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  “I found what you’re looking for,” he said. “This way.”

  Eastwind turned and cut into the forest—and there was no question that she was going to follow him. Fortunately, she kept up easily, even though his stride was long and he never misplaced his feet on the rocky, uneven ground.

  “Will the wolf survive?” he asked as they wound around pines.

  There was no reason to ask how he knew another one had been found. “We’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours. At least that’s what Rick says.”

  “Was it one of yours?”

  “It was tagged, yes. A male. He was magnificent—is magnificent, I mean.”

  There was no more talking until the sheriff stopped and pointed. “Over there.”

  The instant Lydia focused on what he’d found, she jumped ahead, shoving boughs out of the way. The bait trap was chained to a sapling, the stainless steel box vented and open at the top. Inside, remnants of meat secured by a wire had dried out.

  “Motherfucker,” she whispered as she knelt down and tested the links of the chain. “I need to take this with—”

  “Come stand behind me.”

  Looking up, she saw that Eastwind had unholstered his service weapon and was holding it by his thigh.

  “Don’t shoot me,” she said.

  “I won’t.”

  Hustling out of the way, she put her arms over her face—which was a little ridiculous—

  Pop!

  As the bullet hit the chain, there was a clang and a pfft of loose dirt, and in the pause afterward, a crow flushed from a branch, squawking as it flew off.

  Going back to the trap, Lydia uncoiled the links from the trunk, and hefted the thing up onto her shoulder.

  “You know they’re killing the wolves on purpose,” she said. “To protect people who haven’t been bothered by animals that have more right to be here than we do.”

  “I’ll take you back to your headquarters.” He pivoted and started to walk off. “My vehicle is this way.”

  “You can’t let them do this.” Lydia stayed put. “I know that resort is bringing jobs here, but they’re too expensive on the wildlife.”

  The sheriff just kept going. “I’ll get Alonzo to trailer your ATV back.”

  “They’re taking what does not belong to them,” she called out in a voice that cracked.

  When Eastwind continued to ignore her, she glared across the valley at the construction site. That fucking hotel and its five hundred acres of “serenity and rejuvenation.” If she could have blown the place up, she would have lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite right this second.

  It was the first time in her life she’d seriously considered murder.

  * * *

  The Wolf Study Project’s facility was located at the head of the preserve, just off the county road that wound its way around the base of Deer Mountain and the shores of Lake Goodness. The parking lot was just packed dirt with an overlay of gravel, and the building was a modest sprawl along the landscape, one-storied, cedar-shingled, hidden by hemlocks. As Lydia and Eastwind pulled up, there was a Jeep and a sedan in place, plus Lydia’s hatchback and a WSP truck that had last worked back when Clinton was president.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said as she opened her door.

  “You’re welcome.”

  With a grunt, she dragged the bait trap out of the wheel well. As she slung the weight over her shoulder, she went to shut the door—

  “Lydia.”

  She stopped and leaned back into the SUV. “Yes?”

  Eastwind’s dark eyes were grave. “I don’t offer to help you with that only because I know you’ll say no.”

  Looking down, she shook her head. “I need you to take care of our problem across the valley. That’s the only thing I need you to do. Stop protecting the powerful, it’s unseemly in a man of what I’d always assumed was your kind of honor.”

  She didn’t wait for a response. She just closed things and strode off, not to the front of the building, but to the back clinic entrance. As she stepped through into an open area full of vet supplies and tracking devices, she smelled antiseptic cleaner and blinked in the glare of the fluorescent ceiling panels. Rick’s exam rooms, where injured wolves were treated and released, and healthy ones were examined and tagged, were completely isolated from the administration part of things.

  “I saw you on the monitor,” Rick said as he came out of a room. He stopped in the process of drying his hands. “What is that. And no, you don’t know that whatever was in there was—”

  “Is he still alive.” She held out the trap. “And of course this is what poisoned him—”

  “Do we have footage of the wolf taking—”

  “Test what’s left! Jesus Christ, Rick, I’ll get you the video—”

  “Shh, keep your voice down.”

  Lydia looked away. Looked back. “Please. I just… is he still alive?”

  “Yes, but it’s going to be a fight.”

  Lydia shoved the trap into Rick’s hands and went to the open doorway of the exam room. In the center of the tiled space, on a stainless steel table, the wolf was intubated and limp, his side pumping up and down thanks to a machine. An IV ran into a shaved portion of his foreleg and soft beeping tracked a sluggish heart rate.

  As she went to the animal, she could sense Rick’s eyes on her. But fortunately for him, he didn’t say one damn thing about how she needed to be more arm’s length with the wolves.

  “I’m right here,” she said softly as she stroked its shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Over on a counter, a knobby fleece blanket was clean and folded. Reaching for it, she flipped the soft weight loose of its order and draped it over the lower half of his body. Then she just stood there.

  Her eyes roamed around the wolf’s lean and powerful body, searching for the answer to whether he lived or died. All she got was the pattern on the blanket, an animated beagle chasing flying bones and water bowls across a faded green field. The smile on the cartoon dog’s face struck her as false optimism, something that shouldn’t be peddled to children.

