At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(3)

“Come on, Ginny. Be a love.” His breath hung in a cloud.

Falconry was a humbling art. Hawks were not domestic—they were sharp-taloned, razor-beaked, feathery tufts of wildness that condescended now and again to perch upon an offered fist. While his love for the young Ginny had been instant and all-consuming, hers for him was a slow-blooming affair, a bond built on the steady accretion of trust.

That, and a regular supply of raw meat.

He glanced at his watch as the minutes ticked by.

Some days, he wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off with a dog that came when he called and gave him the utter adoration and obedience he surely deserved. A creature who would boost his ego rather than flatten it.

Today was shaping up to be one of those days.

“Ginny, you are being completely wretched.”

He wriggled the bait again. After a long hesitation in which the hawk appeared to cycle from being his partner to wild beast and back again, she flapped heavily into the air and landed on his glove, tearing greedily at the bit of flesh.

“That’s my fine lady.”

Evan leaned over the lifeless rock dove. Columba livia, aka pigeon, aka flying rat. Its plump breast had been cleaved nearly in half by a sharp tool. The blood on its dark-gray breast and iridescent green neck feathers shone bright red in the light rain.

Nothing natural in this small death. But definitely not poison.

He straightened to his full height of four foot five. Doing so didn’t give him much of a vantage from this small, low-lying field. Close by and around him in all directions, woods glowed in the rain as if lit from within. Dark firs and nearly naked white ash and elm trees stabbed the low dome of the sky. A narrow gap in the woods revealed the placid waters of the park’s lagoon. In the far distance, traffic growled as the city grumbled to life.

Closer by, the trees shone wetly—silent sentinels.

Evan looked again at the pigeon. Its feathers trembled in the drizzle, giving it false life.

Unease touched a cool hand to the back of his neck.

He had been granted special dispensation to fly Ginny at Washington Park during off hours. It was good exercise, and park officials appreciated Ginny’s efforts to winnow the city’s overpopulation of pigeons. Though the battle to keep the city’s buildings, statues, and sidewalks clean of droppings was an unending task, Evan was—as far as he knew—the only one sanctioned to pursue pigeons in this particular park.

His mind ran down the possibilities of who might toss knives at nesting birds.

A hunter. But then why leave the carcass?

Perhaps someone with a hatred of pigeons and a concurrent desire to improve their knife-throwing skills.

Or, possibly, a madman.

Evan’s imagination was vast, and admittedly sometimes encouraged by his fondness for drink. Thinking outside the box was what he was paid to do. But his flights of fancy were generally limited to the speculation required when deciphering ancient scripts or decoding the rants of murderers and terrorists. He was not known for seeing madmen behind every bush, even when his work often brought him into their realm.

The second option, he decided. The knife-wielding hater of pigeons. Once again, he felt a sense of disquiet as he took in the silent woods. The park was now officially open, and soon joggers and walkers would descend upon the trails. But for the moment, he and Ginny were quite alone.

Or so he hoped.

“Home we go, Ginny,” he said. “We’ll call in and report this on our way.”

But Ginny had seemingly forgotten the pigeon, and her gaze had gone elsewhere. Leaves rustling nearby suggested a mouse or a squirrel burrowing to escape the hawk, and her golden eyes blazed with eagerness for the hunt.

“Not now,” he warned.

He reached toward his bag for her hood.

As if she sensed his intent, Ginny pushed off from his fist, yanking her jesses free from his surprised grip and disappearing into the thicket with the sepia flick of feathers.

“God’s wounds,” he muttered, watching as she vanished into the trees. “I’m getting a dog!” he called after her.

He pulled out his phone, noticed that he’d missed a great many calls, then pulled up the GPS tracking app. Ginny was headed due north, which would take her over the playgrounds and softball fields. Which would, fortunately, be empty right now. It was always an awkward moment when your hawk hazed young children.

From far away, someone shouted, “Professor Wilding! Are you here?”

He squinted east, into the rising light. He could just make out the navy uniforms and bright-blue helmets of Chicago’s mounted police.

Police.

That didn’t bode well.

But at least he was no longer alone in the woods with a pigeon slayer.

He looked at the missed calls. Six showed an unknown number. Nine were from a homicide detective, Addie Bisset. The best detective on the force in his opinion. Certainly the bravest. A woman with a fine mind and rarified taste who loved his cooking and his library equally.

Given all this, she was, naturally, his best friend.

Still, dear friend or no, she didn’t generally call him nine times in the early hours of a workday.

“Professor Wilding!” came the voice again, young and male.

The clouds parted, washing the scene with pearl as a man and a woman on horseback drew close. The officer in front raised his cupped hands to his mouth. “Doctor Wild—”