Henley Valdez

Creator: Wolfi
Roleplay: Hiding Under Searchlight
Nickname: Henley

Name: Henley Valdez
Age: 36
Gender/Pronouns: female, she/her
Role: The Local

Personality: Henley is reclusive, paranoid, and obsessive. She isn’t unkind - she just doesn’t know how to let people in anymore. Her sense of humor is dry and sometimes unsettling. Despite her layers of suspicion and isolation, you can sense a flicker of warmth when she's talking about music - that's the one thing that still feels safe.

Appearance: Henley has an attractive, kind face, though there's something unnerving in her too-wide brown eyes. She's plump and stands at 5'2". Her bronze-colored skin has an unhealthy grayish undertone, and when she ventures outside of her refuge, she wears jeans, boots, a tank top, a white open-crown cowboy hat, and silver hoop earrings.

Short backstory: Henley's parents met at an early 70s concert at the Troubadour; naming their future daughter after the singing drummer was the least they could do. When it was time to settle down, Searchlight was charming and cheap.

Henley's parents set up a music store and called it Asylum Records. The town was a smidge too quiet for their tastes, so they booted up Searchlight's one and only local radio station, too. At the point where most kids her age started learning about the Civil War, little Henley was thoroughly educated in the great Eagles schism of 1980, and before long she was a walking encyclopedia on the entire California Country Rock family tree.

A few days before Henley's parents died in a car accident, her dad had pulled out their copy of Hotel California and told her to broadcast the first song. She found the solemness of his request a little strange, but played it anyway, and after it was finished, her dad said something cryptic. "The answers to everything lie in that song," he said. He didn't elaborate.

The deaths of her parents marked an abrupt end to Henley's childhood. Without sufficient emotional support she turned into a paranoid, secluded, and neurotic adult.

Searchlight is all she's ever known, so as a kid she didn't pick up on many of the odd goings-on. As she got older, paranoia opened her eyes. Henley's seen things no one should see.

In recent years Henley has hidden security cameras and mics around town to be more in the know, especially since she hardly ever leaves the record store.

Reason for being in Searchlight: Henley was born and raised in Searchlight. She must've left some time or another, but she doesn't remember where or when that would've been. Today, Henley owns and operates Asylum Records, a record store with a DJ booth for the K-WLSH 97.3 FM radio station in the back.