Okay folks, here we are, week seven and time for Dean's brain to start working in overtime!
ViolentHugger03, Oh dear! Well strap in, because I'm afraid I love a good cliffhanger, so there might be a *few* more to come!
Wolfgirl2013, Thank you!
SkittlezLvr79, Haha, well, I know you love your guesses, so I'm going to give you some more information in this chapter, although there's still a lot more to explore. I've never written a proper whodunnit before and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I can see why Agatha Christie wrote so many now!
Mandy, Aww, glad the last chapter helped. More Roman and Dean in this one for you to keep warm by. Hope the job interview went well. There's something out there for you, you've just got to keep looking until you find it. You'll get there.
Not-that-kinda-gurl, Thanks! Protective Roman will always be my favourite thing!
Minnie1015, Hmm, well, I certainly wouldn't ever count you out. But I like to think the end will be a surprise (I think the key phrase here is 'I like to think') but there's going to be information being drip fed out almost continuously, so I kind of hope that no one guesses (of course someone will though...maybe you?!)
Skovko, Aww, poor Lacey Evans! I guess it might kind of fit though (except maybe imagine her outfits more toned down!) I think that's why Roman and Dean are such fun to write about, they counterbalance each other as characters so well!
Guest, Thank you!
XwwecoyoteX, Carl the pigeon is officially part of the gang! Dean is definitely going to start to smell a rat in this chapter (not literally though, since he would probably want to keep it!) and as usual, Roman is there to indulge him like the good office manager he is!
xXBalorBabeXx, He certainly does and don't worry, because we are going to meet Ella's husband before too long, because Dean is definitely going to want to talk to him!
Rebel8954, Aww, that's such a sweet way of putting it. Roman is definitely adopting Dean. He's mostly only adopting the animals because they come with Dean, but yep, family is definitely going to be a theme of this story!
Phoenix lord of rebirth, I think the cop has been around long enough that he just wants an easy life now. He'll be back next week though, with Dean making his life not easy! Also, there will definitely be suspense in this story (or at least, I hope it comes across like that!)
Okay, onwards and upwards folks...
SEVEN
Because he's not used to having a partner – or possibly because of the bottle of vodka he had opened the night before to unwind from the hanging thing – Dean nearly has a damn heart attack the next morning when somebody suddenly flings open the office door and strides in over the piles of paperwork and chewed up dog toys and dust.
"Hey Ambrose, you up?"
"Ho fuck," in response Dean rolls off the sofa still trapped in his blankets like a human tortilla wrap, which means he doesn't have his hands out to stop himself from falling and hitting the floorboards face first,
"Oh. You okay babe?"
Roman is stood in the doorway looking guilty, holding two styrofoam cups in his hands and with something tucked under the arm of his jacket, which is a navy blue affair with gold buttons on one side and which perfectly matches the blue pinstripe he is wearing and the actual, honest to god tie.
Dean frees his hand then makes a diver sign,
"M' good uce," sitting himself up he pushes down the blanket and then rubs his eyes too hard, "Fuck. What time is it?"
"Ten. I mean, I would have been in earlier," Roman offers back gently, "But I thought I should probably stop and get these first. Nothing fancy though," he grins at him fondly, passing the blonde a steaming coffee cup and repeating the same words from the morning before when Dean had said the same thing to him.
"Nothin' fancy suits me," Dean echoes back at him, before shrugging, "I mean come on, m' fuckin' sleepin' on a couch."
Having lumbered up from his spot beside the heating grill, Brock comes bounding – slobber flying – across the room and thrusts his nose into Roman's man satchel, which is not a euphemism.
He grins,
"Alright alright you big lug. Here," he pulls some carefully wrapped bacon from his pocket and then scoots it across the floor as Seth launches off the couch and scares Brock off by curling his tiny lip at him, "Got you something too babe. Figured you hadn't had breakfast yet."
"Fuck you're like Jesus," Dean exhales by way of a thank you, taking a packet Roman pulls from his man bag – which man Dean is going to rib him about later – and then takes a sneaky peek inside the grilled focaccia sub. Scrambled egg and bacon stare back at him, "Oh yeah. This is the good stuff."
He takes a greasy bite then stops as Roman trips over the Jack bottle and raises an eyebrow,
"Hey," the sleepy PI grunts, "Don't go all freakin' parent on me right now. I got a woman killed, I needed a nightcap alright?"
"Yeah, about that," Roman sighs back at him, holding whatever's stuffed beneath his elbow out, so Dean can get a good long look at it, "I took Hackett's advice. Bought myself a local paper. Take a wild guess what made the front page?"
He opens it out and although Dean knows what's coming, seeing Ella's photo still catches him like a slap, especially since it's not even a good image, since the woman looks miserable and super sour faced. Which maybe had been a sign of things to come in hindsight. A piece of scrambled egg falls out of the focaccia and plops down his shirt front.
"Shit, what does it say?"
Roman scans through it,
"I don't know, I haven't read it yet."
Back over at the scene of the bacon disagreement, Carl the pigeon has muscled his way in and frightened both Seth and Brock off the pig meat. Which, okay, seems a little bit wrong, because what happens when pigeons eat meat? Can they eat meat? Or does it make them ill or mutate? Or possible even make them turn into werepigeons? Because frankly that is all he freaking needs right now.
Roman shifts some paperwork off his desktop and drops down onto it as he opens the broadsheet out, before clearing his throat like it's freaking bedtime story time, even though Dean wants to hear every word. He takes a sip of coffee to prepare himself mentally – and okay, maybe physically – and then nods,
"Okay, go."
