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

“Guess they don’t like red wine around here,” he muttered. “On the bright side, if anybody was murdered over the entree, you’d know it.”

“Unless they were strangled.”

“Good point.”

Out by the front door, Lydia stopped short and stared up the wooden staircase. “It’s a river …”

Sure enough, water was on the descent from the landing above in a lazy flow that had pooled at the base of the staircase and then disappeared into the nearest floor vent on a drool.

“We need to go up there,” Lydia said.

The fucker is dead, Daniel thought. So no, ladies were not going first this time.

Charging ahead, he hit the stairs and took things two at a time, his boots splashing through the flow, disturbing the current. At the top, the second floor was all open space, but there was a sliding pine door that was shut tight straight ahead. From beneath it, seeping through the gap at the floorboards, water was pumping out.

Daniel glanced to the right. A walk-in closet with glass doors showed off all kinds of compartments with neat-as-a-pin clothes hanging on matching hangers. And across the loft, the king-sized bed was flush against the opposite wall—but the white duvet and sheets were stained. Not with blood, though. They just looked grungy, all wrinkled and washed-last-month.

No reason to get his gun out.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Lydia whispered by his side.

So did he, not that he was going to say that.

Pulling his sleeve down over his hand, he pushed the panels aside …

“What … the fuck,” Lydia breathed.





AS LYDIA PUSHED Daniel’s heavy shoulder out of the way, she got a better look at everything that made no sense in Peter Wynne’s bathroom: The silver faucets of the white tub were running in a torrent while its drain was stopped up, the overflow valve in the fixture no match for the volume pouring free. Likewise, both of the sinks at the white marble counter were cranked on, the basins turned into infinity pools that spilled onto the tiled floor. And the shower was on full force, the rain head in the center of the marble alcove rushing onto a drain blocked with a wad of white towel.

The resulting flood had picked up the white bath mats and floated them forward on a pond that was churning, the soggy squares jamming at the lip of the marble floor at the doorjamb. Meanwhile, on the walls, all the mirrors and the window were streaked with condensation and two framed photographs were dripping at the corners.

This had started out hot, she thought. The dense, humid air was cold now, though. How long had it all been running?

More important, why had someone done this?

Glancing around again, she saw a toothbrush was still set upright in a white holder between the twin sinks, and monogrammed towels were hanging on rods, and the toilet and bidet had their lids down.

Lydia breathed in deep, but she wasn’t sure what she expected to smell.

That was a lie.

Blood … she was looking for the copper bouquet of blood—but she was not a search and rescue dog. All she got was some vague kind of chlorine tinge from the water having been treated.

“Someone’s covered it up,” she said grimly.

She didn’t feel the need to define “it” out loud. But she knew Peter Wynne was dead, and she had a feeling that he’d been killed in here.

Wheeling away, she stumbled—and saw the glass door to a walk-in closet. The order inside, compared to the chaos elsewhere in the house, was eerie. Like a car radio playing after a crash.

But not everything was tidy in there. As she entered the shallow room, over in the corner on the white carpet, there was a twisted pile of monogrammed PJs, as if the wearer had had night sweats and been disgusted by his lack of sleep. There were also undershirts mixed in that were stained with what looked like food. Boxer shorts. Socks.

She went back out. Daniel was over by the bed, bending down, looking under the mattress without touching anything.

“Do we turn off the water?” she asked as she glanced to the second-floor windows.

The back of the property was on a gentle slope to a man-made pond—or at least she assumed it was man-made given its cement-and-stone shoreline. The trees had been trimmed back, and just into the edge of the forest, she could see the remnants of an old horse pen and shelter.

“Let’s check the rest of the house,” Daniel said. “But no, we don’t touch a damn thing.”

They went down the river of stairs together and took a right into a library that yielded nothing in particular. Out the far side, there was a hall that led back to the main area.

“What do we do?” she said as they reemerged into the family room. “I mean, I know we should call the—”

From out of the corner of her eye, the muted TV screen registered. It had been tuned to the Plattsburgh affiliate and a newscaster was looking into the camera—with an image of the WSP’s headquarters floating by his head.

“Where’s the remote.” She looked around. “Where’s the—”

Daniel went over to the flat-screen. “I’ve got it.”

He covered his knuckle with his sleeve and upped the volume on the side of the TV itself.

“—reporting on a developing story. A source at the Wolf Study Project has accused the developers of the five-hundred-acre McBridge property on Bread Loaf Mountain of poisoning wildlife. The Corrington Hotel chain, well known for its luxury sites around the world, is building a resort on the land, having received zoning approval just two months ago. Concerns about the neighboring preserve and its population of wolves with regard to the safety of visitors to the spa and retreat have been noted in internal memos obtained by WNDK. Tune in for the full story from the award-winning Live at Five team—”