Chapter 36
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.”
I drop to my haunches, hanging my head in my hands. “This is lunacy. And… and I want to know how you know where the key to the jail cell is!”
She gives a little shrug, her sandals tapping on the tile floor as she hurries over to me. “All the kids that grew up here know.”
Well, this is news. Talk about small town life. “Have you ever been in this cell?”
A blush tints her cheeks as she presses her lips together. “Uh, maybe.”
Why does this make my breathing get faster?
Scout takes a seat in a chair by the front door, leans back and clasps his hands behind his head. “This is just getting more and more interesting all the time.”
When the cell door swings open, I jump back.
Marianna tilts her head. “What’s wrong?”
“I might be known for having balls of steel, but I do not have a death wish.” Gluing my back against the wall, I shake my head. “Sweetheart, as much as I love that you’re breaking me out of jail, I’ve already had a look at the chief’s sawed-off shotgun once today. I just need to stay right here.”
This time, her mouth slides open in surprise. “Oh, come on. I didn’t take you for a chicken. Not after the way you were charging into the bank.”
That grin. Those freckles.
That sweet curve of her lips. Every damned thing about her.
I’m so fucking toast.
If I don’t end up under the jail.
The temperature inside the building goes up ten degrees, making my shirt feel heavy and itchy. Our gazes hold across the scuffed tile floor, her standing on the outside of the cell.
She beckons me with a wave of her fingers. “Are you coming?”
A rough swallow grates my vocal cords, tightening my voice. “No way. I have plans for us for later that require all of my body to be in working order.”
A swift intake of air through her pretty lips makes my blood surge. The way she licks her lip has my chest contracting.
The air is charged with so much chemistry, I expect thunder any second.
And I could give a flying rat’s ass Scout is here.
He doesn’t even exist at this moment.
The former SEAL can give me all the hassle he wants. Days of shit. I’ll gladly take it because something big is happening here.
All I know right now is I want Marianna again. Some primal part of me is in control.
This is going to make life complicated as hell.
But so much makes sense now. Now I understand why my boss’s head got all fucked up when he met Camile.
Pressing my palms flat to the wall behind me, I shake my head again. “Lock the door. You on the outside.”
Marianna blinks at me with shock in her whiskey-colored gaze. “Why?”
“To keep me from dragging you in here and having my way with you.”
Scout’s hand slaps over his face and drags down until it falls on his chest. “Oh shit. Things just got real.”