“Alright, first off, what were the four of you doing during this party?” Cade asked. Immediately, every one of them looked incredibly offended. It was fair though, he did just imply that they were suspects.

“Excuse me?” The blonde-haired lady said angrily, nearly getting up, but the older man in the middle touched her shoulder, stopping her.

“Ilene, enough, it’s a fair question,” His growling voice said. He sighed, and looked towards Cade, making direct eye contact.

“You’ll have to excuse her, she’s a little on edge, everyone is right now. My name is Richard Anthrox, I’m Mr Donner’s accountant.” Richard said. His voice was very deep, akin to a dog’s bark.

Ilene sat back down, scoffing at Cade. The look she gave suggested that if we weren’t in this predicament, she would have likely spit on him.

“I’m Ilene, I'm his daughter.”

Her words were short like she was wasting time just by speaking to us.

“I’m His son, Jackson,” The blonde-headed man on the right said. So then that meant that these two were siblings? Their personalities definitely differed, but one thing stood out to me. Mrs Donner was at least two decades younger than Joseph seemed to be, and their kids were definitely in their twenties at the minimum, so…

I guess It was pretty obvious what I was thinking, because Jackson turned towards me, and cleared up a couple of things.

“In case you were wondering, she’s not our birth mother, merely a cheap replacement,”

A cheap replacement? That was a rather disrespectful insult. If that didn’t make it clear that they hated Mrs Donner, I don’t know what would. She seemed used to this kind of thing, considering all she merely did was scoff and turn her back towards her.

“My apologies about them, as for your question, Richard and I were in here discussing things about the party. Many maids and butlers were in here serving us drinks, ask around and you’ll find we aren’t lying,” Mrs. Donner said.

“I do not question your alibi. I would like you to tell me, was Mr Donner’s office supposed to be unlocked?”

A moment of confusion appeared on her face, it seemed like she didn’t know that his office had been unlocked using a key.

“No, he always locks it, it wasn’t supposed to be part of the game, the door should have been locked, and you should have been lead down the other one.”

“I see, then can you tell me who has a key to his office,” Cade said.

“No one does, only him”

If he was the only one who had a key, then it likely means that it was stolen from him. I tried to put the pieces together, but I couldn’t really get a clear mental image of what happened. The only thing we currently had to go off of is from what the other group told us.

Cade suddenly turned to Jackson, moving his head back and forth between him and Ilene.

“What about you two,”

“I was in the kitchen, Since dinner had just taken place, we were going to start making dessert for when after the mystery had been solved. The kitchen staff was having issues, so I went down there to help.” Ilene said.

Issues with the kitchen? Why would she of all people go down there to help? I meant this in the least offensive way possible, but she didn’t exactly seem like the nicest cookie in the box, more like the cookie filled with raisins instead of chocolate chips. Well, it wasn’t like I could prove anything anyway, just speculation.

“And you?” Cade turned his head back to Jackson.

“I was wandering around the mansion, Mainly to make sure that people weren’t attempting to break down doors to try and find something, or attempt to steal something,”

The way he talked was somewhat strange, but I now recognized it as the same voice who gave the announcement before. It was less shaky now, he seemed to have composed himself much more than before.

“You're his accountant right, so you have access to banking information right?” Cade said to Richard. For a moment, it seemed that Richard narrowed his eyes as he answered the question.

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“Yes, he supplies me with the information, and I help him move around his money. That is all I will say, for legal purposes, I am not allowed to speak with anyone about this outside of the family.

We knew about Mr Donner’s suspicious banking habits, and from the looks of it, so did his accountant. But he made it quite clear that he wouldn’t say anything else. It was likely that he feared legal action, as well as the possibility that this would be exposed to the public. I thought that would be the end of it, but something unexpected happened.

“Then you must know about Mr Donners strange offshore bank accounts. As well as the frequent deposits into said accounts,”

Everyone in our group turned their heads toward him, with the strange exception of Leilani, who had a blank stare, everyone was rather shocked. Even I would admit that I didn’t expect him to push it so hard. Everyone stood up immediately, as chaos ensued.

“This is preposterous! I will not have you throwing these accusations around like this!” Ilene nearly shouted, her face getting redder by the minute.

