Page 103 of Stolen Omega

Our best bet is in finding out who the kidnappers are. That’s how we’ll find Zelena.

“I think your friend Seth is psychic,” Russ tells me. “He knows it’s still me texting him.”

“He’s more psycho than psychic. He knows it’s you because you text like a teenager.”

“I don’t text like a teenager. You’re just getting old.”

“Well, I don’t use emojis, or weird abbreviations.”

“Old people use emojis. I use emoticons.”

“My point exactly.”

“Semantics aside, he’s looking into it now. He’s asking if we want to know about businesses and land, as well as properties. I assume we do.”

“Yeah, we probably should. Let’s just hope there aren’t too many big spenders in town.”

“Right. I’ve asked, and he sent me a thumbs up.”

“Great.”

I turn on to the dirt road that leads to the farm, and I let out a relieved sigh that we don’t have much farther until we get to Harris’ farm. His helicopter gives us an edge over the cops. Silver City P.D. would need to request resources from Cressidan City to get an emergency services helicopter in the air, and the red tape around that kind of asset transfer is enough of a headache to make them think twice.

They’d never get a request approved before we could get in the sky.

“We’re lucky Harris said he could take us up tonight.”

“Lucky,” Russ grumbles. “Yeah. Okay, then.”

I don’t know what it is about helicopters that makes him queasy. He’s fine when it comes to getting on a plane. He thinks they feel like a rougher ride. Thankfully, he said that outside of Harris’ earshot the last time. I wouldn’t want my pilot friend to think it was a comment on his skills.

“You’ll be fine,” I tell Russ.

“Easy for you to say.”

Maybe it is. I don’t know what it’s like to get air sick.

“You don’t have to come up with me. You could take the car out to Golden Pines—”

“Fuck off,” he cusses.

He’s coming with me, and that’s all there is to it.

It could take a few hours to fly over the places we want to check, to cover any suspect spots in Silver Grove, and the surrounding areas, but hopefully it helps us to pick out any areas on the ground that we need to go check into.

We finally reach the gates to the farm, and I slow to a stop, nodding at Russ.

“Shit. I forgot how paranoid this guy is,” he mutters as he texts Harris to let him know we’re here.

About a minute later, the gates start to creak inwards. The mechanism they’re on is slow, so I give it another minute before I start my engine.

“Can’t you just go?” Russ gripes, motioning at the half open gates.

“There’s an electrical charge in those things,” I remind him. “Besides. A few extra seconds don’t matter considering how much time searching this way is going to buy us.”

He grumbles something under his breath, and I roll my eyes.

Cameron Harris is nowhere near as weird as Russ thinks he is, but they’ve never completely gotten along, and I know that’s based entirely on the helicopter.

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