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noel-but-spooky · 2 years

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the deep blue goodbye // noel & emilio

TIMING: current-ish PARTIES: @noel-but-spooky & @monstersfear SUMMARY: while investigating a case at dark score lake, emilio runs into noel, who's doing some investigating of her own. CONTENT: none

In all honesty, Emilio didn’t care for cases like the one that brought him to Dark Score Lake. He always felt a little uncomfortable when grieving people came into his office, begging him to find answers. This particular case, one that began with two parents sniffling in front of his desk and asking him to bring them the truth behind their daughter’s death, was no different. He’d almost turned them away, almost told them that finding answers wasn’t the same as finding peace, but… Well. He figured that would make him something of a hypocrite.

And he really needed the money.

So he was standing at the edge of the lake, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, trying to turn a tragedy into a mystery. It didn’t feel right. Sighing, he bent down with some difficulty, bad leg twinging in protest. “Don’t know why anybody’s swimming in a lake in this town, anyway,” he murmured to himself, reaching out to touch the water absently. Keen ears picked up the sound of approaching footsteps, and he tensed. “If you’re looking to go for a dip,” he called out, “I’d probably advise against it.”

The walk from her apartment to Dark Score Lake was strange for a number of reasons. For one, Noel was still getting used to the feeling of herself walking around not of her own accord. It was still her own body moving, but it felt almost dreamlike. Not quite like an out of body experience, but something close to it. Noel wasn’t sure that if asked she’d be able to fully describe the sensation. It didn’t help that, despite being in her body, Erica walked differently. It was subtle, but she seemed to stand taller, didn’t look at the ground as much, didn’t shy away from looking passing strangers in the face.

The other strange part, of course, was the fact that Erica was leading them to where she had died.

Are you sure you’re okay with this? Noel asked in Erica’s mind, not for the first time since they started this walk.

“I’m getting the feeling you’re asking this more for yourself now,” Erica teased, speaking out loud as they walked along the lonely road between the Drive-In and the lake.

I mean...it’s upsetting to think about, is all.

“Trust me, I’m not happy about it either but if I can get over it enough to come here and investigate you can too.”

Noel hummed in response in her head as they left the road and started walking along the grass, getting closer to the shoreline. But it wasn’t long before it became apparent that they weren’t the only ones there.

The man heard them before they spotted him, and Noel wasn’t sure if it was her or Erica’s influence that made them jump slightly at his voice. He was bent down near the water, and Noel was glad Erica was in control, otherwise she probably would have muttered out a quick “sorry” and gotten the hell out of there.

“Nope, just taking a look around,” Erica said, eyeing the man, half curious, half suspicious. “Sorry, were you looking to have a private swim yourself? Because I was kinda keen on hanging out here, so you might want to pick some other part of the lake.”

He could feel her eyes on him, boring into the back of his skull. The tension in his shoulders didn’t ease, didn’t dissipate. Emilio was on edge by default, these days. Tightly wound and ready to strike at the slightest provocation, even when the presence behind him was one he could tell wasn’t undead.

The explanation she gave wasn’t quite satisfactory, and Emilio grunted in response. Slowly, to avoid aggravating his leg, he straightened up into a standing position. His hands went to rest in his jacket pockets as he turned around, a move that looked casual but was carefully constructed to allow himself to close his fists around the handles of the knives he had tucked away there. He wouldn’t use them, not unless she attacked first, but gripping them made him feel just a little more at ease. It always made it easier to breathe, even if it probably shouldn’t.

“Not much of a swimmer,” he commented, eyes flickering over her carefully to determine the threat. “Wouldn’t recommend hanging out here, either. It’s been a crime scene pretty recently.”

“Spooky.” Erica said, tone nonchalant. Noel had a feeling Erica was thinking the same thing she was, though Erica actually had the guts to ask. “You hang around crime scenes a lot?”

From what she could tell, the man seemed to be around her age. Noel’s first thought was that he might be a cop looking into something, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform, and she wasn’t sure why he would be looking into Erica’s death. The police had been pretty quick to rule her death an accident, from what Noel had heard and what Erica had told her personally. Then again, maybe this had nothing to do with Erica.

“Unless this place is suddenly off limits I think I’m going to stick around. Thanks for the warning though.” Erica stuck her own hand in her coat pockets (a new coat, one she had bought Noel and by extension herself) and stared at the man. Whatever his deal was, she wasn’t going to follow his advice and just leave.

