by Paige Tyler
Her sister sighed. “Look, I’m not saying you have to jump into anything, or make this out to be more than it is. All I’m suggesting is that you give it a chance and be open to where things go.”
Bree couldn’t deny there was something about Diego that made her want to take Beth’s advice and see where things went. This crazy connection she was already feeling with him was wild for sure, but also thrilling. Why not just take it one date at a time and see what happened?
So, she nodded in agreement and focused on her Caesar salad, hoping Beth didn’t dig any further into the dinner date she’d made with the big SWAT cop. Fortunately, with everything that had happened to her today, there was lots of stuff for her sister to focus on besides Diego. When she mentioned that Dave had been there, Beth forgot about everything else.
If there was anyone who disliked Dave as much as Bree did, it was Beth. Her sister despised the man with a passion.
* * *
Bree had talked to Beth for almost two hours after dinner before she decided she’d better catch up on some work. She stopped outside Brandon’s room on the way to her home office, wanting to see how he was dealing with everything that had happened today. Not merely the whole werewolf thing, but also doing first aid on those two police officers, the trauma of being held at gunpoint for hours, then seeing that man kill himself. Bree knew that if she was still seeing all those horrible images flashing through her head every time she closed her eyes, Brandon almost certainly was, too. They hadn’t discussed any of that stuff after leaving the SWAT compound.
But as she lifted her hand to knock on his door, she heard the familiar sounds of her son humming along with a song. She smiled and dropped her hand. She knew from experience that Brandon was lying in bed with Finn curled up at his side, headphones on, lost in thought.
Listening to music was Brandon’s way of shutting out the world when he needed to be alone with his thoughts. It was a habit he’d started during his father’s trial and something Bree never intruded upon. She wouldn’t now, either, even after everything that had happened today.
Turning, she walked down the hallway a bit and into the office she and Beth shared. Her sister was a mortgage loan processor who worked from home all but a few days a month, so she used it way more than Bree. But since Bree had taken off today to hang out with Brandon, she should probably at least check her email.
She groaned when she saw an email full of attachments from her boss. Lots of pictures meant another case for her to work. That’s what she got for being conscientious. Clicking on the message, she skimmed the email from her boss, then read through the file, randomly opening the attached photos as she did so. It didn’t take long to figure out why her boss had given her a new case right on the heels of the one she’d gotten five days earlier. The two cases had similar MOs—if not an exact match—which meant whoever had done the first job had likely done the second one.
Lexington Mutual Group, the high-end insurance company where she worked as an investigator, did the normal stuff like writing policies for cars and homes, but the most profitable part of their business came from underwriting risky propositions other insurance companies wouldn’t touch. Mansions built on the edge of a cliff, knees and ankles of college and pro football players, expensive jewelry, classic cars, paintings that were centuries old, rare stamp collections, even a collection of dinosaur bones. If it was valuable and someone was worried about losing it, LMG would insure it. For the right monthly premiums, of course.
When Bree had started working at the large company a little over a decade ago, it had been as an office assistant—something to occupy her time when Brandon had started kindergarten. When her son started first grade, she’d moved up into writing policies. It was mind-numbingly dull work, but it had gotten her out of the house and brought in a bit of extra money. Not that they’d needed it back then because Dave had been bringing in six-figure-plus commissions as an investment advisor.
But then he’d gone to prison and they’d gotten divorced and that six-figure-plus income had disappeared. Needing to make more money to support her family, Bree had begun doing claim investigations. That’s when she realized her calling in life. Well, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. But she definitely loved doing it.
Essentially, Bree was a private investigator who worked exclusively for LMG, verifying claims to make sure the company wasn’t being ripped off. The first year or so, she’d handled the small cases—restaurants that’d mysteriously burned down in the middle of the night, a newlywed couple who’d lost the bride’s ten-carat engagement ring while snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico—but as she got better at the job, the cases got bigger and bigger. She’d soon built a reputation for being tenacious and clever when it came to proving people were lying about a claim. She also became very adept at working with local and sometimes federal law enforcement, knowing the best way to keep LMG from having to pay off a claim when something actually had been stolen was to help the cops find the thief and recover the property.
Over the years, she’d become LMG’s go-to investigator, especially when the company was looking at the possibility of a major payout.
Which was why they’d given her the Williamson case. Five nights ago, Garth Williamson, one of the company’s richer clients, had come home from a late night at the country club to find his walk-in vault standing wide open and his wife’s jewelry collection missing. A good amount of cash, bearer bonds, and other valuables had also been taken, but it was Vera Williamson’s jewelry that mattered the most since it was covered by the LMG policy. At a tidy sum just shy of $2 million.
With a theft of this magnitude, Bree had been forced to stay in the background for the first few days, observing as the Dallas PD robbery unit did their thing. Even so, she’d learned enough to make her very suspicious.
