He looked for Genevieve and realized he was not the only one watching her. One of the few people not turned toward the screen was standing on the other side of the stage opposite Cooper, and gazing a bit intensely at Genevieve. He recognized the same peroxide-blond buzz cut. The makeup assistant from earlier.

The one who had been standing outside of the wolf exhibit staring at Eli just before Cooper and Dean arrived.

Did people have their makeup redone on site? He knew they refreshed it occasionally over the course of a day. But if you got it professionally done for a big, fancy event, was that person just waiting around in the wings for...emergency powdering? He genuinely had no clue.

As he touched Park’s elbow and directed his attention to the woman, she turned and slipped through the crowd, heading toward the edge of the room. There she paused, standing back to one of the columns, and surveyed the gala. Cooper looked around too. Everyone in the room still appeared focused on the screen where a twenty-foot Genevieve was laughing prettily, crouched with an enormous tortoise. Her voice echoed so loudly off the tall stone walls that it sounded distorted, mechanical.

When Cooper turned back to the blond woman, he caught her slipping behind the velvet rope that blocked guests from wandering down the surrounding halls.

Cooper looked at Park, who was also watching the now empty archway. Park tilted his head. Follow? Cooper nodded.

It was easy to move through the room with everyone standing still and staring up. Moments later, Cooper and Park were stepping over the velvet rope too. There was a large dark hall running perpendicular to the rotunda, and directly across, another enormous archway. A large cream-and-gold plaque on the right-hand wall read Hall of Mammals.

Park inhaled, sniffing the air, and led him into a small foyer, glass cases on either side. There was enough light from the hall outside that Cooper could see the cases were full of taxidermy animals. A moose on his left. A walrus to his right. The cases were at least thirty feet tall, and a couple dozen other creatures of all sizes were positioned throughout, placed on shelves or held up by strings. From mice to bighorn sheep to a panda to a rhinoceros. There was even some kind of whale floating, uncased, directly above their heads, and a tiger positioned to look like it was leaping for it.