“Spooky,” Emilio repeated dryly. It seemed a strange word to apply to this particular situation. Death, he thought, wasn’t really a spooky thing. It was natural, even when it wasn’t. It was the only thing that happened to everyone, sooner or later.

He could hear the suspicion in the question, and he understood it, to a certain extent. You find someone hanging out at a crime scene, you tend to have questions. Questions about their involvement, questions about their motivations. Emilio had the same questions about her, the paranoia that had always been present but had only gotten worse in recent weeks making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “Sometimes,” he replied, intentionally vague. “You?”

Of course, she wasn’t going to walk away. People in White Crest rarely did. Emilio narrowed his eyes as her hands went into her pockets, grip tightening on the knives hid away in his. She didn’t look poised to attack, but he was still wound tight. “Don’t really have the authority to make it off limits,” he said carefully. “I’m a private investigator. I’m looking into a death here. Maybe more than one.” A pause. And then, “It’d be polite of you to tell me why you’re here, too. Not the kind of place you go for a walk.”

“Kinda creepy to hang around crime scenes. I don’t know if it makes it more or less so that you’re admitting it.” As Erica spoke, Noel watched the man. He seemed tense, but she supposed she was as well. She wasn’t sure how Erica could keep so casual and calm about this. Wasn’t returning to the crime scene a pretty common thing for people who were involved?

When he mentioned he was a private investigator Erica’s eyebrow raised. “Oh, well I guess that makes more sense then. What do you mean more than one?” Noel and Erica had heard about people drowning in the lake before while growing up. It wasn’t that uncommon. But if there was a private investigator involved now...

“Whose death? Because I might be looking into something as well.” Erica was being bold, but it was probably better than trying to lie to an investigator. Then again, Noel wasn’t so sure if implying that she was looking into a death made her seem any less suspicious. “I’m..Noel by the way.”

Erica still sometimes almost slipped up and said her own name, much to Noel’s anxiety whenever it happened. Not that her referring to herself as “Noel” didn’t come with some weirdness. Better than introducing herself as a dead girl.

“Coming from the other person hanging around the crime scene,” Emilio shot back, raising a brow. Although the more she spoke, the less concerned he found himself about what might have brought her here. People didn’t often make small talk with someone before taking a shot at them. Emilio would know; he was usually the guy taking the shot.

She seemed to accept his response a little easier when he let her know why he was at the crime scene, and he nodded at the question. “Family that hired me lost their kid a couple weeks ago, but there was a similar case last month. Same setup. Police keep calling them accidental drownings, but sometimes people want a second opinion.” In White Crest, the police were far too overworked to look into every case. Cases like this one were often shut quickly just to get the file off the pile. That was where Emilio came in. That was why his business managed to stay above water, even with his less… desirable methods.

The more the woman spoke, the more Emilio understood that she was here for something more than a stroll. “You might be?” He shot back, tilting his head. “You either are or you aren’t. Not a lot of room for ‘might.’” After a moment, he added, “I can’t go giving out the names of my clients, can I?” He had no idea if that was an actual rule for private investigators, of course. As was common for Emilio, he just felt like being more difficult than he had to be.

Although he nodded at the introduction, Emilio made no move to offer out his hand to shake. “Emilio,” he replied simply. “I’m gonna ask you again, Noel. What are you doing here?”

“Touche, guess I don’t look any less weird being out here.” As the man continued, speaking of looking into the drownings that maybe weren’t actually drownings, Noel felt herself growing hopeful. So her and Erica weren’t the only ones looking into this. The relief of knowing that almost washed away the dread she felt at hearing that Erica might not have been the only victim of whoever or whatever was doing this.

“Weren’t you throwing around ‘maybes’ and ‘sometimes’ to my questions? Don’t get on my case about vagueness.” Erica’s tone was mostly joking, but Noel could tell the gears were turning in her head. The two of them, while not in this arrangement for long, had agreed to try to be cautious about what they said and who they said it to. Noel hadn’t done a good job keeping up her end of the deal, considering at least one person now knew she was possessed, but when it came to actually discussing the murder...

Maybe you should tell him. I mean, he’s already looking into it, Noel said in Erica’s mind. Erica didn’t respond outloud, but after a moment she shrugged as if she was shrugging to herself.

