Chương 5
“I don’t know yet.”
She ended the call.
For ten minutes she sat with the engine running.
Then she opened the sanctuary’s website.
The contact page listed a general number.
She did not call it.
She found Ethan’s name under Wildlife Operations.
No direct number.
Maya closed the browser.
Then opened it again.
At the bottom of the page was the sanctuary’s public records section: annual reports, rescue summaries, accreditation information.
She searched for Koda.
Three results.
One was a fundraising newsletter.
One was an annual medical report.
The third was a rescue profile from seven years earlier.
Maya opened it.
The photo loaded slowly.
Koda looked younger, thinner, angrier.
His left ear was already damaged.
The caption described him as one of five canids transferred after an Idaho cruelty seizure.
Maya scrolled.
The seizure location was listed only as Clearwater County.
A private facility had been operating under multiple names.
One phrase caught her eye.
Former ownership remains under investigation.
The article was seven years old.
Maya searched the facility name.
Nothing useful.
Then she searched Clearwater County wolf seizure.
Old local news appeared.
She opened the first article.
The owner’s name was Leonard Carter.
Maya stopped moving.
She read it twice.
Then once more.
Leonard Carter, sixty-one at the time, had been charged with animal cruelty, unlawful possession of protected wildlife, and several licensing violations. The article said he denied owning some of the animals and claimed they had been abandoned by associates.
There was a photograph.
An older man in a baseball cap walking toward a courthouse.
Maya enlarged it.
The face did not look like hers.
Then she saw the mouth.
Her father’s mouth, from the only photograph she remembered.
She shut off the phone.
Outside, snow thickened.
Maya started the car.
She turned around.
Ethan was still at the sanctuary when she returned.
The visitor center was closed.
The parking lot held four vehicles instead of twenty.
Maya knocked on the side entrance.
A woman in gray scrubs answered.
“We’re closed.”
“I need Ethan.”
“Who are you?”
“Maya Carter.”
The woman’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
That irritated Maya immediately.
“You’ve heard about me.”
The woman looked embarrassed.
“Yes.”
“Great.”
“I’m Dr. Lena Walsh. Sanctuary veterinarian.”
“Is Ethan here?”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Lena hesitated.
Maya almost laughed.
“Apparently everyone here does that before answering a basic question.”
Lena opened the door wider.
“Come in.”
Ethan met them in the hallway.
When he saw Maya, he stopped.
“You came back.”
“My uncle owned Koda.”
Ethan looked at Lena.
Lena looked at him.
Maya pointed between them.
“Don’t.”
Ethan nodded once.
“Okay.”
“Leonard Carter.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“I found the name after you left.”
“You looked me up.”
“I looked up Koda’s seizure records.”
“And then me.”
“Yes.”
Maya folded her arms.
“At least you admit it.”
“I searched your last name with Leonard’s.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
“I wasn’t trying to investigate you.”
“You were absolutely investigating me.”
“Fair.”
Lena said quietly, “Maybe we should sit.”
Maya turned toward her.
“No offense, but everyone keeps offering me chairs before telling me terrible things.”
Lena almost smiled.
“Occupational habit.”
They went to a staff break room anyway.
Someone had left a bag of microwave popcorn open on the table. The smell was stale.
Maya sat.
Ethan remained standing near the refrigerator.
Lena took the seat across from her.
Maya placed both palms flat on the table.
“My mother says my father and his brother kept wolves when I was a child.”
Neither of them reacted dramatically.
That helped.
“She says there was a female wolf with pups. I tried to help one. I cut my wrist.”
Lena looked at the scar.
“And Koda stared at the scar,” Maya said.
“Yes,” Ethan replied.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Lena said. “Not if we’re talking about direct memory.”
“Thank you.”
“But scent recognition is complicated.”
Maya looked at her.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Give me a science-shaped way to say something impossible.”
Lena nodded.
“That’s fair.”
She rested her forearms on the table.
“I am not saying Koda remembers you from childhood. He couldn’t. His estimated age makes that extremely unlikely.”
“Extremely?”
“Dental aging and physical history aren’t perfect.”
Ethan added, “But he’s not twenty-four.”
“Right.”
Lena continued.
“What’s possible is that his behavior is connected to something familiar. Scent. Gesture. Visual pattern. A learned association.”
“With me?”
“With something about you.”
Maya looked toward the dark window.
“Could his mother have known me?”
Lena did not answer immediately.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether we can establish lineage.”
Maya looked back.
“Can you?”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“We have genetic samples.”
“From Koda?”
“Yes.”
“And from the animals in the old raid?”
Ethan shook his head.
“Not here.”
Maya felt foolish for being disappointed.
Then Lena said, “Possibly elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“The state university worked with wildlife authorities on the original Idaho seizure in 2002.”
Maya’s pulse changed.
“The raid from when I was five.”
“We’d need records.”
“Can you get them?”
“Not tonight.”
Maya pushed away from the table and stood.
“I need air.”
Ethan followed her outside but kept several yards between them.
Snow had stopped.
The sanctuary after closing felt different.
No visitors.
No children tapping on displays.
No coffee machine.
From somewhere deeper in the property came a low wolf howl.
Another answered.
Maya stopped under the awning.
“You hear that every night?”
“Most nights.”
“How do you get used to it?”
“I don’t know if you do.”
“That’s comforting.”
Ethan leaned against a wooden post.
“You don’t have to pursue this.”
Maya looked at him.
“You really believe that?”
“Yes.”
“If you found out your childhood had an illegal wolf compound hidden inside it, you’d just go home?”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because sometimes people need permission not to turn every terrible thing into a mission.”
Maya stared at him.
May you like
That was the first thing anyone had said all day that did not feel like it was pushing her toward an answer.
She looked across the dark compound.
