“Everything okay?” Connor asked as he came up beside him. “You and the chief seemed to be having an intense conversation.”
“I think we’re good,” Trey answered. “Though I’m pretty sure she knows I’m lying about how we found the body.”
Connor blew out a breath. “I figured as much. We need to be careful around her. She’s sharp.”
Trey opened his mouth to agree, but the words got stuck in his throat as a woman carrying a heavy-looking bag with the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office emblem on the side approached the crime scene tape and walked directly over to the chief. Between the bag that she had to lug half a mile through the woods in the mid-August heat and the navy blue coveralls she was wearing over her regular clothes, complete with high rubber boots, Dr. Samantha Mills was glistening with sweat, some of her long, blond hair escaping from her messy bun.
Damn, she was the most attractive woman he’d ever seen in his life.
“You ask her out yet?” Connor said casually.
Trey glanced at his buddy to see him wearing a knowing grin. It wasn’t a secret that Trey had a thing for the assistant ME. He’d done nothing to hide it from the moment he’d first seen her at the site of the SWAT team’s raid two years ago when half the Pack had fully shifted into wolves. After that, Samantha seemed to show up at every crime scene to collect forensic evidence all while looking at them sideways. Hell, just this past June, while helping them with a case, she’d openly admitted to knowing the team was playing fast and loose with the truth when it came to how they did their jobs. He and the rest of the Pack had been worried she might be onto their secret—that the DPD SWAT team was composed entirely of werewolves—but when she hadn’t exposed them, they’d relaxed a little.
Now, if only Trey could figure out how to man up and ask her out when he couldn’t even seem to talk to her without getting tongue-tied.
“I’ve been meaning to, but I haven’t found the right time to approach her about it,” he said.
Connor shrugged. “How about right now?”
Trey snorted. “Yeah right. She wants some guy to ask her out while she’s leaning over a dead body.”
“Dude, she deals with dead bodies every day, so you’re going to need to come up with another excuse. You’re a werewolf, not a werechicken. Just ask her to go out to dinner. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Trey would have laughed at the werechicken comment if this thing he had for Samantha hadn’t gone on for so long it had somehow taken on a life of its own. The thought of asking her out only to be turned down was something he didn’t even want to think about. That was why he kept putting it off. He was waiting for some sign to light up and tell him to finally go for it.
But that was stupid. There wasn’t going to be a sign, and if he kept waiting, the worst that could happen—would happen—was someone else would make a move on the beautiful, brilliant woman and he’d be left thinking about what could have been. The thought alone made Trey’s gut clench.
Dammit. He was going to ask her out—today.
But as he watched her drop to a knee beside the body and lean over to study the headless corpse, he decided he’d wait until she wasn’t leaning over a mutilated body.
Chapter 2
Samantha unlocked her office and walked in, letting the quirkiness of the space soothe her aggravated mind and soul. With its light gray color scheme, the room was sleek and modern, like the rest of the Dallas Institute of Forensic Sciences. While the shelves filled with medical journals were fairly standard for a pathologist’s office, it was the other shelving units on the far wall that defined the space. The display cases showcased her collection of antique medical devices and various other medical curiosities, including a human skull saved from a sanitarium where they’d practiced medicine that could only be labeled as barbaric. She kept it as a reminder that psychos could be found wearing all kinds of disguises…including doctor’s garb.
Standing in the middle of her safe zone, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, releasing the urge to throttle somebody.
“Briefing go that badly?”
Samantha turned to see her best friend, coworker, next-door neighbor, and all-around confidant Crystal Mullen in the doorway. Petite with brown eyes and her shoulder-length dark hair in its signature ponytail, Crystal was always there when Samantha needed to vent about something. These days, that was a lot.
When her boss, Louis Russo, said he was assigning her to the serial killer task force, Samantha had been thrilled. Okay, that sounded bad. For a nerd like her who was used to working miles behind the lines, where she barely had a clue what case she was involved in, the chance to team up with the police as they chased down a murderer, uncovering clues and questioning suspects, sounded exciting. Then she’d started going to meetings, and the shine had quickly worn off that particular apple. Now, after only a little more than a week, she dreaded every briefing she was forced to attend and their ability to frustrate her beyond all rational explanation.
“No worse than usual, which is to say horrible,” Samantha admitted, moving over to her mini fridge to pull out a bottle of water. She held another up to her friend, but Crystal shook her head. Crystal was a die-hard caffeine addict. Seriously, her friend would wheel around her coffee in an IV stand if Louis had let her.
“Let me guess,” Crystal said as she perched in the chair in front of Samantha’s desk. Her friend never actually sat back in the comfortable
