such pretty feathers but they’ll nip off your nose.” She dropped the back of her hand against her forehead and waggled her fingers.

“Rose,” he exhaled, frustrated and wishing to be free of this nonsense. There was a murderess to hunt.

“Fine, fine. As we are speaking of ruffled feathers and eggs, when not in his counting-house, the king has provided a home in which I roost.” She pushed herself into a sitting position and reached for a day gown. “It’s quite the nest, you know. If we must take wing, drop me at Sixty-Five Olive Street?”

Finally, her inane blather had coughed up a proper address. Perhaps tomorrow she could converse without quoting a mishmash of Mother Goose. One last task, though, before he faced the next steps of this nightmare.

Ryan turned back to the dead man who stared blankly across the room, blissfully beyond Rose’s inane avian-themed prattles. He dug through Francisco Alcantra’s coat pockets, searching.

There. Worn leather and paper met his fingertips.

He tugged free a small book and flipped through its pages. Code. He’d expected nothing less. Thankfully, it appeared to be a simple substitution cipher, nothing he couldn’t break with an evening’s work. With luck, it would contain all the man’s local contacts. Including the true identity of this aforementioned chicken coop where his customers might—

Ryan jumped back, his hand falling upon his weapon.

Mr. Alcantra’s eyes had shifted. Ryan could swear the man was looking directly at him.

But no. The hole in the man’s forehead negated that possibility.

Ryan fished a loupe from inside his coat and held the optical device to his own eye. Ignoring the jump in his heart rate and the curdle in his stomach, he peeled back the Spaniard’s eyelid and leaned closer.

Something small, ridged and wormlike swam beneath the Spaniard’s cornea.

He grimaced. So much for a clean death and a simple death certificate. The Customs House authorities would be extremely put out when they were forced to employ the autopsy services of a pathologist.

Mr. Alcantra might be dead, but the creature in his eyeball was not.

 

CHAPTER TWO

Charlotte Reid bent at the knees and heaved. The shovel arced overhead, catapulting the dead and dismembered victim of violence over the fence and out of her yard.

“Bury your own dead!” she hollered, then side-eyed Glory. “Must you always involve yourself with the groundhogs?” This was the seventh such oversized rodent to breach the border in as many days. What they were fleeing, she wasn’t certain, but they arrived bloody, wild-eyed, and frantic. Which served only to fire her dog’s bloodlust. “Must you?”

Glory had the good sense to feign remorse. Fiercely protective and easily bored, the large, thick-furred canine intimidated most with her aloof disposition and steady stare. Indeed, they had just cause to worry as Glory was quite capable of dragging an adult human down the street. Not that she’d tried. Yet.

Her neighbors, however, would make excellent test subjects. If only they’d emerge from the house long enough.

Not only did she not know their names, she was not at all certain she could pick them out in a lineup. Two men, a dark-haired woman, and their cook. Charlotte had tried introducing herself. But the cook had opened the door, stared at her as she spoke, then grunted something in an unfamiliar language while flapping a hand at her in a universal motion for “go away”.

The rest kept to themselves. Lights appeared and disappeared in the windows. Curls of smoke rose from the chimney. Mysterious individuals came and went, almost always at night and wrapped in hooded cloaks. Absolute ridiculousness.

She’d introduced herself to the owners of the other home bordering these odd neighbors, but Charlie Tims and his wife hadn’t been able to tell her much at all, save the strange owners had arrived a little over two years ago. The neighborhood had grown accustomed to the curious bird calls and no longer paid it much mind. Though they too were, understandably, also concerned about the sudden appearance of mangled groundhogs in their own yard this past week.

“Who burns coal and wraps themselves in wool in the middle of a heat wave?” She huffed. “Are they cold-blooded reptiles?”

Glory sighed. As one forced to wear a fur coat year-round, she was in complete agreement.

Their neighbors were insane. Quite possibly criminal.

This was what came of letting her brother find her a rental property. In the midst of wrapping up an excavation in the Dakota Territory, she’d wired ahead to inform him of her new position at The Peabody Museum of Natural History, asking that he find her suitable accommodations. For her. For Glory. For her fossils.

Hiram had chosen what would have been the perfect house, going so far as to inform her of the aviary on the adjacent property, assuming her enthusiasm for all things feathered would make her fast friends with like-minded neighbors. She didn’t mind the chirping, warbling noises. Or even the faint smell of bird droppings. But the humans? They were an obnoxious mystery.

