Page 93 of Stolen Omega

I know he knows about the money.

He might even know who it came from.

“Well, I’m not a decorated detective,” I tell him. “It’s just my job to protect Zelena, and I’m doing everything I can to find her. Are you?”

He nods slowly. “Obviously, whoever sent your friend Castle that money is the one behind the kidnapping. The account details of the sender were encrypted. Breaking the encryption took a while, and it got us nothing. The funds were transferred from an online poker account which looked to be in Harry’s name, but those details were changed recently, and we haven’t been able to find out what they were changed from. So right now, it looks like Harry paid himself that money.”

“From an online poker account? The half million dollars was poker winnings?”

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like. Do you play?”

I shake my head. “I’m not into card games.”

“Yeah, you don’t look like you spend much time hunched over a computer either, so I guess I can score your name off the suspect list.”

“Thanks for that,” I mutter.

“Hey, our prime suspect is an Alpha in your age range who’s single and has cash to spare. You fit that profile, and you’re her head of security. It would be dumb not to look at you for this.”

Seeing his point, I hold my tongue.

He’s only doing his job.

He looks at his watch. “Mrs. Ortega really likes to make people wait, doesn’t she?”

“You probably have time for another smoke.”

He waves his hand. “Nah … I’m supposed to be cutting back.”

Alma really does seem to get pleasure out of forcing people to wait around for her arrival.

It’s a guarantee if she’s the one to schedule a meeting, she’ll be at least a half hour later than the time she told everyone to arrive by. If it’s a meeting she didn’t arrange, she won’t show up at all.

It’s an annoying habit that slipped my mind when I rushed us back here.

Now I get to stand around while Zelena’s already been gone for a few hours.

By the time I’m done jumping through her mother’s hoops, she’ll have been gone for even longer.

That doesn’t sit well with me. I’d leave if I had any other bright ideas for finding Zelena on my own.

Unfortunately, the clues I picked up probably aren’t going to help much.

I take the tracker out of my pocket carefully. “This was dumped halfway down a dirt road that leads to Silver Grove. We found it when we tracked the van. You might want to check it for prints.”

He nods and checks his pockets, before producing an evidence bag and holding it open.

I drop the tracker inside. He closes the bag and slips it into his pocket.

“It’s worth a shot, but don’t hold your breath. There might not be a clean set on here, and even if there is, whoever left them may not be on the system.”

“I thought as much.”

I don’t share the photos of the shoe prints. They probably aren’t unique enough to help find out who did this, and besides, the cops will do their own investigation at the site once I’ve made my report.

“Are you going to take my statement?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “My partner can do that once you’ve talked to the singer’s parents. They’ll want to get my input while you’re doing that.”

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