The room was suffocatingly small. A single bed was crammed into one corner with a wardrobe and dresser shoved awkwardly in alongside it, but bar that the room was bare. Granted, it would be extremely difficult to fit anything else in, especially considering the sloping ceiling. If I raised myself up on my tiptoes, my head butted against it.

Being the smarty pants that I was, I instantly knew the room belonged to a girl. There was a lingering scent of perfume in the air, a pretty little eyeshadow palette on the dressing table and a pair of smart black heels neatly packed under the bed, so unless one of the boys had taken to cross-dressing (you'd be surprised at the lengths people will go to when it comes to disguises) it belonged to either Reagan or Claudia. And judging by the young twenty-something feel the room emitted, it was definitely Reagan's.

I glanced in all the usual places you might hide something, and then all the fairly unusual places, but I found nothing out of the ordinary. Not that I thought the missing jewellery would be found in a servant's room - it was far too obvious a spot to be traced back to the thief, and this was a massive mansion with plenty more spots to hide things in. However, you can still discover a lot about their person by looking at where they live, and Reagan's situation only reminded me that she was a young girl who clearly took pride in her looks. She was the sort of person you'd expect to be an avid Instagram poster that partied with friends, yet she was isolated in a creepy mansion that everyone else here was afraid of.

Why did Reagan not try to leave this place and get another job elsewhere? I was sure she wasn't happy - I don't think anyone living in this house could be happy. And the pay might be good for now, but in twenty years I doubted she wanted to remain working here and if Kristen would indulge a middle aged maid. A lot of things weren't adding up when it came to her, and although I agreed with Kristen that she seemed unlikely to be a mastermind thief, desperation to get out of this place could make her brave. The jewellery was pretty expensive by the sounds of things - if she sold the right items for the right price, she could easily put herself through university.

I left the room uneasy, the possibility of Reagan being the thief still fresh in my mind. Still, as much as others liked to tease me about my fiery nature, I was an amazing detective (and also very modest) and I was determined not to jump to any conclusions.

The next room I entered was clearly Gibson's, and it did freak me out. It was made into a sort of shrine to the girlfriend I'd seen on his Facebook profile, with the blue hair and piercings. Blown up images and photographs of her were pasted across the wall, some with him in it, some not. Creepily, a lot of them were of her as teenager and child, when she had blonde hair that suited her a lot better than the current monstrosity. I glanced up at the ceiling, cringing when I saw pictures of her dressed in bikinis or skimpy going out tops, one of her taken from behind as she bent over and accidentally flashed right above his bed.

"Stalker much?" I muttered as I skimmed through pages of writing about her on his desk, detailing her every achievement in life. I threw up a little in my mouth as I came across badly written smut about the two of them underneath.

I took out my phone and snapped a few photos as evidence. I was too well acquainted with sick guys like him doing something dreadful to girls like her, who had the unfortunate position of being his object of affection. Usually I was involved in tracking them down after a brutal murder, but maybe this time round I'd be able to prevent anything from happening in the first place. It would make a nice change.

After this discovery I was really missing Brooke. Usually she'd be here to help with this kind of thing - I wasn't used to going it alone, and I relied on her more than I'd like to admit. Just as I was thinking about how nice it would be to phone her, my phone buzzed with an incoming call.

That was more creepy than the pictures.

"Hey Amber, how are you doing?" I sighed in relief to hear Brooke's voice.

"You won't believe what's happened to so far." I supplied her with every detail of the investigation - how much the servants seemed to hate me, Kristen's weird welcome, my suspicions about Reagan, the situation with Gibson and, most importantly, the whole fish fiasco. "The only things I've eaten today are a cereal bar and an apple. An apple," I moaned, and was rewarded with a laugh.

"Honestly, Amber, your eating habits are disgraceful," Brooke replied, sounding amused. "And what happened to not discussing confidential information over the phone?"

"You know I only said that because I was in a bad mood," I huffed. "You better get your lazy ass out here. I swear, if you miss your train again..."

"Actually, I have good news. There's another train out tonight - it's pretty late, so I'll probably get here about midnight."

"Midnight?" I felt a chill go down my spine.

"Yes, Amber, midnight. What, are you afraid of the dark?" I knew Brooke was teasing, but something did seem odd. Clocks stopped at midnight, trains arrived at midnight, Kristen's father died at midnight... I just knew it was all connected. There was no way all these things were a coincidence, which led me to think - what if something freaky happened at midnight tonight?

"I don't believe in the supernatural." I blurted out, much to Brooke's surprise.

