Chapter Text
As a co-host of one of the world's most popular true crime and conspiracy podcasts, Will is used to the unexplainable. He's in good company with the inexplicable and craves the incomprehensible, and there is very little that can faze him.
He's made a career out of mysteries that were deemed 'unsolvable'.
And he's made a life out of ignoring impossibilities.
So when he sees the girl in the cheerleading get-up, holding a sign reading 'TARTARUS TOURS' with a bored expression—or more specifically, when he sees the way her fiery red hair turns to actual fire in his peripheral vision (not to mention the glowing eyes and fangs)—he simply turns the other way. Will puts it out of his mind with practised ease, explaining it away with the sketchy, ill-fitting self-diagnosis of schizophrenia he gave himself after scouring the public library for answers in his early teens.
He doesn't allow his attention to linger any longer than a moment. It's second nature these days, with years of practice under his belt because he'd learnt his lesson and had no desire to be the guy who saw monsters (and not just shadows beneath his bed). He turns his back to the cheerleader and lets his attention wander once more. The airport is busy, with mid-morning resembling rush hour for planes. Something is landing and departing every few minutes, which means the baggage claim is packed with bodies. Will, as a result, is pressed against Cecil, and the boy's knobbly elbow pokes uncomfortably into Will's side. Will can't even see the luggage carousel itself, too many heads ahead of him blocking the view, so he's relying on Lou—freakishly tall as she is—to take the initiative on this one.
Thankfully, she's on it, head on a swivel, tracking the suitcases as they pass and focused with narrowed eyes despite Cecil jabbering on. Considering the height difference between Will's friends, he can't help but muse if Cecil's chatter reaches her ears at all.
"—It's just not feasible," Lou Ellen argues with a roll of her eyes. "An unidentified plane flying an unknown flight path would have been picked up on any number of global military satellite radars."
"Just like six missing persons and a girl who legally doesn't exist would have been flagged showing their passports at any international airport terminal," Cecil says, "The seven of them flying across the Atlantic in an illegal plane is just as unlikely as a commercial aircraft. It's not as though they haven't illegally chartered a plane before."
He follows her when she pushes through the crowd to grab Will's suitcase—branded and obnoxious with 'SOLACE' monogrammed across the front because Mr Dare doesn't do anything by halves—and Will is forced to latch on to Cecil's arm lest he lose both of them. A steady stream of apologies tumbles off his tongue like loose change with every jostled shoulder and accidental trip over strangers' shoes.
Meanwhile, Lou Ellen is replying, "Yeah, Annabeth's dad's biplane—which crashed and was detained as police evidence. Not a military airlifter with no insignia and the apparent ability to disappear for long portions of flight before popping up again in another city."
"I'm just saying, what are the chances that a mysterious unidentified plane crosses the European coast at the same time The Seven were seen in the same places?"
Cecil's suitcase is next to join the group, not an inch of sleek black acrylic in sight and looking like a middle-schooler's laptop case or the back of a middle-aged mother's Kindle, covered as it is in stickers. They're an odd mix, ranging from travel-themed ( 'if you're close enough to read this, you've got the wrong bag') to god-awful journalism jokes ('trust me, I'm a journalist!'), all peeling away at the corners.
"So, what? You're suggesting they flew in a giant untraceable and occasionally invisible plane?" Will chimes in dubiously.
"Well, no. Short of alien technology, no country has that sort of technology yet—let alone back in 2010."
The world is certainly advancing: 2015 has been a hotspot of what the news channels will call life-changing inventions. Though Will doesn't exactly agree that the hoverboard (the half-scooter-half-segway, not the cool floating ones from the movies) deserves to be a part of that list, among self-driving cars and needle-less vaccinations. All that said, they've not reached the point of advanced cloaking devices—yet. Will can still dream.
"So, hypothetically, we could be dealing with an alien warship equipped with something like a Sinrich Optical Dephaser?"
"You're referencing Star Wars again, aren't you? I thought we banned talking about Star Wars during the trip?"
It's not that Cecil doesn't like Star Wars ; he likes the movies well enough and on most occasions will happily join Will in his rambling. But Will has been known to fill long interstate car rides with how the debut of Star Wars in 1977 caused a tectonic shift in the way movies are made even today. You'd think any sane person would enjoy this kind of commentary—but you'd be wrong. Because Will never does get past the impeccable sound design of lightsabers ( "The Dark Side's sabers are in a minor key, all foreboding, and isn't that neat?" ) before Lou Ellen reaches for the radio dial and winds the volume up to something migraine-inducing just to drown him out. To put it shortly: she's not a fan.
