Muttering something under his breath, Connor scooped Kat up with one hand and stuck her in the SWAT SUV, where she sat on the dash, staring at him with a pissed-off look that only a cat could come up with.
There is something seriously wrong with that cat.
That thought earned Trey a long-distance glare from Kat…like she’d actually heard him thinking it.
“Thanks for the offer,” Alyssa said. “But I think it’ll go better with just the two of us. We’ll draw less attention that way. Besides, there’s a good chance this is nothing but a bunch of college students playing with some old books they dug up somewhere. If it turns into anything more, we’ll call you guys.”
They talked for a while longer about what kind of supernatural creature might be involved in murders that would leave a desiccated corpse until an unmarked SUV that belonged to STAT showed up. A moment later, a man and woman got out to collect the body, as well as take pictures and samples from the surrounding area.
“All my files from the previous murders are waiting for you at the SWAT compound,” Alyssa said before she and Zane headed for their car. “You’ll have access to STAT intel support and our medical examiners. If you need anything else, just ask and they’ll get it for you.”
“What about the Butcher investigation?” Trey asked Mason as his pack mate and fiancée drove off.
“I’m hoping you can work both cases,” the deputy chief said. “Gage told me that you have an inside track with the medical examiner assigned to the Butcher task force. If she’s willing to float you a few leads now and then, you should be able to sniff around and find something they might not recognize.”
Trey scowled at Connor, having no doubt he was the pack mate who’d ratted him out to their SWAT commander/pack alpha, Gage Dixon. That was the only way the boss could have learned about the “inside track” he had with Samantha. The grin Connor gave him confirmed he was to blame.
Mason left a little while later, telling them he expected frequent updates. “And try not to do anything that attracts Chief Leclair’s attention. She’s already suspicious of your team.”
Trey watched the deputy chief drive away, wondering how the hell the man expected them to track down what was possibly two supernatural killers when they knew next to nothing about these creatures. This was so far outside the SWAT job description it wasn’t even funny.
“Okay, now that Mason’s gone, tell us what happened with Samantha,” Connor said, looking at him expectantly. “Did you finally ask her out or what?”
Connor and his other pack mates had been riding him nonstop about whether he’d asked her since they’d left the forensic institute yesterday. They all assumed he had, since he’d been grinning like an idiot when he came outside. After the way they’d ribbed him for the past two years, he figured he earned the right to mess with them.
“You know, it’s okay if she turned you down,” Hale said. “Rejection stings like a son of a bitch, especially when you’re really into the person, but it happens to everyone. I’ve been there, so trust me, I know how you feel.”
Trey snorted. “While I’d love to stand around this landfill and talk about it, in the interest of full disclosure, Samantha didn’t turn me down. We’re going out to dinner tonight.”
Connor did a double take. “Damn. You actually asked her out?”
“What, I thought you were all about me going out with her?” Trey frowned. “In fact, you were the one pushing for me to do it the other morning. Over a dead body, no less.”
Hale laughed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but we had a pool going at the compound over how long it would take before you two actually went out. Connor is pissed because he bet it’d be at least another two weeks.”
Trey looked at Connor, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “Really? Two weeks?”
“Sorry.” Connor shrugged. “But damn, dude. You’ve been dragging this out for months. At two weeks, I was actually one of the optimistic ones. Not as optimistic as Gage, who pegged you for this weekend. But at least I wasn’t as bad as Trevor. He put twenty dollars on you never asking her out at all. He insisted you’d never get off your butt and do it and that Samantha would have to make the first move.”
Trey didn’t say anything. Because the truth was, he’d been shocked as hell when Samantha asked him out. He’d always thought he’d be doing the asking. The only reason he’d waited so long was because he genuinely had been worried she’d turn him down. He wasn’t afraid of going up against bad guys with machine guns half as much as he was afraid of being rejected by the woman he’d been head over heels for, for going on two years.
“Wait a second,” Connor said, looking at him sharply. “You did ask her out, right? Not the other way around.”
Trey grinned as he opened the door of his pickup. “Actually, she asked me. Though technically, she collected on one of the favors I owe her by having me ask her to dinner, so I’m not sure how you guys are going to work that out.”
Climbing into the truck, he started the engine and put the vehicle in gear, chuckling as Trevor insisted he should win the bet. Trey was tempted to hang around and see if his teammates won that argument but decided against it. If he stayed, they’d only end up ripping on him for not asking Samantha out in the first place.
Chapter 4
“So, does Trey know you’ve been stalking him?” Crystal asked as she watched Samantha try on yet another dress.
Samantha ignored her friend for the moment as she studied her reflection in the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door, checking out the little black dress she was wearing. After going through nearly half her clothes, she’d ended up going back to her trusted LBD, throwing on a silver chain necklace and oversized matching hoop earrings. It was the perfect blend of casual and elegant for a first date, and she probably should have simply picked it to begin with, but her head was spinning a bit.
“I have not been stalking him,” Samantha insisted, most of her attention now focused on which shoes to wear. She was leaning toward the black sandals with the kitten heels, but she wanted to see if there was anything else that might work.
“Oh, right,” Crystal murmured, pulling out a pair of black wedges with silver accents and handing them to her. “You’ve been investigating him. Following him around, taking pictures of him and his SWAT teammates, and snooping through his trash. Sounds more like stalking to me.”
The urge to stick her tongue out at Crystal was hard to resist, but she did, because she was an adult. And sticking your tongue out at people—even if they deserved it—wasn’t a very adult thing to do.
“I have been investigating him,” she said firmly, deciding to go with Crystal’s choice of shoes, then turning to check her makeup one more time in the mirror. “And don’t act like you don’t know why. Not after everything Trey and his teammates have been involved in.”