"...I know? Amber, are you sure you're feeling okay? You seem a bit off." Brooke's concern was touching, but it didn't chase away my dark thoughts.

"This place just gives me goosebumps." I shivered. "And I know things like ghosts aren't real, I know people make them up for attention, or are clearly deluded, but in this mansion it feels like they could be real. Kristen's father was supposedly killed by a ghost here. I know it sounds ridiculous, I know that, I know. I would just be a lot more comfortable if midnight tonight passes without incidence. The sooner you get here, the better. Than you'll understand how wrong things are."

Brooke silently listened through all my babble. She waited until I was finished before firmly telling me, "Amber, this is nonsense. You're a detective. There's a reason behind everything, a motive behind every crime. Make sure Gibson doesn't leave the house tonight - you and I can go down and meet the girlfriend tomorrow, and warn her. Technically, there's not much for us to put Gibson away for, there's no clear intention he's planning to maim her or anything, but we can keep an eye on him. It's all going to be fine. Just keep gathering evidence, and we'll find the thief pretty quick. After all, you were the genius who brought justice to Kaileen Roller."

I took a deep, calming breath. Brooke was right. I had been spooked, and I was spiralling. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. "Thanks, Brooke. You always know exactly what to say. I'll see you later."

"Bye." Brooke hung up, and I was alone with my thoughts once more. I didn't have any time to waste, so I moved onto the next bedroom, the contents of Gibson's still fresh in my mind.

The next room was different in every way possible - there were no personal objects, no photos, no decoration whatsoever. It was as bare as a room could be; if I didn't know for a fact all the servant's rooms were occupied, I would swear blind that nobody lived there. I swing open the wardrobe door to find a spare set of work clothes inside that could only belong to a butler, Ben to be more specific. Kristen had explicitly told me not to investigate him, and the emptiness of his room merely made my curiosity swell. In my experience, rooms were only kept like this if the occupant was trying to hide from something by ensuring there was no trace they'd ever been there. I wondered if I dusted the surfaces for prints whether I would find any.

There wasn't much to look into there, so I made my way across to the fourth and final room, which surely had to be Claudia's.

The first thing that struck me about Claudia's rooms were the walls. Like Ben's, they were bare, but to me it looked like it had been a recent job. There were marks on the walls, blemishes, tiny shreds of paper stuck to them and the faint indent of blue tack in places, and even some nails hanging uselessly from the walls. Clearly there used to be something on them, but what it was eluded me for now. My sweep of the room included looking under the bed, and as I did I noticed a shoebox hastily tucked on the far side, half-hidden by shadows.

Underneath the bed was the most painfully obvious hiding place of all. When would people realise that? Also, when would people realise they should burn evidence instead of chucking it in shoe boxes? It was just simple common sense.

Despite Claudia's clear lack of planning, it served well on my part as I opened up the shoebox. Inside were posters, and the first thing I did was turn them over, where, sure enough, shreds of paper and blue tack remained that matched the walls. If I was not very much mistaken, the posters had formerly been on the walls - but why had they been ripped down?

I unfurled the poster to get a closer look at the singing sensation on the front. If Kaileen Roller had been Britain's sweetheart, Michelle Paramount had been America's. She made history as the first black woman to win some singing show over there, and she'd went from strength to strength. Even Amanda once admitted to like her music, which was pretty much all the praise a person needed.

Yet Michelle had met an early end last year when she'd made her first visit to England. Buried below the posters there was an article badly torn out of a newspaper about it, and my mouth opened in shock as it all came swimming back to me - including details that hadn't concerned me at the time.

MICHELLE PARAMOUNT DIES AT THE PARTY THROWN IN HER HONOUR BY FRIEND KRISTEN MCMAHON

I read the article quickly, every reference to Kristen making me more eager to find out more. Apparently, Kristen and Michelle had been pen pals in high school, and their friendship had continued past that. The two finally met at a glamorous party Kristen had thrown for her at some beautiful location, only for Michelle to die in the middle of it due to a heart attack.

I remembered how ridiculous it sounded. Michelle was a young, healthy twenty-five year old who kept herself super fit for all her complicated dance routines. There was no way she had a heart attack, even if the dozens of people who examined her corpse claimed otherwise.

I replaced the lid on the box, sliding it back under the bed. I was pleased with my sleuthing skills for the day, but also maddened by the amount of answered questions it had added to. McMahon Mansion was as much of a mystery as ever.

Sighing, I prepared myself to go investigate some more when I heard footsteps outside the door.

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I know this chapter might seem a bit boring, but a LOT of important stuff is in here that will make things more exciting later. I hope you enjoyed today's update, thank you for reading and please vote and comment!