Which meant she’d been spending her evening hours working at a table in her kitchen, crank fan blowing over a bowl of ice, watching for movement out of corner of her eye, field glasses at the ready. Not just watching, mind. Academic papers didn’t write themselves and C.S. Reid had a fast-approaching deadline to meet.

In nothing but her sleeveless cotton shift—the heat was oppressive even at this late hour—she stalked back to the house to the accompaniment of odd chirps and whistles. How right her brother was that the birds housed next door would intrigue her. Which made her situation so very annoying and frustrating. No matter the window from which she chose to peer at the occupants, the woven grass mats wrapped about the aviary’s walls blocked her view.

Inside, Charlotte washed her hands to remove any trace of groundhog, then dropped into her chair. She touched match to wick, igniting a small flame that reflected in a concave mirror to send light pouring into a microscope, then slid a fossil under the lens and adjusted the focus. Tonight’s task involved composing a description of beautifully preserved microstructure of fossilized feathers and their attachment sites. As her paper, should it be accepted for publication, would upend and shake the bedrock of paleontologists everywhere, it had to be perfect.

Hands poised above the keys of her typewriter, she glanced out the window. Traffic had decreased due to the impending storm, making it all that much easier to spot any irregularities. When the canvas-roofed Stabinsky Steamer car arrived at dusk, she’d chalked it up to another bizarre visitation by a mysterious guest. But no one had emerged from its interior. Nor had a neighbor exited the house to climb within. A strangeness heaped upon eccentricity.

Miserable, Glory flopped at her feet and moaned her displeasure. The poor pup.

The weather this past week made Charlotte long for the heat of summers out West where the air was so dry it sucked water out of your pores, where a full canteen was the only thing that kept you from turning into a desiccated mummy. Temperatures might not rise so high here in New England, but this sweltering heat wave combined with the lack of a breeze stuck cloth to skin and sent strands of her hair curling every which way. Of late, men had taken to loosening cravats and misplacing waistcoats, while women abandoned all but their thinnest petticoats and sought refuge beneath wide-brimmed hats and broad parasols. The most fortunate among them fled to Long Island Sound seeking the relief of a cool, offshore breeze.

With luck, the dark thunder clouds building on the horizon would soon pour buckets and put the city out of its collective misery.

Her gaze drifted to the faint cracks of light that seeped from between the heavy curtains drawn over the latched windows of her strange neighbors. Had everyone within died of heatstroke?

No matter. She willed her focus back to the typewriter in front of her and forced her fingers into motion. Raised bumps on the ulna may represent quill knobs, anchor points for wing feathers…

Years of bone hunting in the Dakota and Wyoming Territories for the likes of Edward Drinker Cope and O.C. Marsh had left her with a respectable nest egg. But she wanted to be an acknowledged paleontologist in her own right. To leave her own indelible mark in the field.

Many had laughed, scoffed and ridiculed, labeling her goals as impossible. But persistence had pried open classroom doors and arranged for library access in the East while fossil hunting out West had provided both practical field experience and thesis material. Not that there would be an official doctoral degree. Women—of any color—weren’t permitted such lofty aspirations. Degree or no degree, she’d nonetheless won a position at Yale’s Peabody Museum and was all but done with her first monograph.

Fine. There might have been a smidgeon of extortion, a little arm twisting and a vague, unsubstantiated threat.

Professor Marsh was a curmudgeon to the nth degree, hostile to females and a known tightwad. Except he’d owed her a favor. And so, when she’d volunteered not to collect a salary, he’d grudgingly granted her permission to work in his laboratories, to scrape rock from fossils, to arrange, catalogue and label the surfeit of specimens various bone hunters sent his way. Was hers the short stick? Perhaps. Still, credentials were credentials, and when she published, she’d be damn sure to list her research institution as Yale.

All of this possible because she’d had enough of the increasing hostility between two certain paleontology parties and, in a fit of temper, severed ties and set about leading her own group—a cook, a guide and a few trusted men along with the necessary horses, wagons and assorted equipment—into the Dakota Territory, far from the simmering drama.

There, they’d hit pay dirt.

Among other specimens, she’d found and sold a large, impressive, and nearly complete hadrosaur skeleton for a handsome figure, enough to encourage her to arrange another expedition. The following year, she’d again headed out into the Dakota Territory, into areas not yet explored. At first, their time in the field had felt doomed. Then, as winter approached, lightning struck. They’d found a cache of amazing specimens. Ones that put dollar signs in the eyes of her men. The next day, she’d all but stumbled upon the fossil remains of a caenagnathid, a bizarre, bird-like dinosaur.

