Chapter 951 The house is empty
In the live footage captured by the TV station news helicopter, only thick smoke and flames were seen billowing into the sky, and a house was burning.
Several fire trucks are spraying water jets at the scene to try to prevent the spread of the fire. As the camera gradually zooms out, you can see that more fire trucks are on their way, and sirens are ringing in the night sky.
Jiejie looked at Jack with some worry, but saw that he looked calm and didn't seem very worried.
Jack said while putting a fake beard on his face, "Let Danny go to Queens and take them to Long Island. Those guys are not that easy to get into trouble. Let's go to the 'New Era Technology' guy first. 'A visit to the home of Marlo Burns, Director of Operations."
He didn't think such a simple trap would catch Reacher.
——
Staten Island, where Danny and Clay live, is to New York what Pudong is to Shanghai. As the city expanded, housing prices in the once rural place began to rise. Climbing steadily.
No matter how proud the wealthy people are of owning a luxurious penthouse on Manhattan Island, it does not prevent them from owning a villa on Long Island or Staten Island for weekend vacations.
New York City is too crowded, and even a penthouse apartment worth tens of millions of dollars is definitely far inferior to a small villa in the suburbs in terms of comfort.
Marlo Burns's home is such a small villa located in a wealthy area. The upper and lower floors add up to a living area of three to four hundred square meters. For a single mother living alone with her adolescent daughter, it is considered a villa. luxury.
"It's safe upstairs!" Hannah reported loudly upstairs.
“Confirm!”
Jack did not use his lockpicking skills when he entered the house this time, because he, Hannah, and Jiejie walked around the house and found that the back door was ajar. With.
They spent some time searching the entire house. There was no one inside, but something was wrong.
Although the house looked messy, it was not a mess like the offices of Franz, Sanchez, and Orozco that had been vandalized.
Jack looked around downstairs and walked upstairs with Jiejie. According to the information, Marlo Burns was a 45-year-old single mother who lived alone with her 14-year-old daughter.
The furnishings and items in the house look relatively consistent, without any trace of male presence. There is a sweet photo of the mother and daughter on the refrigerator in the kitchen, and there are even leftover dinner and half a meal on the dining table. A fruit salad.
"They looked like they left in a hurry, but it didn't look like they were being held hostage. They probably left on their own initiative." Hannah stood in the corridor upstairs, putting her gun back into its holster, with a room behind her. Bedroom with door open.
“Why do you say that?” Jiejie walked into the room with her, and Jack followed behind.
The bedroom is dominated by light pink tones. At first glance, it looks like an adolescent girl's "boudoir". There are various cartoon-related posters on the wall, and there are dual-screen monitors on the computer lift table at the end of the bed.
“Kidnappers usually don’t care about the victim’s oral hygiene and menstrual period.” Hannah walked into the bathroom connected to the bedroom, picked up a piece of missing white bat from the ground, and pointed to the empty space inside. A toothbrush cup with nothing in it.
Jack hit the space button on the gaming keyboard on the table. The screen turned on without a screen-off password. After clicking it, he entered the desktop directly. At a glance, he saw that the STEAM page was still hanging.
He clicked on the game library and couldn't help but whistled, "This is still a little 'Hannah'."
Marlo Burns's daughter's game taste is similar to Hannah's. I bought a bunch of popular first-person shooters and action games.
The closet in the girl's room was open, and the clothes inside were a little messy. Jack just glanced at it and felt that there was no need for three people to squeeze in here. He turned around and went out, entering another bedroom at the end of the corridor.
This is obviously Marlo Burns' bedroom. The room is very large and divided into two rooms, inside and outside. There is a single bed outside and a huge wardrobe room inside. This place is much messier than downstairs and my daughter's room. High heels and small dresses are scattered everywhere. It looks like someone has packed luggage in a hurry.
The light in the closet was still on, and Jack immediately saw an open travel bag thrown beside the door.
"Girls, I think you might want to come over and take a look." Jack opened the travel bag and took a look, and was immediately surprised by the stacks of green hundred-dollar bills inside.
"If it's reserved cash, isn't there too much in it?" Hannah complained after hearing the sound. Although the bag was not full, there must be two to three million in it.
Although Marlo Burns is the operations director of a large company, and his annual salary of one million is not an exaggeration, it is indeed a bit strange to keep such cash at home and not take it with him when something happens.
Jie Jie, who was walking behind, was attracted by the two large boxes of jewelry placed on the bedside table. "These don't look like the cheap jewelry they usually wear. What on earth made them rush to escape?" Don’t you bring expensive jewelry or so much cash?”
Jack activated my thinking skills, “Cooking” Judging from the state of the dinner in the room, Marlo Burns left in a hurry with her daughter last night.
And Rachel and I forced our way in around 1 a.m. Times Technology', if we alerted the other party and made her realize that the situation was not good and she chose to run away, the timing was not right.
Judging from Swann and her emails, I am more inclined to think that Marlo Burns may be innocent. She may have sensed something was wrong, and then assigned Swann to the security department to investigate something, but she was threaten. "
"Then who threatened her? Shane Langston? "Jiejie frowned, "He is just the director of the security department. Isn't it a bit low-level for someone like him to engage in illegal arms trade involving terrorism? "
"But if the guard commits theft, the position of director of the security department is just right, isn't it? The amount of 65 million is also very tempting.
You must know that according to our investigation, New Era Technology's business and profits have been quite good in recent years. If it is the decision-making level of the board of directors, it seems that they do not need to take such a big risk for this little money. ”
Hannah is not completely blind to stand up to Jack. This analysis is clear and reasonable.
"Anyway, we have to find a way to figure out what kind of weapons they are trading. The fact that the other party dared to do it at the funeral shows that they have realized that the deal may be ruined, so they chose to jump over the wall.
This means that our strategy has worked. The other party has chosen to continue killing people to ensure the transaction. Obviously, they have not realized that the FBI and DHS have entered the market."
"OK, then. Please let our great detective Mr. Holmes continue to work hard to find out the truth. As for the whereabouts of Marlo Burns and her daughter, we will leave it to us." Hannah smiled and kissed Jack on the cheek.
Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Do you know how to find them?"
Hannah slapped her chest very confidently, "Check the license plate, check the credit card consumption records, and her daughter She is a gamer, and I have her game account. Isn’t the rest very simple?”
Are you looking for someone on the gaming network? To be honest, Jack didn't even think of this move and gave her a thumbs up.
"OK, I'll leave this matter to you. Be sure to pay attention to safety and remember to call for reinforcements if you have any problems. I'll go find out what's going on with the 'Little Wings' project."
(End of this chapter)