Confrontation! I didn't really describe any of the intermediate locations, as they aren't really very important.
Chapter Eleven
They went through several locations looking for Ran. Every time, Ran would be there, but it would be a dummy. The kidnapper would taunt them, and the dummy would explode. And every time, there would be a clue to the next location. They went to the Ecology lodge, the Archery range, the swimming hole, back to the amphitheater, and around several of the empty cabins, until they finally ended up at the showers.
It was 11:00 at night, and the kidnapper wasn't cutting them any slack. The Shower House was full of campers, but an exploding dummy scared them all off.
Shinichi and Co. stood in the entryway of the showers, waiting for the next clue. Suddenly, a masked man jumped out of the woods on the other side, pulled out a bow and arrow, and shot at them.
They all ducked, and by the time they looked up again, the man was gone. Shinichi examined the arrow.
"He wouldn't have taken the risk of being seen unless he was forced to. It's the first time we've seen him all night. This arrow doesn't look out of place, though. Maybe we need to go back to the shooting range…"
"Hey Shinichi," said Kenta suddenly, "doesn't that arrow look weird?"
"Yeah it does!" exclaimed Mikihiko.
"It looks like a pencil!" exclaimed Sonoko.
Shiho said, "That's probably the message. The tip is black, the arrowhead is tan, the shaft is yellow, and the tail is red. The message is a pencil."
"Of course!" exclaimed Shinichi. "The only place that consistently uses pencils would be…Admin."
They soon arrived at the Admin building, and they could see a post in the middle of the yard, with a slumped figure tied to it.
"Ran!" exclaimed Shinichi. He rushed forward to untie her, but was cut off by a ring of fire, which suddenly ignited as he neared the hill. It surrounded the hill Ran was on. In the middle of the ring, another figure was seen, carrying a bullwhip.
"Well, Kudo-san!" exclaimed the figure. "It seems as if you've done well. Now of course is the time I tell you that if you make one false move, your girlfriend's back will look like chopped meat."
"What do you want?" yelled Shinichi venomously.
"Revenge. I told you why earlier. My son was one of your biggest fans, and committed suicide when you dropped out of the public eye. There's no reason for you to have done that. If you'd gone into hiding, you wouldn't be here. If you'd been investigating a top secret case, you wouldn't be taking two weeks off. And you certainly wouldn't bring along two girls with you when you're meeting your girlfriend."
"That leads me to one conclusion about you: you're insane. You care only for yourself, and you do nothing for any logical reason. However, the authorities won't buy that reason without proof. So I decided to make proof. Not saving your girlfriend from being whipped to death will be significant proof enough. And your conscience won't be able to handle the deaths of your friends too."
Shinichi immediately started forming a plan, but when he turned to share it, there was a loud crack, followed by a loud scream. The man said, "I told you what would happen if you moved! Try it again, and I'll start being nasty!"
'Great,' thought Shinichi, 'Ran's held hostage, and I can't do anything to save her. The kidnapper has a nasty whip, which means I can't get close to him. And he's cut off by a wall of fire.'
"Kudo-kun," whispered Shiho suddenly, "He's only watching you. I think the rest of us could come up with something to take him out."
"What do you need, then?"
"The combination to your trunk. That way we could get out the shoes and the skateboard. We could ride over the flames and take him out."
Shinichi realized that this was their best plan for the time being. So he gave her the combination, and she soon used the glare created by the fire to slip away unnoticed.
Shinichi was stuck. He couldn't move without Ran getting hurt. He decided to distract the kidnapper.
"Kidnapper-san, why do you think I'm insane? I might have a perfectly good reason for being away."
"What reason is there?"
"Maybe I've been working in secret. There might be a lull in the case I'm working on, so we all took a break."
"What a load of crap! Why would you bring girls along then, if you're meeting your girlfriend?"
"I don't have a girlfriend. I just have many friends that are girls. So there's no problem, is there?"
Shiho came back in the middle of this, and quickly got up behind the kidnapper on the other side of the fire ring. Then she powered up the skateboard, which was running off of its battery, and put a Power-Kick Shoe on each hand, each cranked up to full blast. She quickly set up a ramp and rode over it, easily clearing the fire.
Shiho hurtled towards the kidnapper on the skateboard. The kidnapper realized too late he'd been had, and couldn't defend himself from two shoes to the face, and he crumpled. Shiho turned off the ring of fire, and everyone soon joined her.
After untying Ran, Shinichi then removed the kidnapper's ski mask. It was the camp director. Mayumi, Mikihiko, and Kenta tied him up, still knocked out, and Shinichi escorted Ran to the first aid hut, while Sonoko called the cops on her phone.
Interesting motive, if I do say so myself. And I purposely didn't spill who the kidnapper was until the end, just to build up the suspense. And Detective Shiho came out of the shadows!
There are now two things left: the skit, and Ran suspecting Shinichi. Look forward to them!