Trapmaker 2: Tracing the Past (2024)

'Trapmaker 2: Tracing the Past' is the eighth murder mystery game made by Haiku Games and the sequel to 'Trapmaker: A Kate Grey Murder Mystery'. The game once again revolves about Detective Kate Gray as she and Aaron Murphy attempt to uncover the truth about the elusive Trapmaker. It is followed by Trapmaker 3: The Final Trap.

Synopsis[]

A new case begins with a dead body by the river. But can Kate focus and solve this case or will she be haunted by Trapmaker's escape?

Characters[]

• Kate Gray
• Aaron Murphy
• Penny Smith
• Keiko
• Jacob
• Trapmaker
• Greenwood Police Officer
• Petunia Jace
• Angelica Sugarman
• Charlie Sugarman (✝)

Plot[]

Chapter 1[]

Three days after the events at the Security Expo, Jacob informs Kate that a body has been washed washed up along a local river. He orders her to take Penny and go ID the dead man, while new security cameras are being installed at the police station.

As this is Penny's first case that includes a dead body, Kate makes sure that she is alright before they document the evidence: a footprint right next to the body, bite marks without blood on the victim's arm, and a business card that reads 'County Distributors'. Upon further examination of the body, Kate finds a piece of paper with strange symbols on it in the victim's pocket, and several bruises and an odd three-hole wound on the victim's left arm that had all been covered with make-up. In the woods nearby, Kate finds a trail of the same footprints as they found by the body, leading up to a garbage can. In the garbage, Kate finds another business card that is identical to the one they found earlier, which leads her to the conclusion that both cards have been planted. She takes the trash with her to further investigate if need be. Using luminol and a UV light on the body reveals that most of the blood is not from the animal bites and that the victim had been dead for at least 10 hours.

Chapter 2[]

Back at the police station, Kate decides to do a search for 'County Distributors.' She finds that it is a fake business with an empty lot listed as its address. Keiko then asks Kate for help with the lab work since she needs to run some paperwork by Jacob. Kate fills out an internal injury report on the victim's bone fractures. Keiko returns and Kate asks her about the three-hole wound on the victim's arm. Keiko says it looks like a drug injection site, although the toxicology report came back negative. Kate then takes fingerprints from the victim, bruises on the victim's neck, and the 'County Distributors' business card. She remarks that the prints on the victim's neck and the business card look similar. She is interrupted by a sketch artist who asks her to provide a description of Trapmaker. Kate uploads the sketch to an online database and discovers Trapmaker's identity. His name is Bradford Jace and he spent a night in Greenwod City Jail as a teen. Kate decides to head to Greenwood to learn more about Trapmaker. Murphy accompanies her.

Chapter 3[]

Greenwood is a small town 45 minutes away with old-fashioned buildings and a fertilizer plant that smells quite strong. At the police station, the officer on duty does not take kindly to cops from the big city interfering with him, and he refuses to help them access the records they need. Kate hatches a plan to steal the officer's keys and sneak into the records room behind his back. To do this, she disguises Murphy at the barber shop next door, and Murphy is able to distract the officer by pretending to be a fan of his favorite football team. As Murphy distracts the officer, Kate swipes his keys and makes it into the records room. She discovers that Trapmaker's offense as a teen was breaking into the local fertilizer plant with modified bolt cutters. She also finds his address and his mother's name, Petunia Jace.

Chapter 4[]

Kate and Murphy go to Petunia's house and she agrees to talk with them. Inside, there is another woman who is in tears. Petunia introduces her as her neighbor, Angelica Sugarman, who has been having a hard time since her son left. Angelica leaves. When Kate asks Petunia about her son, she says he was a genius and she still feeds his lab mice for him in his room. She gives Kate and Murphy permission to look at Bradford's room. Kate and Murphy compete with one another for who can score the most 'points' investigating leads. They find vials of a strange green substance in a puzzle box in Trapmaker's room that also has a yellow powdery substance on top. Kate thinks it's pollen, but Murphy thinks it is something else. Keiko calls with the toxicology report from the victim's strange wound. She says it is from injecting a drug called Psyrobin, which causes mild memory loss and blackouts. It glows green in both liquid and gas form. Kate sends a picture of the yellow substance under Trapmaker's microscope to Keiko. Keiko calls back that the sample is pollen from a Ribbon tree.