In their trio, they all have ADHD, but Lou's manifests a little differently than Will and Cecil's; she's got an intolerance for repetition. It's a trait that makes her incredibly efficient, no time wasted on rehashing conversations already had after all. But when Will's got the type of ADHD that lends to him fixating on the same piece of media since he was nine years old, well, they can clash.
Cecil, unwilling to deal with his two friends and co-workers arguing 24/7 the entire trip, banned the topic entirely.
"And I thought we banned talking about work until we made it to the hotel," Will says, "And you can't expect me not to talk about Star Wars when you are suggesting a literal Stealth Ship could exist."
"That's not what I was saying—"
"No, you were just implying that seven kids travelled internationally via a military plane that by all accounts doesn't exist ," Lou Ellen says dryly, her own luggage now on the ground beside her. "Get your shit, I booked a car."
And then she's off, weaving through the arrivals crowd with purposeful strides, the hem of her bell-bottoms swishing along the terrazzo floor. As Will follows after her, he sends a final glance over his shoulder to the fire-haired girl by the carousel. There's not an ember in sight, just a typical red-haired teenage cheerleader looking boredly upon the crowd.
"It's really not that far-fetched," Cecil mutters, mildly glaring at Lou's back. "It's not like I'm suggesting Jackson jumped from the Gateway Arch like half the idiots online. The plane was actually sighted, there's footage of it!"
(They'd disproven the Gateway Arch theory in Season Two, with the help of a few Cambridge mathematicians and several annotated diagrams.)
Will lets him grumble and gripe. Truthfully, the whole plane thing is interesting; Will is excited to see where their investigation takes them. Because Cecil's right, the plane is sort of famous in the aviation community thanks to its lack of insignia and deviation from any standard military flight paths, which means practically every local plane-watcher took a picture of the aircraft. There's a lot of evidence of its existence. Will just isn't so sure about The Seven's involvement in the whole thing.
Because they're kids, right? So, the idea of them stealing—or even just being escorted by—a military transport plane is rather implausible. Cecil would argue that at least one of these kids was an accused terrorist at one point in their life and, therefore, on the military's probable watchlist. Still, wouldn't the government have just buried the whole missing persons case if they'd been involved? And yeah, Will isn't going to entertain the entire 'seven teenagers stole a transport plane from a high security depot' theory for obvious reasons.
Like many aspects of this case, it doesn't make sense. But they'll cross that bridge when they get to it.
Cecil has moved on to a new conspiracy now—some cult run out of the Dallas Museum of Art—hot on Lou's heels and an avalanche of words spilling from his lips. Lou, as always, has no qualms debating with him, levelling Cecil with an unimpressed glower and an elbow to his side. They're like siblings in that way, have been since the moment they met, snippy and teasing. Too similar for their own good and yet different too.
Cecil Markowitz is a literal child in an (albeit short) adult body. All that to say, he dresses like a teenage boy: his hair, an auburn bird's nest in a perpetual state of certified, uncombed chaos, and his clothes rumpled because he's never used an iron in his life. He's chronically online, and it shows .
Lou Ellen, whilst also attached to her phone, is the definition of put-together: hair in perfect braids, nails always done, and a sense of style that isn't just a flannel thrown over a graphic tee and boxy cargo shorts like Will's.
Will has had to separate the two of them on more than one occasion.
But today, they make it to their ride without one such incident (if you discount Lou Ellen shoving Cecil into the middle seat unceremoniously). It's one of those fancy electric cars that are coming onto the market, so Lou Ellen has no doubt splurged with the company credit card. Cecil splutters out a protest from inside the car, cut off with an oomph when Lou Ellen slings her backpack at him. Lou Ellen meets Will's equally unimpressed gaze over the roof of the vehicle before the two of them slide into the leather car seats.
If the driver is surprised by their overall lack of professionalism, he doesn't show it.
"So, do we have any good leads?" Cecil asks once the car door slams shut behind Will. He'd been back home in Michigan for the holidays, and the lucky bastard managed to skip all the production-team meetings. They'd been extensive for this season, from organising sponsorships to pre-season marketing, and Will had spent far too many hours sitting in the same boardroom listening to people in suits talk.
"I thought I said no shop talk?" Will says.
"And then you started making Star Wars references, and our deal became null," Cecil informs him, matter-of-fact.
"It was one reference."
"Still counts."
"We have leads—enough eye-witnesses to interview and footage to follow the trail from the coast up to Alaska," Lou Ellen supplies, "then we'll hop across the Atlantic for the European leg."
"Hell yeah, we're going international!"
Despite having already known that the trio would be travelling to southern Europe for several weeks now, Cecil is no less enthusiastic.
To be fair, it's a big deal. This whole season is, really.
