Okay, time to meet Christopher Hurley at last and see what he's hiding...if anything? Cast your votes now!
Skovko, Great, now I can't think of anything except cupcakes! Haha, I like the idea of giving Brock to Nancy. But I'm not sure she would want slobber over everything she owned!
Rebel8954, No domineering mothers I'm afraid. But you'll get to scope Christopher out a little more in this chapter, so see what you think of him.
Minnie1015, I love the idea of it being an old time series! What a shame I didn't have them in long coats and fedoras. Damn. This would totally have worked in black and white!
Not-that-kinda-gurl, Dean has a few different contacts around town. Including an interesting one we're still to meet. Glad you liked Nancy. I really liked peppering original characters around in this story.
Wolfgirl2013, Many thanks!
Mandy, Hello. Mum needs some more scans which are a bit worrying, but trying to stay positive. How's the freelancing going? I love having Seth as a tiny dog in this story. He just seems to fit the role perfectly!
xXBalorBabeXx, I think if Seth had bitten Hackett they would all have ended up in jail and then who would have found the murderer?! Finn is going to rock being a bad guy!
Cheryl24, Well, not a butler. But there is going to be a bodyguard…
Phoenix lord of rebirth, Dean is very determined. He's like the human version of Seth in this story! Just as well Roman is there to indulge them both I guess!
SkittlezLvr79, Aww, Hackett isn't so bad. He's just old and weary of the world. But in the meantime, it's down to our boys to find the evidence they need to convince him!
ViolentHugger03, Haha, well, let's just say that Dean has had quite the past in this universe. Some of which is going to come up later too!
LunaticMischief, Hey there, thanks for reviewing! No more Hackett for a while, but in the meantime please accept several more suspects over the next few chapters for your consideration!
XwwecoyoteX, I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather. Hope he (and you) are okay. I like your theory on Ella Hurley...but of course, as usual I can neither confirm nor deny anything!
Let's go...
NINE
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a billionaire businessman, Christopher Hurley has a pretty nice house.
Or okay, better than nice. Its palatial, or at least what little Dean and Roman can see of it over the walls and the huge crowds of press who are flocking around the front gate like vultures. Because Dean had been one hundred percent right about that.
"Damn," Roman grunts as they drive up in the station wagon, with Brock's big sandy colored ass in his face, "Death really brings out the best in some people."
Dean peers low through the windshield,
"Fuck. Kinda thought we might 'a like, beaten 'em to it. Crap. Looks like we'll have to go in round the back."
Roman blinks at him,
"Wait. There's a back way?"
"Usually," Dean shrugs, pushing Brock's tail out of his face and then silently reversing them back around the corner. Or not so silently as it turns out, since he nearly sideswipes a pack of reporters and then clips the mirror of a local news truck. Not that it injures the eighty eight Buick, which could probably withstand a direct nuclear hit, "These fancy places like, freakin' always have a back way, for the maids an' like, the pizza delivery boys."
By now they have circled around the back of the mansion and Dean is attempting to peer around Seth, who as ever is perched like a king on the dashboard,
"But I figure it must be pretty busy right now, what with everyone who's probably like, tryin' a' send flowers an' all those other things you do when somebody dies."
Or is murdered, because he's one hundred and ten percent convinced about that. Ella Hurley was definitely murdered.
"There it is babe."
"Fuck," Dean nearly steers into the side of a florist truck that has started to nose its way out into the road, then slams on the brakes and lets it pull out ahead of him with a frantic looking wave, "Hurry up man, hurry up."
As soon as it's moved Dean floors the old Buick and then pumps it through the big automatic wooden doors, which are gradually starting to creak their way shut again and which miss clipping the sides by a literal hair. Probably one of Seth's hairs Dean figures, since they're wispy and thin and fluffy as hell.
Dean grins,
"See uce? I said there was a back way. There's always a back way."
"So then why does it feel kind of like we're breaking in?" Roman rumbles back at him, looking uncertain. Seth has slid off into his lap and is sitting growling at the front facing heater, which apparently has the nerve to be blowing on him. Because of course Reigns has never let himself into a mansion without having a proper invite.
Dean snorts,
"Oh come on. We're not breakin' in. I mean, the doors were already open, an' besides, it's not like we're here to rob the joint. We're just gonna politely ask a few questions."
Roman sighs heavily,
"Are you sure about that? Because Christopher Hurley might not see it that way and I'm damn sure his personal security won't."
"Probably not," the private detective shrugs back at him, before cranking the parking brake on with a grin and then trying and failing not to look arrogant, "Which is why it's a good thing I got you with me, huh?"
In order to pretend they're just another set of florists delivering a token for the recently deceased, Dean swipes a handful flowers from the garden that artfully circles the back entrance to the house. As in he physically swipes them right out of the soil and then bunches them together in two untidy piles, before tying them together with a pair of shoelaces that he rips from some sneakers in the back of the car. Sneakers which Brock has been using as a chew toy and which are therefore kind of moistened, although Dean holds them up proudly anyway,
"There," a blue alstroemeria breaks away from the bundle and folds over unhappily. Dean prods it back, "What do you think?"
