Chapter 700:
Verruckt followed her gaze to her clothes, which indeed bore the marks of dark coffee stains.
Jareth let out a sigh of relief, his tension ebbing as he asked, “You said you broke the microwave?”
“Yes,” Allison replied, biting her lip. She pointed to the coffee machine, her face flushing with embarrassment. “I didn’t know how to use it, but I wanted hot coffee. So I put the can in the microwave, and then… it exploded.”
Jareth rubbed his temples, frustration evident in his voice. “Shouldn’t you have been at your workstation on the second basement level? Why were you in the break room on the first basement level?”
Allison looked at him, her eyes wide and pleading. “Mr. Williamson, you said there were creepy lab specimens on the second basement level. You told me I could stay on the first level when Mr. Shaw wasn’t around.”
Jareth froze, his mind flashing back to earlier that day. In the chaos of everything that had happened, he had forgotten about that particular detail.
Seeing his stunned silence, Allison explained with a touch of hurt in her tone, “And isn’t there surveillance? You can check the footage. You told me this morning, right in front of the elevator. I’m really not lying.”
As the security personnel began to move out, Jareth called them to halt. “Wait.”
His gaze flicked nervously to Verruckt, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Mr. Shaw, I remember now. That’s indeed what I said. But… that’s because Alice knows about the central control room on the second basement level, and I was worried—” He was cut off before he could finish.
“Hold on. Have someone check the surveillance footage of the break room during this time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jareth felt a chill crawl down his spine. The punishment seemed unavoidable now.noveldrama
Verruckt lowered his gaze again, his eyes narrowing as they lingered on the wound etched across Allison’s arm. It seemed plausible enough — an injury inflicted by the shrapnel of an exploding coffee can.
“So, you’re the one who set off that little fireworks show in the break room?” he asked, his voice cutting through the silence like the blade of a guillotine. His hand shot forward, gripping her chin firmly and tilting her face upward, dragging her closer into the orbit of his piercing blood-red eyes.
From his vantage point, Allison’s eyes shimmered with clarity so pristine that it bordered on naivety, a window that seemed to bare her soul. To anyone else, those eyes might be the portrait of innocence, and no one would suspect that such angelic windows could veil something so cold, so calculating.
But Verruckt’s gaze dug deeper, hunting for the shadows where a murderer might hide.
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