Their podcast is popular, yes, but international travel—even with their frankly massive budget from Dare Enterprises—had never really been on the table. There had been no justification for it before, what with their first season covering the disappearance and reappearance of Thalia Grace, daughter of famed Beryl Grace. And their second season was even more of a local mystery: the 2005 kidnapping of Percy Jackson.
But this mystery, The Seven, it's vast—and global.
A few years ago, Will would have scoffed if you'd told him he'd be the co-host of a famous podcast, travelling the world with his two best friends and attempting to solve one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Back then, he was a college student in student dorms, producing a missing persons podcast with his roommate—Cecil—for their journalism final project. Their 'budget' consisted of the webcam and microphone Cecil pilfered from the IT Labs, a stereotypical corkboard complete with push pins and red string from a local thrift store, and travel via the subway with their expired MetroCards.
They've come a long way since then.
Truthfully, Will never expected their podcast to garner the attention that it did. 3.7 million listeners is incomprehensible, really, and while Cecil likes to brag ceaselessly that he's a celebrity, it's not entirely false. Sure, they might not be recognised daily, it's a podcast after all. Still, it happens often enough that Will has begun carrying around a pen for autographs. They're not actors or popstars—far from the A-list—and thankfully, the paparazzi take no interest in their little trio. Still, they've got a following for sure. Enough that their current presence in San Francisco will be trending by tomorrow morning.
"You think we'll find 'em?" Cecil asks, as he always does. It's a ritual at this point.
Of the trio, he's the most invested in this particular mystery. He usually is. Cecil is enthusiastic by nature, there's a permanent bounce in his leg that refuses to settle, and Will is pretty sure he has seen Cecil's thumb twitch as if scrolling on his phone even in the rare instances the device isn't in his hand. How he fits all that energy in his short frame, Will will never know. It's a scientific marvel.
"But first, you two are going to the docks."
Will wrinkles his nose at the same time that Cecil buries his face in his hands with a dramatic groan. It's times like this that Will regrets allowing Lou Ellen to plan their itinerary, but being their primary researcher makes her the most suitable for the task (even if she gives herself the best assignments). Cecil and Will also conduct research, but Lou Ellen has a knack for finding leads that others can't, and Cecil is often too busy with the production process to go digging.
Will does a bit of everything, but his talent lies in interviews. He's just good with people, really, all bright smiles and a straightforward demeanour that more often than not has people forgetting the negative connotations of his journalism degree.
"And where, pray tell, will you be while we get all too familiar with the smell of fish?" Will asks.
She smirks at him sideways, "Following up a lead of my own."
<< | | >>
The docks do, in fact, smell of fish and brine. It takes conscious effort not to gag on it and to instead keep his face set in something close to a pleasant expression.
"Hi Jonah, right?" Will greets, a smile pasted on his face and his hand regrettably extended. Regrettably, because it is not just the docks that smell like fish, and Will's hand, shaken with a firm grip, is now a victim. Once Jonah has released him, Will holds the extremity awkwardly away from his body in an attempt to quarantine its newfound fishiness from the rest of himself. Meanwhile, Cecil is stifling a laugh at his predicament.
"That's me. Now, which of 'ya is Cecil and which of 'ya is William?”
"Cecil," Cecil pokes a thumb to his chest and then in Will's general direction. "Will."
Jonah nods. He's a burly man, with low-set brows that make him look perpetually angry, and Will finds himself humorously trying to picture a younger Jonah attempting to look anything other than furious on school picture day. It's a silly image: a little boy, a mop of black hair on his head and bushy eyebrows tipped in the same downwards slant as the set of his mouth.
"New Yorkers, right? Did'ya have an alright trip?"
"Can't complain, I slept like a baby the whole flight," Cecil says, bobbing his head.
Will mutters, "And kept the rest of us awake with your snoring."
Jonah barks a laugh, loud and not entirely unlike the squawks of the seagulls haunting the dock. It draws curious looks from the other dock-goers, stares that have Will shifting awkwardly on his feet. Jonah seems to bask in the attention, though, offering a wave to one of the fisherwomen who's looking Will up and down with a judgmental frown. She doesn't wave back, lips twisting into something of a sneer and turning back to her tangled ropes.
"But yes, we travelled well," Will confirms. "Lou Ellen told you why we're here?"
"About the ol' Pax , yeah?" Jonah says, "Now, you ought to get your fancy recorders ready, I got quite the tale."
Cecil does just that, pulling his recorder from the pocket of his corduroy jacket and clicking the switch that makes the little red light blink. "For the record, do you consent to being recorded?"
"Yeah, wouldn't've invited 'ya otherwise."
"If you'd please state your name?"
