“Not right now,” Brooks said over his shoulder. “I’m busy.”
“I know. But you’re going to want to see this person.”
Brooks spun around to tell his packmate to screw off, but Ray interrupted him. “Go on and take care of business.” He got to his feet. “We can talk later.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid before we talk, okay?”
Ray slid some papers across the table and stuck them in a manila folder. “Don’t worry about me, Jayden. I’ll be fine.”
Brooks frowned. “Promise me. Nothing stupid.”
He gave Brooks a small smile. “You know me, kid. Do I ever do anything stupid?”
That wasn’t really an answer, but Ray was already heading out the door.
Brooks glared at Becker. “So, who’s this visitor, and why couldn’t they wait?”
Becker grinned. “You’ll see.”
Brooks resisted the urge to growl as he followed Becker out the door. Halfway down the hallway, they ran into Mike and the Pack’s newest member, Rachel. Khaki Blake, the team’s only other female member, was with them. They were talking about the demanding physical training program Gage ran and how everyone had to share the open-bay showers in the other building.
“The guys always let me go first, then blame me for using all the hot water,” Khaki said with a grin.
“They won’t have to worry about that with me,” Rachel said in a lyrical Southern twang. “I’m in and out of the shower and dressed in fifteen minutes.”
Mike glanced at Brooks. “You met Rachel, right?”
“Yeah, but just barely.”
Actually, he hadn’t done much more than wave in her direction as he’d headed out on one of the gang task force operations. The moment she’d walked in, the single guys had immediately wondered if she wasThe Onefor someone in the Pack, like Khaki was for Xander Riggs, the team’s other squad leader. But Rachel had taken a quick look around, told them they weren’t her type, and that was the end of that. She might find her soul mate someday, but it wasn’t going to be anyone in SWAT.
“How’s the in-processing going?” Brooks asked.
Rachel made a face. “Not bad. I just hate wasting time filling out forms when I could be helping you guys deal with the hunters. Mike told me that you and Zane spent time last night interrogating one of them?”
Brooks winced. “I’m not sure if I’d call it an interrogation. More like a torture session—for Zane and me. Oliver went into great detail about the werewolves he’d tracked down and killed. I think he gets off on telling the stories.”
Rachel shook her head. “This guy sounds like a complete chucklefuck. Did y’all get anything useful out of him?”
Brooks wasn’t exactly sure what a chucklefuck was, but he was willing to trust her opinion on the matter. “We know the hunters don’t know much of anything about werewolves, that most of them are nothing more than paid assassins who care little about who they kill as long as they get paid, and that they get their orders from someone who seems to have an almost endless supply of money.”
Mike frowned. “Any idea who they’re working for? Or at least where he might be located?”
“No. Oliver is being pretty cagey about what he tells us. We have another meeting with him in two days, so I’m hoping we’ll learn more then.”
Khaki was saying something about never having the patience to talk to someone like Oliver when Zane stuck his head in the front door. “Brooks, there’s someone waiting to see you.” He looked at Becker. “Didn’t you tell him?”
Becker shrugged. “I told him.”
Whoever it was, they must be damn important, Brooks thought. Nodding at his packmates, he headed for the door.
“Who is it?” he asked Zane as his friend walked into the building as he walked out.
“Go see for yourself,” Zane said.
Were his packmates intentionally trying to piss him off?
Brooks was still steaming when he reached the admin building and jerked open the door, expecting to see some bureaucrat from police headquarters. But the moment he got inside and picked up a familiar scent, he forgot all about the pencil pushers at HQ. He quickened his step, heading for the bullpen, when a certain dark-haired, curvy teacher walked out. Dressed in jeans, knee-high brown boots, and a leather coat belted at the waist, she looked just as beautiful as he remembered. She had her hair up in a ponytail today. He’d been right. It was long.
