Vienna sneezes for the hundredth time and I put a finger to my lips, shushing her. She rolls her eyes and sneezes again.

"News flash Kennedy, we're like below the earth. No one can hear us. And this place looks like has it hasn't been cleaned since fourteen hundred BCE! Of course I'm sneezing like crazy," she lets out another sneeze right as she finishes her sentence. 

"Focus ladies," Cecilia draws our attention back to the task at hand. "We're here to find out who the fuck has been stealing money from me."

"Technically it's not your money," Vienna points out and Cecilia glares at her.

"Technically I'm the daughter of the man who owns King Hotels, which means this company is apart of my God given birthright, therefore it is my money."

"Okay, you make a fair point."

I groan. "This was a terrible idea. Remind me why I called you for help again?"

Cecilia flashes me a grin and holds up her thumb. "Because only I have access to the restricted parts of the building. Unless of course, you somehow have my DNA. Which would be gross because then you'd be related to Winston and your relationship would be some fucked up form of incest," she grimaces.

I turn to Vienna. "And why are you here?"

"Because three heads are better than two! Also you need my genius."

Yep. This was a huge mistake. Nevertheless I shake off my nerves.

"Alright then. Let's do this."

Celia was enraged after I called and told her everything. She had no idea someone was embezzling money from the company, and quickly agreed to help me catch the crook. We poured over every detail we knew before coming up with a plan of action.

The thief would have definitely covered up their digital footprints, but what about a paper trail? That's why we were here, in the archives room located in the basement of their main office. It housed all the files and records of the entire company and was only accessible through thumbprint of a King.

"Over here," Vienna waves us over to the printer, where there's a huge mess of papers scattered haphazardly across the floor. Even now it's still printing out stuff. "These must be all the recent documents."

Cecilia puts her hands on her hips. "Okay, but how far back are we looking? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?"

"Well I've done the math in my head. A quarter million is nothing to sneeze at, excuse the irony, but in order to amass that much money without getting caught, the person would have had to have taken it in small increments. In the span of a year, that's about twenty thousand, eight-hundred thirty three each month. In two years, it's ten thousand, four-hundred and sixteen."

I furrow my brows. "But that's still a lot of money going missing without anyone noticing."

"Not unless you cook the books," Vienna replies. "People fudge financial statements all the time. It's nothing new."

"So all we have to do is go over the recent financial statements, find the hole in them, then check the employee records to see who was in charge during the time and could have messed up the numbers," Cecilia shrugs. "Seems easy enough."

"Almost too easy," I frown. "Wouldn't your dad or Winston have already thought of this?"

"Darling, we're living in a digital age. No one cares or has the time to check paper records. Hell, we're lucky they still even exist. No one has been down here to clean or organize in years. I'm pretty sure Winston and my father have forgotten this room even exists. If it wasn't for the printer they left here connected to the company system that automatically prints out every document in the database, we'd be screwed."

"And it's still printing," Vienna says. "This is gonna take us forever to sort through."

I square my shoulders. "Then we'd better get started."

So we do. We make piles and piles to separate all the papers. Profit and loss reports. Mergers. Employee information. Background checks. Balance sheets. Stocks. Accounts. Two hours later we're nowhere near close to being done, the printer is still printing, and we haven't even begun looking over any of the documents. Cecilia suggests that's we've sorted enough and should just start reading what we have so far. Another hour passes.

"I can't take this anymore," Vienna groans. "No wonder no one goes through paper anymore. I'm starting to go cross-eyed."

"We're missing it," I mutter. So far there's been nothing amiss. Everything is squeaky clean, but there has to be something. I fling away the stack of papers I was going over in frustration.

Cecilia places a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Hey," she says softly. "It's okay. We'll come back another day and look again."

"But-"

"I think I found something!" Vienna suddenly shouts. She scrambles up and starts grabbing papers from the printer as soon as they roll out, holding them up like a mad woman. "Winston said that money was disappearing each month right?"

I nod. "Yeah. And?"

"Well I was looking over the income statements from last month and-"

She stops talking when the door to the basement suddenly creaks open. The three of us freeze.

"Cecilia..." I begin slowly. "I thought you said this room was forgotten."

Cecilia bites her lip nervously. "It's either my father or Winston. No one else has access."