"Jonah Miles."
Will takes over from there, asking, "You own a boat moored here at Alameda docks, yes?"
"I do. I've been docking here for over twenty years now. I'm a fisherman, and got my small rig—passed down in the family, from my father and my father's father and such."
Small is one word for it, Will thinks when Jonah points out his boat. It's tiny compared to most of the ships around it, with a narrow centre console which looks like the sheer force of the sea has knocked it askew, leaning port side. Barnacles armour the hull, the cream of their calcified shells at odds with the dark navy of the boat, where the crustaceans extend past the waterline.
"You must've seen your fair share of boats pass through these waters then. People too. Ever seen anything peculiar?"
"Ah, I could talk your ear off about the strange people that wander into this 'ere dock, but that ain't what you're 'ere for. You wanna hear about the Pax."
The guy is performative—Will would give him that—happily surrendering to the story, if a little too eagerly. He gestures widely, so much so that Cecil takes a cautious step back before he can be swiped by a stray arm.
Cecil leans into the drama. "The Pax? "
"The boat was a bit of an urban legend, moored here for years—ain't no one that knows when it arrived, even ol' Smithy." He points to a man standing hunched over a walking stick further down the dock, so frail looking that Will worries a light breeze would send him into the bay waters. "Ol' man has got to be pushing one hundred by now and swears on his late missus that the dinghy was around when he was a boy."
Will is doubtful of that. The docks around here are well regulated, according to his research; an unregistered dinghy would've been impounded before it could stay moored for ninety-odd years. Still, he swallows his disbelief and keeps that curious smile on his face.
"So, no one knows who owned it or where it came from?"
"Nah, it sat 'ere for years, never moved—let alone set sail."
"But it's gone now?"
"That it is. Disappeared one afternoon, some five years ago now."
"But you saw what happened to it?" Will presses.
Jonah grins. "That I did. I thought they were odd, you see—a couple of high schoolers on the docks, with overnight bags slung across their backs. It's a bad area 'round here, really—lots of gangs, not a good place for a couple of kids." He looks across the dock, gaze distant, as he continues, "They looked around for a bit, like they had purpose. Checked out all the boats' ere , until they apparently found what they came for."
"Found what?" Will presses.
The man sends him a look that says, 'What do 'ya think, idiot,' but entertains Will nonetheless. "The Pax . Practically beelined to it once they'd spotted it—little dinghy thing, been sittin' under an ol' tarp—and talkin' about some navy. One of the boys knew his way around a ship, too, had it on the water in minutes and off they went."
Jonah motions to the open water of the bay, those thick brows furrowed when he turns back to the two boys.
"These three teenagers, can you describe them?"
"I could, but I needn't. You know who they were," Jonah shrugs, "I'm a long-time listener, not early -early or anything, but I found your podcast a couple of episodes into your Thalia season. Imagine my surprise when season two comes around and I recognise the damn subject. Perseus was older when I saw 'im , certainly, but I knew it was the same guy. So, I reached out to ' ya , and you lot sent a photo back asking if I'd seen any of 'em too . "
Cecil clarifies, "For our listeners at home, this was the infamous photo of The Seven."
"Them the ones," Jonah says, "And lo and behold, I'd seen three of 'em. Perseus, Frank, and that mystery girl without a name."
Will doesn't bother correcting the man, even though he's reasonably certain ' mystery girl' does, in fact, have a name—just one that no one knew, given the whole no records, no identity thing. That's what makes her so interesting, perhaps even more so than the rest of the missing children that made up the ragtag group.
"Can you show us where the boat was docked exactly?"
"I can do you one better," Jonah smiles, "I can show you what they left behind."
<< | | >>
"A boat tarp?" Lou Ellen says two days later as she takes in the sight of the dusty, purple fabric that Cecil holds up for her perusal.
"Yep!" Cecil says, popping the p as he smiles brightly.
Will doesn't share his enthusiasm; in fact, he hasn't even lifted his head from where it rests on his arms. His voice is muffled when he remarks, "I still smell like fish, and all I got for it was a glorified boat cover."
He'd taken multiple showers too in the hotel room last night, and still the scent lingered; it clings not unlike the barnacles littering Jonah's boat. Even Cecil, whose room is always a pigsty and who frequently leaves dirty dishes in the sink to go mouldy, wrinkled his nose when Will sat down on the plane next to him. It was a notable low in Will's life, really.
They'd flown from San Francisco to Portland that afternoon, meeting Lou Ellen, who'd arrived a day ahead of them. Will is already beginning to feel the weight of travel fatigue settling over him, familiar from his early childhood spent in the back of a tour bus with his mother.
