Chapter 951: The House is Empty
In the scene shot by the TV news helicopter, there was only a 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 were seen on the way, and sirens rang through the night sky.
Jiejie looked at Jack with some worry, but 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 are not so easy to get into trouble. Let's go to the home of Marlo Burns, the operations director of "New Age Technology". "
He didn't think this simple trap would trap Reacher.
——
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 the former rural areas have begun to rise steadily.
No matter how much the rich are proud of owning a luxurious penthouse in Manhattan Island, 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 far less comfortable than a small villa in the suburbs.
Marlo Burns's home is such a small villa located in a wealthy area. The living area of the upper and lower floors is a total of 300 to 400 square meters, which is a luxury for a single mother living alone with her adolescent daughter.
"The upstairs is safe!" Hannah reported loudly upstairs.
"Confirmed!"
This time Jack did not 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.
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 the mess that had been destroyed by Franz, Sanchez and Orozco's offices.
Jack looked around downstairs and went upstairs with Jiejie. The information said that 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 seemed to be quite consistent, without any trace of 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 fruit salad on the dining table.
"They looked like they left in a hurry, but they didn't seem to be held hostage. They should have left on their own initiative." Hannah stood in the upstairs corridor, putting her gun back into the holster, and behind her was a bedroom with an open door.
"Why do you say that?" Jiejie walked into the room with her, and Jack followed behind.
The bedroom was dominated by a light pink tone, and it was a "boudoir" of an adolescent girl at first glance. There were posters related to various cartoons and animations on the wall, and a dual-screen monitor was placed on the computer lifting table at the end of the bed.
"Kidnappers usually don't care about the oral hygiene and menstrual period of the victim." Hannah walked into the bathroom connected to the bedroom, picked up a small white bat from the ground, and pointed to the empty toothbrush cup inside.
Jack tapped the spacebar on the game keyboard on the table, and the screen lit up without a screen-off password. After clicking, he went directly to the desktop and saw that the STEAM page was still hanging.
He opened the game library and whistled, "This is still a little 'Hannah'."
Marlo Burns' daughter's game taste is similar to Hannah's. She bought a lot 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 the three of them to squeeze in here. He turned 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, inside and outside. There was a single bed outside and a large closet inside.
This place is much messier than downstairs and the daughter's room. High heels and 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 saw an open travel bag thrown by the door at a glance.
"Girls, I think you might want to come 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 reserved cash, isn't it too much?" Hannah complained when she heard the sound. Although the bag was not full, there must be two or three million in it.
Although Marlo Burns is the operations director of a large company and her annual salary of one million is not exaggerated, it is indeed a bit strange to keep so much cash at home and run away without taking it when something happened.
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 that people usually wear. What made them run away in such a hurry that they didn't even take expensive jewelry and so much cash?"
Jack activated my thinking skills, "Judging from the state of the dinner in the kitchen, Marlo Burns left in a hurry with her daughter last night.
And Reacher and I broke into the "New Age Technology" at around 1 a.m. If we alarmed the other party and made her realize that the situation was not good and choose to run away, the time doesn't match.
From Swan and her emails, I am more inclined to believe that Marlo Burns may be innocent. She may have noticed something wrong, and then arranged Swan to join the security department to investigate something, but was threatened as a result."
"Who threatened her? Shane Lanston?" Jiejie frowned. "He is just the director of the security department. Isn't it a bit too low for him to be involved in illegal arms trade involving terrorism?"
"But if he is stealing, the position of director of the security department is just right, right? The amount of 65 million is also very tempting.
You know, according to our investigation, the business and profit of 'New Era Technology' have been quite good in recent years. If it is the decision-making level such as the board of directors, they don't seem to need to take such a big risk for such a small amount of money."
Hannah is not completely blindly supporting Jack. This analysis is well-reasoned and well-founded.
"Anyway, we have to find out what weapons they are trading. The other party dared to choose to take action at the funeral, which means that they have realized that this deal may be destroyed, so they chose to jump off the wall in desperation.
This means that our strategy has worked. The other party chose to continue killing people to ensure the progress of the transaction. Obviously, they have not realized that the FBI and DHS have entered the market."
"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, it will be left 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, "Check the license plate, check the credit card consumption records, and her daughter is a game player. I have her game account. Isn't the rest of the things very simple?"
Find someone through the game network? To be honest, Jack didn't think 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."