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Sam shrugged. “Not that it matters, but why not Wildlife Conservation ?”
    “ ’Cause that’s run by the WCS, who’re the people who run the Bronx Zoo. It’d be like investigat-ing something on the Skywalker Ranch and saying we were with Star Wars Insider. They’d know we were bogus right off.” With that, Dean got into the car.
    Sam opened his door and folded himself into the front seat. “Since when do you know so much about animal magazines?”
    “Cassie was a subscriber.”
    That got a grin out of Sam. Cassie was one of Dean’s ex-girlfriends. Given Cassie’s crusading character, based on the one and only time Sam met her in Missouri, he wasn’t at all surprised that she supported the Wildlife Conservation Society.
    Sam pulled out the maps to figure out the best route to the zoo. While he did so, Dean asked,
    “Hey, does the Bronx Zoo have penguins? Like in Madagascar ?”
    Without even looking up, Sam said, “That was the Central Park Zoo. I mean, the Bronx Zoo probably has ’em, too . . .”
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    “Yeah, but they’re probably not as cool as the ones in Madagascar . I mean, I doubt they can take over a freighter or do hand- to-hand combat.”
    “Well, Dean, if they can, then we’ll have three jobs . . .”

    FOUR
    The Bronx Zoo
    The Bronx, New York
    Thursday 16 November 2006
    Clare Hemsworth brushed the bits of grass off the Wildlife Conservation Society logo on her blue shirt as she headed out into the pavilion in front of the Wild Asia ride. The crowds were a bit sparse in November, but visitors to the Bronx Zoo still wanted to go on Wild Asia.
    Clare remembered her mother talking about how thrilling Wild Asia was back when it first opened in the late seventies. For her part, she couldn’t imagine why anybody would make such a fuss. The monorail was so retro, and it wasn’t as if it was that big a deal to see animals wandering around free. Of course, back in the stone age when Mom was a kid, Never
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    she guessed it was a big deal not to see animals in cages, but there wasn’t any novelty to it now. The monorail was a cheesy piece of plastic that Clare was convinced was gonna fall off the rail any day now.
    Then again, she was in a bad mood generally.
    Ever since what happened with those two kids, she’d been talking to reporters, to police, and to lawyers representing Fordham University, and she was really, really sick of it. The lawyers were the worst—okay, cops and reporters were doing their jobs, but why should she have to listen to crap from Fordham’s legal eagles just because the two kids who died happened to be their students? They weren’t even killed on campus!
    “Excuse me, Ms. Hemsworth?”
    Clare closed her eyes and let out a breath. She’d had about fifty conversations that started with those four words this past week, and they were always like having root canal, only without the anes-thetic. If it wasn’t someone from law enforcement or from the WCS, she was going to tell them to screw off so fast . . .
    She turned, and saw the hottest man she’d ever seen in her life.
    There was another guy with him, but Clare didn’t pay much attention to him, she was focused on this one guy. He had such amazing brown eyes, and, if he was the one who’d called her name, the 42 SUPERNATURAL
    sexiest voice she’d ever heard. Right there and then, she decided that she would do whatever this guy asked. He was tall, too, but not intimidating the way some tall guys were. His semishaggy dark hair was combed neatly, and he had an adorable small nose. “Uh, yeah, I’m—I’m Ms. Hemsworth. Uh, Clare.”
    The other, shorter one, said, “Nice to meet you, Clare. My name’s John Mayall, and my friend here is Bernie Watson—we’re with National Geographic .”
    Clare blinked, and tore her eyes away from Bernie Watson—what a wonderful name!—to look at the shorter one with the close-cropped hair, blue eyes, and mouth that looked like it was in a permanent smirk. John,