Will has lived his life out of a suitcase all his life. Even during his high school years, when his mother's music lost popularity and they settled in the middle-of-nowhere Texas, Will didn't unpack.
He'd always had one foot out the door, waiting for the chance to leave. He's more like his father than he'd like in that way, leaving his mother at the first opportunity of something better.
Moving to New York for college was more of the same. He quickly discovered New York is nothing like Round Top , Texas. Truth is, Will didn't like New York City. The air tastes of cigarette smog for one, and there's always a siren ringing out shrilly somewhere nearby. It's headache-inducing on the best of days. And that's without mentioning the subway crowds or the jerks that catcall Lou Ellen from across the street. So Will didn't unpack, even as the years passed. Not when he graduated with his bachelor in journalism, or even when he moved out of the shitty student dorms and into their far nicer apartment included in their contract with Dare Enterprises.
Now, Will is twenty-one, and still he carries this habit—still able to pack his life into a single bag. Cecil calls it his ' capsule wardrobe' in a tone that suggests that his best friend is judging Will just a little. They are polar opposites in that way: Cecil's room is filled with trinkets, most of which he couldn't tell you where he got them from, but wouldn't get rid of.
So, Will is in Portland now with his whole life in his suitcase and still nothing of any real value except the company credit card. They've tracked the Pax here, or more accurately, they tracked the trio of mysterious kids to a market square by Glisan Street, by the Willamette River. 'Tracked' implies that they did some kind of intelligence-agent-level sleuthing, and whilst on occasion Cecil has been known to use his uncle's authorisation to dig into police records, nothing so crass was needed this time. It turns out that when you have 3.7 million people listening to your podcast—the majority of which are American—there's a relatively large number with viable witness statements.
Some are individuals who filed reports with the police during the time the missing person's case for Perseus Jackson was active, in 2010. After the police case was closed without any answers as to why this kid was running around cross-country and cross-continental, they contacted Will and his team. Others are the listeners who didn't even know Perseus Jackson crossed their path five years ago until Season Two aired, and they've sent in statements about their sightings too.
There are the occasional false leads, those who fill out the form or send in a message just for the hell of it, just in case it catches the podcast's interest and thinking maybe they'll get themselves on an episode. Lou Ellen is an expert at weeding these out, though, and they spend very little time chasing false leads these days.
" S-P-Q-R ," Lou Ellen reads off the tarp, a frown on her lips and nails clicking against her phone screen, her purple and orange polish blurring with the haste of her typing. "Senatus Populusque Romanus, or 'The Senate and People of Rome' —refers to the government of the Roman Republic."
"Weird," Cecil mutters, turning the tarp towards himself to take in the embroidered gold lettering. The three of them are sitting at a lone picnic bench in the parking lot out back of a cluster of food trucks. The lot appears to have undergone recent upkeep, with new asphalt installed to fill the cracks in the old grey surface.
"It gets weirder," Lou Ellen says, turning her screen to face them. The image is pixelated due to its magnification. If Will hadn't studied it previously, he'd be clueless as to the image's subject. He's seen this picture before, though; it sits pinned among the other photos on their board of compiled evidence for the case thus far.
Jason Grace's tattoo.
The tattoo itself is too indistinct; the distance from the camera and Jason's movement have made the image blurry. They'd already tried running the image through various programs to clear it up, but it's just too pixelated to salvage. Sketch composites were slightly more successful, hypothesising that the tattoo had two parts: an illustration above and a four-letter word below. The letters, bold blocks of ink that spilled into one another, are practically illegible—but if you squint…
"You think it could be?" Cecil tilts his head. "It does sort of look like there's an S there, and that one could definitely be an R. " He points to each on the screen.
Will hums his agreement. It's definitely viable, which only raises more questions. What were Perseus, Frank, and their mystery girl doing with a suspicious boat that might have shaky connections to—another missing person—Jason Grace's tattoo?
Lou Ellen shrugs. "It could be a coincidence?"
None of them believes in coincidences.
Will coughs, clearing the awkward, doubtful quiet that has settled with little grace. "How'd you go with your lead?"
Lou Ellen straightens, a glint in her dark eyes that suggests whatever she found is good, really good. There's pride in her stance, shoulders tipped back and a smug tilt to her lips. "I went to the DMV, right, and asked about the Pax's registration."
She'd told them as much, departing the hotel at the same time that the boys had headed off to the docks, while she left to catch transportation to the Fell Street DMV.
"The boat is in their system," she says, reaching into her shoulder bag and retrieving a stack of crisp papers in a manila folder, flicking open the cover to show off the top form stamped with ' CALIFORNIA DMV ' in bold. "It's just…"
She pushes the file to Will, and Cecil clambers to read over his shoulder. There are a lot of forms: Vessel Information, Vessel Particulars, Service Information, Certifications, Insurance and so on. At first glance, it would seem everything is in order.
