of a solid bass erupted from the front desk. Caught off guard, she flinched. Seeking the source, she noticed someone rush to pull the phone from their pocket and silence it without a glance.
Even with his back to Aly, the man at the counter was an interesting sight. Tall and skinny, he seemed almost lopsided with stocky shoulders attached to such gangly limbs. The hems of his skinny jeans were inches above his ankles, revealing clashing socks sprouting from sneakers with neon laces. Against his clean-cut torso, including a professional blazer and his military-esque crew cut, it blared like an alarm, distracting.
Unsure what compelled her, Aly stood, drifting to his side. He leaned on the counter above the desk, shifting through ink-fading photographs she recognized as her own. Noting the illegible tattoos running across his knuckles, she inquired, “Is everyone here reviewing the file?”
Clearing his throat to mask a surprised jump, he blurted, “You’re Alyson Glass.”
Amused, she nodded. He stood, offering a hand and a grin. “I’m Banes. Rowley Banes.”
“Like James Bond?”
Pleased she understood his reference, he nodded, lifting the stack. “Almost everyone. Most of our work is amongst ourselves. There’s usually a lot to circulate, but the area doesn’t really get hit with reports until tourist season. You’ve broken the calm before the storm, Alyson. They’re freaked and flurrying.”
“So is everyone,” she concluded, dismissing his explanation. “Who works with this stuff anyway?”
“There’s all sorts of people who work with this. Sketch artists, professional imitators, DNA diagnostics and polygraph experts, biologists, archaeologists, zoologists, cryptologists, private investigators, field researchers, trackers, teachers, professors, doctors, journalists, cops, even friends of friends… any- and everyone who’s seen it or wants to. One guy was in charge of wildlife for the United Nations. It’s crazy. It’s hush-hush. There’s a lot invested in the field.”
Aly raised a brow, joking, “And I’ll bet they just come running to work with you guys.”
Rowley g rinned. “We can instigate them – knocking, mimicking vocalizations, even using machines and acoustics. You wait until the animals grow silent, it’s their instinct to lay low when a ‘squatch is around. The tricky part is, when they’re provoked enough to actually interact, they’re extremely aggressive. The key is to try to make it seem like accidental attraction. They’re usually more curious than confrontational. But they’re very protective of their young, and since they travel in families, a baby‘squatch is always around. You know how mamabears are? It’s a very similar situation. There’s a fine line between scaring them off, getting them curious, and threatening their territory.”
“So it’s dangerous?” she clarified.
“We think they’re omnivores, but I’ve neve r heard of anyone being eaten by one,” Rowley’s voice teased. “In case things go wrong, everyone in the area is trained to handle the worst. Usually we can keep the expeditions isolated from human interference. We work to reinforce posts on protective laws in supported regions so it’s a haven from hunters. It’s really important to keep their habitats intact and the numbers up in their species, since they’re so rare and we know so little about them.”
“They’re just regular animals, then?” Aly asked. “They’re not halfhuman like the legend says?”
“Of course not. We think they’re a plain old North American primate – which is pretty amazing in and of itself. It’s totally possible. We think they’re a descendent of Gigantopithecus, adapted to a different environment. See, Giganto probably migrated from the Bering land bridge. Chinese apothecaries often hunted the big guys and sold them as dragon’s teeth for pagan rituals.” Eyes wide, he added, “No wonder then ran over, right?”
Aly had to laugh. She understood little of what he said, but his joy was contagious. The way Rowley spoke reminded her of Noah when he told his stories, filled with expression and details of idiosyncrasy. It occurred to Aly that her mother was the same way, when rattling off odd facets of her workday or imitating doctors to force humor into their fears.
I wish they hadn’t been so valid.
Noah reminded Aly of a happier life. It was never easy, with school perpetually awkward and her only parent consistently nailed with work at ungodly hours across a myriad of jobs. Even once Vanessa found schedules in the nine-to-five, jobs were layered with online classes and culinary seminars, most of it falling away with sudden hospitalizations. If Greg hadn’t agreed under threats of faltering child support to maintain the condo fees, she would have been packed into Francesca’s lower trundle years before stage four.
It’s a wonder he