Wolf Untamed (SWAT - Special Wolf Alpha Team #11) - Paige Tyler Page 0,15

regarded him curiously. Probably wondering what was up with the young beta werewolf.

“Good of you to join us, Officer Martinez.” Tall and slender with medium-brown skin and black hair swept back in a neat bun, the chief had a reputation for being tough, but fair. “When you didn’t come back with Corporal Taylor, I was worried you were injured. I’m relieved to see you’re simply slow.”

Diego ignored the jab. While the new chief of police had only been on the job for a few months, it hadn’t taken very long to figure out the woman only revealed her snarky side to those she respected. And damn, did she love to get sarcastic with her SWAT team.

Of course, the chief’s special relationship with the SWAT team might also have had a lot to do with the fact that she had a thing for Mike. True, the chief of police had a right to be interested in the health and welfare of every single one of her officers, but a werewolf would have to be absolutely clueless not to pick up on the way the woman showed up at any incident involving Mike. Or the fact that her heart tended to race like mad until the moment she confirmed he was safe.

“Sorry it took me a while,” Diego said, closing the door behind him. “I wanted to get a paramedic to check out two of the hostages.”

“The boy and woman I saw you come out of the diner with?” The chief’s hazel eyes filled with concern. “Corporal Taylor mentioned they’d risk their lives to help the two officers who’d been shot. Are they okay?”

“They’re okay,” he said. “The boy went down hard when I tackled the suspect, but something tells me he’s tougher than he looks.”

Leclair nodded. “That’s good to hear. Now, maybe you can tell me what the hell happened in there. How did we go from a guy shooting two cops and taking a diner full of people hostage to him killing himself?”

Diego told the chief everything. Well, not the whole werewolf thing, of course. But he definitely emphasized Ken’s bizarre behavior and how the guy had floated in and out of awareness throughout the situation.

“Those were his exact words before he shot himself—‘Don’t let him get away with this’?” Leclair frowned. “What does that even mean? Who was he referring to? Did someone make him do all this, including shooting himself in the head? Or was it some convoluted Freudian reference to his inner id?”

Diego crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d be lying if I said I knew the answer to any of those questions. All I can say for sure is that right there at the end, Ken didn’t look like someone who wanted to take his own life—or anyone else’s.”

“What do you mean?” the chief asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not any kind of expert on the subject, and I’m certainly not a shrink, but as a negotiator, I’ve been in the horrible position of watching way too many people kill themselves. And in every one of those cases, right before the person went through with it, a moment of calm came over them. I’ve always assumed it had something to do with accepting what they were about to do. But when Ken killed himself, he was fighting tooth and nail against it.”

The chief was silent as she considered that. Diego glanced at his teammates to see they looked as confused by his take on what had happened in there as she did. Join the club.

After a long moment, she sighed. “Okay, once we confirm his identity, I’ll get our detectives working on trying to link this guy to any of the previous suspects.”

The impromptu meeting ended shortly after that, and Diego took the opportunity to slip away while the chief chatted with Mike about attending a seminar on transformative management techniques the department would be putting on in a couple weeks.

Mike nodded like he was riveted by the idea. More like enthralled with Chief Leclair. “I think I’ve heard about that program. It sounds really interesting.”

Diego exchanged looks with his other pack mates to see if they were hearing the same thing he was. The amusement on their faces confirmed it. He’d be damned. Mike was flirting with the chief over a management seminar.

Shaking his head, Diego opened the door. He smelled the young beta the moment he was outside the RV. Surprisingly, he also smelled the kid’s mother just as easily. Actually, in some ways, her