The Cheshire Cat Diamond

Chapter 6

 Splayed out on the couch was Desmond. He had a bloody wound in his chest, and his eyes were filled with fear. There was blood everywhere. Nancy and Trisha both screamed and stumbled away. I swallowed my disgust and slowly inched toward the body. I stopped when I was 4 feet away from the body. I couldn't bring myself to go any closer.

"Cia!" Trisha screamed. "What on earth are you doing!"

" I have to look at how this happened." I said matter-of-factly. Now that I was closer, I could see that the blood was dried. This meant that the murder must have been done sometime last night.

"He left early last night...And this is what happened. Who would have done something like this?" Nancy said, shell-shocked.

"Do you have cameras Trisha?" I asked.

"We do, but they're all turned off right now. We decided to save the energy so it could be put into the Halloween decor." Trisha sputtered, obviously still in shock.

"Call up some staff, we need to get this cleaned up." I ordered.

It took a while, but eventually the body was disposed of.

"Are you sad?" I asked Nancy. Immediately, I regretted it. How insensitive could I be? They were dating. Of course Nance would be sad.

"Not really. I don't want to sound evil, but I hated him. I liked him at first, but then he became bossy and overprotective. He wouldn't even let me talk to other boys! I'm kind of glad to be rid of him." Nancy confessed shamefully. This shocked us all into silence. After a few seconds though, Trisha wrapped her arms around Nancy and I followed too.

"It's okay Noodles. That was very brave of you to admit it." Trisha said.

While Trisha was comforting Nancy, her phone rang. Trisha picked it up. It was her dad. Nancy and I watched Trisha as she talked.

"Hello?"

"Oh hi dad."

"WHAT!"

"You're kidding right?!"

"Okay. Be right down.

"What happened!" Nancy and I shrieked after she cut the call.

"Guys, I can't do this anymore. I'm ruined." Trisha said hollowly.

"Trish, what happened?" I asked gently. Trisha looked like she was going to cry.

"The Cheshire Cat Diamond? It's been stolen." she said.

We all rushed down the staircase, where her father was waiting. He immediately started to talk.

"It was there last night before you revealed the picture, but now it's gone. One of the staff members, Phillip, checked the case today morning and it was gone." Trisha's dad said rapidly.

"Excuse me again sir, but may I speak to Phillip? I believe I can help you find who stole it." I offered. He focused his eyes on me.

"I hope you find it dear. If not, we're all doomed." he said. On those light notes, we left for the staff room.

The staff room was also very large, and it kind of was like a school office. There was a sweet and smiling receptionist who helped us locate Phillip. Phillip was a middle-aged man, with a few white hairs poking out of the thick hair on his head. He also was quite jolly and a bit deaf. It took us several tries to convey our question to him. He told us that he had not noticed anything unusual about the case, just noticed it was gone. He did smell a light, airy, orange scent when he stepped into the room though. We thanked him, and quickly left.

"Guys, I think I'm going to go to sleep. I didn't get any sleep last night, and this is just the final straw." Trisha proclaimed before retiring to her rooms. Nancy said she'd go get a bite to eat, so I was left alone. 

I hadn't eaten since I woke up, but I had to keep going. I didn't have time to go eat at leisure. I had to find out who the Cheshire Cat was before the Gala tonight. Just as Trisha and Nancy left, guess who came in? Hint hint, she's my most favorite person in the whole world. Stephanie. Strangely, she was shoving an orange bottle rather hastily into her snakeskin purse.

"Did you hear about poor Dezzy dying? He shouldn't have left early at the dinner last night." Stephanie said snapping her purse shut with her talons. Huh. So she wasn't as shallow as I thought. She did notice Desmond leaving early. "Oh well. Ms. Tomato Noodles will just have to survive without him." she said mockingly.

"Oh I'm sorry, but I don't think this is a laughing matter." I reprimanded.

"Whatever. Like I care about that book nerd." she said, pulling out her phone and tapping away on it. I walked up to her, and pointed my finger at her face.

"You are the most insensitive worm that I have ever had the displeasure to meet. Like seriously, what the heck is wrong with you?" I asked, disgust clearly showing. 

She looked up, and slapped away my finger. Then she put her hands on her hips and leaned over. "Listen up Nastia. You've been poking your nose into everything I do. Like, why do you care? Huh? Just leave me alone, you meddling piece of crap!" she hissed. 

Usually, if someone said that to me, I would not be okay with it. At all. But something else had captured my attention. Something popped into my head. I turned away from Stephanie and ran for like what seemed the fifteenth time up that calorie-burning staircase. 

The lobby had been labeled as a NO ENTRY zone, but I didn't need to enter. Standing as close to the safety tape as possible, I stood on my tip-toes, and leaned forward, deeply inhaling. It was hard to discern, but it was there. The air held a slight trace of orange in it. 

Everything clicked together.  I knew who the Cheshire Cat was. 

And that's when the lights went out.

*****

A/N:

When I was typing this up I originally had my headings as Chapter (Numero): Then I got severely judged by Solarys for adding colons "It's not aesthetic enough." Strangely, I'm the OCD/Aesthetic person, but I guess Solarys has her peeves too?

-Acelyst

A/N

I rest my case. It really is not aesthetic enough.

-Solarys