"The wife of philanthropist Christopher Hurley was found dead last night in a suspected suicide," Roman starts in a deep low timbre before glancing up.
Dean takes another sip,
"M' good."
"Ella Marie Hurley," Roman continues, "Had been married to Christopher for the past eighteen years, after they met at a charity gala being hosted by his property company, Hurley Estates. The pair have one child, a son named Henry who has been estranged from his father since 2013, citing amongst other things, his limited inheritance and Christopher wanting him to be able to stand on his own two feet. The division is known to have been difficult on Ella, who has been almost notoriously camera shy ever since and for the last six months has been a permanent inpatient at the famous Blue Skies Rehabilitation Suite. The last time she was pictured in public was two months ago, during one of her husband's latest charitable affairs, which ended in chaos when a small white chihuahua, owned by the reality TV star Eva Marie, got loose and caused Mrs Hurley to have a panic attack, precipitated by a lifelong fear of dogs."
"Wait what?"
Roman looks up and then rereads the last part again,
"I said precipitated by a lifelong fear of dogs. Precipitated. You know? It means to cause something."
Dean rolls his eyes,
"Ugh. I know what it means," he pauses, "Okay fine, maybe I didn't, but that ain't the problem."
"So what is then babe?"
"Scared of dogs," Dean frowns suspiciously, pushing his own irritating pooch away as Brock lumbers closer to try and swipe his egg sub, "She's not scared of dogs. She thought Seth was freakin' adorable. Hey – ," he barks as the powderpuff sneak-attacks him and then tries to run off with his much needed food. As he struggles to keep Brock off, Dean snatches it back again and then moves up onto the sofa to glare at them both as they crowd around his feet growling and slobbering like two hungry orphans from a Dickens' novel, "Bad boys."
Roman shrugs at him,
"Well, I don't know babe. Maybe they cured her when she was off at that – what did they call it?" he frowns and then looks down at the newspaper again, scouring the text and the pictures of Ella for the exact bit he wants. There. "That Blue Skies place."
"Or," Dean offers, "I met a different person. Like a decoy or somethin'?"
Roman frowns at him,
"Huh. A decoy? Hold up babe, why would she do that? Why would she hire somebody else to come meet you if she was planning on killing herself anyway?"
Roman makes a cross sign over his shirt front as Dean takes a bite of what's left of his food. He talks while he's chewing,
"That's the part I can't figure. Unless – ,"
He stops,
"Unless what?" Roman shrugs,
But Dean's brain is firing too frantically to focus, which is kind of this thing he gets when he's excited or stressed and when the words move too fast and kind tumble out together. For example when he is solving a freaking murder case.
"Unless, whoever it was I was talkin' to killed her. Holy fuck, that has to be it. Put on a headscarf an' like, bam who would know right? An' then they hire me to make it look like a suicide."
Roman blinks,
"You think somebody killed her? Who? I mean, we were sitting right there. Plus we bust through the door a second later and we didn't see anyone."
Dean shrugs,
"I dunno. Maybe they abseiled down the buildin' or like, uh, climbed over the roof."
"Who?"
"The freakin' killers dude," Dean huffs back at him, waving the hand that is holding the focaccia and scattering egg all over the floor. Luckily Seth and Brock are on hand to lick it up again. Or at least to replace the small grease smears with drool, "Fuck, I knew it," Dean slaps himself roughly, "I knew it. She went all freakin' shifty at one point. Lookin' around like she was freakin' scared of somethin', or like, someone was followin' her or – ,"
Roman stops him,
"Easy babe."
He looks like he's trying to talk down a tiger since he's got both of his hands held up in front of him like a shield and is keeping his voice low like he's not sure what's happening. Which to be fair he's probably not, since it's the first time Dean has done the slapping himself thing, which he knows isn't normal but kind of gets him fired up, or saves him from putting his foot through a window, or a brick wall or even someone else's face sometimes. Although weirdly the look on Roman's cools him back down again.
He scratches his neck,
"Sorry. I get a little riled sometimes. Need to like, freakin' let it outta me somehow, which is why my first sec – uh, I mean my first office manager – left when I punched myself so hard I fell down. Which I guess must 'a kinda freaked her out or whatever."
Roman smiles,
"It's okay, I get it babe. I used to bang heads with the rest of my teammates right before we went out on the field. Gave a rookie concussion this one time,"
He chuckles a little bit ruefully at that and Dean shrugs back and then bites a bratty smirk down,
"Well I mean, your head is pretty big."
Roman snorts then picks up the leather jacket that Dean had stripped off sometime during the night – probably right before he had opened the vodka – and then throws it at him,
"Aright Ambrose, let's go."
Dean frowns,
"Go where."
"Down to the precinct. Hackett wanted our statements, remember?" Roman shrugs, reaching out and then tousling up Dean's scruffy hairstyle in what he figures is payback for the whole big head thing.
The fu – ,"
"Plus," Roman adds, moving out into the hallway but keeping his hand on the well-worn brass knob, "It gives us a chance to see what else the cops have found out and to run that murder theory past them, huh?"
Dean huffs in response, then bends down to pick up Seth as Brock charges past them all in the door, excited to finally be going out for the morning.
"Dude, it's not a theory."
Dean is certain on that. Because someone had pretended to be Ella Hurley so they could get away with murder and he's going to figure out who.
Next week Hackett is back and we find out where the police are on the case. So...I know we're still in the early stages of this thing here, but anyone got any fledgling guesses yet?