Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

Sammy's gaze flickered, hesitation clear in his eyes, but he remained silent.

Liz, seeing everyone rallying around Roseanne, couldn't help but feel a surge of annoyance. Yet, she couldn't let her frustration show on her face and had to forcefully restrain herself. "You think you know someone, but do you really? Who's to say what she's truly like? What if it's all just an act?"

"Yesterday morning, when I checked, everything was fine with the data. Today, it's gone. I remember yesterday afternoon, Jen and Mr. Stoddard left first, then Sammy and I followed, leaving Roseanne and Mr. Reynolds."

"Mr. Reynolds has no reason to do this, so it must have been Roseanne!"

Liz was assertive, and at first glance, her logic seemed solid.

But Roseanne quickly spotted the flaw in her argument. She looked directly at Liz, emphasizing each word, "You said you checked the data yesterday morning. Did you check again when you left?"

"Of course! Everything was there!"

"Are you sure?"

Liz snapped, "Of course, I'm sure. What are you implying? That I'm trying to frame you?"

Roseanne replied calmly, "Okay, so according to your logic, the data went missing sometime between when you left yesterday and got here today, right?" "Right."

"Then let's check the security footage."

Jen nodded in agreement, saying, "Yeah, we forgot about the surveillance. Our lab is monitored 24/7."

"Fine," Liz said with a smirk, "Let's check the surveillance then, to avoid any claims of me targeting anyone." When they arrived at the control room, Stoddard asked the security staff to pull up the last two days of footage.

But the result was shocking-

The surveillance footage was missing.

Jen exclaimed, "What's going on? How could the surveillance video be missing?"

The security staff was just as puzzled, "All the footage from the past month is here, except for the last two days. It's really strange..."

"This makes it obvious, doesn't it? Someone deliberately erased the key footage. No wonder someone was so keen on checking the surveillance, they must have been prepared!"

Liz crossed her arms, nearly outright accusing Roseanne.

Owen, just finished with his class, arrived at the lab to find it empty. After inquiring with the security guard, he found his way to the control room.

His calm gaze swept over everyone as he asked, "What's happening? Why is everyone here?"

Liz rushed to speak, her voice tinged

with distress, "Professor, my experimental data has been maliciously deleted. It took me a week to gather it all, and just as was about to upload it to our system, I found it gone today." Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

Her voice grew more aggrieved, eventually breaking into a sob-

"In the last two days, Roseanne was the last to leave the lab, and now the surveillance from last night is missing. She's the prime suspect have every reason to believe she deliberately deleted my data

Jen and Stoddard, concerned that Owen might believe Liz's one-sided story, quickly interjected-

"Mr. Reynolds, we haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet."

"I don't believe Roseanne would do such a thing."

Sammy, unusually quiet, furrowed his brow, seemingly lost in thought. The past few days, both he and Lizz had left the lab at their usual times, spending the evenings shopping and dining out. Liz had no opportunity to work on that data set...

Sammy looked over at Liz and, for the first time, felt something off about her.

Owen asked for details about when the data was lost, where it was stored, and if there were any backups.

Liz answered him thoroughly, her details matching up.

This only seemed to increase the suspicion on Roseanne.

Jen and Stoddard wanted to defend her but were at a loss for words, feeling helpless.

Just then, Roseanne, the eye of the storm, slowly lifted her gaze, her calm sweeping across the room until it finally rested on Liz- "Figuring out who deleted the data isn't that hard."