Chapter 5[]

There are not many Ribbon trees in Greenwood, so it doesn't take Kate and Murphy long to locate where the pollen must have come from. They find a trailer that appears to be a drug lab with a voice-activated lock on it. Kate conveniently finds a tape recording of Trapmaker's voice in an old car parked nearby and is able to play it to open the lock. Inside the trailer, they find some spilled psyrobin. Kate doesn't want to wait for the hazmat team so she decides to clean it up herself and look for evidence. After she cleans the spill, Murphy accidentally walks on rotten floorboards and steps through them, triggering the release of green psyrobin gas. Kate and Murphy find gas masks to prevent themselves from passing out, and mix a gas detoxifying formula. After clearing the gas, they locate an underground room beneath the trailer that is filled with empty psyrobin cans and has an old computer in it. A sticky note on the computer monitor has the initials SD for Sam Davis, a notorious drug dealer who was never caught. Kate calls Penny to get info on Davis so that she can log in to the dark web login on the computer. Once in the computer, the name Charlie Sugarman pops up along with 'County Distributors' and sales records for psyrobin going back years. Kate and Murphy piece together that Charlie might be Petunia Jace's neighbor Angelica's son. They also wonder if Trapmaker had forged notes from Charlie to his mom to prevent her from thinking that anything had happened to him after Trapmaker killed him. They decide to pay a visit to Angelica.

Chapter 6[]

Kate and Murphy find Angelica sitting on the porch, upset that Charlie left and only sent her a letter. They inform her that her son is dead and she has a very difficult time processing this, but she tells them they can look around the house. Murphy stays with Angelica to comfort her as Kate searches the garage. As Murphy prepares tea for Angelica, he finds some psyrobin in the kitchen. Angelica tells him that she never thought Charlie was close to Bradford Jace. She also admits that she is a psyrobin user and had started using it when Charlie got it for her for her anxiety. However, she became addicted to it and Charlie had hid it from her, broken the kitchen window, and ran away.

Kate meanwhile investigates the garage and finds evidence of Charlie's psyrobin operation. She finds an electronic case with trapmaker's logo on it and opens it to find a tablet with records showing that Trapmaker had deliberately given Charlie's mother an ultra potent and addicting from of psyrobin, while he had shipped other clients diluted forms of it. Trapmaker had been angry at Charlie for bullying him as a child and had done all of this for revenge on him. Symbols on the records matched some of the symbols on the paper she found in the victim's pocket, and Kate surmises that the paper is a clue to finding Trapmaker's secret drug warehouse. Kate also finds a gift-wrapped stained-glass window to replace the broken one in the kitchen with a note from Charlie to his mom. Kate gives the gift to Angelica and she and Murphy head out to track down Trapmaker's warehouse.

Chapter 7[]

Kate and Murphy discover that the warehouse is located in the national park in Greenwood. They find a "no tresspassing" sign and a hidden trapdoor in the ground. Underneath is a large distribution room filled with crates of psyrobin. Next to the distribution room is a computer control room. Kate manages to log into the computer and has to go back outside to connect some cables. Murphy thinks this is a bad idea but Kate brushes him off. They go back to the control room and see security camera footage of Keiko and Penny at the police station. Trapmaker had hacked the cameras and had been watching their every move. Bars come down from the ceiling, trapping Kate and Murphy in the control room. Trapmaker's face appears on the screen. Kate asks him why he killed Charlie, and he says it was because Charlie found out too much about his mother's "treatment" and didn't want to sell psyrobin anymore. Trapmaker also reveals that he has hidden a bomb in the police station perhaps dropped off by the person who installed the cameras. It is set to go off in an hour. Murphy tries to call the station to warn them, but the signal is jammed. Trapmaker laughs and signs off. Kate manages to escape by solving Trapmaker's digital lock on the bars in the room. She and Murphy head to the police station as fast as they can.

Chapter 8[]

At the station, Kate and Murphy meet Jacob, who tells them that everyone has evacuated except for Penny and Keiko, who were trapped inside since the building went on lockdown by itself. There are now only fifteen minutes until the bomb will go off. Kate uses the police radar which Jacob couldn't get working to locate the bomb. She and Murphy then use a battering ram to break into the building in the locker room next to where the bomb is. The door to the next room is held shut by an electric lock. Kate reasons that if they manage to overload the circuit, they will be able to bypass the lock. They plug in a lot of appliances all at once which shuts the power off just long enough for them to get into the next room, where they encounter Keiko and Penny. Suddenly, Kate receives a phone call. It is from Trapmaker, who says he'll make the bomb's ticking louder and hangs up. Kate finds the bomb inside a locked compartment of a desk. She manages to suspend the bomb's timer, which now reads 10 minutes, and she proceeds to disarm the bomb completely. However, instead of being disarmed, the bomb released psyrobin gas. Keiko, then Penny, then Murphy pass out. Kate, still barely conscious, receives a call from Trapmaker telling her that her friends are still alive, but he has plans for them...

References to previous games[]

• In Chapter 1, the donut box present on the table has the same donut models from Xmas Killer.
• A photo of Kate and Sylvia can be seen in Kate's office.
• Kate's goldfish from Xmas Killer is also seen in Kate's office.

Gallery[]