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

“Please.” She made room by stepping back. “How are you?”

More importantly, how am I? A felon or … ?

“Good, thanks. You’re working late.”

“There are only five of us at the WSP.” Well, four who showed up for work. “So some days go into the evening.”

“I know all about that.” He glanced over to Candy’s desk. Looked down the hall to Lydia’s office. Checked out the waiting area. “So I’d like to ask you for some help. And just so we’re clear, I’m not coming with a warrant or anything.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Your preserve has cameras mounted in places, correct?”

Bingo, she thought. “We do, yes.”

“And how long do you keep the feeds?”

“Forever.” As he seemed surprised, she nodded. “It’s not like surveillance video for businesses or public places. We need the data for our research purposes. Everything’s kept on the cloud.”

Eastwind shook his head. “Where I come from, clouds rain. Block the sun. Block the moon. I am not meant for this era.”

She smiled, even though her heart rate was high. “There are advantages to technology. And this is about the hiker, right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’d be happy to give you a copy of the coverage we have for North Granite Ridge. You want me to go back, like, three days? Four?”

“Four would be good. We’re not exactly sure when the attack happened.”

“It may not be a wolf, you know.” When he made a noncommittal murmur, she tried to shrug casually. “I’ll send you the files right away. All I need is an email address, and I’ll get you a Dropbox.”

“Drop box?”

“It’s a way of sharing big files.”

“Oh. That’d be great.”

Out on the mountain, the man was in charge. Here indoors? He was awkward in a way that would have seemed endearing—if it weren’t for the fact they were talking about footage she’d obstructively justice’d.

“I will warn you,” she said. “Our cameras are limited. They can only scan part of any location, and they move through a system of positions. It’s possible we have nothing on video.”

“It’s still more than we have to go on now.”

“Okay, well, I’m just here printing address labels so I can grab the footage before I leave.” She got a pad and took a pen out of Candy’s holder. “What’s your email?”

“Here, take this card.” He reached into his back pocket. “It’s on the bottom.”

Lydia took what he offered. “So … have you ID’d the hiker yet?”

“No, not yet. We will, though.”

“And you didn’t find a car? At the trailheads, or something?”

“Not yet, no.”

“So how’d he get on the property? Hikers have to start somewhere on the trails. Unless he walked across the valley from another site—like the hotel’s.”

“This is an active investigation so I cannot comment.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Did you ask the hotel about his picture? What did they say?”

“Come on, Ms. Susi, you know what my response is going to be to that—”

“What was in his pack.”

“Excuse me?” Those dark eyes narrowed.

Shit. Maybe she’d given herself away.

“Well, if he’s a hiker, he probably had a pack, right? Any chance there were hunks of poisoned meat in it?” When the sheriff just stared at her, she shook her head. “That hotel chain is not part of our community. Why are you protecting them? And please don’t active-investigation me again. I’m not buying it.”

The sheriff inclined his head. Then he put his hat back on. “Thank you for your help. I look forward to receiving the files.”

As the man turned away, Lydia said, “How far is it going to go. How far are you going to let it go.”

The sheriff left in silence, and he closed the door quietly.

“Goddamn it,” Lydia muttered.

Turning around, she went back through the facility, passing by Peter’s office. Out in the clinic section, she pushed open the door to the exam room. As her breath stopped, she hugged herself.

The wolf was on his side, an oxygen mask at the end of his muzzle, his flank rising and falling.

She lingered in the doorway, feeling raw rage.

When she stepped back out, she was careful to make sure that the door didn’t make a sound as it closed. And then she marched back to her office and went to her cell phone. Looking up what she needed on the web, she put a call in and waited as the ringing started—

“WNDK news desk. How can I help you,” a terse male voice said.





12th Avenue and Market Street

Downtown Caldwell

AH, THE GOD-AWFUL overhang of a bad day’s sleep, Xhex thought as she stood, back-flatted and headachy, against the far wall of the club.

Fuck that, it was more like a number of days.

All around her, humans were deliberately cutting their ties to reality, using drugs, alcohol, and orgasms with strangers, to extinguish the burn of their regular lives. Whether they were working shit jobs or for people they hated … or in relationships that sucked … or worried about a sick parent … or whatever it was they were bitched about, here, they could surf free of all that weighed them down.