"This corridor leads only to your father's office..."

Nicole was shocked. She hadn't known there was someone else in her father's office besides her mother on the day he jumped. Her mother had exited the office before her father's tragic leap. And notably, this person had been there both before and after her father's death.

Why was this person there? What did he witness?

Ethel continued, interrupting Nicole's thoughts, “I've reviewed all the footage, but I couldn't find any evidence of this person entering the office. This individual must have avoided the cameras somehow."

Anyone who deliberately avoided surveillance had something to hide.

That much was clear. This mysterious person had clearly planned something sinister before entering the building.

“But maybe, in his panic, he slipped up," Ethel speculated, leaning over the monitor. "He forgot about the corner camera while Leaving the office, and then remembered and avoided the rest."

Ethel paused the footage. "From this floor down, he vanished."

Identifying someone from a blurry image was no easy task. The suit the individual wore didn't help. Everyone in the office dressed smartly, and it only made things harder.

Nicole felt lost as she squinted at the screen. She couldn't quite place the figure.

Ethel rewound the footage. “But I scoured every angle of the building and finally got a clear shot on the second-floor corner. He jumped out of a window onto the platform below, dodging the cameras."

Nicole's suspicion deepened. Who would go to such lengths to avoid being seen unless they were hiding something serious?

Ethel's fingers flew over the keyboard. "Tech analysis confirms this is the same person who came from Mr. Lawrence's office. Miss Lawrence, do you recognize him?"

The footage was grainy and aged, so the quality was degraded. One could barely make out the person's pixeled face and the black suit.

However, the partial frontal view caught a frustrated expression on the individual's face.

Nicole leaned closer, a strange familiarity tingling in the back of her mind. "It's him!" she exclaimed.

Ethel's eyes lit up. "Miss Lawrence, you recognize this person?"

Ethel had spent countless hours, night after night, piecing together the surveillance puzzle. She had painstakingly tracked this person frame by frame, finally finding a reasonably clear image.

Yet, the footage was just clear enough for someone who knew the person to recognize them. To an unfamiliar eye, it would be almost impossible to make out any definitive details. Here they were. Nicole had recognized him. Her persistence had finally paid off.

Nicole nodded. "That's Brett, my father's assistant."