Lynn did not leave. She stood at a distance with her arms crossed, looking at me with doubt and curiosity.

"I need something," I said to her.

Lynn raised an eyebrow. "What do you need? I've already instructed someone to bring you the warehouse keys."

I shook my head. "I'm not talking about the keys. I want the entry records of the warehouse, a copy of the surveillance footage, and the door entry records." I paused before continuing, "I need records from the past three months."

Lynn was taken aback while the warehouse supervisor, Wentworth, burst out laughing at me. "Do you really think you're a detective, Leigh? What's the point of investigating this? The thief must be long gone by now."

I ignored him as I stared at the ground. Several drag marks could be seen right in front of the metal cupboard. Messy footprints were imprinted in the dust on the floor, but I could still tell they belonged to different people. I crouched and touched the ground gently with my finger.

The dust was thick. That meant not many people came to this place. I turned to look at the side door of the warehouse. There was a small portion of the metal net that had been bent from being pressed, but the lock had not been pried apart. I stood up and said, "Someone came in through the side door last night, not the front door."

Wentworth was taken aback, but quickly sneered. "Everyone knows that. The locks are in one piece, which means someone climbed inside here."

I remained silent as I walked to the side door. Beneath the metal net was a concrete floor with a clear footprint. The bottom of the sole was thick, while the thread pattern of the sole was diagonal. I stared at it for a few seconds before standing up. "Only the warehouse's forklift driver wears shoes like this."

There was instant silence as the expression on Wentworth's face changed. "What nonsense are you talking about?!"

I ignored him and continued looking at the ground. The drag marks stretched all the way to the warehouse's corner, where a small emergency door was. The lock was in one piece, but there was a very faint scratch on the side of the door frame. It looked like a scratch made from a metal box being dragged out. I touched the scratch and found my fingers sticky with black oil. I turned to look at Lynn. "I want to see the security footage outside the warehouse."

Lynn frowned. "Why?"

I pointed at the marks on the ground. "The stolen item was moved out from here, but the thief did not enter from here."

Lynn's expression started to turn solemn. "What do you mean?"

I looked at the passage outside the side door and replied calmly, "Someone opened this door in advance, and it was someone from this warehouse."

"Who could that be?" Lynn's tone no longer held any contempt for me and was filled with questions instead.

I turned to look at her, and my gaze turned to Tony and the group of workers once more as they started to gather round. I told them what I had found. "This wasn't done by an outsider. This is an inside job."

My words made the warehouse break out in a huge commotion. Lynn was taken aback. She quickly went to a nearby desk to pull out a copy of the records from a pile of documents.

"But security checked everything yesterday. There wasn't any strange activity according to the door entry records." She passed me the records, which clearly stated that the warehouse door had not been opened during the night.

I glanced at the words and smiled slightly. "They were checking the wrong records."

Lynn was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

I pointed at the side door. "The thief did not enter from the front door. The metal net on the side door was bent from being pressed, but the lock is intact. That means someone opened that door in advance and closed the door from inside the warehouse."

With that, I pointed at the ground. "There are marks of something being dragged here. The boxes were dragged out from the inside, but the footprints are headed in only one direction."

"That means whoever moved the item knows this place well." The warehouse slowly turned silent, and Tony frowned.

"That doesn't mean anything."

I looked at the clear footprint on the ground. "Shoes with a sole like that are only worn by the warehouse's forklift driver."

The crowd started whispering amongst themselves as Lynn looked solemn. "Are you sure?"

I did not answer immediately, instead walking toward the metal cupboard. The cupboard lock had been pried apart, but the scratch marks were faint. I touched the scratch with my finger. The side of the metal was almost intact, and I stood up to announce, "The lock was pried open after the theft to make it look like it was an outside job."

The warehouse was instantly silent as everyone stared at me. A freshly-hired stockkeeper had overturned the security team's investigation results, which had taken an entire day, in only a few glances.

Tony looked shocked as he glanced back and forth between the ground and the pried-open cupboard door, while Lynn was stunned. The condescending look in her eye vanished when she looked at me. All that was left was shock.

"This is all just talk," Tony broke the silence as his face fell. "Find the culprit if you claim this to be an inside job. All I care about are results."

"All right." I did not say anything else as I went to the side door. A thin layer of dust could be seen on the ground outside the door. I crouched and slowly traced the mark on the ground with my finger. The drag marks led to a corner of the warehouse, where the forklifts were parked. I stood up and looked at the forklifts.

Dust was stuck on the wheels, and I went over and lowered my head to look at them. The tire marks matched the marks on the ground. Everyone around me eventually quietened, and the people who were laughing at me stopped talking because none of them had noticed those marks before.

