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Could you have used the key as a simple crypto-key? As in, give them the two digit number, and tell them "Turn to page 17+the number of the key".

Or if you wanted to make them work a little harder and maybe teach a little math, "17 times the number mod 47".

Of course they can still be dishonest, but it gives them an opportunity to have solved a simple puzzle. They get to the correct page because they "won".

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Yup, could do that, that's a good idea.

The other thing we did, slightly simpler, was introduce a plethora of choices where only prior knowledge would get you (easily) to the page.

E.g. You can land on page A a number of different ways, but only from one path do you find out the suspect is in a certain city. Then from page A you're asked if you want to go to B, C, D, E or F. Without the prior knowledge there are too many choices.

This is exactly how the game Seventh Continent works, its just a collection of 1000 cards and if you have a symbol then you sometimes draw a different card for if you have key items.

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