Location Greyhound Investigations

[Mach2]

Greyhound Investigations

​

There's a small sign on the building's exterior door. Greyhound Investigations, in simple serif font. If you're not looking for it, you'd probably miss it. It's on the second floor, above a nail salon and an insurance broker. The office door is on the right, at the top of the stairway. Most people stop in by appointment. Julian Hale maintains no set hours, but if there's a knock at the door, he'll usually answer it, regardless what hour the knock comes at. The same text from the exterior decorate the frosted glass window, blown up into a larger and more noticeable sign. Below it, a piece of laminated paper is taped in place:

NOTICE

FRAGRANCE FREE AREA
PERFUMES, AFTERSHAVES AND OTHER
SCENTED BEAUTY PRODUCTS MAY
CAUSE ALLERGIC REACTIONS

PLEASE AVOID WEARING SCENTED
PERSONAL PRODUCTS WHEN WORKING
OR ATTENDING MEETINGS IN THIS BUILDING

The office inside isn't strictly luddite, but there is an unmistakeable shift in favour of analogue over digital. A filing cabinet stands beside the desk, and - despite the young age of the practice - its drawers are quickly filling. There is a desktop computer, but it sits at the edge of the workspace. An afterthought. An accessory, rather than anyone's primary working device. The brightness on the monitor is low. The center of the desk, the main workspace, is instead cluttered with notebooks. Thick ones, meant for archive and storage, thin scribblers for quick notes, and small rectangular pads of paper that could fit in a man's pockets for field work.

There's a bookcase by the window sporting a split personality. The top shelves hold the usual suspects for a private eye; local law, court proceedings, textbooks on investigative technique and cybercrime. But the bottom shelves hold remnants from a past life; anatomy, biochemistry, and neuroscience textbooks. The middle shelves host an assortment of cameras and recording devices, both digital and analogue. A photo printer rests there as well, its cord snaking discretely behind the shelf.

It's not a flashy office, but it's clear that efforts have been made to make the space comfortable. The fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling have had their bulbs removed entirely, and the space is instead illuminated with natural light filtering in through half-shuttered blinds and warm lamps placed wherever space is available. A low table supports a small coffee machine, the carafe half-full, the aroma wafting gently through the room. The wall behind the desk is adorned with a single framed photo: a dog race, with one greyhound bounding ahead of the rest.

In the corner of the room, a discrete HEPA filter hums.

 

[Phoenix]

At exactly three minutes to two pm, Sam parked her car outside the building. Looking up at it, she hesitated for a moment. This was desperate. She was supposed to be meeting with Adelyn later that same day, and she didn’t want the girl to think that she didn’t trust her ability to find Todd. That wasn’t the reason she was there, anyway. She trusted Adelyn to help her, she just wanted to make absolutely sure that nothing was missed or overlooked.

Despite being a vigilante, Sam had never been the one who was good at the in depth investigation stuff. That had always been Alice, and then Todd. A shaky hand ran through orange curls as she pushed the cloud of frizzy and unwashed curls back from her face. Todd would have been so sad, seeing her fall apart like this the moment he disappeared. It wasn’t as bad as when Alice had died… but it was pretty close.

She felt unsteady in a way she hadn’t since meeting Todd back in October. There was no harbor for her ship, no lighthouse to warn her of the shore. Eventually, she was going to crash, and the ship would go down. But until then, she would keep looking. The new reports were wrong. Todd wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. Sam would have known. They were soulmates, two halves of a whole, in harmony with each other. She would have known if he had died.

After a moment, she turned the car off and started in to the building. She hadn’t called ahead. For that, she felt a little bad, but it had only just occurred to her that she could do this that morning. If she had planned this out for more than five minutes, she probably would have showered, and maybe put on something other than Todd’s far too big sweater and her old jeans that felt just a little too tight at the hips now. She’d put on weight living with Todd, eating regularly again. Not that anyone would be able to tell the jeans were tight, not with how oversized the sweater was. It might as well have been a dress on her.