I continued toward the forklifts and found a very faint oily handprint on the forklift door. I saw a new scratch on the side of the chair, and I reached out to touch it. The oil on it had not dried yet.

Lynn could not hold back any longer as she asked me a question, but I did not answer her. All I did was look up at everyone in the warehouse and turn my gaze around until I stopped at one person. It was the forklift driver, Jonah. He was standing at the back of the crowd, looking a little pale.

I said calmly, "You were the only one on night shift last night."

"Oh my gosh! What you did…" Lynn's voice was trembling slightly as she spoke in a low voice. "Not many people could learn the truth from the investigative method, especially with the evidence you found."

Such a method required considerable experience and observation, and one could easily reach the wrong conclusion if a single detail were overlooked. I did not look up and continued crouching on the ground as my finger slowly compared the footprint on the ground and the forklift tire threads.

"This isn't theoretical to me," I spoke calmly, "When I was on assignment overseas twenty years ago, this was a basic requirement." I paused to wipe the sweat from my forehead before looking up at Lynn to continue with composure, "I worked security detail in the Middle East twenty years ago, and I was in charge of ensuring the safety of the warehouse and transporting goods and warehouse items."

Memories of that time flooded my mind as I flashed back. I was in my twenties, wearing a bulletproof vest, standing outside a gigantic warehouse filled with essentials like supplies and provisions. The warehouse was surrounded by armed personnel.

My responsibility was simple. The moment I received a mission, I had to find that person as quickly as possible. There was no advanced technology nor complex equipment to help me back then. I could only rely on the tracks on the ground to help me.

They could be footprints, drag marks, or tire tracks. I needed to find out where they were headed.

The prints could also reveal a person's habits.

Most of the time, it only took one footprint for me to locate a person. My captain had once patted me on the shoulder and said, "Remember, the ground will never lie to you."

My flashback ended, and I stood up to look at the drag mark on the ground. "The person who took the item used a forklift, and he only drove it once."

Lynn was taken aback. "What?"

I pointed at the corner of the warehouse. "There is only one drag mark, which means whatever was taken was first dragged toward the forklift. After that, it was moved with the forklift." I looked at the forklift one more time. "If this were an outside job, the thief wouldn't have known where to take the forklift keys."

The warehouse was silent as everyone stared at me. Even Lynn was surprised. She looked at me, a middle-aged man in a worn-down worker's uniform with hands full of calluses. It was difficult for her to imagine me as an ordinary stockkeeper.

Lynn had no idea what to make of the contrast. “W-who exactly are you?" she could not help asking. There was respect in her tone.

I smiled but did not answer. All I did was walk toward the forklift again to gently knock on the forklift door while glancing down at the tire. The dust was pressed flat to the ground, which meant the tires had moved.

My footsteps and the clanging of metal were the only sounds that could be heard in the warehouse. The echoes were particularly loud and crisp in the warehouse's wide space. Everyone around me gradually stopped speaking as their expressions shifted from curious to solemn, and ultimately to one of indescribable surprise. They walked past this place every day, but none of them had ever noticed anything different.

Three hours later, I had deduced the entire situation from every trace and mark I found in the warehouse. I compared several other drag marks on the ground once more. The route was clear to see.

The metal cupboard, the forklift, and the side door. There was only one set of footprints throughout the entire process. "I'm done." I let out a long exhale as I stood up. The warehouse was quiet as everyone looked at me.

Tony unconsciously clenched his fist as sweat covered his palms. He looked nervous and doubtful at the same time, while Lynn looked at me with a whole new perspective. She walked to the side door and took a deep breath while slowly clicking into the security footage showing the outside of the warehouse.

Bzzt…

The sound of a machine starting was heard from inside the warehouse. The footage from outside the side door lit up, and the path toward the warehouse gradually appeared on the screen. It was quiet at first. All that could be seen on the footage was the light outside the warehouse and the security guard passing by occasionally.

Someone shouted, "Look! The lights are turned on!"

Tony quickly went closer to look at the footage with an agitated expression. This was it! The thief would be caught the moment the cameras caught him. However, his hopes lasted less than ten seconds.

Beep… Beep…

A sharp alarm was suddenly heard from the main controls, and the screen jumped. The clear footage turned red with a warning, then disappeared. The system notification indicated that the footage data had been damaged.

The hopes of everyone in the warehouse were dashed, and Tony's smile froze. "What happened? Why is the footage damaged?"

That was when hurried footsteps were heard coming from the warehouse door.

"Mr. Chapman! Mr. Chapman!" His assistant, Charlie, ran in breathlessly with a middle-aged man in a suit following behind. It was the security consultant hired by the company, Greg Walsh. The first thing Greg saw upon entering the warehouse was the crowd around the security footage. His face fell when he saw me standing by it.