It's not. It's impressive how thoroughly useless this paperwork is. The boat is logged as the Pax ; no hull identification number to be found. Its dimensions are there, and Jonah wasn't kidding when he called it a dinghy—Will's not sure how three kids squished themselves into this thing. The picture of the thing, paperclipped to a page a couple of forms later, only proves this. But other than that, well, it's all conveniently unreadable. In some parts, the ink has smudged, in others, the words are nothing but indiscriminate scribbles, or there's been a copier error and it's too over-exposed to decipher. Anything that might have told them the boat's owner, its payment details, hell, its insurance information for Christ's sake, is essentially redacted.
Looking at one form, Will wouldn't have thought it strange, a believable error in paperwork.
But all of them?
Like he has said, none of them believes in coincidences. The look the trio shares says as much.
"So, we've got nothing."
"We know someone went to a lot of effort to hide this information. And that's not all I got," Lou Ellen says, sorting through the last form in the pile. "Seattle listed a boat, believed to be the Pax, as a shipwreck only a few days after it disappeared."
"They crashed it?" Cecil laughs in disbelief.
"They destroyed it—only two pieces were salvaged. DMV listed the passengers as assumed lost at sea after their investigation found nothing."
Sure, the boat was half-rotted, worn and battered, but for it to be destroyed , Will is reluctantly impressed.
"So, we're off to Seattle?" Cecil asks.
"Uh-huh," Will confirms, mind already set. This is a good lead; it gives them direction.
A figure exits one of the nearer food trucks, approaching their table with hurried steps.
Lou Ellen starts to scoop up the DMV paperwork, and in his peripheral vision, the forms clear—ink spills disappear, and illegible cursive turns to neat print—though strangely it seems to be written entirely in Latin? Will blinks, and his vision shifts, reality returning as Lou Ellen tucks the paperwork back into their folder and into her bag.
"Hey! I'm sorry about the wait!" The approaching woman says once she's in earshot.
The reason for their presence in this parking lot and Portland in general is a tall, middle-aged Brazilian woman whose arms are currently balancing an impressive number of dishes piled with vibrant food.
"You'd think we'd be used to the lunch rush, but it still manages to surprise us some days," she says with a sheepish shrug. "On the bright side, I brought leftovers!"
"Pia, how'd you know food is the way to my heart?" Lou Ellen grins, reaching out to help set the plates down on the table. Cecil has already made to grab a platter of what Pia tells him are Korean/Brazilian fusion tacos.
"Lucky guess," Pia laughs, eyes bright behind the thick, red frames of her glasses. "I can't have you going hungry waiting for little ol' me."
Lou Ellen waves her concern off with ease, assuring that they really didn't mind the wait, and after all the travel they've been doing, it's always nice to have a spare moment to take a breather. Pia is matching Lou, both wearing a muted purple shirt, though Pia is in simple jeans, and Lou Ellen has a tiered maxi skirt that blankets her legs and the picnic bench with how she is sitting.
"Shall we get into it?" Cecil prompts, fumbling to retrieve his recorder from the pocket of his jeans.
Pia nods, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear before clasping her hands on the table.
"Do you consent to being recorded?" he asks.
"Yes."
"And what is your name for the record?"
"Pia Almeida."
"Thanks, Pia," Lou Ellen smiles, "Can you tell us why you reached out to our podcast?"
"A coworker put me onto you guys, I'm not really a true crime enjoyer, you see. I've got too much of an overactive imagination; it'd keep me up at night," Pia says, "But when my coworker listened to last season, with Perseus, he told me I had to check it out. He knew that I'd be able to help."
"Help us with what?" Will prompted.
"Finding Perseus Jackson, that's what you're trying to do, right? I saw him: in exactly this spot, actually," she indicates the table they are sitting at. "He was with two others, and they met with one of our… stranger regulars."
"Maybe start by telling us about him?"
"I can, but well, it might be easier if I just—" she cuts herself off, pulling her phone from the pocket of her apron, clicking open what looks to be security footage from their food truck and pressing play.
<< | | >>
"Hey, Stranger!"
They're on a video call. His Ma has got him propped up against the fruit bowl on her kitchen bench, the misshapen clay one that Will made in art class back in school—Will can tell by the camera angle, tilted a little too high and showing off more ceiling than scenery.
