Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) - J.R. Ward Page 0,85
everyone who ate at the diner or bought a carton of milk and a newspaper, so be it.
Besides, all anyone would be talking about was Rick.
God, how could he be gone? As the question ricocheted around her mind for the hundredth time, Daniel pulled into her drive and went up to her house—
Had she left that light on?
“What is it?” he said as he cut the engine and she didn’t get off.
“I can’t remember whether I …”
“Your bedroom light was on when we left.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup, but let me go through the house first.”
“I’m not staying out here.” She dismounted and got her keys from her pocket. “I feel like a sitting duck everywhere I go right now.”
“Let me put the bike around back.”
She nodded and walked with him as he rolled the Harley out of view from the driveway. Then they entered into her kitchen. As he closed them in, she looked around.
“Everything seems distorted,” she said. “Like my whole world has been shifted a quarter of an inch to the left.”
“So something’s out of place?”
“No.” But she double-checked just to be sure. “It only feels like it.”
As he spoke to her, she knew he wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were sweeping over the windows, the door into the cellar, the rooms beyond—which were dark.
She wished she’d left every light she had on.
“Are you always armed?” she asked as that hand of his stayed in his windbreaker’s pocket.
Daniel looked at her. “Would it bother you if I said yes?”
“Considering the day I’ve had? No. Not at all.”
“My weapon is legal and I know how to use it.”
“Good.” She put the box on the table and then dead-bolted the door. “I’m coming with you while you check.”
“Okay, but stay behind me. Bullets don’t have a reverse gear.”
Just as she went to follow him, she doubled back and grabbed the box. With him in front, like he was a shield, they went through to the parlor, leaned into the study; then turned to the stairs.
“At least you don’t have a flood coming down them,” Daniel remarked as they started for the second floor.
“Where the hell do you think Peter is?” she asked, more to herself than to him.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever find him.”
The sound of a rattle coming out of the box made her shake the thing just to double-check it was the source of the noise. It was. Whatever had been shipped to Peter was loose.
Please, God, let it not be bones, she thought.
Daniel made quick work of the two bedrooms and bathrooms, and he went through closets and checked under the beds. There wasn’t an attic.
“I’ll do the basement when we get back downstairs,” he said.
“It has a dead bolt because there’s a storm door to the outside.” She went over to the window seat and sat down. “I want to open this now. Up here.”
Where no one could see them.
He took something out of his back pocket and tossed it across. “Use this.”
Lydia caught the Swiss Army knife and flipped the big blade free. “Thank you.”
The box was sealed up with clear packing tape—all of its seams, even the ones that didn’t have to do with top or bottom flaps, were covered with a double layer. The UPS label had a return address from Lancaster, PA, and a delivery of—
“Wait.” She looked up. “This was supposed to go to Peter’s home. Not the WSP.”
“Maybe he changed it online under delivery preferences. We used to do that at some of the apartment buildings I worked at for equipment that the management office didn’t want to deal with.”
“It was mailed twelve days ago.”
As she turned the box over, so she didn’t mess up the label by cutting through it, the contents rattled again, some kind of weight thumping into place.
One quick slice and she was in, popping the flaps.
“What is it?” Daniel asked.
“Just old floppy disks.” She took some out. “The kind before USB drives took over everything.”
The black plastic squares with their silver slides were branded Memorex and unmarked with labels. They’d been in holders, but the three half containers were as loose as the floppy disks, unable to hold on to their contents.
“What do you know,” she said as she set them aside. “Radio Shack is still alive and well.”
“You going to see if you can open them up?”
“Maybe.” She cleared her throat. “You want to eat?”
“Oh, yes. I’m starved.”
They went back down, and as she got out frozen servings of her favorite Finnish comfort food,