Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) by J.R. Ward

Lydia let out a shriek and jumped back.

In the front of the house, in the windows of the door, Candy was peering inside. As their eyes met, the woman lifted her hand.

“Sorry,” the receptionist said through the panels. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

With a curse, Lydia covered her pounding heart with her hand and went to open things up. “I didn’t know you were here—”

“You want a ride into work?” Candy glanced around casually, but not because she was assessing the furniture. “You know, I thought … you might like a ride.”

How much does she know about Daniel? Lydia wondered. Had Eastwind closed the loop with her?

As the woman’s eyes returned to Lydia’s, her expression grew annoyed. “Look, I’m not going to apologize.”

“For what?”

“Lying to you yesterday.”

Lydia frowned. “About what exactly.”

Candy checked behind herself. “I’m coming in and shutting this door.”

The woman stepped over the threshold, closed things, and leaned back against the panels. Then she crossed her arms on her chest and played with her left earring. The pink flamingo matched the tropical theme of her sweater, all the palm trees and their beach scene with a sun like a postcard made out of yarn.

“You’re right,” she said abruptly. “I did know … some things.”

Lydia sat down on her sofa. “Tell me.”

There was a pause, as if the WSP’s receptionist were ordering her thoughts. “I knew the money was leaving the accounts because I could see it coming and going. There were wire transfers in from what I assumed were legitimate sources, but I couldn’t figure out where the withdrawals were headed.” She shook her head. “Peter was definitely in on it because when I brought it to his attention, he wasn’t surprised and he told me it was none of my business. He reminded me that I’m just a secretary and that I needed to worry about answering the phone.”

Candy shrugged. “So fine. I answered the phone. I opened mail. I ordered supplies—but I kept track.” She went into her purse and took out a spiral-bound steno notebook. “It started about a year ago. Money coming, I’m guessing from the trustees, and then leaving, on these wires.”

She flipped open the cover. “And that wasn’t all. Rick was ordering these slides, glass slides—you know for tissue samples?”

“Yes, we use them during the exams to check blood and—”

“But why was he ordering them by the thousands?”

Lydia sat forward. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Thousands and thousands of slides. For samples.”

“That can’t be right.” Lydia shook her head. “I worked side by side with him in the clinic and I never saw him do anything out of the ordinary or unnecessary with testing—”

“And that wasn’t all he was ordering.” Candy looked back down at her notes. “He ordered a shit ton of something called bromadiolone?”

Lydia’s brows popped. “I’m sorry—what did you say?”

“Maybe I’m pronouncing it wrong?” Candy turned the pad around and pointed to the word. That was repeated eight times with dates. “Brodiy—”

Dropping her head in her hands, Lydia started to tremble. Thinking back over the months, she remembered Rick’s irritability and the obvious signs of stress he’d exhibited. Now that she considered it, he had lost some weight and been agitated. But she’d assumed it was because of the hotel across the valley and the threat that Corrington was presenting to the wolf population.

She might have been so wrong about that.

“What’s wrong?” Candy asked. “You okay?”

Snapping back to attention, Lydia cleared her throat.

“That’s … the poison.” As she glanced at the other woman, she was certain she was in a nightmare. “Out in the field. That’s what’s been used on my wolves.”

Candy blanched. “What the hell was Rick doing?”

“I don’t know.” She thought of the wolf she had found, near death, in the veil. “How could he hurt the very thing he was supposed to protect.”

“He was coming in a lot after hours.” Candy refocused and flipped to a different section in the notebook. “The security system reports whenever it’s turned on or off and from which keypad. About a month after the first of the payments came in from the board, Rick started entering through the clinic door at night. It wasn’t a regular thing at first. Only a couple times every once in a while. But since this past fall? It was every week, like clockwork on Thursday nights.”

“How long would he be in there?”

“Hours.”

“What the hell was he doing?” Lydia thought of the data on those disks and felt a raw rage. “He better not have been experimenting on those animals.”

Bursting up, she paced around. Then she stopped. “What if it wasn’t the hotel all along. What if Rick had poisoned those wolves, every one of them.”

“But why?” Candy what-the-hell’d her free hand. “I don’t get it.”

“To bring them in for the tissue sampling. God, what was he doing to them when we brought them in for health screening? He must have introduced agents into their blood and then brought them in for autopsies …” Lydia rubbed her forehead, like that would somehow help. “Why would he violate all his professional standards and beliefs, though?”