Outwardly, it appeared to be a simple smash-and-grab job. The thieves had bashed in the french doors, scattering glass and wood all over the living room, then moved the large-screen TV and several pieces of high-tech electronic gear like they intended to steal it, but changed their minds after finding the safe and all the jewelry inside it. They’d ripped through the door and half of the wall hiding the vault with what looked like a crowbar and sledgehammer. They’d given the inside of the safe the caveman treatment, too, smashing the glass jewelry cases when they simply could have opened them and ripping shelves off the wall. Almost everything in the place screamed amateurs getting lucky.
Almost.
The inconsistencies were what bothered Bree. Like the fact that they hadn’t tripped the home’s security system when they’d broken in. Or that the exterior camera hadn’t managed to catch a single glimpse of the burglars. Then there was the part where they’d opened the door of the safe without damaging it.
Maybe they hadn’t set off the alarm because the sensor on the door had been faulty. As for the camera, it was possible the thieves had approached the house along a naturally existing blind spot. And the safe? She supposed Garth and Vera Williamson could have forgotten to lock it.
All of those explanations seemed like a stretch to her.
It was starting to look a hell of a lot like Garth or Vera—or both—had been involved.
Bree flipped through the file and photos of the newest case, quickly seeing the obvious similarities.
Claudette Montagne wasn’t a new client with LMG, but she’d only recently moved to Dallas. She’d made her money in New York’s fashion industry, then moved to Texas to expand her empire. Apparently, she’d pulled an all-nighter at her office, arriving back at her luxury loft on Blackburn Street at six o’clock in the morning to find that someone had stolen the two Jasper Johns paintings she had mounted on the wall of her bedroom. The cost to LMG was about $16 million if they had to pay out on the theft.
Like the Williamson job, the thieves had entered the loft with brute force. The photos the cops had taken showed that the front door had b
een kicked in forcefully enough to crack the frame around the lock. The other pictures showed pieces of furniture shoved aside, as if the thieves had been in a hurry to get through the apartment. Then there was the crude way they’d sliced the paintings out of their frames, as if the person doing it had no clue how valuable the two pieces were.
And also like the Williamson job, there were little things that didn’t fit.
The sensors attached to the picture frames that should have picked up the movement of the painting being cut never sent any signal to the security company paid to monitor them. Then again, neither had the alarm on the door. The case file seemed to suggest Claudette had failed to turn the security system on…though the woman insisted she had.
When Bree opened the file from the Williamson case and compared it to the Montagne job, it was hard to ignore the resemblance. They had both been assigned to her because they were insured by the same company, but beyond that, they were both protected by security systems that seemed to have been circumvented, and both houses had physical damage, making it look to be the work of common criminals.
Bree couldn’t help thinking this was another case of the client stealing their own property. Either that, or they had the same thief do it for them. She wondered whether Garth and Vera knew Claudette. Since they used the same insurance company, it wasn’t crazy to assume they could have met there.
Bree sat back in her chair, considering the best way to approach the two cases. There’d been a lot of forensic evidence gathered at both scenes, but the thefts had occurred on opposite sides of Dallas within two different DPD divisions. That meant it was unlikely the cops had connected the cases.
Not that it would help her much if they did. There were thousands of burglaries reported in Dallas each year. Even high-profile cases like these would only garner a limited amount of attention. The cops would definitely work the cases diligently, but it would take time, especially if they needed to get the crime lab to go through the forensic evidence in order to come up with any suspects.
Unfortunately, policies written by LMG stipulated that first payments on loss claims had to go out within thirty days. Which meant Bree didn’t have time for the cops to follow their normal process. She needed to do some digging on her own. Even if she only found enough to point the cops in the right direction, that could be enough to limit the damages her company had to pay out.
Taking a pen and notepad out of the drawer, she jotted down ideas on how she might establish a connection between the two cases as well as between Claudette and the Williamsons. It probably wouldn’t hurt to dig into their known associates and see if any of them could be linked to someone who’d had a break-in like the ones in the photos. After that, she’d start working up a list of places that might be able to fence the jewelry and paintings that had been stolen. Off the top of her head, she could already think of a half-dozen different pawnshops she could check out tomorrow.
Speaking of all the stuff she had to do tomorrow, Bree couldn’t stop the image of a certain hunky SWAT cop from popping into her mind. Dinner with Diego was definitely on the list of things she was looking forward to.
Bree knew she should focus on her job. Working two theft cases at the same time—both involving million-dollar claims—would be difficult enough without the gorgeous distraction that was Diego Martinez. Regardless of how much she’d insisted having dinner with Diego wasn’t a big deal, putting the man out of her head was easier said than done. The mere thought of sitting across the table from the sexy cop in the privacy of her apartment made her so giddy with anticipation she felt like a teenager.
What should she make for dinner?
What kinds of things would they talk about?
Would this be the start of a relationship like Beth suggested or a one-time thing?
Bree glanced at her phone, wondering if it would be okay to call him. It was lame, but she wanted to hear his voice. She could always say she wanted to confirm their dinner plans.