Roman lifts a brow,
"Do you remember back at the precinct when I said I thought this was a terrible idea?"
Dean shrugs,
"Yeah?"
"Well turns out I was wrong babe. Because this is the worst idea in the world."
"Fine," Dean pouts pulling the bouquet in closer, like Roman has just insulted his poor firstborn child, "Well if you're gonna be a freakin' Debbie Downer about it then you can stay here an' look after the dogs, an' let the professional detective – uh – detect stuff, because trust me here uce, I got it all figured out."
"Yeah, what do you want?"
"Oh holy fuck."
As the door to the mansion is suddenly flung open, Dean nearly has a god damn cardiac event, which then nearly doubles as a man the size and width of a mountain pokes his head into the open,
"Dude," Dean grips his chest, "How about givin' a guy a little warnin'? I mean, like freakin' cough or somethin' ya know?"
"I said what do you want?"
The giant bodyguard steps forward and so does Roman instinctively from behind, which Dean kind of likes if he's going to be honest, because it's actually nice to have backup for once and especially when that backup weighs two hundred and fifty and has a great big tribal tattoo down one arm. Although not that the glowering bulldog of a bodyguard can see that through the suit, or the shirt, or the tie as Roman holds one of Dean's wilting bouquets up and lies for what might be the first time in his life.
Or at least Dean likes to think it is anyway.
"We've got a delivery for Christopher Hurley. Is he in?"
More petals fall off the slack alstroemeria, which the bodyguard points at,
"What happened to them?"
"What do you think man?" Dean huffs back in outrage before taking his chance to step past him in the door, "We got caught up in that media circus you got out there, which by the way dude, is totally not cool, because we got like, proper livin' flowers an' shit here."
"Arrangements," Roman adds in hastily, "He means flower arrangements."
Dean nods,
"Yeah that," then steps beyond the whitewashed back corridor of the mansion and into an airy and double height hall, with doors leading off into rooms all around him and with an actual skylight above the wraparound stairs, "Whoa, nice place. Hey, does it have one of those dumb waiter deals that like, takes all the food up an' down to different floors? Because I totally always wanted a house with one of those in. Hey, nice lounge man."
"All flowers this way," the bodyguard grunts, elbowing rudely past Roman and then Tom-Cruise-in-Risky-Business skidding out in front of Dean to block the doorway the private eye is about to step through and ushering him sideways.
Dean frowns,
"Alright, alright. No need to get all like, freakin' snippy."
Together they step through a door on the right, which takes them from the hall into a black marble kitchen that seems roughly about the size of Dean's entire childhood house and is filled to the brim with vases of flowers and wreaths and even statues made out of fresh blooms.
His own bouquet wilts in his fist just a little,
"Oh."
"Okay, put them down and then get the hell out," the security dude glares, folding his arms sternly and then lifting a brow as Dean produces a paper scrap,
"Oh sure man, sure. Just as soon as Hurley signs for 'em. Is he, uh, here somewhere?"
"Mr Hurley is by the pool," officer not-had-any-customer-training growls back at him warningly, "And is not to be disturbed."
"Oh come on dude," Dean grins, "All I need is thirty seconds. Because lemme tell you, my boss is a real freakin' hardass and he does not like it when folks don't sign for stuff."
"No."
As Dean makes a casual step towards the outside, the bodyguard grabs him, which instantly triggers Roman's protective side again,
"Hey. You'd better take your hands off my partner if you know what's good for you and your face."
For a second it seems like world war three is about to blow up — in a kitchen surrounded by sympathy blooms and more fruit baskets than Dean even knows is even possible — except that suddenly a walkie talkie starts to go off and cuts through through all of the flower based from somewhere in the bodyguard's belt loops.
"Come in Rogue One," Dean almost snorts in response to that nonsense. Rogue One? What are they. Freakin' Top Gun? "We have reporters in the rose garden. Request immediate backup. Repeat, immediate backup."
"Damn it," the bodyguard growls, letting go of Dean with an eye roll and then pointing at them them, "You two, leave the flowers and get out."
He's already buttoning up his jacket as he shouts at them, which is clearly a sign he expects some sort of a brawl as he turns and then sprints out of the kitchen.
Or okay, sort of jogs,
"Received. Back up on the way."
"No problem dude," Dean waves at him cheerfully, dumping his bouquet down into the sink, which obliterates what's left of the murdered alstroemeria, "Get out. Yep, can do. I mean, we're already gone."
The bodyguard lets out a grunt in response to him, then disappears around the corner still shouting,
"Come in Rogue Two."
Dean blows out a breath,
"Huh. What is the world comin' to if a billionaire can't get a little privacy nowadays?" then he straightens his rumpled up jacket and grins at his partner, "Now let's go find the son of a bitch."