She’d dubbed it Anzu, the chicken-from-hell, named after the bird-like demon of ancient Sumerian mythology. Roughly eleven feet long, nose to tail, and five feet tall, its jaws sported a toothless beak and its head a rounded crest—not unlike that of a cassowary—while its neck and legs were more reminiscent of an ostrich. There, however, any resemblance to modern flightless birds terminated. Its forearms ended in sharp-tipped claws, and it possessed a long, powerful tail. Most surprising of all? There were fossilized feather impressions surrounding those appendages, ones unlike any found in North America and in possession of alternating light and dark striations.

Not an archaeopteryx—the branch leading to birds, small creatures with a broad wingspan capable of gliding if not actual flight, as discovered in Germany in 1861—but a large carnivorous dinosaur with decorative feathers and clear reptilian traits. Unheard of. Yet there it sat at her feet.

And if, perchance, she could produce evidence that the striations were indications of color? Actual melanosomes, color-bearing organelles, fossilized within the partially degraded feathers and filaments? Such would be the making of her career.

When her head stopped spinning at the long-reaching implications, Charlotte had set about excavating every last remnant of the chicken-from-hell, carefully documenting each fossil fragment before shipping them East to her brother in New Haven. She’d worked though as much of the fall as possible, holing up in a nearby town for the winter, only to resume her dig with the spring thaw.

By early summer, she’d arrived in New Haven and settled into a routine, toiling at night to study Anzu, turning the fossil bones into a data set to support her first monograph. She worked in utter secrecy—sharing her private scholarly pursuits with no other museum employees. A necessity that many adopted while in O.C. Marsh’s employ, given the professor’s reputation for publishing the findings of his underlings as his own—blatant theft.

The typed pages of her monograph lay stacked beside her upon the kitchen table. Nearly complete. An editor at the American Journal of Science had agreed to review her paper and awaited her submission. She only needed to decide how much of the feather data to include, and what she ought reserve for a separate, more detailed publication. Her brother had promised her the use of his aetheroscope, that she might closely examine the structure of the possible melanosomes, and then—

A scream cut through the heavy blanket of thick night air. Glory’s ears perked as she raised her head, calculating the potential entertainment value multiplied by the heat then divided by the energy required to stand. The cry came again. Not human. And, this time, more a prolonged screech.

The dog leapt up barking and Charlotte snatched up her field glasses, lifting them to her eyes.

Bang! Her neighbor’s back door slammed open, casting a crooked rectangle of light onto packed dirt and weeds, and revealing a shadowed silhouette of a stout woman chasing a squawking chicken. The protesting poultry ran beneath a low bush, eliciting a string of curses uttered in that strange, unfamiliar language. The woman’s arm darted out and a second later, she yanked the bird from the undergrowth and hauled its flapping form back inside.

Nothing more than tomorrow’s dinner escaping the cook.

Disappointed, Charlotte swung the field glasses toward the steam car. A face stared out from the window. A familiar one. A visage she’d never thought to lay eyes upon again. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Ryan Nolan. Of all the streets in all the cities…” Anyone in the know and calculating the odds would report the chances of neighborhood cryptozoological shenanigans had risen by one hundred percent.

Did he still work for himself? Had he joined a private firm? Attached himself to a government agency?

Glory lifted an eyebrow.

“You’re absolutely right to be suspicious,” she informed her pup. “He’s most definitely involved in that nonsense next door. The only question is how.” And she’d have answers. Tonight. Even if it meant the effort and misery of dressing to the bare minimum of socially acceptable standards.

She stalked to her closet, yanked out her old split skirts and tugged them on. Buttoned a thin blouse. Laced her sturdy camp boots and slid in a sharp knife. As cotton and canvas fused to her skin, she sighed at her hair in the mirror. The past was past. Ancient history. So, if there was no point in making any special effort, why was she standing here contemplating hairpins? The storm might break at any moment and that meant rain. She grabbed her Stetson instead.

He must be suffocating, sitting in that steam car. A thought that made her smile. She’d take him tea, but that would involve boiling water which required a heat source—and there was zero chance she would voluntarily elevate the temperature inside her home for anyone.

Water?

No. This reunion required something stiffer.

Whiskey.

Throwing open a cabinet door, she reached for a bottle of coffin varnish collecting dust in the back. A toast to old times. She stuffed two shot glasses into her pockets. To soak up the booze, she grabbed a tin of hardtack and headed for the door where her guard sat, anticipatory and expectant.

“Stay, Glory.” The dog turned sad eyes in her direction. “Sorry, sweetie. You can chew on him another time.”

Careful to secure the door latch behind her, she stalked to the Stabinsky Steamer and threw open the passenger side door. Only to find herself staring down the barrel of a strange weapon.

