Laura finds her informant a bit tied up

I checked my cellphone again. Had to make sure I was reading the message correctly. Yep, there was no mistake. I hit resend and stepped on the gas. This was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass. A hot tip on the location of her next target. The lucky break I needed.

The self-styled Queen of Pranks had been on a rampage recently, humiliating twice as many people in one week than she did in a whole month. She sabotaged the outfit of a famous yoga instructor so that it splintered when she did the firefly pose, removed the censoring on a journalist that went undercover on the local nudist beach and replaced the ketchup of the local McBurguer with hot sauce.

Admittedly, that last one didn’t involve nudity, but it still resulted in a mob of angry parents and a very pissed-off CEO. The list of clients that wanted her head on a platter grew ever bigger and ever impatient at my lack of results. However, I wasn’t doing this for them, this was personal. My chance to get payback.

I arrived at the Museum. A feeling of dread came over me. Could I really trust my informant? The reason the Queen of Pranks was able to pull so many jobs is that she had acquired an apprentice. A very sloppy apprentice. I caught her without much effort and gave her an ultimatum. She could come with me and suffer the wrath of all the people she had wronged, or she could help me and get a cut of the bounty. Dangling such a delicious reward in front of the girl was enough, she agreed instantly. It had been a little too easy… I shook my head. I already came all this way. It was too late to back down.

I exited my car. The museum was packed with folks dressed in all manner of luxurious clothing. I felt very out of place. The tip came just as I was tucking into bed. I didn’t waste any time in coming, so I was stuck in this fancy ass place in my jammies. Yup, while other gals were wearing cocktail dresses, I was clad in striped pajama tops, stretchy pants, and slippers. Still, I wasn’t about to join in with the rich folk. The commotion coming from the building told me that Queen had already made her move, so I had to cut off her exit. I ran into the alleyway and entered the museum from the backdoor.

The Queen liked to disguise herself as a working woman when she pulled these kinds of pranks, meaning she was likely disguised as a waitress or a cook. My best bet to find her was to find the kitchen. I wandered the empty aisles for a while. It seemed like everyone was busy with the main exhibition. I found the kitchen door and entered.

There weren’t any cooks in the kitchen. The only person there was my informant, caught in quite the compromising position. The slender blonde was put on display like a fine dish. She was hogtied atop a platter, her feet and hands bound together behind her back. The poor woman wriggled and writhed to no avail, the rope didn’t budge at all. Three different kinds of sauces ran all the way across her toned back and limbs, they even tarnished her disheveled hair. Her bottom was covered in a thin layer of frosting. A wide variety of entrees rested on her sides. There was an apple on her mouth that prevented her from talking. Her cheeks were burning with the same color as the fruit.