There was no cure. It all happened so quickly. One moment she was alive, raising her glass for the toast, ready to enjoy a sip of the exquisite brandy she had heard so much about. The next thing everyone knew, she was lying dead on the floor. Her glass was shattered, both her drink and her blood mixing on the floor. Several people screamed.
“Nobody panic,” the hostess in the red dress urged, settling down the tripod that had not been in her hands before the lights went off moments before. “We will figure this out. Someone call the cops.”
“I’ve got it,” an elderly woman in a cream-colored dress replied, setting down her broken wine glass and reaching for her phone.
An older man in a purple suit checked the pulse on the body and began to weep, pulling her into his arms and cradling her head in his lap as a metal wrench fell out of his pocket.
“The police won’t be here for another hour,” the elderly woman in the cream-colored dress informed, hanging up her phone.
“What are we supposed to do until then?” a man in a green suit demanded, holding the very same bottle he had been seen giving to the now dead woman earlier in the evening.
“A woman is dead!” a woman in clue told the man in green with a glare. “Show a little respect!”
“Why?” the man in green asked her. “She’s dead. There’s nothing more to do here.”
“Everyone here is a suspect,” the military officer in full regalia announced, pointing his cane at each guest individually. “No one is going anywhere.”
“How do we know it wasn’t you?” the man in green asked. “You’re Mister Black-ops, right? You’ve killed before. You probably did it again.”
“And how do we know it was murder?” the man in purple asked, setting down the body and standing up. “The cause of death could have been anything.”
“We won’t know for sure what caused her to die,” the hostess agreed. “However, we can figure out if anyone here had a motive.”
“Not me,” they all spoke as one, giving one another suspicious side eyes.
“I think it is safe to say that everyone here had a motive, then,” the hostess concluded with a nod. “She had dirt on all of you too.”
“False information in my case,” the elderly woman in cream mentioned.
“False my butt,” the woman in blue replied with a scoff.
“Anyway,” the hostess interrupted further argument. “We have nothing to fear from her anymore. She can’t hurt us with what she knows. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Agreed,” the man in purple said. “The cops have been called. We just need to wait until they get here, answer their questions, and leave. We’ll say she just collapsed and the next moment she was dead.”
“Those are the facts,” the woman in blue muttered.
“Though someone here killed her,” the military officer argued. “We can’t just brush that off.”
“We can and we will,” the man in green replied. “You should be used to it by now.
“You never get used to it,” the military officer replied, leaning on his cane.