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.”