Free Fake: The Scarab Beetle Series: #3 (The Academy) by C. L. Stone Page B

second one had a collection of smaller, transparent bags. If I had a home office, I’d have those clear small trash bags in my trash bin. This was probably a winner. I lifted the entire thing out and closed the bin again. They weren’t going to miss it. Job done.
    I started back between the two cars. I meant to wait on Axel since he was opening boxes still, trying to figure out which one he wanted to take.
    Marc turned his head when I got close, his mismatched eyes focusing on me. He glanced at the trash bag, seemed a little confused but then redirected his attention to my face and held. A stern frown and a wrinkle between his eyebrows told me so many things, none of them good.
    I stared back, narrowing my eyes, trying to relay how I hated this silence and dared him to say something right here. Want to stare me down like that? I’d send us all to jail just to knock that look off his face.
    At the same time, my heart was cracking badly. His look made me not care about dying by the Germans. It’d save me the heartache.
    Maybe he was upset because it was Brandon and I who were kidnapped, which meant we were sleeping in the same bed. Maybe he finally made that connection. Even if I hadn’t initially thought it was Brandon, maybe he thought...
    This was the problem with dancing between different guys trying to make a decision. The growing paranoia made every look appear to have a suspicious glint. Still, I couldn’t shake that something was wrong with Marc. He knew something and couldn’t tell me about it now.
    Axel found two boxes he wanted and then hurried back between the cars toward the door. He took one look at the bag in my hands, cocked an eyebrow, shrugged and then nudged me out.
    I followed him and Marc back to the abandoned house. This time, Marc opened the back door. He took my trash bag and stuffed it into the back. Axel dropped his findings into the back and got in to drive. Marc directed me to sit beside him in the back seat, with the stuff between us. Axel started up the car and we were off. We were quiet until we left the cul-de-sac and on the road again.
    “Boxes first,” Marc said. “Probably more important if they kept it.”
    I took one of the boxes and started sifting through it. It was tax records, over five years old. How long were you supposed to hang on to these? Apparently Mr. Jones made just over thirty five thousand dollars that year, and owned a small vacation house in Florida. He had retirement accounts in 401Ks, a few million dollars in various funds. That may or may not have increased over the last couple of years.
    I scratched a fingernail over my eyebrow, looking at the paperwork. Maybe it was my criminal intuition talking, but this made absolutely no sense at all. He was no different than any of the other people on this street, with nothing noteworthy. He had money, sure. Apparently he had an office in town and owned several rental properties. Vacation rentals. Business hadn’t been booming the last few years, but he was in the black.
    But his money was inside bank accounts and 401ks. Secured. Even if Corey could hack this account, why would the German go after this one and not someone who had even more money? If he owned the core, how was it his accounts seemed so average? How valuable could this core be?
    “What’s Murdock’s Core?” I asked quietly. I was still nervous since we were still in the neighborhood, as if someone could hear us. “What are we looking for? Tell me what that is? I mean, Corey kind of figured it out, but explain it to me.” I knew the answer, but I thought someone else spelling it out would help clear up what I was thinking. Technically, cell phone signals come from towers, but how would an illegal cell phone network operate?
    “Sounds like there’s an underground communication network,” Marc said. He was using his cell phone as a light in one hand and thumbed through files in the box.
    “Like in the sewers?” I asked, scrunching my nose and making