Vera Blackwood spotted the scout before she finished her coffee. He stood near the snow leopard grove with his back to her, a clipboard in one hand and a pencil already moving. A tan backpack sat high on his shoulders. His hat tilted as he wrote. She knew the posture. She had worn it herself at other zoos, when she was the one deciding who deserved a spot in the world's biggest exhibition. That exhibition was the whole point. Win the grand prize and her misfits went on the map. Lose the application, and the bank finished what the feed bills started. Most of her animals could not go to sanctuaries. Some would be put down if she closed. She was not going to close. But a scout with a notebook could end it before she applied. One line about unstable animals and her name went in the discard pile. And this morning something had already slipped the north enclosure. Her head keeper was still hunting it. The binturong that smelled like popcorn was loose again too, sulking somewhere it liked. She cut across the path in her safari boots and stopped a polite distance behind him. Through the wrought iron fence, the big cat paced her ledge. Two cubs wrestled on the flat stone. A third cub batted at its sibling's tail and rolled. "You're taking notes on my leopards," Vera said. The scout did not turn. His pencil kept moving. "I'm taking notes on everyone's leopards this month." "Then let me save you a trip back." She stepped beside him so he had to look at her. "Ask me what you're about to write down." He lowered the clipboard an inch. She read the top line upside down. Containment concerns. North sector movement observed. Her stomach dropped. He had seen her keeper running. "The female," Vera said, before he could speak. "She came from a facility that was going to euthanize her for pacing. She has raised three cubs behind that fence without a single incident in four years. Watch her with them. Then write that down too." The leopard reached the corner of her ledge, turned, and lay down between the cubs. One climbed onto her shoulder. She did not flinch. The scout watched for a long moment. He flipped to a clean page. He wrote something shorter this time, then tore out the first page and folded it into his pocket. "I'll come back Friday," he said. "I want to see the north enclosure open, animals inside, keepers calm. If I see that, you get a recommendation. If I don't, you get the other page." He walked toward the gothic entrance sign without waiting for an answer. Vera stood at the fence and counted. Four days. One escaped animal still loose. One binturong hiding until it decided otherwise. And a keeper who already thought Friday would be the day everything broke.

The scout was gone, but Friday was not. Vera stood at the leopard fence and did the math. Four days. One animal loose from the north enclosure. No collar, no tracker, no idea where it had gone. If the scout drove up on Wednesday and saw a shape crossing the path, her recommendation was finished. She needed eyes on it before he did. She walked the north fence line first. The break was a bent panel behind the feed shed, low enough that something short and heavy had shouldered through. No blood. No fur she could use. She crouched and pressed her palm to the dirt. Cold. Whatever left had left hours ago. She tried the obvious things. She checked the drainage culvert. She checked the compost bay. She checked under the deck of the restroom building, where the lanterns leaked warm light onto the stones and something small could curl up unseen. Nothing looked back at her. She stood up with wet knees and no plan. The binturong's empty cage sat down the path, gate still latched from the inside where he had figured out the trick again. The educational sign smiled at her with its painted faces. Tree-dwelling. Fruit. Small animals. She had read it a hundred times. She read it again because she was stalling. Then she smelled popcorn. Not from the cafe. The cafe was closed on Tuesdays. The smell came from the far end of the path, where the old machine sat under its iron canopy, unplugged for a year. She followed her nose. The binturong was hanging off the side of the machine. He had one paw hooked through the frame and his face pressed to the glass. Inside the kettle, someone had run it recently. Fresh kernels sat in the tray. Vera looked at the ground. A trash can lay tipped beside the machine. Cans, wrappers, a crushed popcorn bag from the vendor stall, all spilled across the path. And in the soft dirt beside the heap, a track. Not the binturong's. Wider. Splayed toes. Claws. Her escaped animal had come here first. It had knocked the bin over eating trash. The popcorn smell had pulled the binturong down from wherever he sulked. Two problems, one scent trail. Vera pulled her radio. "I need you at the old popper. Bring the carrier and a net pole. He's here. And I've got a print." She crouched by the track and measured it against her hand. The binturong watched her from the machine, unbothered, chewing something he had already stolen. She did not have a tracker. She had a nose that worked from thirty feet and a weakness she could bait. By Friday, the scout would see a locked cage and a closed north enclosure. She had four days and a lure that walked itself to the trap.