“I will not allow you to speak ill of my husband, who isn’t even here to defend against these claims!” Mrs. Donner began shouting

“What proof do you have of this,” Richard said, his voice growing more angry and distrustful by the minute.

“Richard is right, even I must ask, from what information did you come up with these claims,” Jackson asked, standing up along with the others.

“His computer, we took a good look at it,”

“So now you're snooping through our house and our property?! I won’t hear any more of this!”

“We thought it was part of the party, we were only looking for clues,” Arianne said.

It was true, I mean, the door to his office was unlocked, so it didn’t seem like an off-limits area. Arianne tried to explain this, but no one was having it.

“Someone get security in here!”

Mrs Donner had turned her back to the door behind her, yelling for security. We were going to be kicked out for sure. I didn’t know if there was any way we could fight it, and honestly, I didn’t bother to try.

“Shut up,” Cade’s voice said sternly, his eyes shifting, giving them a cold, blank stare. Within moments, he reached inside of his suit, pulling the gun he had come with, and pointed it at Mrs Donner.

“Cade, what are you doing,” I nearly shouted. The black piece of metal was frightening. It felt like a strike of thunder from the sky, the situation had turned from tense to dangerous in an instant. This was idiocracy. From the start I knew that Cade was a very serious man, so I knew for sure that he wasn’t playing around when he pulled that gun on them. He flicked the safety off, a small click sound coming from the gun. I could feel my heart begin to race, as the adrenaline pumped through my body. I don’t think I was scared, merely anxious, anticipating what was going to happen in the following seconds.

“You’re no detective, who are you people,” Mrs Donner took a breath. She stopped calling for security and faced our direction.

“Cade, where are you going with this,” Quinn nervously chuckled.

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Arianne said. She sounded like she was pissed. A couple of veins could easily be seen on her arms.

“Richard, it’s pretty clear you’re in on this, judging from the-”

“Shit!” I shouted accidently.

I seemed to notice it first, maybe it was because I could see it from my angle, but Richard quickly reached into his suit, pulling out a gun similar to Cade's.

“Get down everyone!” Richard shouted to the people next to him. The others on our side took this cue as well. Leilani grabbed the table, flipping it over to provide us cover as we ducked to the ground. Cade narrowed his eyes and shot, the bullet tearing through the air and his jacket like a knife through butter. Blood splattered slightly as the bullet hit Richards's shoulder.

Ilene screamed as Jackson and Mrs Donner pulled her behind the couch. The door behind them burst open, and multiple men in suits rushed into the room.

“Run!” Cade yelled. Richard fired a shot at us as we ran out the door, luckily missing me by a fraction. I could hear it whizz past my ear, the bullet ended up chipping the wooden railing.

Cade was first out the door, Followed by Leilani, Arianne, Quinn, and then me. He jumped onto the railing, quickly sliding down it. Sometime during the commotion, the girls decided to take off their heels so they could run much faster. They bolted down the stairs, with Quinn right behind them. I tried the same thing Cade did, and well, failed miserably. I was on the railing for about two seconds, before halfway down I fell off. I picked myself back up and continued running. I really hoped no one saw that.

Richard came out the door, looking over the railing. The guests that were still in the banquet hall all looked at us as we ran past them. Shouting occurred, and it was hard to hear what was being said with all the commotion. In fact, it was hard to see anyone through the crowd of people crammed together. I barely managed to keep track of Quinn who was a little ways ahead of me.

I didn’t look back, but I was pretty sure that we were still being chased. We eventually left the banquet hall and entered a hallway with a ton of guest rooms. I saw Quinn make a sharp right turn into a room, so I followed suit.

I shut the door behind us, finally able to catch my breath. Everyone was breathing heavily, although Quinn’s was more audible than the rest, I guess he wasn’t very athletic.

“We can’t stay here for long, we have to keep moving,” Cade said.

“We wouldn’t have to be running if you kept that gun away!” Arianne yelled, punching his arm. It didn’t look like it hurt very much, but it got the point across.

I began feeling slightly nauseous, and a little dizzy. I stood up, taking a deep breath.

“So what now?” I asked.

“Well, we need to”

“Wait a second…” Quinn looked around.

“Where’s Leilani?”