Chapter One
A life spent fulfilling a vow to a dead man is really no life at all, but Id loved Simon Malone, and Id promised.
Im a zoologist by trade, a cryptozoologist by choice. If Id followed my training, Id be holed up in a zoo or worse, studying giraffes and pygmy goats.
Instead, I trace rumors of mythical animals and try to prove they exist. A frustrating exercise. Theres a reason no ones captured a Bigfoot. They dont want to be found, and theyre a lot better at hiding than anyone on earth is at seeking. Or at least thats my theory, and Im sticking to it.
Most cryptozoologists attempt to find undiscovered species or evolutionary wonders---real animals, nothing paranormal about them---but not me. Nope. Id made that vow.
Foolish, but when a woman loves a man the way that I loved Simon, she does foolish things, especially when hes dying in her arms.
So I follow every legend, every folk tale, every scrap of information, trying to uncover something mythical and prove it real. Though Ive never believed in magic, my husband did, and the only thing Ive ever believed in was him.
I was having very little luck with my quest until the night the phone rang at 3:00 a.m. Insomnia and a very empty checking account made me answer it despite the hour.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Malone?” The voice was male, a bit shaky, old or perhaps ill.
“Not yet.”
I needed to find a cryptid---translation: unknown animal---prove its existence, write a thesis. Then I could attach those lovely letters---Ph.D.---at the end of my name. But since the whole vow incident, Id been too busy chasing lake monsters and Sasquatch clones to spend time finding a new breed of anything.
“Is this Diana Malone?”
“Yes. Whos this?”
“Frank Tallient.”
The name sounded familiar, but I couldnt figure out why. “Have we met?”
“No. I got your number from Rick Canfield.”
Swell. The last guy whod said those immortal words, “Youre fired.”
Rick was a lawyer whod gone on a fishing trip with a bunch of other lawyers near Lake of the Woods, Minnesota. In the middle of the night hed seen something in the lake. Something slick and black and very, very big.
Being a lawyer, he was smart enough to know he shouldnt tell the others hed lost his mind. Not yet.
Instead, hed gone home, searched the Internet, and made some phone calls, trying to find someone to help him discover if what hed seen had been real or imagined. Hed found me.
“Rick thought youd be free to help me,” Tallient continued.
I was free all right. Unemployed. Again. A common occurrence in my life. I was very good at looking for things, not so good at actually finding them. However, I was one of the few cryptozoologists willing to travel on a whim for cash.
I wasnt associated with any university---not anymore. Not since Simon had gone over the edge, tarnishing both his reputation and my own.
I depended on the kindness of strangers---hell, lets be honest and just call them strange---to fund my expeditions. Until tonight, Id been fresh out of both.
“Since you didnt locate Nessie---,” Tallient began.
“Nessies the Loch Ness Monster. I was searching for Woody.”
Which was the name Rick had bestowed on the thing. People have no originality when naming lake beasts, always opting for some variation of the body of water they supposedly resided in.
Typically, the moment Id arrived at Lake of the Woods with my cameras and recorders whatever Rick might have seen had gone poof. If it had ever been there in the first place.
In my expert opinion, an obscenely large muskie was responsible for the tales, not a supernatural lake monster, but I hadnt been able to prove that, either.
“I have a job for you,” Tallient continued.
“Im listening.”
I had no choice. Though my parents were incredibly wealthy, they thought I was nuts and had stopped speaking to me the instant I married Simon.
After all, what could a handsome, brilliant, up-and-coming zoologist from Liverpool see in a not-very-pretty, far too sturdy grad student unless it was her parents millions? He already had a green card. That Simon had told them exactly what they could do with their money had only made me love him more.
In truth, I fit into Simons world better than Id ever fit in my own. I stood five-foot-ten in my bare feet; on a good day I weighed a hundred and seventy. I liked the out-of-doors---didnt mind dirt or sun, wind or rain. Id joined the Girl Scouts just so I could camp. Id done pretty much anything and everything I could think of to emphasize my differences from the never-too-rich, never-too-thin lifestyle of my mother.
“Can you access the Internet?” Tallient asked.
“Hold on.” I tapped my laptop, which sprang from asleep to awake much quicker than I ever did. “OK.”
Tallient recited a www-dot address. An instant later, a newspaper article spilled across my screen.
“‘Man Found Dead in a Swamp,” I read. “Not unusual.”
Swamps were notorious dumping grounds for bodies. If the muck didnt take them, the alligators would.
“Keep going.”
“Throat torn. Feral dogs. Huh.” I accessed the next page. “Child missing. Coyotes. No body. Seems straightforward.”
“Not really.”
Tallient recited a second address, and I read some more. “Wolf sightings.”
My heart increased in tempo. Wolves had been Simons specialty; theyd turned into his obsession. Now they were mine.
“Where is this?” I demanded.
“New Orleans.”
If possible, my heart beat even faster. Once red wolves had roamed the Southeast from the Atlantic to the Gulf and west to Texas. Theyd been sighted as far north as Missouri and Pennsylvania. But in 1980 the red wolf had been declared extinct in the wild. In 1987 theyd been reintroduced, but only in North Carolina. So . . .
“There arent any wolves in Louisiana,” I said.
“Precisely.”
“Theres a legend, though. . . .” I struggled to remember it. “Honey Island Swamp monster.”
“I doubt that Bigfoot-like footprints found thirty years ago have any relationship to death, disappearance, and wolves where they arent supposed to be.”
He had a point.
“Could be an ABC,” I ventured.
The anacronym stood for “Alien Big Cat”---a cyptozoological label given to reports of out-of-place felines. Black panthers in Wisconsin. A jaguar in Maine. Happens a lot more than youd think.
Most of the time ABCs were explained away as exotic animals released into the woods when they became too hard to handle or too big to fit in an apartment. Funny thing was, no one ever found them.
If they were pets, wouldnt they be easy to catch? Wouldnt their bones, or even their collars, turn up after a truly wild animal killed them? Wouldnt there be at least one record of an ABC being hit by a truck on the interstate?
But there wasnt.
“This is a wolf, not a cat,” Tallient said.
I was impressed with his knowledge of cypto-terminology but too caught up in the myst