Chapter Text
It greatly amused Eda that the clicking of Amity’s heels on the ground made a louder sound than her light knock on the door of Luz’s apartment. The green haired girl was unsurprisingly rather timid when Eda had asked her to come along with her and Raine as they visited the dingy basement lodging, but she relented swiftly. Eda wasn’t sure why Raine had insisted on coming; they had work to do, surely. There was no reason for them to spend their entire day chasing after Eda’s wild geese. Yet here they were, standing on the detective’s left, a leather satchel slung over their shoulder and a pen tucked behind their ear, peering over their rectangular spectacles as they awaited a response to Amity’s soft knock.
“Vee is usually super scatterbrained,” Amity explained, twisting the ends of her hair as her eyes moved back and forth between Eda and the door. “Takes her a while to answer sometimes. Family trait, Luz is even worse.” Eda nodded, noting the fumbling steps she heard behind the thin door. Evidently this “Vee” was both scatterbrained and a klutz.
A short Latina woman with close cropped combed hair answered the door, wearing a hastily thrown on yellow shirt. “Oh! Hello Amity…” the woman said, before coughing a couple times to clear her throat. “Sorry I didn’t return your call, I had a late night and needed to shower before you—”
“Don’t worry about it!” Amity interrupted, waving the woman off as she bounced back and forth on her feet. “I’m just glad you could make some time for us, I know this hasn’t been an easy week for you.”
The woman nodded and looked up towards Eda, offering the detective her hand.
“Victoria Noceda,” she said. “You must be the detective Amity mentioned?” Eda nodded and took the woman’s hand, ducking into the apartment as she did. “Pleasure, kid,” she hastily replied, peering around the corner into the living room. “Tell me, how long has it been since you last saw your sister?”
“Oh gosh, it’s hard to remember exactly, sorry,” Victoria said, rubbing the back of her neck as she, Amity, and Raine followed Eda into the low-ceilinged apartment. “She said she had a scoop about Gray Cosmetics, a contact she wanted to meet, and that she’d be back late. I think that was…Sunday?” Eda nodded, only half listening as she inspected the cushions of the moth eaten sofa at the center of the living room. A thin layer of dust had collected over the entire room, including the couch.
“Do you believe foul play was involved in Luz’s disappearance?” Raine asked, turning to Victoria while Eda continued her snooping. The Latina shrugged her shoulders. “I could see it,” she admitted. “But she does this sometimes, worried mama and I sick growing up. She’s very bad about checking her phone.”
“Not with me…” Amity mumbled, not loud enough for anyone to pick up on but Eda, who’d done the work to mentally filter out Raine and Victoria’s useless conversation. The detective rolled upwards and marched for the hall down where the bedrooms must’ve been. “Mine’s on the left,” Victoria offered, quickly following Eda. “Luz’s is on the right. You’re welcome to look around. I’m not sure it’ll be much help, though.” Eda nodded as she cracked the door open into Luz Noceda’s empty bedroom.
The first thing Eda noticed was just how loud the room was. Bright lavender paint adorned the few inches of wall that were visible. The rest was hidden by poster after poster wedged into every corner of the room they could be. A string of polaroids hung over a desk that almost made Eda’s look tidy.
Eda ran a finger along the wooden desk, examining it as only a little dust came up from her finger. “Ya been looking for clues here too, Victoria?” Eda asked, narrowing her eyes at the short woman. Victoria nodded meekly. “I wanted to see if I could find anything that would assist you. You’re doing us a big service, Miss Eda.”
“I’m just doing my job, kid,” Eda replied, pulling out drawers and rifling through journals and sketchbooks. “Plus, Boots out there already compensated me. Let the professional work her magic, I’ll holler if ya need anything.” Eda looked up from the desk, taking a deep breath before continuing.
“And do talk to Raine, will ya? They’ll be a big help if there really is anything serious going on.”
“You trust them?”
Eda nodded, almost instinctually. “They’re really damn good at what they do.”
“Does that mean you think there’s something amiss?” Eda paused, a bit puzzled by the question. She rolled up and looked at Victoria as she licked dust off her finger.
“Well, yeah,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Your sister is missing.”
“Oh, right. Duh!” Victoria laughed. “I meant anything more amiss than that.” Eda narrowed her eyes at the Latina, but shrugged her shoulders.
“Everything you said makes me think probably not, everything Boots back there said makes me think probably yes.”
“Amity’s always been a little…”
“Nuts?”
“I was gonna say high-strung, her and my sister have that in common. I don’t think I’ve seen her text anyone that intensely.”
“Sounds like she was really in love.”
