Ashton still seemed reluctant to let me interfere with the situation at hand. After a pause, I nodded and kept quiet, letting him hug me for a while longer.
Sadly, he couldn’t stay for very long, and he soon left to call a meeting of directors while I searched for Joseph. I was able to find him quickly. Cutting to the chase, I asked, “Can I take a look at the spot where Sasha jumped off the building?”
Slightly stunned, he nodded in agreement after a while.
The company building had more than a hundred floors. Sasha had chosen the fortieth floor, approximately twenty meters above the ground. There was no way she could have survived a fall from that height.
I swept my gaze over the scene of the crime before I gave Joseph a sidelong glance. “What did the police say?”
“They found broken pieces of metal railing as well as shards of glass where she fell. Preliminary findings point to an accidental fall, but they’re still in the midst of conducting an autopsy. We’ll need to wait for the full autopsy report before we can make the final conclusion.” Even in the face of such a horrible incident, he still managed to remain calm and collected.
I nodded, not saying anything further. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions before the results of the autopsy came out.
After leaving the company, I called Cameron to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to take Summer to the hospital. Too many things were happening at once at Fuller Corporation, and I didn’t have the time to include Summer in my daily schedule for now. Cameron reassured me that Summer’s fever had gone down and that she was doing alright.
Back at the villa, I phoned Nora and asked her about Abe.
She proceeded to rant on and on for what felt like hours, but my ears pricked up at a certain piece of information. “Wait, Danny was the one who contacted you first?” I interrupted her. “Did you meet him?”
“Nope!” she replied. “He just called me up, telling me to remind you to be more careful, and said that Abe is targeting you and Ashton specifically.”
After a brief moment of hesitation, I decided to tell her about everything that had been happening recently.
“Has Abe’s reach really expanded that far?” she gasped in shock. “Oh! By the way, Armond recently returned to K City. If you find yourself in trouble, you can contact him at any time. He might be able to help.”
I assumed that she was only offering so in order to be polite. As such, I made some noncommittal sound of affirmation and hung up on her, remembering what I had promised Armond last time. I had yet to return the item to him and had been thinking about taking some time out of my schedule specifically to do so.
The eventful day caused me to toss and turn in bed, failing to get a single wink of sleep. Ashton didn’t come home for the entire night either, most likely because he was swamped with work.
The next morning, I woke up, made some breakfast, and packed it up before heading straight to the company.
I had barely reached the main lobby when I caught sight of a group of people screaming and crying for Fuller Corporation to return to them their daughter. It was currently the beginning of work hours, so there were also many employees crowding around the entrance.
A middle-aged couple dressed in all black were sobbing the loudest, calling out Sasha’s name over and over. I’m guessing they’re her parents. There was also a young child around five years old with them, standing stiffly as she looked around in a daze.
Just then, Joseph came downstairs with horrible dark circles under his eyes. After sending away the employees that should be clocking in for work, he did a double-take when he saw me. “Mrs. Fuller, are you looking for Mr. Fuller? We had a meeting that went on throughout the night, and he just ended it.”
I kept an eye on the old couple in the lobby as I inched closer toward him. “How long have they been here for?”
“Since last night. They keep demanding compensation, but the official police report hasn’t come out, so we can’t promise them anything yet.” Joseph’s eyebrows knitted together.
Humming in acknowledgment, my attention was drawn toward one of the staff members at the front counter complaining loudly, “God, I’ve had enough of them. Mr. Fuller has already issued a statement asking them to wait for the official police reports, and that the company will take responsibility regardless of whatever the results are! They’re obviously just trying to ruin the company’s reputation by causing a commotion on purpose!”
The words took me aback. “Mr. Campbell, is the amount of compensation for an accidental death and a suicide the same?” I inquired.
He shook his head. “No. If it was an accidental death, we would need to pay much more, and the entire company’s security system would need to undergo restructuring. If it was a suicide, the company only needs to pay a small part in reparation fees as more of a moral obligation than anything else.”
I could understand why the old couple was making such a fuss now. With the Fuller Corporation having to deal with this sudden accident, the victim’s parents were likely trying to cause an uproar in the hopes that Ashton would give them the money to go away.
But they had been going at it for such a long time, and yet, Ashton showed no signs of coming downstairs. He had probably also decided to wait for the police report to come out before taking any actions.
I glanced at the old couple again, whose eyes were red and swollen from crying. They appeared especially frail and weak after having stayed up through the night.
The young child beside them also looked worryingly pale. Turning to Joseph, I told him, “Mr. Campbell, please get someone to buy some breakfast and snacks for them.”