"I'll check," I put a finger to my lips and they both nod. Cautiously I peek over the side of the boxes hiding us from view. I can't see their face, but I can see the lower half of their body. I'd like to say I know Winston's body pretty well, and that definitely isn't his shape. Neither is it Norman's.

My heart is beating wildly out of control and no matter how hard I try I can't control my breathing. Slowly I turn back to Cecilia and Vienna.

"It's not them."

Understanding dawns on their features, soon replaced by looks of terror.

"Ohmygod it's the thief!" Vienna whisper shouts. "He knows, he's here to get rid of his evidence!"

"But that doesn't make sense," Cecilia shakes her head. "How did they get access down here?"

"Who cares, we have to hide now!"

Vienna scoots into a corner behind some boxes with the information she gathered, Cecilia following. I quickly knock over the stacks of paper we made and start scattering them.

"What are you doing?" Cecilia frantically looks up then looks back over at me. "They're coming!"

"I know, but we can't let them know we're onto them. I'm just making it look like no one was down here."

Cecilia reaches out and yanks me back. I slam against her body and I know that had to hurt, but she doesn't make a peep. Instead she uses both her hands to cover her mouth, eyes squeezed shut. I press my lips together, holding my breath. Vienna interlaces her fingers with mine and grips my hand tightly. Beads of perspiration line her forehead. I've been scared before, but not like this. This is the fear from horror movies, the fear the protagonist experiences when they're hiding from the killer.

The footsteps get closer and closer, before stopping. I close my eyes, praying for this to be over soon. What happens if they find us? How far are they willing to go to cover this up? Blackmail? Kidnaping? Murder? The last option seems extreme, but there's a quarter million on the line here. That's more than a misdemeanor, it's a felony. In New York, that could result in up to twenty-five years in prison.

I hear papers shuffling and a few curses. The voice sounds so familiar, but for the life of me I cannot place it. There's a crashing noise and the three of us jump as we realize he must have knocked over some boxes. The footsteps begin fading away, then the basement door slams shut. Vienna, Cecilia, and I remain in our positions for a good five minutes before finally emerging.

"Ohmygod," Cecilia breaths out. She shakes out her arms and legs. "Ohmygod, Ohmygod. Ohmygod."

"I'm pretty sure I almost shit myself," Vienna says. She turns to me. "You okay Kennedy?"

I blink. "I-I think so. That voice...it sounded familiar."

Her eyes widen. "I knew it! I've heard that voice before too! I just can't remember where."

Cecilia looks at the both of us. "You're kidding right? You guys have to remember!"

Vienna shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. We have all the evidence we need to catch this scammer once and for all," she pauses. "Okay, that's a lie. But we have something! Good thing you scattered those papers Kennedy."

I release a breath I didn't even know I was holding. "Yeah. Good thing."

"So what did you find out?" Cecilia asks. Vienna kneels down and spreads the papers out in a circle around her.

"Gather around ladies. It's time for a lesson in finances."

...

I decide it's best if Cecilia—and only Cecilia—shares what we learned with Winston and her father. She promises to keep Vienna and I out of it. I feel relieved. I couldn't solve the case—that wasn't within my power—but I helped. Now I could only hope it'd be enough to catch whoever was behind this.

Halloween passes and soon the first week of November rolls around. I find myself seemingly busier than ever. College application deadlines are fast approaching, there's SAT's, ACT's, the annual canned food drive, the blood drive, planning the winter formal, hosting the next senior class meeting, planning our trip, and of course Thanksgiving.

"Can you believe my dad actually hired a SAT tutor for me?!" Vienna rants to me in the library during our free period as we attempt to study and work on our college apps. "It's insulting! I am perfectly capable of passing on my own!"

"Let me get this straight," I pause in my typing. "You're complaining...about getting extra help?"

"Yes! It's like no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work or how many stupid perfect transcripts I bring home, nothing is ever good enough for them. I need to try more, I need to study harder, I need to be better than the best!" Vienna is practically frothing at the mouth and I shift away nervously. "All so I can go to stupid medical school, which I don't even wanna fucking go to!"

I nod and agree with her, knowing she just needs someone to listen right now. "You're right, it's stupid. You should be able to choose what you want to do with your life."

"Exactly! And they're always comparing me to my dumb cousin Mindy! 'Oh Mindy graduated early, Mindy went to school abroad, Mindy is in Somalia volunteering with Doctor's without Borders, why can't you be more like Mindy?'"

