The Retired Mercenary's Great Retaliation

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."