  But like denying them the years before adult reality hit them was any better?

  “I’ll test what’s in here,” Rick said with resignation.

  Lydia rubbed one of the wolf’s paws and then walked over to the doorway. “Let me know what it is?”

  “Sure, I’ll give you a call—”

  “I’m just in my office.” When he frowned, she tilted her head. “What?”

  “You’re not going home to change?”

  Lydia looked down at her running tights. “Who do I have to impress? And it’ll take too much time.”

  Yeah, because fifteen minutes back to the little house she rented was something she should pack an overnight bag and a sandwich for. Leaving, though… felt wrong.

  “Let me know what you find out?” she repeated.

  When she turned away, Rick said, “I will.”

  At the far end of the clinic area, she pushed through into the administration offices. The executive director’s door was closed—no news there. The conference room was empty. Supply closet and printing alcove were, too. But there was fresh coffee brewing in the break room, and out front, Candy McCullough’s no-shit-Sherlock voice was rapid firing something about a UPS delivery that hadn’t come yet.

  It was hard not to feel sorry for whoever had picked up the phone at What Can Brown Do for You?

  That was the old slogan, though, wasn’t it, Lydia thought as she flipped the switch in the doorway of her office.

  As the lights flickered on, she frowned.

  Something was…

  Crossing the rough rug, she went to her desk and looked at the landline phone, her computer, her lamp. Her mug full of pens and pencils. Her pad of paper and the two files Candy had left in her inbox.

  With a shaky hand, Lydia pushed the lamp out of its strict alignment with the edge of the desk. Then she put it back in place.

  “You’r
e nuts,” she said as she fell into her office chair.

  “I don’t see why you gotta get personal.” Candy was talking as she swung around the doorjamb. “Was that Eastwind who brought you in?”

  “Yes, I had to get something out in the preserve.” She rubbed her tired eyes. “He’s going to tow the ATV back. It ran out of gas—”

  As Candy made a dismissive sound in the back of her throat, Lydia looked up—and lost her train of thought. The sixty-year-old woman was, in her own words, “round as a billiard ball, but not as smooth,” and her stocky body was currently squeezed into a pair of khaki slacks and a white turtleneck. Her handknit vest had a three-dimensional quality to it, knotty flowers and twisting vines circling her torso, the granny-chic not matching her level stare or Brooklyn accent or her high and tight in the slightest.

  “I…” Lydia still wasn’t sure what she was looking at. “Is your hair pink?”

  “Yeah.” Candy made a duh gesture with her hands. “Where’s your coffee? You get your coffee yet?”

  “Um, it looks good. The color suits you.”

  Which was a surprising truth. It also matched some of the knit roses.

  “Doris did it. And I’m getting you coffee.”

  “You don’t have to.” Lydia leaned to the side and opened the lowest drawer. “I am not tired in the slightest, trust me.”

  “You’re going to need it, trust me.”

  As Candy walked off, Lydia paused. Then shook her head and outed the Lysol wipes. Popping the lid, she snapped two free and rubbed down the laminated top of the desk, skirting the pads, the pens, the phone, the monitor, the inbox. An itch to clear everything off and do a series of long pulls made her check the doorway and do a quick mental calculation on how long Candy was going to take to come back with the coffee that hadn’t been asked for.

  When you were acting nutty about cleanliness, an audience was the last thing anybody wanted.

  “Okay, you ready?” Candy demanded as she came in and banged a mug down on the drying, hospital-worthy antiseptic.

  “No offense, but what—” Actually, the coffee smelled great, and as she palmed it up and took a test sip, she decided Candy was right. She did need this. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, first of all, you and I are using the boys’ bathroom again.”

  Lydia let her head fall back. “Maybe I shouldn’t be drinking anything all day long.”

  “But that’s not the big news. I’m sending the big news down to you. It’s all gonna make sense when you see it.”

  “It?” Lydia shot the woman a hard stare. “Please do not tell me you overpowered that UPS driver and duct-taped him to that hand truck you like so much. You cannot hold a human being hostage in exchange for a package. Even if it’s a week late.”

  “Hey, thanks for the good idea. You’re an inspired leader. But no, that’s not it.”

  As Candy headed back to the waiting area, Lydia called out, “Just to be clear, I am not ever signing off on hostage taking. You keep a person locked in a closet, it’s a felony—”

  Cologne.

  She smelled… cologne. A woodsy, very… delicious… cologne.

  And that was when she heard the footfalls. Heavy. Really heavy. A man’s.

  Candy reappeared in the doorway, a sly smile on her face. “The applicant is here.”

  “Applicant?”

  “You know, for Trick’s replacement?”

  “Oh, no, Peter’s supposed to interview—”

  “I explained that as our executive director’s in a meeting, you’re going to conduct the preliminaries.” Candy eased back. “Lydia Susi, meet—what did you say your name was?”

  “Daniel Joseph.”

  The man who stepped into the open jambs was so tall and so broad, he was like a living, breathing door: He blocked out all light and made it impossible for anyone to come or go.