"Okay, if being like Mindy means you have to willingly put yourself in an active war zone, then fuck being like Mindy."

That gets a laugh out of Vienna and I smile. "I'm tired Kennedy. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this act. It's draining."

I sigh. "Believe me, I get that. But you're amazingly smart Vienna, one of the smartest people I know. And if your parents can't see how freaking awesome you are and how hard you push yourself just to make them happy, then screw them. They don't deserve your effort, your sweat, or your tears."

"I just want them to accept me for who I am and love me, not the person they think I am," Vienna whispers. "I don't want to disappoint them, but I'm afraid no matter what I do, eventually I will. Does that make me pathetic? For still wanting their approval even though they've put me through hell?"

"Absolutely not," I shake my head. "It just makes you human, like the rest of us billion people living on Earth."

She scoots closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder. "I don't even want to work on my stupid application anymore. Let's focus on yours. How's the Yale app going?"

"Well I'm about a quarter of the way through, which may not seem like a lot, but two months ago I couldn't even get a sentence done," I blow out a breath. "I really wanted to do early action, but then I would have had to turn in a shitty application and even shittier test scores. So I'm doing regular decision which isn't due until January second."

"And what about your other deadlines?"

"January first for both Princeton and Columbia, January second for Cornell, and January third for Duke."

Vienna whistles. "Damn. Well have you started your other applications? Or have you just been focusing on Yale?"

I scoff. "Of course I've started my other applications...I just may have not dedicated as much time and effort to them."

Vienna gently places a hand over mine. "Okay, let's put away Yale for a moment and work on the other ones, yeah?"

I nod reluctantly. "Yeah, okay."

And so for the rest of our free period Vienna helps me with my other college applications. I honestly don't know what I'd do without her because she's right. Even though Yale is my dream school, that doesn't mean I should just half-ass my other applications. It kills me to think I won't get accepted into Yale, but if I don't I need to have backup schools.

During my last class I pull out my phone to text Winston.

Me: work going okay?

Normally he responds right away but this time it's thirty minutes before I get a response.

Winston: it's...going

Me: have you eaten?

Winston: Nope. Too busy

Me: you're no good to anyone if you collapse from malnutrition

Winston: I'm fine

I roll my eyes. He's too stubborn for his own good. I'll drop off something for him to eat again.

That evening I stop at a deli and get him a sandwich and some chips before heading to his office. I wave to the receptionist, who've I've started to form a friendship with. Her name is Laurie. She's a young mother of two adorable twins. Right now she's going to school to get her degree in business, and eventually she wants to move up to become an executive assistant within the company.

"Delivering your man some lunch?" She teases as I walk up to her desk and lean against it with a smile.

"I swear he'd work himself to death if I didn't intervene."

Laurie laughs. "The man is a complete workaholic. Sometimes he'll even sleep in his office overnight."

I frown. "Yeah. He has a lot going on."

"I bet," she leans in and whispers. "Yesterday, some suits came in."

I furrow my brows. "What?"

"Men in black."

When I still look confused she shakes her head. "Private investigators."

"Why would private investigators come here?"

She shrugs. "Your guess is a good as mine. Everything's been so tense around here lately. Mr. King has been very testy, and we're all walking around on eggshells. Security has been beefed up. It's weird. I feel like something is going on, but none of us have any idea what it is."

I bite my lip. Something is going on. There's a rat within the company. And after what Cecilia, Vienna and I discovered in the archives along with the break in, it doesn't surprise me that they're starting to take drastic measures. But if a private investigator is being hired, then it's getting serious.

"I'm gonna go up and see him now," I point toward the elevator.

"Have fun!" She calls out with a wink. I roll my eyes and smirk. Despite what she may think, this visit is completely innocent. I have no plans to seduce him in his office this time. I just want to make sure he's okay.

I get to his door and knock three times before pushing it open. "Delivery!" I say in sing song.

Winston looks up at me and smiles as I step in. "Give me one minute love."

I smile and that's when I notice the man sitting at his desk. My face falls.

It's him. It's the guy who kissed me at the Red Room
opening. The dark curly hair is a dead giveaway. His green eyes sparkle in recognition and the corner of his mouth tilts up in a smirk.

What the hell is he doing here?

...