Picking up her phone, she was scrolling through her contacts for his name when it occurred to her that Diego might still be at that bank robbery. The memory of what he’d done at the diner came rushing back, and her chest tightened. Damn, she was on the verge of hyperventilating over the safety of a guy she’d just met and barely knew.
Bree fought to control her breathing, telling herself to calm down. The bank robbery Diego had gone on was long over. He was fine. In fact, he was probably already home watching TV. Or playing video games. Or reading. Or whatever he did when he wasn’t on duty.
But just in case he was still at work, she decided to text instead of call him. Then forced herself not to check her phone every five minutes for a reply.
* * *
“Leave us the hell alone and go away!”
Diego jerked the phone away from his ear, wincing at the loud crash on the other end. Well, there went another one of the bank’s landline phones, smashed to bits like all the previous ones when he’d tried to talk the bank robbers into giving themselves up or releasing some of the hostages or letting him send in food or any of the half-dozen offers he’d tried in an attempt to gain their trust.
These guys were more unbalanced than the man at the diner.
Biting back a growl, Diego set down the phone, then walked to the door of the SWAT RV and stepped outside. Keeping an eye on the front of the bank and the pieces of furniture the hostage takers had piled up in front of the entrance, he flipped through the handwritten notes he made earlier during his discussion with the regional manager of the bank, double-checking to see if there was another phone number he could try. But after going through five pages of scribbles, it wasn’t looking good.
Diego smelled his two pack mates approaching before he heard them. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was Trey and Hale. While Mike was talking to the on-scene commander a few feet away and Connor was on the rooftop across the street, using his scope to maintain a visual on the suspects in the bank, Trey and Hale had been scouting out the back of the building, making sure they had a clear path to the skylights that overlooked the bank’s lobby. That was the way they’d go in if Diego wasn’t able to talk the three gunmen out. Considering the standoff was approaching its fifth hour and they’d now lost their last phone line into the bank, a tactical breach was looking more and more likely. But with the way the hostage takers were starting to behave, Diego was concerned going in might push them over the edge.
“They still not talking?” Trey asked, stopping beside him.
Diego shook his head. “Oh, they’re talking, but they’re not giving me anything I can work with. The best I’ve been able to do is confirm that there are three armed men in there and that the bank guard and the other four hostages are alive. And while I doubt this is going to be big news to either of you, I’ve also confirmed we’re looking at guys who are as whacked out as the other people we’ve been dealing with lately.”
Trey and Hale did little more than shrug, like they’d already figured out that last part. Given the way the men in the bank frequently shoved the furniture aside so they could lean out one of the broken windows and shout things that made no sense to anyone but them, it was kind of obvious.
“You don’t think there’s any way you’ll be able to convince them to come out of there?” Hale asked, his gaze going to the bank.
Diego let out a sigh. It might be quiet inside right now, but he had no illusions it would stay that way. “I wish I could say I see this all working out, but my gut tells me this is going to end exactly like the situation at the diner.”
Hale frowned. “I know you blame yourself for that guy killing himself, but you know as well as I do, there was nothing you could have done to stop it.”
Diego knew his friend was only trying to help—and on some level, he knew his pack mate was right, but still, a man had died by his own hand right in front of him. He might be focused on what was going on in th
at bank right now, but part of him was still back in that diner.
“With all the training I have at this kind of thing, shouldn’t I have been able to do something?” he murmured.
“You did do something,” Trey pointed out. “You saved two cops and more than a dozen civilians, including a beta and his mother. You controlled the situation and you did your job.”
Diego hooked his thumbs in his tactical vest. “It’s probably not a very healthy way to look at it—in fact, I know it’s not—but I’ve always dwelled more on the ones I lost than the ones I’ve saved. And as crazy as that guy in the diner was, I can’t help but feel like I lost him. In the end, he didn’t want to die, but he pulled the trigger anyway.”
Trey and Hale both looked like they wanted to argue, but then must have thought better of it. Because seriously, what the hell could they say?
“Guys, something’s going on inside the bank,” Connor announced suddenly over the radio, jarring Diego out of his introspection. “Two of the men have turned their attention to the hostages. They’re swinging their weapons around and getting really worked up. I can’t tell what they’re saying, but from the expressions on the hostages’ faces, it’s freaking them out.”
“What’s the third guy doing?” Mike asked, his voice coming through Diego’s earpiece calm and relaxed even as it seemed like the situation was starting to disintegrate.
Just as Diego feared it would.
“He’s standing off to the side closer to the door, looking really out of it,” Connor replied. “Truthfully, I’m as worried about him as the other two. Who knows what he’ll do if he snaps out of his catatonic state?”
“Diego, any chance of reestablishing contact?” Mike asked.
“None,” Diego said. “They smashed the last working phone in the bank and refused to answer any of the cell phones they took from the bank employees. To be honest, I don’t think I ever had a chance of getting through to those guys in there. Not with the way they’re acting.”