  As Lydia’s eyes traveled up, up, up, she saw jeans that did little to hide muscled thighs, and a worn flannel shirt that had been freshly pressed, and a set of shoulders…

  That made someone think things that should never be part of any job interview.

  “Should I come in?” he said in that deep, smooth voice.

  The chuckle Candy let out drifted off as the woman left.

  The man’s face was a double-take and a half, his features put together in such a way that you couldn’t help but drink them in, everything balanced, symmetrical, powerful. Sensual, too, thanks to that mouth. And of course, his dark hair was on the long side of a short cut, the ends brushing his neck, and pushed back off his forehead, and curling, thick and shiny, over his ears.

  “Or do we go somewhere else?” he asked.

  Oh, I’ve gone somewhere, Lydia thought. And it’s going to get me in trouble with HR.

  As she considered all the internal policies she was breaking—and weren’t there some federal laws, too?—she decided that she really should have just rolled over and gone back to sleep when her alarm went off at five a.m. Really and truly.

  But thank God for Candy’s coffee.

  I—AH, NO.” Lydia stood up and extended her hand over the desk. “I mean, please come in. And meet you. Meet me. Please to.”

  Oh, FFS.

  “Thanks,” the man said.

  It took him two strides to get to her, and his arm was so long, he didn’t have to bend at the waist to take her palm. His grip was firm and strong, and the contact lasted a second and a half, maybe two—yet the warmth lingered as they both sat down. At least for her—

  Well. What do you know. She’d never realized that chair on the far side of her desk was dollhouse-sized.

  She grabbed her mug and decided Candy was right. She didn’t need the caffeine for sure, but the coffee gave her something to do with her itchy hands.

  “So,” she said.

  As her mind went blank, she smiled in what felt like a fake way—because it was either that or she giggled: Meeting this man in the eyes created a sixteen-year-old vortex, sucking her back to Justin Bieber crushes and that kid in her math class… what was his name?

  “Isaac Silverstein.”

  “What?” the man across from her said.

  Crap. “I apologize. I’m just making a mental note to call—it doesn’t matter.”

  God, those eyes of his were the strangest color she’d ever seen. Something that was both fire and hazel. Something that glowed.

  “Anyway, Mr.—I’m sorry, what was your last name?”

  “Joseph. But call me Daniel.”

  “Right, well, Daniel, our executive director is very busy.” Doing frick-only-knew-what. “But I’ll be happy to give you an overview of the position.”

  He shrugged. “I’m just looking for a job—”

  Curling up a hand, he covered his mouth as he coughed. Cleared his throat. Coughed again.

  “Oh, no—it’s the wipes, isn’t it.”

  She clipped the Lysol’s top closed and put the container away. Then she waved her hands over the desktop. When he coughed again, like she’d made it worse, she cursed under her breath.

  “I’ll open a window.”

  “It’s okay, just allergies.”

  “I’d prefer the fresh air anyway.” She cranked the vertical window behind her desk a crack. “I’m a little weird about keeping things clean.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  Turning back around, she rubbed her nose in a show of solidarity even though nothing was tickling or irritated on her face. Then again, her sinuses had probably been fried years ago by that linen-fresh scent.

  “I hope that’s better.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, do you want some coffee? I’d be happy to get you some.”

  “I try not to touch the stuff.” He coughed one last time. “About two years ago, I went on a health kick and got rid of everything. Except cheeseburgers.”

  “A clean liver. I’m mean, not the organ. Like, your life.”

  Annnnnnd this was why she studied behavior
in other species. ’Cuz she needed tips herself.

  “I am now.” He linked his hands and leaned forward, the chair letting out a groan at the load shifting. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’m not here for long, and maybe that takes me out of the running. I’m a drifter and my employment history is going to show that. But it’s also going to tell you that I’m reliable, I do good work, and I’m not a lot of trouble.”

  “How long is not long?”

  “I dunno, through the warm season and into the fall. Maybe past the winter, but by next spring, I’ll be moving on. If that makes me unattractive, I understand.”

  Even the ugly stick for a week couldn’t get you to homely, she thought.

  “Well, we’d certainly rather have someone who’d be willing to stick around, but that’s not a deal breaker. And I’m glad you’re being up front about it. Tell me, where did you last work?”

  “Over in Glens Falls, for an apartment complex. And before that it was up in Maine.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “I gave my paperwork to—”

  Candy reappeared with a folder, like she’d been listening out in the hall. “His application and his résumé, Ms. Susi.”

  As Lydia took what was delivered with a glare, the older woman jogged her eyebrows and took her pink-haired peanut gallery back out front.

  When they were alone again, Lydia made a show of looking at what she’d been given. High school education. Handyman jobs, at apartment and condo complexes. An elementary school. A mall in Jersey. No big cities. No jobs that lasted longer than eight to ten months, but no gaps in employment, either.

  “Looks like you’ve stayed in the New England area.”

  “I prefer the cold, so getting me any further south than Pennsylvania is tough. Oh, and yeah, sure, I’ll take a drug test and agree to a background check. I have nothing to hide.”

  He’d handwritten the responses on the application form, everything in neat, block letters.

  “So you like cold weather?” she asked.