204 Finding the Culpri

Seeing her intense gaze, Will suddenly felt as if the temperature had risen by a few degrees, and he had to concentrate in order to not lose control of the car.

Thankfully, realizing that this wasn't the right place or time, Liz winked at her boyfriend and turned away, once again focusing on her surroundings.

Letting out a breath, Will carefully drove them back to the hotel, where he had to leave for a few meetings.

Liz only had a little of her work left, so she finished that up and also went through the file about the project.

Like he had said, it was very ambitious; in fact, no government around the world had tried anything like this so far.

Argentina was clearly different. The government was making it their priority to change the fate of their people under the administration of someone new who had recently been elected, and Liz found herself admiring that person.

By 5, she was completely free, but there was no boyfriend to entertain her. He had messaged her that he was in a closed-door meeting with some government officials, who had asked to keep the meeting confidential by having only him come.

It was unorthodox, but it wasn't very surprising: Liz suspected that they must be fearing a leak, which would cause a lot of problems such as people either trying to stop the project because they liked to employ those slum-dwellers for illegal jobs such as manufacturing drugs, or find some way to make themselves rich through some means.

All over the world, there would always be people who didn't want to see progress.

Liz considered calling Keren, who definitely wouldn't mind dropping in quickly just to accompany her. However, she decided against it, not wanting to disturb her and Luke who must be busy taking care of further plans for his diner.

Thoughts about the diner also made her stomach grumble, as she hadn't had a lot of lunch.

She had been in her hotel room till now, so she headed down with the idea that she would buy something to eat before deciding what to do with her free time. She was mostly considering going out shopping to buy some souvenirs for the little teddy bear waiting back at home.

It was getting quite cold, so she had chosen to wear a scarf which she had wrapped around her head. Reaching downstairs, she was just about to head to the all-day cafe, but she stopped when she saw three people speaking secretively among themselves while heading somewhere hurriedly.

Feeling that she had seen them before, Liz thought for a bit before realizing that all three of them were suspects that Will had shortlisted.

Wondering what they might be up to, Liz decided to secretly tail them, using the scarf to cover her face so that even if they turned around, they wouldn't be able to spot and identify her if she turned to the side.

The hotel was in the form of a large European-style mansion with a very large ground floor, and it seemed that these three were headed to some conference room in the back.

This was quite puzzling, as Liz knew for a fact that Happle had only booked the rooms in the front. Where were these people going?

Her curiosity completely piqued, Liz made sure not to draw any attention to herself. This was actually quite an easy skill for her, considering that she had learned how to stay out of sight in broad daylight during some of the 'activities' that she and Luke had gotten up to during their childhood.

Finally, after 30 seconds, the three ducked into a small conference room.

Now, Liz found herself in a dilemma. How was she going to sneak into that?

There was no peephole or anything in the door to look inside, and if she entered, she would definitely be identified, which might lead them to become cautious.

Her mind working quickly, Liz spotted a hotel maid to the side who was using a brush to clean vases placed on podiums all around where she was.

The woman didn't have features like a South American, so, deciding to test her luck, Liz approached her and asked, "Hello, do you know English?"

Turning to her, the maid answered, "Of course, ma'am. All employees are required by the hotel to know enough English to understand the guests' needs. How can I help you?"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Liz took out her purse and said, "Oh, I just wanted to know whether you want to earn a few months' worst salary in a few minutes."

…

A few minutes later, the maid had returned to her duty of cleaning the vases, but she lingered longer than usual at a specific podium.

After waiting for a bit, Liz reached that podium and fumbled for a bit near the vase before finding her phone.

Discreetly picking it up while making sure that that action wasn't caught by the cameras, Liz walked to the lobby where she quickly took out a pair of headphones before connecting them to the phone.

Immediately, she played the latest video, which showed shaky footage of a door which was opened by the universal keycard that employees had.

As she entered, the figures of 6 people flashed in the video, before a female's voice was heard, saying, "-worry about it, you'll be safe as…who's there?"

The voice had stopped due to the sound of the door opening, and it was followed by a shout from one of those in the room.

"Hey, we don't need anything cleaned! Get out!"

"Apologies, sir. I thought this was a different conference room."

Saying so, the maid walked out, before the video cut off.

However, before it did, it panned across the room again, this time with a much slower speed so that Liz got a clear look of those inside.

These 6 people were the ones she had tested before: all of them were suspects that Will had shortlisted.

Did that mean that...all of them were responsible for the leak, together?

And who the hell was that woman who had been talking to them?

As questions swirled in Liz's mind, she realized that this was definitely bigger than she had imagined.

Yet, her fighting spirit only felt like it had been ignited more, which made her narrow her eyes and look forward to just what kind of revenge she would have when she finally became aware of just who the damn mastermind was.