Brooks hit the floor hard enough to knock the air out of him, but it wasn’t the impact that stunned him nearly senseless. It was the image of Selena snarling at him with those vivid blue eyes. He’d only seen blue glowing eyes like that one other time in his life…and he’d almost died then.
The sound of a heavy metal door slamming pulled his attention back to the present, and he scrambled to his feet as fast as he could to follow after her. But he wasn’t even halfway to the door when he heard the engine on his old truck rumble to life. She must have grabbed his keys as she’d left.
Brooks kept going anyway, running outside in time to see his truck spinning out onto the road behind the building, rear tires smoking as it sped away. He took about ten steps after her before he remembered he was still naked. He slowed to a standstill. If he chased her, she’d only run faster. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to tackle his own truck, especially with Selena driving it.
All he could do was stand there buck-ass naked in his backyard, howling in frustration as Selena drove away, wondering how the hell he’d missed the fact that the woman he loved was turning into an omega werewolf.
Chapter 14
It was after ten o’clock by the time Brooks walked into the bullpen in the admin building later that morning. He stopped short, groaning when he realized that, with the exception of Becker, the entire pack was there. Like they’d been waiting for him. From the way they were looking at him, they knew exactly what had happened to him that morning, too.
He turned and glared at Zane as his packmate strolled in behind him. “You told them?”
Zane made a face and walked past him, heading for his desk. “What, that you’re so bad in the sack Selena woke up screaming this morning and left you, taking your truck with her?” He pulled out his chair and sat. “I might have mentioned it.”
“Damn, Brooks.” On the other side of the room, Cooper chuckled. “What is it with you dating women who steal your stuff? First, the one in Gulfport took your LSU gear, then the one from the narcotics division swiped a bunch of your dress shirts, and now Selena jacks your ride? Maybe you need to find a different type of woman to hang out with, because if you keep going like this, before long, you won’t own anything.”
Everyone laughed at that. Remy even leaned across the aisle from his desk to fist-bump Cooper.
Muttering under his breath that they were all degenerates, Brooks walked over to his desk. That’s what he got for calling Zane to pick him up. At least his teammate hadn’t told everyone Selena had shifted and completely lost control. Or that Brooks had only made it worse when he’d tried to calm her down.
“Since Brooks has finally decided to join us, maybe we can finally start the morning briefing,” Gage announced from the doorway of his office, his tone suggesting he wasn’t happy Brooks was late.
Brooks stifled a groan when another round of laughter swept through the room. He dropped into his chair as Xander and Mike moved to the front of the bullpen and began conducting after-action reviews on each of their recent response calls before transitioning into updates on any ongoing missions. Gage held these meetings at least once a week—sometimes more—as a way of making sure everyone on the team knew what their teammates were working on and also so they could hopefully learn from each other’s experiences.
Brooks tried his best to pay attention, but within minutes, his head was a million miles away, scenes from last night and this morning replaying through his mind over and over. But no matter where he started, he always ended up in the same place. With Selena totally losing it and running out of his house with tears on her terror-stricken face.
He had alternated between calling and texting Selena for nearly an hour after she’d left. He’d left countless messages, saying he was sorry he’d scared her and that everything was going to be okay…if they could just talk. When Selena hadn’t responded after the twentieth text, he’d finally stopped, afraid he was only going to freak her out even more.
On the way to the SWAT compound, he and Zane had driven past Selena’s apartment to see if she was there. Brooks was smart enough to know trying to see her would have been a complete catastrophe, but he’d wanted to make sure she’d gotten home okay.
Unfortunately, his Chevy hadn’t been in the parking lot. He’d immediately had visions of his truck ending up in a ditch somewhere because she’d been too far gone to even control it. He was so damn worried, he’d actually considered putting out a BOLO on his pickup. Thankfully, Zane had talked him out of it. The last thing they needed was a DPD patrol car pulling Selena over because they thought she’d stolen the vehicle. In her condition, she’d probably attack the officer.
“Brooks, what’s the status on the joint gang task force?” Gage asked from the front of the room.
He looked up to see not only his boss staring at him, but everyone else, too. Brooks stared back. His head was so completely trashed, he had no clue how to answer Gage’s question. He had the intel from last night at the club, but that info was more than twelve hours out of date. Ray and the rest of the task force could be working a dozen new angles by now.
Knowing how bad it was going to look but not having any choice, Brooks opened his mouth to admit he was completely out of the loop on the task force operation. But before he could get the words, Zane spoke.
“I talked to Ray about an hour ago,” his friend said, throwing him a pointed look before turning back to Gage. “The energy drinks we confiscated from the club last night came back laced with high levels of fentanyl. According to the lab, the concentration in a single can is enough to put the average person on a pretty good ride. Drink more than one—or add in alcohol—and you get the overdose scenario we had last night.”
“Did the lab get any usable fingerprints from the cans?” Gage asked, eyeing Brooks for a second before looking at Zane. “Any way to ID where this stuff is coming from?”
Zane shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. The cans came back covered in prints, but it’s going to take a while before the crime scene unit sorts them out. Ray and his people spent the morning hitting the other clubs in town and found five other places selling the energy drink. They all told the same story—they were approached by a sales rep they’ve never met before who provided them cases of Buzz at low cost in an attempt to build a market for it.”
“That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense,” Connor pointed out with a frown. “Whoever is making this crap has to know they won’t be able to sell it in legitimate clubs much longer, even if they build up a demand for it. Once word gets out that this drink has synthetic heroin in it, no one is going to touch it with a ten-foot pole, no matter how much people might want it.”
“They won’t care by then,” Brooks said, still playing catch-up. “Once word gets out that someone has figured out how to make heroin you can drink, the dealers can move it to the underground market. Think raves, college parties, and private clubs. Hell, they can sell it on street corners or out of the back of a truck in a parking lot somewhere. It won’t matter, because this crap will move like crazy by that point.”
Connor shook his head. “That’s a nice frigging thought. Throw in the fact that the dealer can probably change the appearance of the cans anytime they want, and this has all the makings of a whole new direction in drug distribution.”
Gage crossed his arms over his chest. “Is anyone working on ID’ing the sales reps who dropped the cases off at the clubs? With six different clubs targeted, someone has to recognize them.”
“Ray has police sketch artists working with people in every club, and he’s got the employees looking at mug shots,” Zane said. “He’s still working on the theory this is connected to the new gang boss.”
Brooks grimaced. Unlike in the movies and on TV where it took cops five minutes to find someone in their fancy computer database, it took a whole lot longer in the real world.
He was still musing about the probability of Ray’s crew finding a connection when Cooper asked if there’d been anything new on the prison break.
