Free Hungry Like the Wolf by Paige Tyler

at Gage over her shoulder. “You guys have more guns in there? What, you run out of cabinets and safes to hold them?”
    Gage glanced at her as he closed one of the safes. “Those are our night vision goggles.”
    Mac’s Spidey senses immediately began to tingle. “Like the ones the guys used during the hostage rescue today? They sound cool. Can I see them?”
    “Sure.”
    Gage took the set of keys McCall held out, then opened the gate. He grabbed the first box he came to and opened it, but not before she saw the name of the SWAT officer the goggles belonged to—Mike Taylor. The same Mike Taylor who’d supposedly worn them that morning. But from the layer of dust on the top of the case, it hadn’t been opened in a while, much less earlier today.
    “I would have thought you’d leave these on your response truck,” she said as he handed her the goggles.
    Gage didn’t answer right away. In her experience, that usually meant whatever a person said after that would be a lie.
    “They’re expensive,” he said. “So we keep them locked up here in the cage between incidents.”
    Uh-huh.
    “These are PVS-14 military-grade NVGs,” Gage told her. “They run about four thousand dollars a pop, but are worth every penny.”
    She only half listened as he explained how to wear the goggles and turn them on. Mostly because she was focused on trying to figure out what to make of this new piece of information. Obviously, they hadn’t worn NVGs—as Gage called them—on the hostage rescue that morning. But why not?
    Because the drug they were taking allowed them to see so well in the dark that they didn’t need NVGs? But that was too stupid for words.
    “When you come by to go target shooting, you can try out a pair of these, too,” Gage said as he put the goggles back in the case.
    She nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
    That could have come out a bit more enthusiastic, but she was still trying to wrap her mind around why a SWAT team would leave a critical piece of equipment behind when it went on a call. Maybe they’d forgotten to bring them. If so, Gage and his men weren’t dirty, just stupid. And that didn’t explain why they’d been able to see in a pitch-black building.
    Mac gave McCall a wave as they walked out. Damn, the sun was already starting to set. She looked at her watch and saw that she and Gage had been walking around for almost four hours. And while she’d definitely enjoyed herself—maybe a lot more than she should have—she hadn’t gotten anything solid to go on. She’d been so distracted by his charm, tight T-shirt, and amazing good looks, she’d barely asked any of the questions she’d planned. The SWAT commander had handled her with ease, guiding the conversation and keeping her off her game for most of the afternoon. The only thing she could say for sure was that while she didn’t have a clue how all the strange tidbits of information she’d collected were connected, she was even more certain there was a story here.
    But how was she going to get her hands on it? Her day with Gage and his SWAT team was about to come to an end, and she wasn’t sure if a return visit was in the plans—regardless of the casual invitation to do some target shooting.
    “I hope I didn’t bore you too much,” Gage said when they reached the gate. “I couldn’t help noticing you weren’t interested in what I was saying about the NVGs. Not that I blame you—it’s pretty dry stuff.”
    Mac felt her face heat. She hadn’t realized he’d seen her zone out. “I wasn’t bored. I was just a little distracted, that’s all.”
    “Distracted, huh?” His smile was so knowing that for a moment she thought he was onto her. “Why’s that?”
    Damn, he was making this almost too easy.
    “Well…” She gave him a sheepish look. “I was thinking about the fact that I sort of fibbed to you a little before.”
    “Fibbed about what?”
    Despite the way he crossed his arms over his chest to show off those