Will, himself, is in yet another hotel room; he'd been halfway through packing his suitcase with the toiletries on the sink and dirty clothes that had migrated onto the floor, before they trekked further northwards that afternoon. He's got time later, since Cecil and Lou Ellen are taking care of the interviews for the day, but Will is sort of hoping to crack open his laptop and get to drafting the script for episode one.
He doubts that he will have the chance now, knowing his mother won't take well to their mother-son bonding time being cut short. Especially when they've got a lot to catch up on.
He'd had every intention to call her these past few weeks and avoid the lecture of how he ' never calls home these days', honestly. But preparing for the new season was a frantic rush of endless finance and marketing meetings, which made Will fall into bed each night with the intense desire to never speak to anyone ever again. And now their investigation has been moving faster than any of them expected, from San Francisco to Portland to Seattle. Time is slipping through his fingers.
"I know, I know, I should have called," Will sighs, abandoning his suitcase in favour of bringing out his laptop and leaning his phone against its screen, leaving him hands-free. "I've been busy."
His mother hums in that way that manages to exude disappointment. But she has the decency not to mention the weeks of missed calls between them and asks instead, "Where are you three now?"
"Seattle."
Will has feelings about Seattle: namely, the fucking overpriced real estate, the weather that is seasonal-depression-grey and dreary sixty per cent of the year and the overpopulation of cyclists invading the city. He's only been here twice: currently, and back when his Ma sang in some club that has no doubt been shut down by now, either for serving minors or not passing its health and safety checks.
"Washington, huh?"
"Yeah, we flew in this morning from Portland. A fucking red-eye, hence the eye bags." Will waves to the frankly awful crescents of purple staining the underside of his eyes. It sort of looks like he's worn mascara to bed, smudges dark against his freckled cheeks.
"That boss of yours is working you too hard," she scowls, "Keeping my son too busy to talk to his own mother!"
Will rolls his eyes, "Mr Dare isn't in charge of our schedules, that is all Lou Ellen. This season is just going to be travel-heavy, practically all over the states before we jump across the pond for the European leg—none of us want to drag it out."
His Ma has never liked Mr Dare: not an uncommon opinion given his past, less-than-ideal stance on environmentally friendly initiatives. Never mind that for the past six years, Dare Enterprises has been the leading powerhouse driving the sustainability industry, thanks to his Rachel Elizabeth Initiative— in honour of his missing daughter. Many people are sceptical of his sudden change of heart, and the internet remains rife with protestors.
But Naomi Solace isn't concerned with the politics of it all; no, Will suspects that his mother blames their podcast's contract with Dare Enterprises for Will's continued living away from home. She expected—or hoped for—him to move back to Texas after he'd finished college, he thinks. There's a picture in her mind of them living together, or Will nearby, bonding, doing typical mother-son things. It's the same picture Will had growing up in the back of a tour van with a too-busy mother and her shitty manager.
Will grew out of that dream a long time ago.
Naomi has grown into it.
It's a point of tension between them, a rope that pulls tight in moments like this when his mother drops not-so-subtle hints that he should visit, should stay a while , and Will acts oblivious to her intentions.
Will loves her, he does. But it had been a special kind of suffocating in that little house, and in that little town, living on his Ma's infrequent paydays while she grieved the stage life she once had and he grieved a stable childhood he never got.
He'd gone through school without any strong attachments; generally well-liked, the people-pleaser that he is, but overall, uninvested in the surface-level friendships he'd established. So when it came to college decisions, nothing was tying him down.
Moving to New York, he had just a few numbers in his phone of people from his track and field team, who had told Will to stay in touch and the odd assignment partner, whose number he never bothered to delete. They are the same people who message him out of the blue nowadays, like ' holy shit, you host that famous true crime podcast? ' as though it'd get them a name drop or something equally asinine.
Will leaves them on delivered.
He had expected the same of New York—to be relatively friendless, that is, because it's easy to feel alone in a city so damn big. He'd barely been lonely and sitting in his self-pity for an hour when Cecil Markowitz crashed into his life.
"Ah, how is Miss Lou Ellen? Not working herself into a stupor, I hope."
"She's…dedicated," Will says, "I swear, Ma, this case is something else. Nothing is adding up. Like, how did these kids get from San Francisco to Seattle so quickly? They'd have to be travelling at over thirty miles per hour, in a dinghy without a motor—there's no record of the thing even having oars!"
There are too many pieces of the puzzle missing. Don't get Will wrong: he likes a challenge, but this is his job. They can't exactly turn around a couple of episodes into the season and say, 'hey, sorry, but we actually can't solve this one!' without breaking a shitload of clauses in their contract. There are things they can't explain, mysteries that keep popping up, and right now it hasn't stopped them from moving forward, but Will is starting to feel like he's navigating a spider's web. One wrong move, one tug on the wrong red string, and they'll be trapped.