“No need to give me names, unless you think the people hiring you are suspicious. Yeah, I’m looking into one of the drownings. Does the name Erica Blake ring any bells? She was a friend of mine. I wasn’t really into the whole ‘she just drowned’ bs the police were saying, so I wanted to see what I could find on my own.”

“Exactly,” Emilio nodded with a faint, victorious grin. It wasn’t often that people agreed with him when he argued just to argue, but he had to say, it was kind of a nice feeling. It felt a little bit like a hollow victory, of course, when she turned around and pointed out that he was sort of guilty of the same thing he’d accused her of. Smile turning into a frown, he shrugged. “It’s different when I do it,” he insisted. It was his excuse for most things, which probably said a lot about him. The rules for Emilio, in his mind, were different than the rules for everyone else. That had always been the root of the problem.

Of course, at the moment, it was neither here nor there. He wasn’t as suspicious as he was acting, and she wasn’t as big a threat as his mind was initially worried she might be. She was out here because she ‘might be’ looking into something which, in Emilio’s experience, meant she was looking into something. Sharing intel might be the best move forward — for both of them.

“No,” he said, “the people who hired me aren’t suspects. Some things you can’t fake.” The grief on the mother’s face when she’d begged him to find out what really happened to her daughter, the haunted look in the father’s eyes… Emilio saw a lot of people, in both his lines of work, who pretended to be something they weren’t. The people who’d hired him for this particular case weren’t among them. “That’s the first victim,” he acknowledged with a brief nod. “Official story was an accidental drowning at a party. Same as the story for my clients’ daughter. Doesn’t add up with her, either.”

“Yeah, sure it is,” Erica said to his excuse, rolling her eyes, though there wasn’t any bite to her words. Noel was glad the initial tension seemed to be fading from her interaction with him. It was often a coin toss whether Erica would go into a conversation with charisma or just try to start shit. “So two girls get killed at a party. Sorry, ‘drown’ at a party. Was this right where the other girl was found too?”

Erica pointed with her boot towards the edge of the lake, right where the man had been crouching by the water. “That’s where Erica was found.” She said it so casually, but Noel could feel her jaw tighten. Maybe Erica wasn’t as unaffected by visiting this place as she had implied earlier. “But she died a little bit over there.” This time she nodded her head a bit to the west, to a spot partially choked by reeds, though with a few muddy breaks in the flora to reach the water.

“If you ask me, I wouldn’t wade through the reeds just to swim. Not when there was a clearer part of the bank right nearby.” Noel wondered if that was true. Erica had been wasted, that part of the police report had been correct. Would someone that drunk even know the difference if they were determined to get into the lake? But Noel wasn’t going to argue with the person who had actually died, even if Erica had freely admitted that the whole later half of that night had been hazy. “But what do I know, I’m not a private eye. What do you think, detective man?”

Emilio shrugged, unbothered by the fact that his excuse wasn’t exactly accepted. The woman didn’t seem entirely annoyed by it, either; she was far more focused on the story he spun. “Two girls get killed at two separate parties,” he corrected, emphasizing the point. “Two girls at the same party could be nothing.”

Looking to the spot where she indicated, he nodded. “This is where the second body was found, too,” he confirmed. Curiously, he glanced back to the woman. “You know where she died?” That seemed unusual, if she wasn’t affiliated with the police. Most concerned citizens would assume the girl — Erica — had died where she was found, or somewhere close to it. People didn’t often think of the mechanics of a drowning, particularly not when the person who’d drowned was someone they’d loved.

Trying to put a lid on his paranoia (there was a time and place for it, but he didn’t think it was here or now), Emilio shrugged. “I think people do stupid shit when they’re drunk,” he replied, “but I’m also not much of a believer in coincidence. One person dying like this and it being accidental, I could buy. Any more than that? And I think it’s something else.” What he didn’t know was whether it was a human assailant or something supernatural. There were plenty of things that could drown drunk girls stumbling out of parties and leave their bodies at the edge of the lake. Not all of them were soulless beasts or vengeful fae. That was the hardest part about being a hunter and a P.I. — sometimes, the monster you were after was just a person. “You said the victim was a friend. What made you think she didn’t just drown?”