Because the kitchen leads right out into the yard space – or okay, the formal gardens as Roman tells him they're called – it doesn't take long for them to track down the swimming pool or the figure sprawled out in a lounge chair alongside, nursing an untouched tumbler of whisky and staring off into space like the grieving widower he is-but-is-not. Although luckily before Dean can get onto that part, Roman clears his throat,
"Excuse me, Mr Hurley?"
"Yes?" a greying head bobs up from the lounger, "Who are you? I told my team I didn't want to speak to the press. Batista? Batista?"
Roman coughs almost guiltily,
"Uh, you wouldn't happen to be talking about the big guy here would you? 'Bout six foot five, bald head, facial hair? Because, he's a little tied up at the moment with real reporters, which for the record, we're not."
Hurley frowns,
"So then who the devil are you?"
He's an older man in his mid-to late sixties, or maybe a touch younger if Dean had to guess, with a well-practised businessman look of pure outrage that instantly creeps its way under Dean's skin. Since what right does he have to be pissed off at them for?
Dean takes a seat on the lounger beside him and then shrugs back indifferently,
"We're the guys that found your wife."
"Ambrose," Roman hisses in horror and okay so it's possible that he's maybe gone too far, since instead of getting up and darting off through the bushes like the murderers do in every tv show he's watched, Christopher Hurley turns a shade that's so pasty it could probably be used to stick drywall up, or possibly to explain the term virginal white to someone. He chokes on his whisky as his eyes grow wide,
"You what?"
"I'm Reigns and this is Ambrose," Roman rapidly takes over, shunting his way between the loungers with a grunt, "We – I mean Ambrose here – is a private detective. Your wife Ella hired him to follow her last night."
"But why?"
Chris Hurley looks totally baffled, which means either he's innocent or he's good at playing dumb. Not that Dean is going to let him off easy.
He leans forwards,
"See the thing is, we were hopin' you could tell us, since there's a couple of things that don't freakin' add up here an' they keep on goin around an' around in my head," he twitches and then rubs at his jaw for good measure, because Hurley isn't the only one of them who can act,
"Like – like what?" the mogul splutters back cluelessly,
"Like why was your wife suddenly not afraid of dogs? An' why did you have her locked up in that Blue Skies place? An' no, scratch those, who the frick was that other girl? Because m' guessin it was probably like, your freakin' mistress?"
"Hold on a minute here. What other girl?" Hurley frowns, "Because how dare you come into my house and insinuate – ,"
"Mr Hurley," Roman grunts back, swiftly cutting in and then kicking his employer in the shin beneath the lounger as Dean reels back in startled agony,
"Ouch. The fu – ,"
"Can you think of any reason that your wife would want to kill herself?"
Christopher Hurley's eyes fill with tears as Dean sits back and rubs at his shin bone. Damn he's good. Almost good enough to seem totally innocent. Which he isn't of course.
"No," he whispers brokenly, "No,"
Dropping his head into his hands he sobs a little,
"I — I don't know. I promise I don't. I thought she was happy at Blue Skies. Getting better and now she's – ,"
He hiccups and then fully breaks down, which okay so isn't what Dean had been expecting. Or Roman evidently,
"Easy brother. It's okay."
"After everything that happened with Henry and the inheritance," Hurley continues with a whole lot of snot. Dean pulls a greasy burger wrapper from his pocket and hands it across. Hurley blows his nose, "Thanks."
"Henry's your son?" Roman clarifies gently, before grimacing as Hurley hands the snot wrapper back his way. Dean meanwhile smirks up at him like a jackass,
"Y-yes. Cutting him off was hard for us both, but he needs to learn damn it," Hurley slams down his tumbler, moving from desolate to angry in a snap and then looking up a little like a rabbit in the headlights before carrying on, "Her doctor said she had improved. He – he said she was getting much better and beating the depression and now – ,"
He chokes back another sob. Except this time no freaking way is Dean buying it.
"Who is her doctor if you don't mind telling us?" Roman asks and oh yeah, the big man could be PI for sure. Provided he ditched the uptight suit and tie combos and made himself look a little less groomed.
Hurley waves a hand in defeat,
"Doctor Merrick. He's the specialist psychiatrist down at Blue Skies, since I only wanted the best for my Ella."
His voice breaks on her name and he starts crying again, in big untidy clucks that make him sound like a chicken.
Roman grabs Dean's sleeve uncomfortably,
"Come on uce. I think we've got enough. Thank you for your time Mr Hurley and we're sorry for your loss."
"And thank you," Christopher Hurley hiccups back, "For making sure she wasn't alone when – ,"
He tails off and Roman pulls frantically at Dean again,
"Uce, come on."
"Alright, alright," Dean huffs back stubbornly, although he rips himself free by the edge of the pool and then spins back to fix Christopher Hurley with what he figures is the best 'knowing' looking expression he has.
"Oh, an' don't worry. Ambrose PI is on the case now, an' m' gonna find out what happened to your wife. I mean it, I'm gonna find out the truth if it kills me."
Which is kind of ironic really, because that night it nearly does.
Oooh, cliffhanger! Yep, next week Dean gets into a spot of trouble...tune in then folks!