Dulcie Vaughn imdiately took Eliza Sutton’s folder and pulled out a stack of rough drafts.
After flipping through them, Dulcie Vaughn imdiately announced, "These are the original concept drafts."
Hearing Dulcie Vaughn’s words, the room erupted in murmurs.
"Oh my god, she actually has them. Doesn’t that an Designer Miles is the one who plagiarized?"
Everyone was thinking the sa thing, and they began to look at Reina Miles with suspicion.
Reina Miles, however, was well-prepared. Unflustered, she sneered and said arrogantly, "Since you had the guts to plagiarize my work, you obviously would’ve co prepared. What’s so difficult about faking a few plausible-looking concept drafts? If anything, this clumsy attempt to cover your tracks only proves your malicious intent!"
Hearing Reina Miles, the others in the design departnt nodded in agreent.
"Designer Miles is absolutely right. If spending a few years on a sewing machine in prison lets you produce designs of this caliber, then I’d be the first to sign up."
"Yeah, I’d sign up too!"
" too!"
Hearing the one-sided support, Reina Miles wasn’t surprised in the slightest. She had predicted that even if Eliza Sutton produced concept drafts, it would be useless. A woman with only a high school diploma and a five-year prison record had no credibility, no matter what she said.
"Thank you all for defending my innocence. I’ll never forget how good you’ve all been to ."
"You’re too polite, Designer Miles."
"We’ve been colleagues for years. We know what kind of person you are. If we don’t have your back, who will?"
Dulcie Vaughn didn’t believe Eliza Sutton had plagiarized. She looked at her and asked, "Eliza, what do you have to say?"
"I drew this design at ho at night."
Dulcie Vaughn asked, "Do you have any proof?"
"A family mber can testify for ." Shane Lockwood had seen her drawing the design before.
Reina Miles scoffed. "Have your family testify for you? Eliza Sutton, you might as well just claim I crawled inside your brain and stole your design from there. Manager Preston, everything is perfectly clear now. When are you going to announce the verdict?"
Brenda Preston looked at Eliza Sutton. "Do you have anything else to say?"
Crystal Harrison anxiously grabbed Eliza Sutton’s wrist. "Eliza, you said you drew it at ho, right? Then how did it get out? Think hard."
Eliza Sutton frowned. She had drawn this design at the Lockwood estate. Even if Reina Miles had incredible reach, it was impossible for her to have seen the design there.
Thinking it over, she realized the only opportunity had to have been this morning.
This morning, Alia Sutton had co to the company to cause trouble for her. The design had fallen on the floor, and she vaguely rembered Reina Miles arriving for work right around that ti.
That would also explain why the design review, which was always held in the morning, was suddenly postponed to three in the afternoon.
’It would take ti to copy my design.’
"This morning, my design fell on the floor, and I was caught up in a dispute for about ten minutes. If it was leaked, it must have happened then."
"Did you notice anyone else around who could act as a witness?"
"The only other person there was my sister, the one I was arguing with."
Reina Miles laughed again. "Your family again? Eliza Sutton, seriously, if you’re going to try to exonerate yourself, could you at least find soone else? No one can believe a word you say at this rate."
"Who says?" Dulcie Vaughn interjected. "The Lockwood Group’s lobby has security caras. If soone secretly photographed your design in the lobby, the footage would have captured it clearly."
"I’d like to review the surveillance footage from the lobby," Eliza Sutton said, looking at Erik Irvine.
Erik Irvine knew who she was. No matter how much Shane Lockwood disliked her, she was still Mrs. Lockwood. There was no way Erik would refuse her request outright.
Sure enough, after listening to her, Erik Irvine paused for a mont before saying, "Please wait a mont. I need to make a call."
Erik Irvine stepped out of the conference room to make the call.
The chatter in the conference room instantly grew louder. Reina Miles’s colleagues from Group A in the design departnt spoke up one after another to console her.
Reina Miles put on a magnanimous air. "Thank you for your concern. You don’t need to worry. The truth will speak for itself."
The words had barely left her lips when the conference room door was pushed open. Erik Irvine entered, pushing Shane Lockwood in his wheelchair.
Everyone imdiately rose to their feet and greeted in unison, "President Lockwood."
Shane Lockwood’s gaze swept across the room before pausing on Eliza Sutton for a mont.
Erik Irvine stepped forward and said, "Alright, let’s begin."
The security departnt manager ca forward and pulled up the surveillance footage.
Everyone in the room stared intently at the large screen, their expressions tense as they watched the fast-forwarding footage.
Only Reina Miles kept her head down, leaning back in her chair completely relaxed. Hidden by her hair, the corners of her mouth curled into a triumphant smile.
’I went to all this trouble. Did they really think I’d leave such an obvious loophole?’
Sure enough, a mont later, gasps of surprise rippled through the room.
"There’s nothing there."
"That’s right, why does the tistamp on the footage jump from 8:50 to 9:30?"
"What’s going on?"
"Let check." The security manager imdiately stepped forward. After examining the system for a long while, he said, "President Lockwood, the surveillance system malfunctioned at around 8:50 this morning. Nothing was recorded."
Crystal Harrison was deeply disappointed. "How could this happen? If we had that segnt of footage, we could have found the plagiarist. How could it have malfunctioned right then?"
Eliza Sutton, however, remained calm. Since Reina Miles had sched so carefully to steal her design, she obviously would have made thorough preparations. She wasn’t going to let Eliza turn the tables with a simple video clip.
She had just been trying her luck.
Crystal Harrison was frantic. "Then what do we do now?"
Reina Miles stood up. "Are you done making a scene? Can we please stop wasting everyone’s ti? We all have families to get back to. I’m sure many of us want to go ho and see our children."
Reina Miles’s words imdiately drew a wave of enthusiastic agreent. "That’s right! I haven’t been able to spend ti with my kids for days because of this review."
"You have no idea. Yesterday my daughter asked , ’Mommy, why don’t you ever put to bed anymore?’ I almost burst into tears. I promised her I’d be with her tonight for sure. And now we’re being held up because of so damn plagiarist."
Brenda Preston looked at Shane Lockwood. "President Lockwood, everything is clear now. I believe we can announce the result."
Shane Lockwood said coolly, "So, Manager Preston, you truly believe this matter has been thoroughly investigated?"
eting Shane Lockwood’s gaze, Brenda Preston’s heart pounded. Under his stare, she felt as if every dark thought in her mind had been laid bare.
Brenda Preston clenched her jaw and said, "Yes! The footage has been checked. There are no other questions. The plagiarist is Eliza Sutton!"
She then turned to Eliza Sutton. "Eliza Sutton, you know perfectly well that the Lockwood Group has a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism, yet you still dared to do it. Is this you showing your contempt for the rules of our company and the design departnt? What audacity!"
With that, Brenda Preston called for security. "Get Eliza Sutton out of here! From this day forward, she is banned from ever setting foot in the Lockwood Group again!"
Reviews
All reviews (0)