“I don’t think she drowned because Erica wasn’t stupid,” said Erica, perhaps a bit too defensively. “Yeah, you hear about people drowning here every so often but...look, the police just wrote it off and there was another woman too, I think that’s enough to think it's weird.” Noel quickly realized Erica had no plans of circling around to the previous question Emilio had asked about how she knew Erica’s spot of death. Her body felt tense, but Erica tried to keep an even expression.

“And shouldn’t I be the one asking you that? You’re the investigator. Unless you’re just going off what your clients told you and have nothing else.” Erica glanced at the patch reeds and eyebrows furrowing. “I’m pissed, as you might expect, so regardless of whoever or whatever did it, I’m not going to move on until I know. It looked like a drowning, but that doesn’t mean someone else didn’t cause it.”

Noel’s heart sank as she heard the slight shake in Erica’s voice. She couldn’t help but ask in her mind: Are you okay? Should we go?

“I’m fine, we’re not going,” Erica whispered under her breath.

“She was drunk,” Emilio pushed. And he shouldn’t have — he knew that. It was a shitty thing to do when someone was clearly grieving, but there was something about her reaction that didn’t sit right with him. There were alarm bells in his head and, while they hadn’t been silent in years now, they were certainly loud now. His instincts were telling him something was off, and his instincts weren’t wrong often.

Humming thoughtfully, he shrugged a shoulder. “I took this case three hours ago,” he pointed out. “Seems like you’ve been working it a little longer. Just trying to see if you’ve gotten any further than I have.” She was pissed and she wanted answers and if anyone understood that, it was Emilio. After all, wasn’t that what he’d been doing for years now? Hadn’t he been mad at the world and demanding answers from it since the day he left Etla?

When she spoke again, Emilio raised his eyebrows. It was quiet, whispered faintly under her breath, but Emilio’s status as a slayer gave him hearing sharp enough to catch it anyway. “We?” His eyes darted around the empty space around them, paranoia kicking up a notch. It’s a setup, whispered the part of his mind that was always on edge. “Who are you here with? Huh?”

“Yeah, supposedly,” Erica said bitterly, though Noel knew that was a lie. There was no use in pretending to Emilio when Erica already knew he was right about the drunkenness. But that didn’t stop her. So much for the tension easing.

Maybe we should leave this guy alone, go look somewhere else?

Erica ignored Noel. Instead she shrugged at Emilio. “Yeah, my friend died. I’m not going to wait around for someone to pay me to look into that. I’ve been trying to look into it for weeks. First time out here though.” Now that old backhanded venom was in her voice, though Erica played it off like she hadn’t just implied this guy didn’t actually give a shit.

When Emilio asked what she meant by ‘we’ Erica just laughed. “Talking to ghosts obviously, haven’t you heard this place is haunted.” She wiggled her fingers, again playing it off, though Noel couldn’t help saying a panic: Erica, maybe you shouldn’t-

“You think they fudged the tox report, too?” The question was half genuine, half rhetorical. There was a chance she did believe the toxicology report citing alcohol in Erica’s system had been tampered with, but Emilio doubted any validity to the theory. A coverup that extensive would have to have multiple people involved, and he just didn’t think that was the case. The M.E. would have to be a part of it, and as much as he disliked Regan, he could tell she took her job seriously.

He almost felt guilty for pushing her the way he had. Almost. But Emilio was never much good with people, and he found they were a lot more honest when they were pissed, so sometimes, pushing was necessary. “Well, if you’ve got any insights to share, I’d be willing to listen. I’m not actually bad at this job, you know.” Not when he gave enough of a shit to actually try, at least. And this case was the kind he tended to take a little more seriously. “Look, nobody’s paying me to look into what happened to your friend. But if I solve her case, there’s a good chance I solve my client’s, too. I’m willing to double up on this one.”

The mention of ghosts was certainly worth noting. Emilio’s brows shot up, and he glanced around as if he might catch sight of one of them if he looked hard enough. It didn’t work that way, of course; he knew that. But it did for some people. The undead weren’t the only ones who could see ghosts; he’d spent enough time with Lil to be well aware of that. “You seeing ghosts?”

“Who knows if they did. It isn’t like I have access to police reports or anything. All I’m saying is it wasn’t just some drunken accident.” Erica furrowed her brow. The problem was, neither her nor Noel had much to go off besides the basics. Erica had died here and something was off, but explaining how she knew wasn’t exactly easy.