"We're headed up to the Zhang's residence in Vancouver soon—it burned down while Frank Zhang was gallivanting around the coastline," Will says, "His grandmother was a possible casualty, though no bodies were recovered, and the Cadillac registered under their insurance was missing. So, we're looking at potential arson these kids were involved in."
If they somehow got to Vancouver, that is. Because the airport would have certainly flagged two missing children and a girl with seemingly no identification. And if they did, why would Zhang burn down his family home? And if they weren't in Vancouver, what are the chances of the house burning down around the same time that Zhang was relatively nearby?
Will asks all this aloud, letting the words fall into the air as if they might coalesce there—pieces clicking into place. They don't, of course, but Will could hope.
Naomi, not always understanding all of her son's ramblings but listening all the same, says, "Sounds tricky, love. A good mystery. And Cecil, how is he?"
"Happily being a pain in my ass."
When he's not being snide, Will can admit that being placed in a shared dorm with Cecil in their first year of college might've been the best thing to happen to him. They fell into it, their easy friendship, with Will bearing witness to the chaotic mess that Cecil is and realising that the guy would burn the apartment down if left to his own devices.
Will, being an overwhelmed and undercaffeinated college student himself, didn't exactly have the desire or energy to mother-hen him, and honestly found Cecil's remarkable ability to burn every food he attempted to cook more than a bit entertaining. Generally, just watching Cecil muddle his way through life, one disaster after another, was one of the highlights of Will's college life.
The guy had a 'let's fuck around and find out ' attitude towards life, gulping down mixed drinks that definitely weren't good for his liver like they were fucking water in the back of parties. Meanwhile, Will watched on with morbid curiosity, wondering absentmindedly just how fucked his biliary system would get.
Despite Cecil's track record for mishaps, Will did follow Cecil into a journalism major, not something he'd ever intended to study, but studying with a friend sounded better than picking a degree at random and going it alone. And he'd come to enjoy it; Cecil and Will quickly found that they were good at it too. Still, Will had no idea what he'd do post-college until the paired project in their final year.
Missing Persons , they'd chosen as a topic and a podcast format because it sounded a hell of a lot more interesting than writing a series of articles.
That's when Lou Ellen got involved.
Lou Ellen, with whom Cecil shared a psychology course in his second year. She sat next to him three classes into the course because her friend ( "the coward, scared of hard work") dropped the course, and she wasn't about to sit alone in the second row for the whole semester. Anyway, the story goes that she slid into the seat next to Cecil, promptly psychoanalysed him, to which Cecil had spluttered for a minute straight (an impressive feat when the boy rarely shut up) before he decided they were henceforth best friends.
Despite him knighting her with best-friend-hood, Cecil and Lou Ellen weren't that close, just the occasional class-related text message back and forth. That is, until two years later, when Lou Ellen responded to their desperate advertisement on several of the campus's Facebook groups for someone to interview for their podcast's pilot episode.
As the half-sister of the missing person, Alabaster Torrington, Lou Ellen had been perfect for the role. She'd done a DNA test as a kid, looking for answers on her birth parents, only to find out she had a half-brother to the same absent mother. But when she'd shown up on his supposed doorstep, Mr Torrington admitted Alabaster had gone missing just a month earlier and still is to this day.
Despite Cecil and Will putting their best investigative journalism skills into the case, they never did locate Alabaster—though they provided enough evidence of his continued existence to prove he is alive. The cops have since reopened his case.
Lou, older than the pair by two years and finished with her psychology degree, and studying a criminal justice master’s, joined the podcast team after that.
It's an odd team, an even stranger group of friends, but he wouldn't have it any other way.
Will's phone call continues with much of the same, his Ma catching him up on the gossip of Round Top , though there is only so much drama that can occur in a small township like back home.
After some time, his Ma asks, "Where will you be travelling next?"
Will shrugs, "Vancouver, and then Anchorage, I think. After that, I'm not sure. Hopefully, Lou Ellen and Cecil will get some kind of direction from today's interviews."
As if summoned, his hotel door is thrown open to reveal Cecil, wide-eyed, chatting away and gesticulating widely to Lou Ellen, who barely glances up from her phone long enough to realise they've intruded into Will's room.
Will wraps up his call with a hasty, " Hey Ma, I've got to go—," hearing the tell-tale 'William Solace, don't you hang up on me!' before he hits the end call button. He already knows his Ma won't be impressed with him next time they talk.
"They stole a car!" Cecil bursts out, practically bouncing into the room and dragging Lou Ellen inside by the arm.
"A car?"
"A sports car! From an Amazon warehouse of all places."
What the hell?