"So," Kristen said, tracing her fingers lightly across the surface of the chaise lounge on which she sat. "What exactly do you need to know?"

The boredom in her voice was apparent, and frustrating. Nobody I'd ever worked with before had ever acted like this, or if they had, it had been perfectly obvious it was a facade that I'd quickly cracked. But with Kristen, it seemed all too real, which quickly made me suspicious. Why would she have insisted so strongly on my presence if she was so disinterested in the burglary?

But two could play at her game. With a similar blank expression on my face, I started with, "Explain what exactly has happened so far."

"Very well." She shifted position slightly; I could tell she was uncomfortable, but her posture was perfect and no doubt that was how she maintained it. "A week ago, my sapphire earrings went missing, five days ago, the matching necklace disappeared and the day before yesterday my mother's engagement ring vanished." She then fell silent, as if that was the question completely answered.

"I need more details." I tried my hardest not to make the comment sound snippy, and I just had to hope that as a detective I pulled it off. "What time was this? When was the last time you saw them? How did you realise they went missing?"

Her eyes bored into me. "If you're as good a detective as you think you are, then surely you could work it from there? I am very busy, you know."

"Doing what? Making guests feel uncomfortable? Having servants pamper to your every need? Or perhaps getting heavily drunk at parties?" The words flew out of my mouth before I had the chance to think twice, and needless to say I regretted them instantly.

Kirsten's gaze became significantly sharper, and I knew that I had hit a nerve. "My lifestyle includes more than drinking at parties." It was the first time she showed some emotion in her words, giving me valuable knowledge that if I ever needed to verbally attack her, going after her socialite status was the quickest way to get a reaction.

"Are your servants the only people who could have stolen the jewellery?" I asked mildly, switching the subject back onto safer ground.

"I have high tech security systems. Trust me, nobody else could have entered this puss without me knowing." But the problem was, I couldn't help thinking, that I didn't trust her. Not one bit. Everything she told me could be a lie - after all, if she'd killed her own father, she was more than capable of churning out some pretty lies.

"Also," she added, "There's no need to investigate Ben, my butler. He is completely innocent in all this, and even tried to help me catch the thief."

"Duly noted," I agreed, but secretly I was already making Ben my top priority. He seemed to have gained the trust of the most distrustful woman, and that instantly made him suspicious. Sometimes the people who seemed the nicest were the ones hiding bodies in the attic, and sometimes those who seemed closest to stopping the crime were carrying it out at the background. Any words of praise Kristen had for Ben just made him all the more likely to be the thief - I just had to investigate him without either of them knowing what I was up to.

"I also doubt meek little Regan would dare disobey me," Kristen continued somewhat scornfully, "But you should look into her, and Gibson too. The most likely suspect in my opinion is Claudia, you must hunt around her things." The she waved her hand at me in an obvious sign of dismissal.

Despite her rudeness, I was intrigued. What had Claudia done to earn such cruel assumptions? I nodded my head at Kristen and left the room, to find Reagan hovering around the doorway. She jumped a few steps backwards, tapping her finger against her skirt incessantly. I closed the door gently behind me.

"Were you eavesdropping?" As a detective, the answer should have been fairly straightforward to me, but I wanted to see how Reagan reacted. Sometimes the question didn't mean as much as the way you asked it.

She hesitated, as if debating whether I would believe her if she said no, then her shoulders slumped and she squeaked, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to cause disrespect to you or Miss McMahon." She bobbed her head up and down earnestly as she spoke, and executed a clumsy curtesy afterwards. "I've moved your things to your room, and I can show you to the kitchens if you want some lunch."

My stomach growled in response. "Yes." I gave in, and with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, Reagan danced her way light-footedly to the kitchen, me struggling to keep up behind. I wondered if her gracefully quick movements were deliberate - if she was trying to confuse my sense of bearings, to make sure I didn't stop and look too throughly at the quickly decaying house. I couldn't trust anyone here, even if Reagan didn't seem to pose much of a threat.

"Here you are," Reagan announced, nimbly darting forward to hold the door open for me. Almost immediately I was hit with the overpowering smell of fish, which wasn't a food I usually pined over, but as my stomach began to demonstrate a whale mating call I decided it would be better to eat something.

I made my way into the kitchen, Reagan lingering behind me. I instantly caught sight of Claudia bent over a chopping board, her knife destroying an onion at a furiously fast pace. Reagan cleared her throat timidly. "Um, one of the detectives has arrived for lunch."

Claudia spun around, her knife still weirded dangerously in her hand, and I felt Reagan tremble beside me. I glanced at the petite girl, wondering why everyone seemed to make her so afraid. Was she naturally mousey, or had McMahon Mansion changed her perspective on people?