Erica quirked an eyebrow when Emilio glanced around. Had he actually taken her joke seriously? “Oh yeah, all the time.” Her tone was sarcastic, but she watched his face carefully for a reaction. Maybe he was just some paranoid weirdo who was spooked by the idea of ghosts. But considering everything her and Noel had found out lately there was also a chance he did have a more serious reason for believing her. “That’s how I know Erica was murdered. Ghosts told me.” She laughed, and Noel couldn’t tell if it was at the “absurdity” of what she had just said or the panicked noise Noel had made in her head.

“Calm down, just joking,” she said, half to Emilio and half to Noel. “Trying to lighten the mood because this whole situation fucking blows and I have nothing and apparently you don’t either. If someone killed her I don’t even know where to start. It was a big party and I have no clue if someone from there did it or if it was a stranger or why.”

“You sound pretty sure of that.” She was quickly becoming the most interesting part of the case. Emilio wanted answers, because he always wanted answers. But the more he spoke to her, the more he realized he didn’t only want the answers that would get him paid this time. It had been a while since he’d fallen into a case like this, one that made him give a shit. It was a nice kind of feeling, in its own way. A nice distraction.

And it was a distraction that just kept giving. She mentioned ghosts, and Emilio’s eyes searched her face as he tried to decide if she was kidding or not. Her tone was certainly sarcastic, but this was White Crest. And Emilio knew better than most the kind of trouble ghosts could cause. But she laughed, and Emilio nodded more to himself than to her. She was kidding about the ghosts, even if the explanation would have made sense.

“Joking,” he repeated with a curt nod, “right.” His expression softened; at least, as much as it ever did. “Uh, for what it’s worth… Sorry. About your friend. I know how… I mean, it fucking sucks.” He glanced away, tapping a finger against his thigh absently as he considered. “We start with the party,” he said. “Figure out who threw it, who was there. Compare that to the people who were at the one where my client’s kid drowned. See if there’s any overlap. If there’s not, we know it was unrelated.”

“Well I appreciate the sympathy. I agree, it fucking sucks.” Noel relaxed slightly as Erica spoke, and felt Erica’s face relax a bit more as well. Emilio seemed to have let Erica’s joke slide, which was good. At least Noel assumed so. She doubted many would be trusting of a ghost, even if they found out they’d been talking to one unknowingly the whole time. If Noel had been approached by any strange spirit she certainly wouldn’t.

“Yeah, starting with the party would be good. Not sure standing around a lake is going to get us much,” Erica said, absentmindedly kicking at a clump of grass. “I can maybe look through Erica’s phone or something. Ask around. See if she was with anyone in particular or who might have been there and saw something.” Erica pulled Noel’s phone from her pocket and hesitated, trying to remember the pin before finally opening it.

“Willing to share numbers with a stranger? Cus I can look into this on my own but two heads is better than one.”

She seemed a little less on edge now. Funny, the way people eased up a bit when you stopped being an outright ass to them. Emilio still watched her with a critical eye, but he’d accepted that she wasn’t here to make trouble. She was a person who was grieving. He could understand that.

“Looking into crime scenes is never how I solve my cases,” Emilio admitted with a shrug. Maybe if he had access to a crime lab or something similar, scenes like this would do him more good. As it was, he only ever visited them to get a general idea of the outline of a case. At least this time, it had granted him some additional information in the form of Noel’s story. Learning more about Erica’s case would help him solve his. He was sure of it now.

Pulling his own phone out of his pocket, he nodded. “No sense doing this shit separately if we’re both looking for the same answers,” he agreed. “You tell me what you find, I’ll do the same. Sound fair?”

“Sounds fair,” Erica said as they swapped numbers. Now the only worry was if Emilio tried to call Noel while Noel was minding her own business. Could she pull off pretending to be like Erica? Probably not. She’d probably let Erica take control again to talk with him in the future. Despite some rough patches during the talk with Emilio she was still better talking with people than Noel was.

Tucking the phone back into her pocket Erica smiled. “Probably should get out of here before a third person shows up and decides we’re both creepy for hanging around here.” With that Erica gave a short wave of farewell before heading back towards the road. When they were out of earshot Noel asked in her mind: Do you think he’ll actually tell you everything he finds?

“He better,” Erica said with a short laugh. “Or I’ll haunt him.”

#para #para: the deep blue goodbye #para: emilio #writing

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