“Charlotte?” Her name both a gasp and a sigh as he lowered his arm.

Quite satisfying. As was his damp collar and the limp cravat tucked into his waistcoat. Cravat. Waistcoat. Her lips twitched. Such were new sights. Sadly, they conspired to deprive her of what she knew to be a splendid view. The hollow of his throat. The strong flex and limber shift of muscles moving beneath shirtsleeves. All hidden by the trappings of civilization. How willingly had he donned so many layers?

Out West, he’d refused to wear such a noose. Or cut his hair. Or trim his beard. From top to bottom, he appeared a new man. Hell, there was even a shine to his shoes. Not that she was complaining. East Coast Ryan’s polish was appealing, no matter the sheen of sweat on his brow. But for the miserable weather, she might have wished she wore a bustle and skirt.

Unbidden, old feelings clamored, demanding she unlock the corner of her heart where they’d been long-confined. Lust, in particular, flared to life—a flame flickering in the inky darkness reminding her of long-ago evenings that had held so much promise. But that was what came of lowering one’s defenses. Best to keep the wall in place, the gate locked.

Fences were also useful. If, perhaps, not so very effective at keeping out the neighbor’s oversized rodents.

“You’ll catch flies with your mouth open like that.” She pushed his wrist aside and climbed in. “I come bearing gifts.” Shot glasses clinked as she uncapped the whiskey and poured. “Cheers.” She touched her glass to his, then tossed back her drink. After a moment’s hesitation, his movement mirrored her own.

Rain drops plopped, with heft and weight, upon the canvas roof. Lightning flashed—a brief moment of stark illumination followed by a crash of thunder. Finally. The cold front couldn’t move through fast enough.

Such an expressive face, Ryan’s. In a flash his visage might morph from amused laughter to ice cold command. The dark slash of his eyebrows would lower, and the light blue of his eyes would freeze. Laughter would fall away from his lips as they narrowed into focused concentration. It was a deeply disconcerting experience to witness, like watching mercury solidify and wondering if hell was about to freeze over.

He was also the most uncooperative man she’d ever met, which was saying something. And the most observant. You wanted him with you, not against you. Sneaking up on him was a near impossibility. Which was why Charlotte hadn’t even tried.

But surprising him? Quite satisfying. And she decided she wasn’t done yet. Grabbing his cravat, she yanked his mouth close, her kiss desperate and punishing, much like the bite of coffin varnish on his lips. How dare he raise her hopes of a future together, then abandon her when she’d needed him most? How dare she still miss him, miss the rough scratch of his beard against her skin, miss his company every single night the sun began to set on the horizon?

In a flash of movement, his hands gripped her hips and hauled her into his lap, deepening the kiss. Heat flooded her body, filling her with rising need and frustrated desire and—

He pulled away, his breath ragged. “When I returned to Cheyenne, you were gone.”

She gasped as his teeth nipped at her neck, branding her skin with a heat that never failed to burn straight through to her soul. Impossible not to tip her head, to invite further attentions. “I left word with the doctor.”

He lifted his head. “He had no message for me.”

A gust of cool air slipped through the open window. Welcome relief, no matter how it struggled to slip through the woven cotton fibers of her blouse. Boom. Flash. The skies cracked open, and rain poured down, fast and furious.

She cursed the doctor. Had the hateful man deliberately sabotaged any future with Ryan? “Medical options are limited in a mining town. I decided my chances of a full recovery were better elsewhere.” Gritting her teeth, she’d made arrangements, then took the next train out.

“Elsewhere?”

“San Francisco, the closest city.” She lifted her leg to drop her booted heel upon the dashboard. “It’s never been quite the same.” Never could be. “My ankle.”

“I should think not.” His broad palm smoothed over the curve of her hip, found the placket of buttons that held the lower garment closed, toyed with them as had been his habit. “But how many can blame a stiff ankle on the sudden and unexpected weight of a large, carnivorous dinosaur?”

“Stiff?” She snorted. “Bit of an understatement, what with all the nuts and bolts and metal plates it took to shore up the fractured bones.”

“You needed surgery?” He swallowed. “I had no idea it was that—”

“Bad? How could you?” Charlotte interrupted with the wave of a hand. Irrational of her to hold a grudge, especially now. A man couldn’t be expected to follow a woman who’d disappeared into the sunset. “No matter, I’ve done fine on my own. I’m working at the Peabody Museum now.” Bragging, perhaps, but her announcement elicited a satisfying level of wide-eyed awe.