"You can go, Reagan." Claudia's raspy voice filled the silence, and with another bob, Reagan darted off even faster than she'd came. She seemed almost relieved to get out of there, and considering the overwhelming heat of the kitchen, I didn't blame her. I could already feel the uncomfortable beginning of severe sweat patches beneath my armpits.

Claudia did not say another word to me, instead banging a knife and fork in front of me followed by a tall glass of lemonade that slopped over the sides. I took a sip of the refreshing liquid, but quickly realised a sip was not enough.

Claudia raised her eyebrows as she returned to find all the lemonade gone, and a guilty half-smile on my face. "It's so warm," I said defensively, hoping for another one, and my wish was granted as she set down another one with my food.

Enthusiastically, I dug into my long overdue meal, sticking a large piece of fish in my mouth. I promptly choked on the sliminess and felt the most rotten texture fill my mouth. Under Claudia's watchful eye, I flailed around for a few minutes, taking several unsuccessful gulps of lemonade to try to dilute it, but in the end I gave up and sheepishly spat it out into my napkin. I had never tasted something so absolutely revolting in my entire life, and I had been subject to many of Brooke's terrible food choices, which had even gotten me food poisoning on one occasion.

"Did I not warn you? Kristen prefers her fish raw." Claudia said, a note of amusement evident in her voice. I got the feeling she despised me just as much as Ben appeared to, and had taken pleasure in this rotten meal, but what I wasn't sure of was what I had done the earn the hatred of those in McMahon Mansion.

"Raw?" I repeated in horror. "What kind of normal person eats raw fish?"

"Have you never heard of sushi?"

"That," I pointed at the foul thing on my plate, "is not sushi. It's just a piece of meat someone flung out of the sea this morning."

Claudia's lips twitched, and she collected the plate, and regrettably, the lemonade too, which she poured the remaining contents of down the sink as I watched in obvious horror. "There's nothing else to eat," she warned me.

"Nothing?" I asked incredulously. "This is a kitchen. Surely you can just whip me up a sandwich or something?"

Claudia shot me a dirty look that suggested she was not going to whip me up anything. "There's an apple, if you want-"

"Yes." I answered before she'd even finished speaking. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I wondered if Brooke would believe all this as I bit into my piece of fruit.

"I have some questions to ask you." I announced, flecks of apples spitting from my mouth as I spoke. Claudia looked physically pained. "What were you doing the day before yesterday?"

"The same as always. Cooking," she replied, although by the looks of the meal she'd set out in front of me, there couldn't be much cooking involved in her job.

"You didn't visit down? Leave the mansion?" I pressed, and Claudia sighed.

"None of us ever leave the mansion," she said, with a note of bitterness in her voice. "Unless Miss McMahon offers us to one of her rich friends for a party. Then we have to go help."

She did not seem happy at that prospect, and I couldn't blame her. Kristen sounded like a terrible employer - didn't she realise the slave era had been left behind centuries ago?

"Also, has Reagan always been that... jumpy?" I couldn't help adding, partly because it could point towards her being the thief and partly to satisfy my own curiosity.

"She's always been kind of nervous," Claudia carefully phrased. "But lately she's been really frightened of, well, everything. She's even more eager to please than usual, and even more rabbity."

Then Claudia's eyes narrowed. "Now, can I ask you some questions? Why are you here? Why did Miss McMahon hire a detective? How long are you staying?"

I tried to keep my tone polite, but we had reached an impasse. Neither of us wanted to answer the other's questions, and both of us were suspicious. "I'm afraid that's between Kristen and I," I answered, and I saw her eyes bulge at my personal address of Kristen. "Could you point me to my room? I hope to catch a nap before dinner."

Reluctantly, Claudia gave me the directions to my room, and ended with, "and the floor above are the servant's bedrooms, so don't go up there."

I nodded and left to climb the stairs, going straight for the floor above mine. Honestly, who the hell would have the stupidity to tell me not to do something? I thought scornfully, cracking open the door to reveal a hallway with cracking paint and a fizzling single lightbulb hovering perilously over the middle. There were four doors, and I bet that each one of them belonged to a servant.

I was a detective at heart, and I had an opportunity to do some serious detecting. Naturally enough, I took it.

Forgetting everything anyone had ever taught me about privacy, I jiggled open the first door.

__________

And... we're back! I literally have not updated this year, so yeah, it's been a while, and I'm super sorry. On a positive note, my exams are finished now and I'm getting off for summer soon, so I will have plenty of time to write! So hopefully regular updates are on their way. Thank you to everyone who has put up with my  serious lack of updating and is still continuing to read this. Please vote and comment if you enjoyed!