Ito is famous in police circles for his quiet manner, which is at odds with the steroid-filled life he’d lived as a youth. Though he was born in Vancouver, he had a few sumo wrestlers in the family tree and decided to continue the tradition by becoming a competitive body builder. The running joke was that he couldn’t handle the pressures of competition and took the easy way out by becoming a police detective.

“Yes. I’ve already explained all this to Vancouver PD. The man you’re looking for also has connections with organized crime in China through the family he used to work for, or maybe he’d had them before—I don’t know. I personally think he’s using his organized crime links to evade the authorities. He did that once before.”

One moment he feels light-headed. The next he feels weighted down.

It goes on like this for several minutes as he tells Ito how Dao had disappeared after Bonnie was found, the time she’d been kidnapped. “He has a network in place here. It might be a loose network, but the ties are strong for him to have accomplished what he has. Maybe they owe him favors; maybe he’s paying them.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of speculation. I find this hard to believe.” Ito isn’t as incredulous as he sounds. He’s clearly been following all the salacious details of the case.

“Let me give you some examples. Two decades ago an alleged triad boss from Macau set up his family in Vancouver and funneled assets into the country. A rival gang put out a contract on his head to the tune of one million dollars, to be executed in Vancouver. About two years before that, Jimmy Fang, head of Three Phoenix here in Vancouver, was involved in a street gang rivalry, money laundering, drug and arms trafficking. He jumped bail and fled the country. He’s suspected to be in hiding in Southeast Asia. A Vancouver man was recently arrested on charges of selling encrypted phones and access to an encrypted network to Mexican cartels. Vancouver has ties to organized crime circles from all over the world and it gets messy. You know that.”

This clearly isn’t new information to Ito. He doesn’t speak for a long time, just looks at Brazuca thoughtfully until Brazuca can’t take it anymore. “Want some more examples?”

“Yes, and when you give them, also make sure to tell me where you think they would take the woman. Nora Watts.”

“I don’t know!” Brazuca shouts. He recoils almost immediately. The outburst came out of nowhere. Ito doesn’t look shocked, but then again, he wouldn’t. He’s used to dealing with irrational people. Brazuca can’t ever remember losing his temper quite like this before.