Has anyone seen Karen?

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The town of Villa Maria was by far the quietest of all the towns Martinez the famous private detective had visited, usually used to visiting towns where clearly anyone could be guilty of anything; surrounded by a gloomy fog that painted the perfect scenario for a crime.

So little had he really prepared himself for a mystery that would have him circling and examining every detail looking for a solution, 1000 answers and a culprit. Chasing a criminal for Martinez was very simple, none of them took the trouble to hide their fingerprints or maybe they simply used gloves to commit their crimes, believing that Martinez was just another investigator, but he never used the technology of fingerprints and such things; rather his effectiveness was based on observing every detail, a hair, a speck of dust, a flower or even a simple smell; because each one left its mark and that was what Martinez was looking for.

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In Villa Maria a girl has been missing for 10 days, she left her house and never came back, she left no clues and no security camera seems to have recorded her, her car passed exactly in the blind spot of every camera located in the town, they only know that she went out because she said hello and even talked to the neighbor in front of her house. It seemed like a really flawless job, the only clue was her car, as it got abandoned at the bottom of the lake. It was really the first time in a long time that a case like this had been seen and although the girl's body had not yet been found because of the weather, the funeral arrangements had already been made. What had really happened to Karen? This is what Martinez was trying to find out.

Martinez was sitting in a wooden chair in the small office of his private investigation agency. He was looking out the window watching some passersby walk by on the sidewalk. He was pondering the case of the missing girl, named Karen. This seventeen-year-old girl had disappeared without a trace three weeks ago, and the case seemed to have no end.

During all these days, Martinez had gathered information about Karen's disappearance, but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn't find a single clue. Everyone said that Karen was a shy, quiet girl, very studious and intelligent; someone who would never have gotten into trouble.

However, Martinez was not so sure. No person just disappears or vanishes just like that; so Martinez was willing to get to the bottom of everything; he went over all the details he had been able to collect during the days of investigation but it seemed that everything had been done perfectly, there was not a single mistake. Now there was something that didn't fit into this story, a clue that seemed too obvious to be a lead, or at least to catch Martinez's attention. The press had begun to speculate about Karen's disappearance, every channel and social network was talking about the case; there were channels, groups and chat rooms where everyone told a thousand versions, and the fact that it had gone viral on social networks was not helping Martinez to solve the case.

Each time the case became a bigger one for Martinez every clue he seemed to get was a dead end as if someone was chasing him and knew it was going to be even before he knew it himself a mastermind as smart as he was with an air of an investigator that Martinez could not beat.

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Technology was another of his enemies although Martinez knew how to use it really the amount of false information contaminated any little clue he got; and for his mind that calculated everything meticulously the information that came in and the questions asked by acquaintances and relatives simply altered the clues that Martinez could be collecting since it was simply too much false information to filter.

As he continued to ponder, Martinez felt a warm draft coming from the adjoining office. Upon entering there, he saw a chair, a computer and a camera recording every nook and cranny of Martinez's assigned office.

This discovery made Martinez feel a shiver run through his whole body. Since when had they been recording him? Could he be the same culprit in Karen's case? Why would they be recording him? If it was the same maybe that was why he was always one step ahead of him, and so far this seemed to be the culprit's only mistake, but was it really a mistake?

Martinez felt in check, he knew that Karen could be alive, what he did not know was who could have such capacity and such intelligence as to be able to compete against him in a duel in which he had been winning for years. And although he felt worried, he was also excited to finally have a worthy challenger in a game of intelligence and strategy.

It was not the usual thing for Martinez but after this discovery the first thing he did was to publish it in the press which left everyone astonished, except for a page that had managed to gain a lot of influence in Karen's case since they usually knew what Martinez was doing without him even revealing it. One page had even made the assumption that perhaps the culprit was looking for competition and thus discrediting the investigator Martinez because he was not as good as they claimed.

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So when Martinez revealed the information about the camera and the computer this page raised its level of popularity to the clouds claiming to be even better than Martinez himself.

The problem with novices is that just like a fish if you give it a little rope it trusts and falls into the trap," Martinez thought.

Investigating a little about the computer he had obtained he realized that it was the same computer that had been used to create that page that was having so much popularity and although the creator had tried to be anonymous it was not really so because although Martinez did not use the technology he knew how to use it and very well, so he quickly had an idea of who was behind all this.

When Martinez managed to discover absolutely everything he was simply stunned. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. This person was really smart.

"I hope you're not in trouble for this," Martinez thought, with a smirk on his face.

So Martinez grabbed his car and drove up in front of Karen's house immediately the cameras and all the reporters came out after him in a big caravan, Martinez tried not to drive so fast so that all the newspapers and newscasts could get close. When he arrived he knocked down the door of Karen's neighbor's house that she had been talking to the morning she disappeared and without giving any more clues he simply grabbed him, handcuffed him and without letting him talk, put him in his car and drove him to the police station.

Karen's neighbor was accused and without trial was locked up, Martinez gave a press conference, something he had never done before, where he detailed how he had gotten to the culprit saying that in the end he was not so smart or so strategist that he had let himself be beaten with traps as basic as a simple hook that had bitten that trap like a fish.

The page had already closed its doors and made a video where they showed Karen crying and where someone said that Martinez was not a real investigator who had not solved the mystery and that the culprit was still at large.

And while they were live recording and while the page was revealing that her creator and the culprit of Karen's disappearance were the same, the site that had been used for the recording was being surrounded by the police and Martinez forcing his way in and also appearing on the live broadcast said: "you're trapped Karen".

The truth is that the city of Villa Maria was such a fun city for someone with Karen's intellect so she had faked an entire disappearance to compete with someone who was really on her level or so she thought, but really this very ambition for power and recognition was what caused her to be discovered and all her plans to fall apart.

Karen was forced to pay hours of service for all the trouble she had caused the whole village and so she had learned her lesson that if she wanted to test someone she could not play with the feelings of an entire village.

Martinez for his part was glad that Karen was safe. He was glad that he had solved the case, but even more glad that Karen had learned her lesson. With this, Martinez realized that, as difficult as it was to be a private detective, sometimes it could have a happy ending.