Isabelle got a call from Colette in the next morning to ask her to come with her father to the Bête office after lunch. When they arrived they walked with Samantha to the conference room and found the FTC agents there with Jean-Marie's legal head, a Latino looking man she hadn't met before and Jean-Marie himself.
The legal head introduced himself as Alphonse and the other as Ramirez, system administrator. They shook hands and they all sat down.
'I understand you have something to show us?' Frank said.
'Yes.' Jean-Marie said. 'I had my suspicions when I saw Avery, former employee at Anderson Trading at your office. After Isabelle and I arrived at my car and had a little talk, we found him waiting at the street and being picked up a little later by someone related to my late father. That person has also come to my attention through my business relations lately. That led me to check for a possible breach of security at our office with the help of our system administrator.'
Jean-Marie nodded at Ramirez, who stood up and clearly felt uncomfortable speaking in front of officials.
He adjusted the dark red jacket he wore especially for today and switched on his laptop. 'Mr. Bête called me and asked if I could extract information about access to the office, so I pulled up a list from our door logs outside office hours.' he said and displayed the list on the main screen. 'As you can see it lists names and times of checking in and checking out. At first nothing seemed strange and there were no names that didn't belong there. Until we looked closer with the background information Mr. Bête provided me, and we found this anomaly.' Ramirez pulled up a second list with red marked lines. 'This was a badge that belonged to the cleaning staff group, but was used outside the times the group cleaned the office. With these entries we pulled up the video feeds and found one person coming in and out of the office at those times.' He showed the video from the first night.
'That won't help much if we can't identify her.' said Frank. 'She keeps her face hidden.'
'Correct.' said Ramirez. 'It seems the person in question knows where the cameras are situated and kept his face hidden.'
'His?' asked Frank. 'It's not a woman?'
'Yes.' Ramirez said and tried to suppress a smirk. 'Confirmed, thanks to a little trouble with the coffee machine in the kitchen.'
Frank looked puzzled at him.
'The machine in question would turn itself off during the night, but the supplier didn't believe us and said someone must have turned it off since they found no fault during the day. So we installed a spare security camera to record the machine during the night and it clearly proved it did turn itself off without anyone touching it.' Ramirez pulled up the video feed showing the machine in clear detail. 'Now watch this.' he said and they watched the machine for a while, then saw someone going up to it, make a selection, wait for the cup to fill, then turn around to drink.
Ramirez froze the image of Avery holding up the cup of coffee and sat down.
'The badge in question was provided to Linda Tremaine for access to the office in the time she dated my father.' Jean-Marie said. 'She is also the one who has contacted my competitor with inside information.'
Frank tapped his finger on the table. 'Well, looks like things can be wrapped up quickly this time. We'll be visiting ms. Tremaine next.'
The agents thanked Jean-Marie and Ramirez for their help and they made sure they got a copy of everything for their evidence. Frank apologised to Isabelle and her father for the inconvenience and would call the office to lift the restrictions.
Isabelle gave Ramirez a big hug, embarrassing him, then hugged Jean-Marie tight. 'Thank you..' she whispered.
He stroked her hair. 'Anything to protect you.'
Her father held out his hand and shook Jean-Marie's. 'Thank you. Thank you very much.'
'No problem. I'm glad we solved this injustice.'
Jean-Marie leaned back in one of the chairs after everyone but Isabelle had left. 'I'm glad that's over.'
Isabelle leaned against the table, standing between his feet. 'What about your deal with Yusuf?' she asked, feeling guilty for having him drop a lucrative deal. 'What will you do now?'
'I don't know yet. Make the best of what we have right now probably.'
A knock on the door turned their attention to Samantha.
'Mr. al-Hassan is here to see you..' she said with a little worry.
Jean-Marie sighed and gestured for her to show him in and stood up. Isabelle made sure he looked perfect and checked the coffee and tea on the table. Her phone vibrated and she checked it quickly before their guest would come in.
'Jean.' Yusuf said as he came in with Martin. 'What's this I saw? FTC agents investigating you?'
'Hello Yusuf, Martin.' Jean-Marie said and shook their hands. 'Not exactly us, but we were involved with a nasty business they'll be sorting out now.' He gestured for them to sit down. 'My apologies for breaking our appointment earlier.'
Yusuf smiled. 'I heard something strange about that. You risked a big business deal for a woman? That's not exactly the Jean-Marie I know.' he said and his eyes went to Isabelle staring at her phone. 'She must mean a lot to you.'
Jean-Marie chuckled. 'You have no idea.' he said and looked at Isabelle. 'Isabelle?'
'Jean?' she asked softly.
