Behind him, Eli shifted his position, tucking his long face alongside Cooper’s thigh, and without thinking, Cooper let his hand drift into the fur behind his neck. Enough of the anger eased for him to sound calm when he spoke. “You had no right to my private medical information.”

“Well, I wasn’t the only one. There was a woman looking through it when I got there, having a hush-hush conversation with your doctor. They shut up real quick when I walked in.” Neil paused again, looking around the room, gaze stuttering over Eli. “A couple of days ago, Ginny—Genevieve needed me to pick up some papers she’d forgotten at the house. It was right after the fight she’d had with Arthur, and she didn’t want to go back and see him. When I got there, a woman was leaving. It was the same woman I’d seen talking to your doctor that time.”

Cooper frowned, confused. “How—are you sure?”

Neil ignored that. “I saw her again, this morning. Shortly after you left the zoo. She joined a couple of your shadow agency colleagues on the scene of the fire. They were deferring to her. A boss, it looked like. Maybe your boss, too. Short Black woman, wearing a bright blue suit.”

Cola. Almost certainly. Cooper hadn’t known she’d been there when he was in the hospital, but it didn’t really surprise him either. A werewolf attack. A human about to be offered the chance to be made aware and recruited into the BSI. Those weren’t decisions made on a low level.

But what reason would she have to speak to Arthur Crane? Before James was killed and the investigation had even begun? Was it the same reason she was working in the field herself? Cooper had thought she’d showed up to the sea lion scene because he and Park had found the body. What if there was another reason?

“You do recognize her,” Neil said, watching him.

Cooper didn’t answer. Instead asked, “When you arrived at the house, did Arthur say who she was or anything about why they were meeting?”

“No. But when I told Ginny about it later, she...reacted. Canceled our meetings for the rest of the day. Disappeared from the shoot we had scheduled the next afternoon.”

“The afternoon James was found dead,” Cooper confirmed.

“Don’t,” Neil said quickly. “Stay awa—don’t come after her. I’m telling you as a friendly warning that someone high up in your shadow agency has a close eye on Arthur Crane. Nothing else.”

“Is that your unbiased opinion speaking?”

Neil’s voice hardened and that same anger he’d seen before flickered across his face. “Whatever you think you saw today in the fish room, you didn’t.”