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It's evening at Alias Investigations, and Jessica Jones leans back in her chair with her feet on the desk as she sucks languidly on a lit cigarette pressed between her lips. She takes a few long puffs and then emits the smoke throughout the office. "It doesn't add up," she mutters towards David. "Nine missing kids. No one is looking for them. No one thinks they're worth anyone's time."
Her lips purse and she straightens in her seat, "We should order pizza." Because pizza. This may or may not be related to the case.
*
It's late enough in the work day that David isn't sitting on the couch while he reviews their notes — he's laying on it. It's dark outside, which means that even if he's wearing a suit, he no longer feels a need to try to appear vaguely professional.
"It… might be the Project, but it isn't feeling quite right for that anymore," David grumbles, lifting his head enough to peer her way over the folder open in his hands. "Who else would have the kind of money needed to pay off the cops? Organized crime, maybe? Why?"
A pause, and David swings his legs around to sit up. "We should order pizza. What d'you want on it?"
*
Heather is on her way even as David is speaking. She's got a very heavy bag over her shoulder and a stack of boxes in her arms. The bottom box is research and newspapers. The top two boxes are pizza. She stops at the door and taps on it because she doesn't want to risk the pizzas trying to open it.
"David, I thought you might want dinner." Last time he worked late, he forgot to eat and she found him with his head in the fridge at three in the morning, looking confused about how to open the Tupperware. So, straight from her own job, she went to buy beer, some decent hard liquor, and then pizza. She really can't have David languishing if she can help it. Don't get her started on Jessica. She may never stop.
*
Jessica's lips part wordlessly as Heather enters Alias Investigation with pizza. Jess turns to watch David a few beats as if to ask the wonder of this pizza psychic, but she makes no remark, just scoots to her feet to relieve Heather of the pizza. She takes the boxes and sets them on the desk.
She looks towards David and the notion of dinner. "We were about to order pizza," there's something strangely suspicious with the observation as Jessica opens each of the boxes. Instead of waiting, she takes a slice of whatever's on top, using her hand as a plate as she shuffles back towards the papers she's put along the wall in a strange map of people and things thanks to string.
*
The tapping at the door gets David on his feet and over to open it, and then he blinks owlishly when the smell of pizza hits him in the face. Oh. Well. That… saves some time, doesn't it? "Thank you. Ah, I don't know if you two have actually met," he admits, ushering the redhead inside efore closing the door behind her. "Jessica Jones, Heather MacNeil. She and I are too old for fucking games," he says in an almost playful tone of voice. "Heather, my boss."
*
"Nice to meet you, Jessica." Heather is brisk more than she is bright; her slenderness is made a bit sharp by her mannish suit and not at all softened by her simple ponytail and dark-rimmed glasses. "Pepperoni on one, just cheese on the other. The boys in the office tell me it's sacrilege to ask for anything else in New York City." She sets the bag down carefully on the desk, pulls out two carriers of cold, bottled beer, and a couple other bottles in paper bags.
"Beer, for what it's worth." She winks at David. "And I wasn't sure what you fancied, Jessica, but it seems that whiskey is the thing one brings on the first visit to a PI's office." She sets the bottles down in the middle of the desk. "If you have a favourite, I won't forget."
*
Jessica's eyes flit between Heather and David as she takes a bite of the pizza. Her jaw tenses and her eyes squint as the whiskey is set on the desk. Her mouth gapes. Her head turns towards David and she puzzles over the pair. "You are too fucking old for games, North." Her eyebrows lift expectantly. "So am I, of rate record." She issues Heather an up-nod, "Jones. Or… Jessica, if you prefer. Good to meet you… Heather." There's a weird uncomfortable place at the use of Heather's first name.
Jessica takes another bite of the pizza and redirects her attention to the wall. "Nine students," she mutters, "all missing from Hell's Kitchen High. All labelled runaways without adequate evidence. Someone is in the police's pocket." Her jaw tightens as she chews on her pizza. "But where are they going? Where are you?" she stares at Charlotte Ferguson's photo — the girl who started them on this journey.
*
Without any prompting, David just offers the folder of notes he's holding to Heather as he comes up alongside her, hoping to free up his hands (and get an extra set of eyes on their data). Then he can reach for a slice of pizza, mainly because he knows that if he doesn't eat, he will probably get an earfull.
"Do we know anything at all about Fisk?" David asks, grabbing a beer with his free hand before he hitches up to sit on the armrest of the sofa. "Beyond the surface, I mean."
*
Heather takes the papers with an unspoken 'yes, dear' and then she leaves David, and Jessica, to their meals while she retreats with the folder.
"Fisk? He's a bit of an enigma," she says idly. Tucking her feet up, she lays the folder and some of the files out to read them in front of her while she removes the elastic from her hair and shakes it all out with a sigh of relief. There's a lot of it and having it pulled back all day is oddly wearing. She settles for absent-mindedly winding it into a single, thick plait like a schoolgirl's, over one shoulder.