She almost missed the sign as she walked up the stairs. It was small and out of the way, and she frowned at the notice on the door. She sniffed the sweater, which smelled clean, then her hair, which smelled of nothing. Her skin had a distinctly salty scent to it, but she didn’t smell like any of her usual products, nor did she smell bad. Hopefully they didn’t take too much offense at the fact she was on day three of not showering, or that she hadn’t slept in almost a week. The vast void where there were usually dreams was too unnerving. Something about it felt… wrong.

It took her a moment to steel herself. Once she did, she raised her left hand and knocked on the door, her hand shaking slightly as it fell back to her side. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe, the PI wasn’t even home. She’d never worked with a PI, but she supposed that hiring a PI was different from working with one. God, what if this was a bad idea? Maybe, she ought to just go back to the car and head home. Maybe, she would have to tell them too much.

It was too late. She could feel movement behind the door, vibrations moving closer to her. She braced herself for the door to open, her gold eyes looking upward to where a normal person’s face might be.​

 

[Mach2]

The Beaumont case hadn't been difficult, but it had been tedious. The task had seemed simple on paper—serve divorce papers to a workaholic spouse who, so the story went, was too busy to respond to any of his wife's requests for a forwarding address. The sooner the divorce was finalized, the sooner that Ellie Beaumont could start receiving child support payments for the two toddlers she was now raising alone. Much to Julian's surprise, Matthew Beaumont was even busier than his wife and her lawyer had suggested. It had taken three full days of tracking the man's scent, piecing together an erratic schedule of meetings across the city, and trailing him from one late-night dive bar to another, before Julian finally managed to corner the young entrepreneur.

He was putting the last notes into the case file, preparing to close out and send the invoice, when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Soft footsteps. Too light to be a man, too steady for a child. He paused, slowly closing the notebook that he'd been writing in. There were no appointments scheduled this afternoon, and he rarely got walk-ins. The footsteps stopped, and he could see the silhouette of a figure through the frosted glass.

Hesitation. He raised an eyebrow at the door. She was in the right place. Occasionally, people would wander up from the street by accident, looking for the insurance broker on the first floor. But whenever someone was lost, they shuffled around. She had stopped, right outside the door. Purposeful hesitation. She was nervous, then. Finally, the knock came. Julian took an extra second sliding his notebook into the drawer, delaying his response just enough to obscure the fact that he'd been waiting for the knock, before pushing his chair back and heading to the door.

As he approached, the faint rhythm of an elevated heartbeat on the other side of the door confirmed his suspicions regarding this client's nerves.

He opened the door, letting it swing back to reveal the office behind him as he looked at the young woman at the top of the stairs. Air currents shifted as the door moved, wafting information to his sensitive nose. She had respected his scent-free workplace notice, but that couldn't stop the odors of daily life that clung to every person who walked through his doors. Julian's face betrayed nothing, but he instinctively dissected her scent. Traces of spice from the last meal she'd cooked. Acetone—she'd walked past the nail salon downstairs. Body odour. Nothing overbearing, but it was impossible for someone like Julian to ignore the distinctive scent of stress sweat. And...another scent. The too-large sweater she wore obviously wasn't hers, but the scent on it was so faint that it was difficult to hazard a guess at when it had last been worn by its owner. But it wasn't just scent the air carried. Julian had rolled back the sleeves of his button-down shirt while he'd been working, and felt a near-imperceptible temperature change dance across his forearms. Warmth.

"Hello there. I'm Julian," he said, offering a smile and a hand extended in introduction. He was soft-spoken. He'd been told it was a comforting quality, that the tone of his voice put people at ease. In truth, the habit had only arisen in the last few years, back when his senses had started spiking in college and he couldn't bear the volume of his own voice. "I don't believe I had anyone scheduled this afternoon. How can I help you, Miss...?"

Sometimes, he liked to play guessing games before his clients could answer. He would profile them based on their mannerisms, their clothing, their scents, their posture, trying to figure out who they were and what type of case they would bring. He didn't play that game now. Even someone without his powers of perception would be able to see the tangles in this woman's hair and the bags under her eyes. Whatever she was bringing to his desk, it was eating her up.

