Chapter One
I’m sipping a Starbucks breve latte, my guilty pleasure, when the office door opens.
A woman steps inside and stops just past the threshold, clutching a leather satchel like it’s a Zulu war shield.
She’s cute in a professional-nerd kind of way. Blue blouse buttoned to her throat, smart gray skirt down to her ankles, black flats. Her curly brown hair is half-pinned, half-tumbling over her shoulders. Thick glasses catch the morning light and throw it back with energy.
Tammy, my daughter and intern, looks up from her desk beside mine and offers a warm, polite smile. “You must be Dr. Fenwick.”
“That would be me.” The woman steps farther in. “Thank you for making time on such short notice.”
I rise, set my coffee aside, and offer my hand. “I’m Samantha Moon. Please, have a seat.” I gesture to one of the client chairs across from my desk.
Her handshake is firm, her skin borderline cold.
Hmm.
A vampire? No. She has an aura. And I sense her nerves: tight and restless just beneath the surface.
“I’m Dr. Jill Fenwick,” she says as she smooths her skirt and settles into the chair. “Director of the Craig Regional Paleontology Center.”
I ease back into my own chair. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Fenwick. Can I get you some coffee, tea, or bottled water?”
She shakes her head. “No, thank you. I’ll get straight to the point. I know it’s the end of the day. Well, it is for me.”
“We tend to work the night shift around here.” I smile and gesture for her to continue. “But by all means.”
She exhales, shoulders slacking, then stiffening again. Her eyes flick briefly to Tammy before returning to me. “I was told you have a reputation for… recovering unconventional things.”
Tammy’s typing falters for just a second.
“My reputation precedes me.”
“Well, this is rare and very valuable. At least, to our small museum.”
I rest my elbows on the desk. “I’ve worked plenty of cases involving stolen or missing items. Antique jewelry, rare books, lost art, heirlooms. If you can name it, I’ve probably hunted it down.” I offer a small smile. “You came to the right place.”
She releases a shaky breath, her posture loosening. “That’s a relief. I wasn’t sure where else to turn. Something was stolen from our museum last week, and the Buena Park police are moving… frustratingly slow.”
I lift an eyebrow. “What was stolen?”
She straightens. “A raptor fossil.”
Tammy perks up. “A dinosaur bone?”
Jill gives her a tight smile. “Yes.Deinonychus, to be exact. Rare specimens from a private collection we were preparing to display.” She shakes her head. “They were stored in our secure vault. Now they’re gone.”
“They?” I ask.
“Multiple bones.”
“Got it. You have cameras on the vault, I assume?”
“That’s the worst part.” Jill’s mouth tightens. “The day the fossils went missing, we had a complete system failure. Cameras, alarms, motion detectors. Everything went down for nearly six hours.”
Tammy and I exchange a look.
“That’s awfully convenient,” I say.