“Yeah, must be nice.”
“Don’t I know it, sister,” Eda sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she heard Raine and Amity’s chatter pattering on from the living room.
***
“Okay so…what did you get?” Raine asked, setting two mugs down onto the counter of the dingy coffee shop the lawyer and detective had ducked into. Eda smirked as she stirred a packet of sugar into her coffee, pulling a pencil from tucked inside her hair. “Not that much,” she admitted, hurriedly scribbling into her ratty leather moleskin. “I mean, nothing we didn’t already know.”
“Victoria seemed really scared…” Raine mused, taking a long drag of their tea. “Although she didn’t seem like she had any idea what was going on.” Eda snorted, shaking her head as she continued to jot down details in her notebook. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Raine asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh Rainestorm,” Eda sighed, closing her notebook. “A lawyer really shouldn’t be so trusting.”
“You really think she had something to do with Luz’s disappearance?” Raine asked, leaning over the table. Eda shrugged as she sipped her coffee, grimacing slightly before dumping another packet of sugar into the mug.
“Maybe, maybe not,” she admitted. “But when two stories don’t line up, who do ya believe: the person who hired you in the first place or the person desperate for nothing bad to have happened?”
Raine thumbed their chin, lost in contemplation as they produced thin glasses from inside their jacket pocket. “Even so, it’s not like we have any real leads to go on,” they said, keeping their voice measured, as if they were trying to keep Eda calm. The detective rolled her eyes.
“Always so cautious,” she scoffed, taking a long, dramatic gulp of her coffee.
“When potentially going up against Odalia Blight? Yes, and you should be too Eda.”
“I thought we didn’t have any real leads.” Eda raised an eyebrow at her business partner sartorially. The lawyer sighed, removing their glasses and rubbing their eyes with their thumb and forefinger.
“Which is exactly what would happen if Odalia is involved,” they groaned. Eda beamed a triumphant smile at Raine as she produced her phone from god knows where, brushing pieces of lint from the case.
“That doesn’t mean you're right,” Raine clarified. Eda’s smile melted away, betraying real hurt in her expression. She quickly tried to form her face back into a smug smirk, but Raine clearly saw her pain.
“But you are so much better at this detective stuff than I am.”
“I sure hope so! It is my job, after all.”
“Yes, it never really stuck for me.”
“You’ve always had your own calling, and you do a good job with what you’ve been given.”
Raine smiled back at Eda, a faint hint of red dusting their cheeks that their former partner would have noticed if she weren't so wrapped up in her own head.
“If we’re assuming you are correct about Odalia’s involvement,” Raine continued, producing their own notepad from their leather satchel and returning their glasses to their face. “How exactly do you intend to follow up on that lead?”
“Well…Amity doesn’t want her knowing she’s a suspect,” Eda replied, setting her now empty coffee mug aside. “She never told the old hag about Luz, and if she wasn’t involved, Bossy Boots doesn’t want her putting her foot down about dating a working stiff.”
“So we have to surreptitiously snoop on one of the wealthiest women in the world,” Raine said, their bemusement dripping from their words.
“No one’s making you help me, Rainestorm,” Eda pointed out. Raine sighed. “You’re right,” they relented. “But you’re in over your head, Edalyn. I don’t want you getting into trouble.”
“I’m always in trouble! Trouble is my middle name!”
“No it’s not, that would be Owlbert.”
“Oh shove it!” Raine let out a sarcastic chuckle, before tucking their notepad back into their bag. “I suppose I know where this plan of yours is leading,” they said hesitantly. Eda flashed her business partner another toothy smile.
“You wanna say it or should I?”
“If I say it I become an accessory.”
“Then I can say it, it’s fine.”
“Let’s say it at the same time. One…two…”
“Breaking and entering!”
“I was gonna say it after three. Who says it on three?” Eda laughed heartily.
“Me! I do!” The detective pointed to herself with a flourish, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. “I break the rules. That’s what I do.” Raine rolled their eyes.
“What you do is solve crimes.”
“By breaking the rules!”
“And breaking into places.”
“Cmon, it’ll be fun! And we’ll find out what we need to without her ever knowing.” Raine traced a finger over their mug apprehensively.
“I’m sorry Eda,” they tepidly croaked. “But I can’t. If I get caught I could lose my license. I’ll be available on speed dial if anything goes south, but I just can’t.”
Eda took a deep breath, recentering herself as the rejection, however minute it may be, hit her. “It’s okay, Raine,” she said, giving them a third smile, less bright and sincere than the others. “I get it, I really do.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.”
“And that doesn’t mean I’m not still disappointed.”