Guarding her heart, her mind, was second nature. Rarely did she lower her defenses. In her experience, only family could be trusted. Not that they were much help, scattered as they were about the four corners of the globe. Risk falling in love? With a cryptobiologist who chased after imaginary creatures? Out of the question. An unacceptable risk. No matter that Ryan would always occupy a corner of her heart, such men were prone to sudden disappearances. Foolish of her, dreaming of more. A mistake she refused to make again. It had hurt too much when her world came crashing down.

Deep into an argument about the predatory capabilities of Tyrannosaurus rex, they’d snagged lanterns from the campsite and marched out to the dig site to point directly at the evidence while arguing their respective viewpoints. A perfect excuse to remove themselves from the company of others. Not that the bone hunters were under any illusion—given the eye rolls and head shakes that accompanied their departure—as to why the two of them wished to step beyond the light cast by the campfire, alone.

Ryan maintained that the giant lizard was no different from a snake or a monitor lizard, that the intramandibular joint would have been flexible, allowing the creature to hold tight any struggling prey. Charlotte, however, held fast to the conviction that only a stiff lower jaw could exert enough force to crunch directly through bone.

Scientific debate heated the air between them, to the point where, right or wrong, they played devil’s advocate merely to prolong the dispute. Their lips had met, skin already on fire, a convenient blanket tucked into a grassy hollow not far away. A habit that offered them far more privacy than the thin walls of tents pitched closely together.

Not that they’d made it to the blanket that night.

As she’d reached with her knife to point at a particular angled bone, the ground rumbled and shook. Just enough warning for them to turn away, but not enough time to run. The cliff above them crumbled, showering them with a cascade of rocks and dirt and dust. They’d escaped the worst of the landslide, but the terrible lizard’s jaw had dislodged and landed on top of her ankle with the entirety of its mineralized weight.

Charlotte had fought back sharp tears of pain as Ryan carried her back to her tent. Sprained, it would be days before she could put any significant weight on her ankle.

With it wrapped and propped on a rock beside the campfire, he’d handed her a tin cup of whiskey, then set about hunting for a suitable stick to serve as a crutch. Which was the moment a man on a clockwork horse galloped into camp with news.

The light of the campfire had danced across Ryan’s face as he listened to the rider’s words. Never mind she couldn’t hear what was said, the light that sparked in his eyes told her all she needed to know. He wasn’t a bone hunter like her, not really, but a cryptozoologist. He’d come West hunting for hints of mythological creatures, of beasts long presumed dead that still roamed the wilderness, undetected. But out here a man had to earn his rice and beans, hence his work with a shovel and pick.

Face tight, he’d nodded, then crossed to her side. “Remember that old, abandoned mine I told you about?” His voice pitched low. “The short, shadowy figures and missing tools and unexplained banging?”

Her heart sank. She did indeed. Such was the bedrock of every real argument they’d ever had.

Were there strange creatures in the world? Certainly. But did all myths and fairytales surround a nugget of truth? She’d argued against, he’d argued in favor, the core of their disagreement centering around the existence of proof. Kraken and pteryformes and so on were well established and known species. Save cryptids were exactly that. Cryptic. Not yet proven to exist. Dinosaurs, on the other hand? Bone hunters were hauling them to museums by the hundreds.

“This is your chance to prove me wrong,” she’d said, swallowing her irritation. “You need to go.”

A frown had carved itself into his face. “Your ankle—”

“I’ll manage.” She always did. Out here, one did not admit to any weakness. Among such hard-boiled men, emotions were to be hidden lest they be exploited. Best not to examine or name the unhappy feelings that roiled and churned inside her chest. Besides, she knew something about grand dreams. She’d not be the one holding him back from the possibility of an amazing discovery even if she did think he stood a far greater chance of finding an untapped seam of gold. “Go.”

“I hate leaving you here like this.”

“But?” She’d raised an eyebrow at his pinched expression.

“There’s talks of setting off a charge to collapse the shaft where the noises are coming from. If there’s any chance of taking the creature alive…” Roughened palms had framed her face as he’d kissed her. “I’ll be back by tomorrow evening.”

“I’ll be here.” Still, out West, a sudden shift in circumstances or fortune could grind the best intentions to dust. Best not to make any promises.

With a final look of regret and longing, he’d mounted his own horse, pointed its nose toward the Black Hills and disappeared into the dark night.

Charlotte hadn’t seen Ryan since. Shouldn’t feel her pulse leaping and racing now that he’d reappeared. Ought not blow the dust off their past to begin again. Alas, she could not bring herself to walk away from this chance to breathe life back into their unfinished romance.