Trust No One

Chapter 13

Annabeth POV

"Annabeth, there is missing footage here," Leo said firmly. 

I looked at Leo as my smile faltered. Missing footage was just as suspicious as footage showing the culprit with the damaged badge. 

I calmly waited for Leo to explain, which he did. 

"A fifteen-minute interval is missing from the footage every morning. Someone must've erased it," Leo said. 

Leo looked confused about why someone would tamper with the security footage. However, I knew exactly why some footage would be missing. That footage was erased to protect the traitor from being exposed (via their damaged ID card). 

"Can you retrieve the footage again?" I asked firmly.

Leo simply shook his head. "It's completely wiped from the system, Annabeth. We can't retrieve the footage. However-"

Leo's voice faltered off as his eyes quickly scanned his computers. His hands worked quickly to pull up more footage and codes onto the screen. 

When Leo was concentrating deeply, his other senses failed him sometimes. 

But, I knew what he was doing because it was my next idea as well. 

"Leo, are you looking at 10-15 minute footage at the front gate?" I asked. Leo nodded as he continued to search the footage over the last week. 

The front gate was the stop before the security check. Maybe we couldn't see who had the damaged ID because of the missing footage, but we could see who entered the security area around that time. 

This wasn't nearly as accurate, though. 

After a few minutes of looking through the footage, Leo had some conclusions. 

"Annabeth, there are several members of Lake Valor that passed through the security check during the time of the missing footage," he informed me. 

"Leo, we are only interested in special agents as of right now," I said. 

With that information, Leo narrowed down the list of personal. This left a list of about 7 agents who entered the security check during the time of interest. 

A few of them I didn't even know. 

"Some could just be a coincidence. After all, some people get to work at the same time every day," I said as I looked through the faces. 

Leo took snapshots of their faces and pulled up their ID records. 

Leo nodded before saying, "Is there any agent that you have suspicions about?" 

"I'm not letting anyone off of the hook," I said firmly. 

I scanned the 7 names and records on the big screen. Leo had a lot of screens of varying sizes, but this made it better for organizing and analyzing the data. 

I didn't want to suspect Luke, but I did note that he was on the list. However, I believed that Luke couldn't be a bad guy. Right?

I sighed as I continued my analysis. 

My eyes focused on Agents Nakamura and Beauregard. Their names came up multiple times during my case studies. 

"Annabeth, I can't be in the Lake Valor firewall for too long. Do you need anything else?" Leo asked gently. 

I shook my head and gave a 'thank you.'

I wrote down all of the information that I needed before Leo closed the system. We stood in silence as my mind raced with thoughts and suspicions.