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

“I have to go,” she said into thin air.

Getting to her feet, she knocked over the chair, and when she went to right it, the other disks poured out of her bag. She was picking them up off the linoleum and stashing them as fast as she could when the checkout man with the galaxy bowtie came down the stairs.

“You okay there?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m fine.” She held her purse between both hands so he wouldn’t notice how badly she was shaking. “And I’m all done here.”

“Was it fun to read your old work?”

“What?”

“Your old book reports.”

Lydia released her breath. “Oh, yes, of course. Such a trip down memory lane.”

“We’re all getting so much older. Me more than you, obviously. But life is a terminal disease, you know. None of us get out of this alive.”

“True, true.” Well, wasn’t that a cheerful thought. “Ah—”

“So did you want a printer?”

“I’m sorry, what—oh, right. No, I think I’m going to wait. It was enough just to know I have the files.”

“Sounds good. You can always come back.”

Lydia followed in his wake back to the stairs and up to the first floor, making sure there was plenty of distance between their casual conversation and the roaring storm in her head.

The next thing she knew, she was out by the visitors’ office. The woman who had checked her in was turned away, the phone held to her ear by her shoulder as she typed on a computer. Not wanting to disturb her, not knowing if she even had to tell someone she was leaving, Lydia walked toward the front doors—

Bells rang, shrill and loud, all around her.

Students now. A rushing tidal wave of them, talking, walking, heading out to a lineup of cars that had formed in front of the school.

To avoid getting trampled, she moved over against the glass cases. To avoid making eye contact, she turned to the awards and the trophies. With her thoughts so scrambled, she could make sense of none of it: Not what was in front of her, both shiny and dusty, not what was behind her, so chaotic and frenzied—

At first, the photograph didn’t register outside of the fact that it was black and white, and had been taken out on the bleachers. The girls who were the subjects had been arranged on the rows in a triangular fashion, and their matching uniform shorts and muscle shirts were in what she guessed were the school’s red and blue colors. But it wasn’t a recent image. Their hairstyles had the trademark Farrah Fawcett wings of the seventies.

“Girls’ Varsity Track,” read the printing on the frame. “1979–80. NY State Champions.”

And then there were the names of the team members, first initial followed by the last—

C. McCullough.

Lydia frowned. “Candy?” she said into the din around her.

Bending closer, she searched the faces of the girls, and sure enough, a younger version of Candy was in the second row from the bottom, all the way on the left by the coach—

“Wait, what … ?”

The man standing by the team, wearing slacks and a colored shirt with the school emblem on it, was big, but trim, with a straight, no-nonsense jawline and black hair that was cut short. Going by the planes and angles of his face, he was somewhere in his forties.

“Eastwind,” she breathed as she read the line, “T. Eastwind.”

Somehow, in some impossible way, Sheriff Eastwind was in a photograph forty years ago …

… looking exactly as he had when she’d seen him the day before.



“You are not going to believe this.”

As Lydia came through the WSP’s front door, Candy was already focused on her and talking, like they’d been in a conversation the entire time she’d been gone.

“What?” Lydia asked with exhaustion.

“Here you go.”

The envelope that was held out over the reception desk had nothing written on it and wasn’t sealed. Lydia traded car keys for the thing.

“Thanks for the loaner,” she said. “I topped up the gas. And listen, I got a message from Paul saying mine will be ready tomorrow—”

She stopped as she pulled her paycheck out. “What’s this?”

“I think it’s self-explanatory?” Candy sat back. “I called the bank to try and see where we were because the electrical bill is due—and surprise! We have fifty thousand in the bank.”

C.P. Phalen, Lydia thought.

“That’s amazing,” she said.

“So you can buy yourself dinner tonight. And maybe for someone else, too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay.” Candy smirked. “But Bessie’s husband saw you on the back of a certain motorcycle this morning coming in here early. So unless our groundskeeper is running a side hustle as an Uber driver …”

Lydia shook her head. “I just caught a ride into work with him because we had to release my wolf. And would you rather come in at eight in the morning with me?”

“Nope.” Candy put her hands up. “I start at eight-thirty.”

“Exactly.”

“But tell me something, where is he staying?”

Lydia didn’t hesitate because she’d been waiting for someone to ask her this: “Out in the woods on the preserve. He showers in Trick’s stall in the equipment building.”