Sleuth World - Part I of II
Chloe Portman and her partner Sean were in full search mode. Specifically they were searching for a woman that was being held prisoner. Chloe was two weeks into what was shaping up to be the best three weeks of her life. It had taken all of her vacation time for the year to make it happen. And it had been quite pricy, even with her very healthy income. But it had been worth every penny. Chloe was a 31 year-old account executive for a major tech company in San Francisco. However, ever since she was a little girl, she'd openly dreamed of being a detective. Snooping around. Gathering clues. Solving crimes. It all sounded so exciting to her.
As she grew up she realized that the real life version of sleuthing was probably not all that it was cracked up to be. She could have pursued a degree in criminal justice and tried to become a police detective. But Chloe was practical. And she'd taken a different path, realizing that the detective adventures of her fantasies probably weren't awaiting her within a police department or even with a private detective's license. But now that her career was flourishing and she had disposable income... she'd found that Sleuth World was EXACTLY what she had always wanted. It was a competitive three week adult fantasy camp for wannabe detectives. Twenty-one adults ranging in age from 25-35 had signed up and were put into teams to solve a series of complex, highly immersive mysteries. Clues were gathered. Leads were explored. Crimes were solved. And points were tallied. Chloe was totally into it and badly wanted to be the top scorer at the end of the three weeks.
For the first two weeks, the attendees had been divided into seven teams of three. The teams rotated for every case so that you were constantly working with different partners. Cases took two days to play out and solve. A case was finished every 48 hours whether you'd solved it or not. It had been close, but Chloe had solved every one. The first week had featured three robberies for the campers to get to the bottom of. Every two days a different heist or burglary needed to be investigated. Then Sunday had been a casual hangout day before Week 2 had started. Week 2 had also been exhilarating. It was a little more macabre because the cases had graduated from robberies to murders. Sleuth World employed dozens of talented actors to play witnesses and suspects for each of the cases. Chloe loved the improvisation and interplay of interacting with the characters. But the actors were really talented and dealing with somebody who had lost a loved one was something that she didn't envy real police detectives for having to do. And then one of the grieving widows had ended up being the culprit! So it was all a game. And Chloe loved it.
Today was the second day of the final week. For the third week, the cases were all kidnappings. Much better than murders in Chloe's mind. There's at least hope when it's a kidnapping. You're not just trying to bring a criminal to justice. You're also trying to save a prisoner. This was going to be Chloe's favorite week by far. This week was also a little different in terms of the format. They were divided into ten teams of two. One of the campers had left after the second week. They were down from twenty one to twenty. Chloe didn't know why she left, but Chloe would be lying if she said that she was disappointed. The camper who had left was named Ashley. And Ashley and Chloe had butted heads through the first two weeks. They'd worked together on the first murder case and it had been a stressful experience. They both had wildly divergent ideas on how to run the investigation. They both wanted to take the lead. Chloe had to respect that Ashley was smart and successful and driven. But she was also bossy and stubborn and arrogant. Chloe was not going to miss her. Maybe she could only take two weeks off for this immersion.
Teams of two meant that for her current case Chloe was now paired with Sean by herself. And that was the best part. She was getting one on one time with Sean. And it was blissful. Chloe hadn’t had any intention of coming to Sleuth World to find love. But she just might have. He was a dream. They had hit it off. He was funny. He was charming. They shared ALL the same interests. And he was VERY easy on the eyes. And Chloe was pretty sure that he liked her also. Sleuth World had strict rules about not having intimate relations on their campus grounds. But if Sean didn't ask her out on the final Sunday... she would shoot her shot with him.
The combination of Sean and the specifics of their current case had made it easily her favorite one so far. This had been a crafty one. There had been multiple red herrings. But she thought that she and Sean had done some great detective work. They were finally closing in on the location of the kidnapped media heiress. They had snuck in through the back door of the kayak rental store. Sleuth World had it's own little village that it had set up to look like a seaside town that campers could explore. She was understanding now why the three weeks cost $25,000. They were sure that Denise Dulongpre had to be here. They worked together and cased every room on the main floor of the shop. There was only one door left, but it was locked. However, one of the clues that they found in the previous day's investigation was a key. Chloe pulled the key out of their evidence pack and slotted it into the door's lock. A perfect fit. She and Sean exchanged elated looks as the door opened and revealed a set of stairs leading down to a basement. She felt her heart gripped by excitement. Here she was, living the dream. She was following clues, sneaking into unauthorized places and snooping around. And she was doing it all with an adventurous, charming, hunky dreamboat by her side.
The two of them descended the stairs and cleared the room on their right. There was a short hallway with another door on their left. They made their way cautiously down the corridor and swung the door open. Then Chloe saw a sight that brought butterflies to her stomach. The room they had just entered looked like a small bedroom. There was a desk, a dresser, and a bed. And on the bed was a tightly hogtied woman. It was Denise! They’d found her! They’d solved another case. She was 7 for 7. She was crushing it! This one had been an exciting one. They’d gotten stumped several times and thought that time might be running out on them. But they’d solved it with a couple of hours to spare.
The actress on the bed did not appear to be in a very comfortable position. The hogtie that she was in looked quite stringent. She was clad in jeans and a dark blue halter top. And even though her face and head were facing away from Chloe, Chloe could tell that she was gagged by the energetic muffled grunting that she was doing. Her bare feet wiggled furiously as the two successful sleuths entered the room. The woman on the bed tried to turn to face them, but the hogtie was no joke and held her in place staring directly at the wall.
“Mmmmmppphhhhhhh,” Denise whimpered, wondering who had just entered the room.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re the good guys! We’re here to rescue you!” shouted Chloe with enthusiasm.