​

 

[Phoenix]

Looking up had been the right choice. While he wasn’t as tall as Todd– no one was as tall as Todd– he was still on the upper end of five feet, maybe even breaking the six-foot mark, making him nearly a foot taller than herself. Sam swallowed softly as he spoke, his voice light and soft. She looked at the extended hand for a moment before smiling in return and accepting it. Immediately, the sensation of vibrations rolled up her arm, and she felt his heartbeat first. It was steady and even, and hers immediately tried to sync to its steadiness. It brought her heart rate down and rounded it out, though she never matched it beat for beat.

The second thing she felt was, well. Everything else. Every vibration of his body, unique to him, completely distinct, traveled through her. She’d long since gotten used to such sensations. She’d grown up being able to feel these kinds of things, so it didn’t bother her. While she gave him a firm shake– two bounces– she spoke up. “Walsh. Sam Walsh. And, you’re right, we don’t have an appointment. I can come back another time if this is inconvenient.”

She withdrew her hand and clasped them uneasily in front of her. One of her hands went up to her messy curls and tucked them back over her shoulder. Now that she was here, standing in front of him, she felt almost embarrassed to be seen in such a state. It was one thing for Adelyn to see her as a mess. It was another entirely to be introducing herself to someone new like this. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, allowing herself to center the way Alice had once taught her.

“I’m sorry, I just. I really need help. But I can come back if you only take appointments. I completely understand if that’s the case.” She opened her gold eyes again and looked back up at Julian’s face– before stopping. She almost flinched away from him when she got a good look at his eyes. They were almost exactly the same shade of icy blue, dawn blue, beautiful, beautiful blue as Todd’s. It made her want to cry on the spot, seeing eyes so similar in color to his. She was able to spot differences, though, the more she looked at them. The corners of his eyes were different, the shaping in general was just a little different. They weren’t his eyes. No matter how close the color was.​

 

[Mach2]

Julian didn't want to profile, but it was impossible not to put pieces together. The handshake was informative. 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit. That was a low fever for anyone else, but Sam looked just fine. Disheveled, sleep-deprived, but not feverish or heat-stricken. Visually, nothing looked out of the ordinary, but she was running hot. Which meant that hot likely was her ordinary.

He made a note to tread carefully. Julian had no objection to working with metahumans. He'd taken a handful on as clients before, and they certainly made for interesting cases. But there was a difference between working with them and revealing himself in front of them. The latter was something he'd managed to avoid doing so far, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Around regular people, it was easy to let them think that he was just a good investigator. Sharp instincts, an eye for detail. He could underpromise and overdeliver on his cases, no questions asked. Metahumans were different. They had a better sense of human limitations, and might start poking around when those limits were surpassed. The last thing he needed was to start earning a reputation. Vigilantes, villains...either category could pull him into a mess he wasn't ready to manage.

Still, he wasn't about to turn her away. Elevated basal temperature was hardly a red flag, not by itself. And whatever it was that had flickered across her face when she'd met his gaze - recognition? Grief? - it was enough to pique his curiosity and quiet the overly-cautious part of his brain.

He stepped aside, motioning her in. "No, I do walk-ins," he said evenly. "Actually, your timing's pretty good. I was just wrapping up a case, and like I said, no appointments this afternoon. I'm all yours."

There were two chairs on the client side of the desk for her to choose from - wooden backs, plush cushion. Julian detoured past them, heading for the coffee pot. He wasn't big on lunch, but he could do with a top-up. "Coffee?" he offered, hand already hovering over the spare mug. If she nodded, he poured.

He settled into his own seat, flipping to a fresh sheet in a spiral-bound notebook and taking a sip from his mug. It was good coffee, and brewed strong. With every other food, he avoided intense flavours. But a relentless caffeine addiction managed to sway even his sensitive palette. "All right," he said, looking back at Sam. "You need help. I'm in the business of helping. Let's see if we can put some pieces together. What brings you to a private investigator?"

