Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven 1)

“Where the—hell are we—going?” he gritted as they rattled around.

“This parallels Peter’s property,” she said over the din. “We’ll be able to see—”

“Jesus—Lydia. We’re going—to get caught.”

“They won’t—know we’re here.”

“If we’re close enough—to see them, they’re close enough to—see us.”

She forced herself to lay off on the speed. Besides, she didn’t want to leave parts of her car behind. Like the whole engine or maybe an axle.

“They won’t be looking into the woods,” she said as things leveled into a boat-like swaying. “They’re going to be all about what’s happening in that house.”

“And when they call the cops to search the property?”

“We’ll be gone by then. They’ll never know we were anywhere.”

“You sure about that?” he muttered. “ ’Cuz I left my molars behind on this goat path, and dental records are admissible in court.”

Wild. Goose. Chase.

When Lydia finally stopped the car, Daniel looked past her to where that barn of Wynne’s should be—and saw nothing but undergrowth and tree trunks. The property they’d been on wasn’t visible at all.

As she got out, he wanted to pull her back into the car and talk sense into her. They were courting trouble of the badge variety here, and whereas that wasn’t going to bother him, she was going to run into problems she couldn’t solve for herself. And while it was true that he wasn’t interested in taking care of anyone else, sometimes his golden rule got a little tarnish.

Well, not sometimes. Just in the case of Lydia Susi. With her, he found himself sucked in. Kept in. Locked in.

Goddamn it.

Daniel got out, too, and before he could start airmailing her a second dose of get-real, she pointed into the trees.

“This way,” she said as she headed off without him.

The dirt path she set them on was to humans as that bumpy lane was to vehicles, a single-file cramper that challenged the width of his shoulders. Up ahead of him, she ducked and held back the branches that cut across their way, her body lithe and assured, flexible and strong. The air was cool and damp, smelling of the earth and growing things.

And Eau d’Bad Fucking Idea.

Then again, he was the one who had pushed the issue of popping that glass pane. The difference, he argued with himself, was that he wasn’t pulling a revisit to the scene of their minor crime.

Minor, that was, compared to whatever had been done to the barn’s owner.

That waterfall bathroom was a cover-up to a murder if he’d ever seen one.

“Just a little further,” she whispered after they’d gone a good three hundred yards or so.

As she rerouted once again, the craggy bushes thinned out some and she drew him over to a thick oak. At first, he wasn’t sure what she was doing—but then he saw the two-by-fours hammered into the trunk. The camouflaged deer stand was mounted about twenty feet from the ground, and she started up the ladder like she was a cat, climbing without a pause.

He followed tight behind her.

And tried not to look at what … was directly above his head. ’Cuz not only was eyeing her backside indiscreet and arguably a letch-move, it sure as shit was inappropriate considering they were about to spy on people.

Not a time to get the sex on.

Up top, the stand was about ten feet long and five feet wide, with walls that were tall enough to cover even his bulky crouch. And what do you know, the view was perfect, the tops of the pines breaking and providing a clear shot … to the back of that renovated barn.

Where there was plenty going on: A man in casual clothes with a video camera up on his shoulder was standing at the back door next to a woman in a polished-looking red skirt and blazer. Both were leaning in to inspect the open doorway.

I closed that, Daniel thought. That door had been closed when he and Lydia had left.

The WNDK folks started talking to each other intensely. Then the woman took out her cell phone.

“They’re calling the police,” he said.

“Sheriff,” Lydia murmured.

“Can we go back to the car now?” When she shook her head, he leaned in closer to her. “We don’t want to be up here when the sheriff comes.”

“This isn’t part of Peter’s property. This is Bessie Farlan’s husband’s tract of land. We have every right to be here.”

“Do you like living on the edge?”

“No,” she said. “I hate it.”

Daniel sat back on his ass, and double-checked that what was under him was, in fact, as strong as it seemed to be. Fortunately, everything appeared to be holding. Then again, it had probably been calibrated to hold two beer-gutted shotgun slingers and their twelve packs of high-test Budweiser.

“I really think we’ve seen enough,” he said.

“They’ve called Eastwind,” she muttered as she focused through a break in the boards. “And he’s going to do nothing. Goddamn him, I do not understand why he’s protecting Corrington.”