Navy Justice (Whidbey Island, Book 5) by Geri Krotow Read Free Book Online Page A

them look like simple homegrown terrorists. That was why he’d been sent in. To figure it out.
    Technically, he’d failed on a basic mission. Infiltrate the enemy. Observe, collect information and report back. Instead, he’d been backed into taking one of them out and bringing the entire undercover op to a halt. He’d reviewed the timeline over and over during the past two hours, and he kept coming up with the same result. If he hadn’t acted, the SAR efforts could be for Navy pilots. His hunger dissolved, and the chicken breasts suddenly seemed as appealing as cardboard. Only years of training carried him through the task of preparing a substantial protein-rich meal.
    As the meat sizzled in Joy’s unmarred pan in her too-clean kitchen, he forced himself to regroup.
    Brad thought he’d experienced it all when he served as a SEAL for fifteen years. The fear, excitement, pride in a job well-done—all those emotions were as familiar to him as his uniform.
    It was a sad day for him when he left the active-duty Navy, although he’d known it was time for him to transfer to the reserves. His body had had enough of the sleepless nights while on mission, enough of the wear and tear of hauling a hundred pounds of gear through places so remote he was sure another human being wouldn’t leave a footprint there for at least a century afterward.
    By the time he’d left for good, a full year after he’d finished all his spec ops, he’d been disillusioned, betrayed by his blind faith in his career and the illusion that he had a personal life.
    When his ex-fiancée was brutally murdered in the suburbs of Virginia Beach while he was only twenty minutes away in Norfolk, he’d been afraid that somehow the bad guys from downrange had found him. That they’d sought out a soft spot, a way of retaliating for defending Farid. He’d been working alongside Joy Alexander at the time of Marci’s death, and Joy had provided a failsafe alibi.
    He wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—have done it differently. Farid had helped convict the man who’d betrayed not only Brad’s SEAL team but also an entire village. Within hours of Farid’s being freed, Marci had been murdered. Despite his paranoia, the two weren’t connected, except in Brad’s heart. And his suspicious, overworked, war-weary mind.
    Guilt sliced into his gut whenever he thought about Marci. None of the counselors or his superiors had been able to convince him that he couldn’t have prevented her death.
    He’d become involved with her initially because he was still in rescue mode; it was how he’d operated as a younger man. He’d wanted to save Marci from the shitty family she’d grown up in, but when her prescription drug habit had gone beyond the recreational phase, he lost any sense of control over her addiction. He’d found her passed out countless times from her favorite cocktail—Xanax and Pinot Grigio—and after a wrenching soul search, he’d had to end the relationship.
    As painful as it’d been to tell her he was leaving and why, she’d shown no remorse.
    In fact, within weeks Marci connected with someone else—a man who could be there every night for her and love her without the drama and strain Brad’s lifestyle inevitably brought to their relationship. Turned out her new boyfriend was also an addict and got her hooked on what led to her murder.
    Heroin.
    The death had been ruled a homicide by stabbing. In fact, Marci’s throat had been slit with one of Brad’s deadliest knives. He hadn’t realized she’d stolen the weapon until it was too late. She’d probably taken it to trade for more drugs.
    The killer had almost certainly been her drug dealer. Because of the knife, Brad could easily have been implicated in the murder, but since he was with Joy at the time, he was cleared. He’d had a solid alibi—Joy Alexander and her entire staff. They’d shared dinner with the JAG team the night after they’d closed both cases successfully.
    If he’d ended it