Page 102 of Stealth Mission

Given that I know nothing about SEALs other than what the movies portray, I’m not surprised I don’t know this.

Evan’s voice goes up in alarm. “Marianna,what are you doing?”

I kneel down and reach under the police chief’s desk. “Looking for the key. The ring is usually on a nail…right…here…”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Scout and I have matching looks of astonishment on our faces.

It’s my teammate that finds his tongue first. “Are you breaking him out?”

Marianna stands up and smooths out the blue fabric of her dress with one hand. In the other is a keyring. “You’re paying bail, right?”

Scout crosses his arms, still smirking. “Do I need to, or are we making a run for it?”

“You can leave the bail money in the office, and we can go. Then it’s not technically breaking out of jail.”

Scout and I share a look. I’m shocked as shit right now. “The fuck it’s not. He locked me up. He’s supposed to be the one to unlock me.”

“I see your point.” She throws a sassy smile my way. “But wouldn’t it be better to be out and then try to figure out what’s going on with the murders?”

I see the instant my teammate hears the word murders. His brows notch, his gaze sharpens, but it’s the way his body strings tight that really stands out. “What fucking murders?”

I hold up a hand. “I was going to talk to you about that.”

Marianna’s scrunching her nose. “The chief said there was a report of a possible double murder, and he’s looking for a suspect.”

“Hold on, sweetheart,” I say as my hands start to sweat. “He said he might already have the suspect in custody. Me.”

Scout’s lips compress completely flat. The tone of his voice is downright lethal. “He thinks you could be involved in two murders…this is bad.”

Marianna rubs her arms. “If there is even such a thing. We just don’t have that kind of crime around here. Break-ins, vandalism, kidnapping, sure, ransoms, that kind of thing, but no one ever gets murdered.”

Scout and I are both locked onto what Marianna’s saying. She has no idea we are here looking for a missing woman.

“Car bombs.” We stay in unison.

She rounds her eyes. “Uh, yeah. Those too.”

“Who commits those other kinds of crimes?” Scout asks her.

Marianna lifts a shoulder. “There are a few known crime families. Mostly small time stuff. Some drugs, some weapons. But I’ve also heard there are some bigger criminals moving into the area because of the low cost of isolated real estate. There’s also a problem with some kind of armed rebel group. But they mostly loot and intimidate people.”

“We know all about them,” I mutter. I don’t elaborate because Marianna also doesn’t know our team has been in the country for more than a week and we’ve had our own run-ins with the rebels. I don’t want to say too much because we need to keep our operation on the DL.

There’s more going on in Karma than Marianna’s aware of.

She dangles the key, causing the shiny silver object to catch the light. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Back to this.

A snorting sound comes out of me. “This is fucking insane.”

Looking concerned, Marianna glances toward the door. “I don’t know what the chief is up to, but he’s been off for a while.”

“What’s he doing differently?”

“He’s just never doing his job, and I’ve seen him acting weird.”

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