Chapter 951: Empty House
In the scene footage captured by the TV news helicopter, there was thick smoke and flames rising into the sky, and a house was burning fiercely.
Several fire trucks were spraying water at the scene to try to stop the fire from spreading. As the camera gradually zoomed out, more fire trucks could be seen on the way and sirens sounded throughout the night sky.
Jiejie looked at Jack with some worry, but saw that he looked calm and didn't seem to be very worried.
Jack put a fake beard on his face and said, "Let Danny go to Queens and take them to Long Island. Those guys won't get into trouble that easily. Let's go visit the home of Marlo Burns, the operations director of New Age Technology, first."
He didn't think such a simple trap would trap Reacher.
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Staten Island, where Danny and Clay's families live, is to New York as Pudong is to Shanghai. As the city expands, housing prices in this former rural area have begun to rise steadily.
No matter how rich people are proud of owning a luxurious penthouse in Manhattan, it does not prevent them from owning a villa on Long Island or Staten Island for weekend vacation.
New York City is too crowded. Even a penthouse worth tens of millions of dollars is certainly not as comfortable as a small villa in the suburbs.
Marlo Burns' home is such a small villa located in a wealthy area. The living area of the upper and lower floors combined is 300 to 400 square meters, which is a luxury for a single mother living alone with her adolescent daughter.
"It's safe upstairs!" Hannah reported loudly from upstairs.
"confirm!"
This time Jack didn't use his lock-picking skills to enter the house, because he, Hannah and Jiejie walked around the house and found that the back door was ajar.
It took them some time to search the house, but it was empty, and something was wrong.
Although the house looked messy, it was not as messy as the offices of Franz, Sánchez, and Orozco, which had been vandalized.
Jack looked around downstairs and went upstairs with Jiejie. The information said that Marlo Burns was a 45-year-old single mother who lived with her 14-year-old daughter.
The furnishings and items in the house also seemed to be in line with the situation. There was no sign of any male presence. A sweet photo of the mother and daughter was posted on the kitchen refrigerator, and there was even leftover dinner and half a portion of fruit salad on the dining table.
"They seemed to have left in a hurry, but it didn't look like they were being held hostage. They must have left on their own initiative." Hannah stood in the upstairs corridor, putting her gun back into the holster. Behind her was a bedroom with its 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, and at first glance it is an adolescent girl's "boudoir". Various cartoon and anime-related posters are posted on the walls, and there is a dual-screen monitor on the computer lift table at the end of the bed.
"Kidnappers usually don't care about the oral hygiene and menstrual period of their victims." Hannah walked into the bathroom connected to the bedroom, picked up a fallen white bat from the ground, and pointed to the empty toothbrush cup inside.
Jack hit the spacebar on the gaming keyboard on the table, and the screen lit up without a password. After clicking it, he went directly to the desktop and saw at a glance that the STEAM page was still online.
He opened the game library and couldn't help but whistle, "This is still a little 'Hannah'."
Marlo Burns' daughter's taste in games is similar to Hannah's. She has bought a lot of popular first-person shooter 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 the three of them to squeeze in here, so he turned around and went out and entered another bedroom at the end of the corridor.
This was obviously Marlo Burns' bedroom. The room was very large and was divided into two rooms, an inner room and an outer room. There was a single bed outside and a large closet inside.
This place is much messier than downstairs and my daughter's room. High heels and little dresses are thrown everywhere. It looks like someone has packed their luggage in a hurry.
The light in the closet was still on, and Jack immediately spotted an open travel bag lying by the door.
"Girls, I thought you might want to come over and take a look." Jack opened the travel bag and was immediately shocked by the stacks of green hundred-dollar bills inside.
"If it's reserve cash, isn't there too much in here?" Hannah, who came over after hearing the sound, complained. Although the bag was not full, there must be two or three million in it.
Although Marlo Burns was the operations director of a large company and her annual salary of one million was not exaggerated, it was indeed a bit strange that she kept so much cash at home and ran away without taking it with her.
Jiejie, who was walking behind, was attracted by the two large boxes of jewelry on the bedside table. "These don't look like the cheap jewelry they usually wear. What made them so hasty to escape that they didn't even take the expensive jewelry and so much cash with them?"
Jack activated his thinking skills, "Judging from the state of the dinner in the kitchen, Marlo Burns left in a hurry with her daughter last night.
Reacher and I broke into New Age Technology at around 1am. If we said that we alerted the other party and made her realize that the situation was not good and she chose to escape, the timing does not match.
Judging from Swan's emails to her, I am more inclined to believe that Marlo Burns may be innocent. She may have sensed something was wrong, and then placed Swan in the security department to investigate something, and was threatened as a result. "
"Then who threatened her? Shane Lanston?" Jiejie frowned. "He is just the director of the security department. Isn't it a bit low for him to be involved in illegal arms deals involving terrorism?"
"But if the case is that the embezzlement is committed, then the position of Director of Security Department is just right, isn't it? The amount of 6500 million is also very tempting.
You know, according to our investigation, New Era Technology has had pretty good business and profits over the years, and if it were the board of directors, they wouldn’t have to take such a big risk for such a small amount of money.”
Hannah is not completely blindly supporting Jack. Her analysis is well-reasoned and well-founded.
"No matter what, we have to find out what weapons they are trading. The fact that they dared to attack at a funeral shows that they have realized that the deal might be ruined, so they chose to take desperate measures.
This means that our strategy worked, and the other party chose to continue killing people to ensure the transaction went through, and they obviously didn’t realize that the FBI and DHS had entered the game. "
"OK, then please ask our great detective Mr. Holmes to continue his efforts to find out the truth. As for the whereabouts of Marlo Burns and her daughter, 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 patted her chest confidently and said, "Check the license plate and credit card spending records. Her daughter is a gamer and I have her game account. Isn't the rest easy?"
Looking for someone through the gaming network? To be honest, Jack hadn't thought of this trick and gave her a thumbs up.
"OK, I'll leave this to you. Be sure to stay safe and call for help if you have any questions. I'll go find out what the 'Little Wings' project is all about."
