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

“Well, I’m not supposed to tell you this, because it’s confidential and only in his HR file.” Candy leaned to the side and looked out the window over the sofa. “But he had a gambling problem.”

“What? No, he didn’t—”

“Right before you were hired, he voluntarily went to a treatment place for it. He was gone for a month and I had to suspend his paychecks, which was the only reason I was told. Apparently, it was a real problem—but when he came back, he seemed so much better. That was when he started working out all the time. Those triathlons, the running, the swim races. I thought his addiction was under control, though.”

“He was a gambler?” Lydia thought of the sports sections he’d always had around. “I can’t see it. I just …”

Except how much did she know anybody who she worked with?

As she fell silent, Candy closed the cover on the spiral notebook and held it out. “You asked me for what I know and here it is. It’s all yours—oh, and that UPS package? You’re right. I did reroute it from Peter’s house. About ten days ago, he started bugging me about where it was, giving me the tracking number over and over again, calling three or four times a day. They did lose the damn thing—and when they finally located it at the processing center, I made them deliver it to the WSP building by forging Peter’s permission. I figured it had to do with … whatever was going on. And it was delivered two nights ago, but I don’t know who signed for it or where it is.”

Lydia took the pad. “Thank you so much for this.”

“I figure it’s the least I could do. And listen, yesterday, when you called me out, I didn’t know how to handle it. I also didn’t know whether I could trust you.” Candy held up her hand. “Oh, and really and honestly, I didn’t kill Peter Wynne. But I have a feeling … Rick might have.”





AS CANDY PUT the accusation out there, Lydia flipped through the pages of the woman’s notebook. There were sections about the security system, mail, supply ordering, missed days—including, yup, those two days Lydia had been in Plattsburgh for the root canal. The entries were all in the same neat handwriting, but made with different colored pens and even pencil.

“So what do we do?” Candy asked.

“I don’t know.”

Where can I go with this, Lydia wondered. C.P. Phalen? Eastwind and the state police?

“Where’s your handyman, by the way?” Candy shook her head. “And no, I’m not asking for Susan. Or Bessie.”

Lydia controlled her expression. Or tried to. “He’s quit. And I know you gave his résumé to Eastwind.”

“I was worried about you.”

“Thank you for that.” She couldn’t bear to go into what Eastwind had found. “What can I say.”

“I’m sorry. You liked him.”

“I didn’t know him.” She cleared her throat. “He was a stranger. It’s just water under the bridge—and speaking of bridges, he did fix all three of them.”

“And our toilet.”

Lydia glanced at the notebook. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Maybe.” Candy narrowed her blue lids. “If I do whatever it is, I am off the hook for lying to you yesterday, okay. No guilt.”

“Well, I’m not sure I can be a party to that bargain. I’m not in charge of your conscience.”

The woman put up a stop-sign hand. “I’m just laying out the landscape. That’s where I’m at. Now, what do you need?”

“Take me to Paul’s so I can get my car?”

“You got it.” The nod was forceful. “Such a fair exchange.”

Lydia grabbed her bag, double-checked that the back door was dead-bolted, and then walked out with Candy. After she locked the front, they got in the SweeTarts-smelling car and were off.

As they got on the county road, Lydia watched the riverbed go by. “Why would Rick want to bomb the hotel if he was behind the poisonings? I don’t get it.”

“I think I do. I had four different phone calls from members of his family, making sure we knew where the funeral was and when. I couldn’t get the uncle off the phone.” Candy shrugged. “All of them were so proud of him, so deferential. If you knew you were checking out? Like, if you were going to do yourself in ’cuz you’d been working nasty shit at your job? It’s a better legacy to leave for the people who love you, isn’t it. A warrior against a corporation hurting the wildlife. As opposed to a common criminal motivated by a gambling problem.”

“I swear I never saw him do anything out of the norm in the clinic.”

“If you were doing something wrong, wouldn’t you work hard to hide it? It’s like brooming up a mess before your parents come home. You make sure everything is where it needs to be.”

They fell silent, and soon enough, the grungy layout of Paul’s Garage presented itself, the business not much more than a smudge of motor oil and a debris field of rusting car parts at the side of the road. Turning in, Candy nosed her grill right up to the filthy glass wall of the office.

Getting out, Lydia followed the sounds of a power tool to a three-bay setup of lifts.

“Paul?” she called out.

“Yeah,” came the response from a service pit underneath a Toyota that looked seven hundred years old.