“That’s some dark magic,” Sophie said, then pointed to a building off the trail tucked back, away from public curiosity, behind the Andean bears exhibit. “The crew’s scheduled to be filming in here today.” She swiped her card across the electronic reader to unlock the sturdy metal door marked Zoo Personnel Only.

“This space primarily contains a medical bay, small lab, containment pens, and a kitchen for food prep,” she continued, leading them down an industrial sort of hall with floor-to-ceiling cages on one side, a bit like a prison cells but much larger. Cooper noticed two of them were separated not by a wall, but metal mesh that appeared latched.

“That’s a howdy door,” Sophie said when Cooper pointed it out. “It’s used for safe, no-contact introductions between the animals to see if they’re receptive to mating or not, that sort of thing.”

“Could have used a howdy door once or twice in my life,” Cooper muttered, glancing at Park to share in the joke, but Park was distracted, gaze fixed down the hall. It soon became clear on what. One of the pens was occupied.

“Male Andean bear,” Sophie said as they all stopped to look. Inside was a bear with black fur and a white pattern around its eyes and nose sat on the floor, grooming its paw. “I think they were supposed to be filming with him toda—”

A door at the end of the hall opened and a woman walked through arguing with none other than the interrupting curator of the day before, Ryan the Lion.

“I have the B-roll,” the woman was saying. “I can’t shoot any more B-roll. What I don’t have is one goddamn primary—”

Ryan caught sight of them and startled, nearly dropping the clipboard in his hands. “Dr. Odell,” he greeted Sophie with surprise. “And... Cooper, right? What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you chased in another peacock.” He laughed, and beside him, Cooper could practically hear Park’s eyebrow raise.

“Cooper is my brother-in-law,” Sophie said smoothly. “He had such an amazing time on your jungle tour yesterday, he insisted on coming back today with his fiancé, Oliver.”

Cooper bit back his knee-jerk reaction of unhinged laughter any time someone called Park his fiancé. “Yeah, it was really, uh, something. I hadn’t been to the zoo since I was a kid, you know. You get different stuff out of it now.”

Ryan looked bashfully pleased. “Really?”

Sophie leaned in a little conspiratorially. “I was saying to them I might be able to hook them up with a behind-the-scenes tour.”

“Oh! Yes, yes, we can do that,” Ryan said, glancing at the woman next to him. “Have you met my colleague, Niko Hirano?”

“We spoke over the phone, actually,” Sophie said. “Ms. Hirano was who asked me on to the project.”