Wolf Untamed (SWAT - Special Wolf Alpha Team #11) - Paige Tyler Page 0,30

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