Emerson Cod, Private Investigator was at this very moment eating a slice of rhubarb pie whilst explaining his latest money making case to the maker of said pie.
"Okay so here's the scoop. A Ms Mollie Moran comes into my office and says she'd like me to look into the disappearance of her son Mickey Moran and his wife Maria. So naturally I ask what's in it for me and she says…"
"Can we get to the point?" Ned interrupted.
"I am getting to the point. So Ms Moran tells me her son and his wife had recently moved town. At first she received the obligatory letters and phone calls from them but after a while they stopped getting in contact. She says when she tried to call them some woman answered the phone and said she'd lived in that house for years and had never heard of a Mickey or Maria."
"Okay but I don't see how I can help with this one," Ned replied. Surely if the people are missing then there'd be no one for him to un-dead.
"What makes you think I don't just want you around for your resourcefulness and intuition?" Emerson paused before laughing. "Yeah right! Oh I do amuse myself. Anyway, long story short, you, me, dead girl and itty-bitty are going on vacation."
Precisely one hour, twenty-four minutes later the Private Investigator and his trio of junior P.I's found themselves driving along an empty road en-route to their mysterious destination.
Both Chuck and Olive had remained silent for most of the journey. Olive was happy to remain so and simply sit and relish the fact that for once she was being included as part of the gang. Chuck, however, upon realising that she no longer recognised the scenery passing by the window, felt the need to ask,
"Where exactly are we going anyway?"
"A quiet little town called Stepford. That's where Mickey and Maria moved to before they disappeared. Now there are a couple of things I better tell you before we arrive."
Emerson put his foot on the brake suddenly, causing the car to jolt to a stop and its passengers to shoot forwards in their seats.
"Now you see Stepford is a quiet respectable town which prides itself on being a 'happy family' kind of place. So to fit in we need to become 'happy family' kind of people."
"Meaning?" Ned had little to no idea what this meant, but his gut feeling told him it couldn't be good.
"Meaning, Piemaker, that you and I have to 'take a wife', so to speak, for the duration of the investigation."
"Well obviously it makes sense that Chuck and I…" Ned began, but he was quickly cut short by Emerson.
"And to make it fair we're gonna pick names at random."
He produced a pen and a scrap of paper from his pocket. Tearing the paper in half he wrote 'Chuck' on one piece and 'Olive' on the other. He screwed them up, shuffled them behind his back and held them both to Ned. Both Chuck and Olive held their breath, each hoping that he would pick their name. Ned chose a piece of paper and Emerson took the other. Upon unfolding the paper Emerson decided that his feelings at the five letters scrawled in front of him could be best expressed by three words.
"Oh hell no!"
Apologies for shortness of the chapter! Hopefully this will act as a good introduction to the story!