​

 

[Phoenix]

A deep sense of relief flooded Sam as she moved into the office at Julian’s gesturing. She sighed under her breath as a small smile crossed her face, shaky though it was. Everything about her seemed uneven, unsteady, even in the way she moved. There was nothing particularly wrong with the way she moved. There was just a heaviness, a slowness, that pervaded her every move. She took a seat in the left-hand chair, barely looking at them. Her head perked up when he offered her coffee, and she shook her head in response.

She watched him as he settled, looking at his cup of coffee, her eyes fuzzing out. It was black. It was like another knife to her chest. Many people drank their coffee black. It didn’t mean anything. The memory of Todd’s laugh rolled through her head as his face flashed behind her eyes, a cup of black shitty coffee in his hands as he smiled at her. It had been the last time she had seen him, before they had gone their separate ways to patrol. All at once, it hit her again. She covered her mouth with her hand as tears started to well up in her eyes.

“Sorry. Sorry, just give me a moment.” She almost laughed as she spoke, trying to cover up the sudden internal collapse. “I’m not usually like this. It’s been… a long two weeks. I’m here because…”

Her voice broke, and she laughed. The laugh helped to keep the sob in her chest from breaking free, and helped her to recenter herself. One of the tears slid down her face, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “It’s kind of complicated, but… my boyfriend has gone missing. He’s been missing for about a week. And I know he didn’t leave, he wouldn’t just leave. I know he wouldn’t.”

She pulled her phone from her pocket, swiping through the password and opening her image library while she spoke. She found the last photo of them, from New Years, where he had quickly kissed her cheek when she had taken the photo. They were both smiling, clearly happy, and it was a good picture of him. She had others she could give Julian too, but this one… this one showed that they were happy. It compounded on her belief that Todd wouldn’t just leave her.

“His name is Todd. Todd Fowler. I’ll tell you anything you need to know. Just, tell me what you need. Here, this is him.” She passed her phone over, setting it on the edge of the table, facing Julian. The sad smile was back, barely turned up at the corners as she looked at the upside down photo.​

 

[Mach2]

Oh dear...as soon as he noticed Sam's eyes beginning to glisten, Julian had a feeling about where this case was headed. Discretely, he opened the second drawer on his desk and pulled out a small pack of tissues. The travel-sized packs, the ones that could be stuffed into a purse or a pocket - she could take them with her when she left his office. Few people were ever in a cheery mood when they employed his services. Cynical lawyers, grieving spouses, exhausted small-business bosses trying to catch a thief on their payroll. If you were happy and content, you didn't come to him. The tissue drawer got good use.

He slid the small package across the desk with an understanding nod. There was no pressure, she could talk when she was ready. And sure enough, her next words confirmed his suspicions.

A missing persons case.

They were some of the easiest, at least on a technical level. All he really needed was a scent and some probable locations, and he could make quick work. Julian had a nearly flawless record when it came to missing persons. Knowing how to ask the right questions without making things worse... that was where the nuance came in. He scribbled the name 'Todd Fowler' at the top of the page, and took a look at the phone, processing every pixel.

The photo wasn't old, but the version of Sam in the picture was very different from the woman sitting in front of him now. Happy, relaxed. He turned his attention to the man. He wouldn't just leave. She might believe that, but Julian couldn't take everything his clients said at face value. He zoomed in on the photo, looking at the man, searching his face for any hint of doubt, any disconnection, any hesitation in the kiss. He could see nothing, but he committed the face to memory, scratching down a few notes on the page. He was a thin man, dark-haired. From his posture, the angle of the photo, he'd had to lean over. He was tall. None of the details in the background seemed immediately relevant, but Julian memorized them as well before passing the phone back.

"Well, Miss Walsh. The good news is that I've got a track record with missing people. Assuming he hasn't left the city, I'll find him. I'm not saying that to get your hopes up, just to set expectations," he explained. Speaking of setting expectations... "When it comes to missing people, all I can really do is find them. I'm not a social worker, I can't force reunions. I can find him, and I can try to make contact. I usually try to prepare people for the possibility that the person they're looking for doesn't want to be found...but you said he wouldn't leave, and I believe that."

He launched into investigative techniques 101, scribbling shorthand onto the page as they talked. The more information he could get, the easier the case would be - and the less jarring his final question might end up being. "A week ago you said? Is that when you last saw him?"