She loved this part. Solving the case. Being the hero. Reveling in her success. Finally this time there was somebody to thank her for her heroics. Chloe looked over the poor actress that was trussed up on the bed and hoped that she was getting paid overtime for this assignment, because it did not look pleasant. She clearly didn’t have a lot of dialogue that she needed to remember for this case, but being hogtied for so long could not be comfortable. They couldn’t just guess when a team of sleuths was going to make the discovery. There were camera setups everywhere, but you couldn’t get a hostage ready like this in ten minutes. Denise was REALLY tied up. So she probably had to stay like this all day. Actresses really do suffer for their art sometimes.
“Mmmmmmmppppppphhhhhhmmmmmm hhhhhhhhhmmmmmppppphhhhhh nnnnnnnmmmmppppphhhhh mmmmmppppphhhhhhhh!!!!” the actress playing Denise grunted at them.
She was still facing away from them and couldn’t see them. But she had heard the door open, knew they were there, and probably wanted to be untied. Chloe figured that they should oblige. Chloe strutted up to her side and turned the poor woman over in order to remove what she could now see was a TIGHT wraparound tape gag. Duct tape had been wound all the way around the woman’s head. Yikes. However, as she flipped the woman onto her side she saw a revelation that made her gasp in shock. She recognized the actress. It was Ashley. Her former fellow camper. The one that she couldn’t stand. The one who was a snooty know-it-all. And if she was being truly honest with herself, a little bit more like herself than she was comfortable with.
“What the hell?!?!” Chloe exclaimed.
“Woah. Ashley, what happened to you?!?!” Sean uttered.
He was just as shocked as Chloe.
“Mmmmmpppppphhhhhmmmm hhhhmmmppphhhhhh mmmppppppphhhhhhhhh!!!!!” fumed Ashley into the gag.
“God damn it!” shouted Chloe. “This is a red herring. We still haven’t found Denise. I don’t know what the hell happened to Ashley, but we’ve only got two hours and we still have a case to solve!”
“Mmmmppphhhhhrrrrrrmpppphhhhhh,” growled Ashley.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Check out the QR code that’s pinned to her hem,” Sean stated. “I think that Ashley IS Denise.”
Chloe looked down and saw the QR code that her partner was referring to. Sleuth World put them on a lot of clues. There were certain clues, like the key, that sleuths needed to take with them. But there were other clues that needed to be left at the scene so that other teams could find them. The game masters couldn’t re-set certain things. So they were tagged with a QR code. You scanned them with your Sleuth World-issued tablet and it gave you all the pertinent information that you needed. It would give you a report as though you’d had forensics done on the item. Sean was holding their tablet and scanned it over the QR code now. It beeped. Then it dinged.
“Yep. She’s Denise,” Sean confirmed. “I think we’ve solved the case. I just have to enter the who, what, when, where, why, how of it all as we’ve hypothesized and then get our score.”
It would take Sean a couple of minutes to confirm everything on the tablet. But Chloe was very excited to have another case solved.
“What happened, Ashley? Did your check bounce and they dragooned you into service as a kidnap victim?” Chloe mocked her thoroughly restrained rival.
“Mmmmppppphhhhhhrrrrrmmpppphhhhhh nnnnnnnnmmmmmpppppphhhhhh hhhhhhhhmmmppppphhhhhhhh!!!!” Ashley grunted at her.
Chloe smiled at her thoroughly humbled nemesis. Her amusement at Ashley’s helpless state made Ashley’s eyes widen with trepidation. Chloe didn’t want to admit to being envious of Ashley. She was pretty sure that both of them thought of the other as their inferior. But Ashley did have a lot going for her. She was smart and confident and cocksure. And she was certainly good looking in a different way than Chloe. Chloe had always found that people had considered her attractive in an approachable, cute, girl next door kind of way. She had shoulder length bright blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, a charming smile, and dimples that had persisted to her current age of 31.
Ashley was something else entirely. The auburn haired beauty was gorgeous in a much more temptuous, sultry, hellraising vixen sort of way. Ashley had immaculate wavy red hair, searing green eyes, and a body that was both stacked and toned in equal measure. She also had a devilish smile and full lips. Not that those could be seen at the moment, behind the bands of tape that pressed harshly into the poor woman’s cheeks, compacting whatever it was that had been stuffed into her mouth firmly back. Her eyes also lacked the “searing” quality that Chloe remembered. They were currently shifty and desperate and pleaded with Chloe to release her. Ashley’s eyes were beseeching her to show mercy, despite the fact that Ashley knew as well as Chloe that there was no love lost between the two women.
For all of Ashley’s pomp and grandeur, she currently looked desperate and tired and utterly helpless. And to Chloe that made her look better than ever. The sense of schadenfreude that was engulfing Chloe was something that was unfamiliar to her, but she was absolutely delighting in her rival’s pathetic, humbled state. And she had every intention of riding this wave into the shore.
“Hey, Sean. Do we have to release her just yet? You think anybody will mind if I have a little fun with her first?” Chloe asked.
“Nnnnnnnmmmmpppppphhhhhh nnnnnnnmmmmmppphhhhhhh!!!!” mewled Ashley.
“I don’t think you CAN release her yet. She has a QR code. She might need to be here for other teams to find. You have to leave her tied up,” Sean replied.
“Oh. Well isn’t that just too bad,” Chloe cooed to the helpless Ashley.
She saw Ashley’s eyes widen in fear as a devilish grin engulfed Chloe’s face.
It's going to be a bad time for Chloe 