"Hasn't come up in any of the organized crime research I've been doing as a backgrounder but, on the other hand, this is New York City. That's almost the anomaly, isn't it?" She sighs, wrapping the elastic around the end of her braid. "He's doing a lot of good, though — almost all of a sudden. Maybe something happened to him with that portal in Central Park? Or the vampire infestation in Hell's Kitchen? A crisis can bring about a rush toward altruism, can't it? Or a need to gain some control of things? Maybe it's something like that. It's been a weird year."
*
The question about Fisk is given a nod. Yes, they need info about Fisk. Jessica hums quietly at the thought. "He put money into a High School around the same time kids are going missing. That seems suspicious as fuck." But even as the words escape her lips, there's a faint rap against the door.
Jessica's eyes roll as she treads to the door, "We're fucking closed, come back during — " but as she opens the door to tell the person to come back later, a blonde girl falls against her. Fortunately, even with the shock of a body collapsing into her, Jessica has the strength to endure it. Within seconds she's dragon the other woman into the office. "Call EMS!" she instructs one of the other two as she shifts the blonde to the floor.
And as she does so, Jessica's face blanches. Her eyes widen as she leans over the other woman's body and presses her hand to a large wound at the girl's side.
Charlotte Ferguson, pale skinned, with long cuts dug out of her skin, and missing fingernails, has, undoubtedly, seen better days. The blood draining from the girl's side is very quickly finding it's way over Jessica, as the dark haired woman puts pressure on the wound. "Shitshitshitshitshitshit — " she mutters as she frantically tries to get control of the bleeding.
*
As Jessica heads for the door, David hums thoughtfully around a swig of his beer. "God knows Fisk could afford to pay off the police if he had —"
And the relaxed, unprofessional David is gone. He's already halfway to Jessica's desk by the time she's issuing instructions, his dinner clattering to the floor and forgotten as unimportant as he pounces on the phone. Once he's dialed, he points towards the bathroom, nodding crisply towards Heather. "First aid kit," he says, his voice quick but calm.
*
This time, Heather does actually say, "Yes, dear," on her way there. She's quick, returning with the kit and whatever towelling she can find in there.
"Let me see, Jessica," she says calmly, moving to replace Jessica's hands with some of the towels. "See if you can get her to talk, I'll deal with this. David, she might have been followed," she adds, raising her voice slightly to get David's attention. At the very least, someone must have noticed how the girl got here.
*
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," Jessica mutters as she relinquishes her spot to Heather. Blood has smeared across her jacket and pants. The dark haired woman frantically pats Charlotte's cheek. "Goddammit Charlotte, wake up!" Jessica leans closer to the other woman, "She's not breathing. EMS was called?" she taps the girls face again. "Come on, Charlotte, give me a breath." She doesn't know CPR, but she has enough sense to check for breath. "Either of you know CPR?"
*
Jessica's first question is answered once David hangs back up. "They're on the way," he reports crisply, and then he's taking a quick look out the window to see if there is anything to see out there. Heather knows CPR, he trusts her and Jessica to handle it. Whatever he sees outside doesn't seem to particularly alarm him, but he does turn to hurry his way towards the door — and past the trio of women. That wound is bad enough that there's bound to be a blood trail, and he intends to follow it as far as he can.
*
ROLL: Heather +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 94
*
"I'm not hopeful," Heather says bluntly. She's very steady, in spite of that. "Pressure," she says, guiding Jessica's hands to the towels. Once Jessica's hands are on the towels, Heather starts attempting to revive the girl.
It's an ugly business. Heather persists through the bone-crackling of the compressions, the blood all over the girl's mouth, the wrenching hopelessness of trying to push life back into someone…
And then the Charlotte's chest rattles, she gags, and she inhales.
"The ambulance better hurry up," Heather says neutrally. "Keep talking to her, Jessica, I'm going to get a blanket and some pillows." Couch cushions to elevate her legs, push blood back to her heart. Blanket as some kind of comfort, and a buffer against shock.
*
Relief washes over Jessica as Charlotte begins to breathe. "Come on, you're okay," Jessica runs a few fingers through the blonde teen's hair. "You're going to be okay," not that Jessica can make that promise or even adequately assess the girl's condition. As breath enters the girl's lungs, Jessica Jones emits a relieved sigh and sits back onto her heels. "Breathe. Just keep breathing, kid. We'll get you out of here."
Jessica's eyes trail up to Charlotte's picture — the girl is almost unrecognizable on the wall. The frown that plays over her features deepens. Something terrible obviously happened. Her throat clears. "Come on kid, come on — " the sirens finally enter earshot, bearing another wash of relief with them.
In minutes, the ambulance and operators are taking Charlotte out on a stretcher… and the police arrive.
A officer skulks into the agency, and directly addresses the dark haired woman, "Jones…?"
Jessica's eyebrows lift, "Yeah…?"
"I need you to come with me down to the station for questioning," it's not a request.
Jessica's head turns and she watches David and Heather in turn. "Fine." She looks between the pair again. "Give me a minute." Because she hasn't officially been arrested yet. She treads back towards David and Heather and lowers her voice, "Call Matt Murdock at Murdock Nelson. He's officially my lawyer. Or… if you can't get ahold of him," because Daredevil eats so much of Matt's time, "call Jennifer Walters."