"And where was that?

He cycled through a few more basics before moving onto a question that he knew, if she could provide an answer, would probably be a more uncomfortable one. His voice didn't shift, it was the same soft and steady tone he'd maintained for the duration of the conversation. "Miss Walsh, do you know if your boyfriend's had any recent fallouts? Is there anyone in his life that might wish to...harm him, isolate him?" This one was as much for Julian's own self-preservation as it was a useful lead for the case. He liked to know what he was getting into.

​

 

[Phoenix]

Sam took her phone back after Julian had gotten a good look. She smiled a bit at the photo before relocking the phone and tucking it away. Then, she gave her full attention to Julian. While she had never worked with a private investigator herself, she knew the spiel about not being able to force people to come back. But with everything that had happened, with their breakthrough they had just had– Todd wasn’t gone by choice. He would want to come back to her. She was sure. So she nodded, and a bit more relief crept in as Julian told her that he believed her.

Maybe this wasn’t a bad idea.

As he asked questions, she answered them, as concisely as she could. She told him about New Year's Eve, about celebrating on the balcony and going their separate ways around 1 AM. She told him about Todd not coming back to their apartments above the gym, and about not seeing his car in any of their usual spots. She told him about Todd’s job at the mechanic shop and about how none of his coworkers had seen him. Then came the question that she was most concerned with answering.

After all, how was she supposed to phrase this? How was she supposed to explain that Todd had gotten involved with Slate of all things and that she was worried they had something to do with it? She didn’t want to lie to him, and she didn’t want him to potentially end up in trouble because of her. She had to be careful, though, because otherwise he would be able to piece together who Todd was. If he was any good at his job, that was.

“I don’t know if he’s had a falling out with them, but he has, uhm, gotten involved with some people I don’t like. He said he was being safe, but I’m worried they might have had something to do with him disappearing. I don’t know who all they are, but they’re a kind of gang. They hang out around The Diamond downtown.” She paused, then her face hardened a bit, and she suppressed the immediate response of anger and fear as she thought about Obsidian. “I think one of them would be interested in isolating him. I don’t think they’d want to hurt him, though.”

She shifted, nervously. One of her least favorite things was thinking about Todd getting involved with Slate. Especially so personally with the monster who had almost taken her life all those years ago. The monster that had taken her first soulmate from her. He had promised he would be safe, and tell her if anything happened. She had trusted that, and still did, but she couldn’t help the worry that something had happened.​

 

[Mach2]

As far as consultations went, it was a productive one. Despite how ragged Sam looked, she answered his initial questions without hesitation. As she spoke, Julian scrawled details onto the page. He interjected occasionally to prompt her for more details - what kind of car did he drive? Where was the shop that he worked at?

He stopped scratching away at the notebook for a moment while she answered the first of his tougher questions, instead shifting his full attention back to Sam. Despite the 'I don't know's that peppered her words, there was a tension in her face that suggested additional, unspoken, details. She wasn't lying, but there was information she was holding back. He didn't press. Not yet.

He tapped his pen, looking down at the page. The case was coming together. He had locations, that was half of the equation. But to really get to work, he still needed the other half. "The two of you shared an apartment?" he confirmed, setting the pen aside. "This...might seem like a strange ask, but if you don't mind, could I take a look around?"

"I realize you probably don't want strangers in your home, especially not right now. But I've gotten strong leads in the past from having a few minutes in someone's space. This," he explained, gesturing loosely at the notebook, "Is a great starting point. But sometimes it's hard to guess what piece is missing until you see it."

The first part was true. He had gotten lucky leads just from seeing someone's home for a few moments. People seldom realized how many details of their lives they scattered around their personal spaces. But the last sentence was a cover-up. Julian knew exactly what piece was missing. He needed to see where Todd lived, he needed to sit in a space where the missing man had existed and breathe deeply. There was a trace of something on the oversized sweater Sam wore, but it was fading. It wouldn't be enough to track a days-old trail across the city. "If you're not comfortable with that, though," he added quickly, "There's plenty here for me to work from."