Time for Dean and Roman to have an unexpected visitor.
Minnie1015, I love reading through the process of you trying to work everything out! I kind of hoped that when I wrote a proper murder mystery it would be mysterious and I'm definitely its giving you pause for thought! Maybe a bit more in this chapter…
Cheryl24, Well, we've got a few other characters to meet yet, so you can see whether or not Dr Merrick is still setting off alarm bells in a few chapters or whether he's a big old red herring!
Wolfgirl2013, Aww, many thanks!
xXBalorBabeXx, Well, Dean is definitely with you on that one (especially now he knows someone is trying to warn him off). Roman is mostly just trying to keep Dean happy. Good old Roman!
Mandy, Sorry to hear the job hunting isn't going quite to plan. These things are sent to try us sometimes. Keep your chin up. Mum needs a few more tests to make sure nothing has come back, so keep your fingers crossed for a good result. In the meantime, let's both escape from the real world for a bit with Dean and Roman. Always works for me!
Rebel8954, Well, you're about to get more answers for Christopher Hurley, so you can see what you think about his involvement and indiscretions once you've heard his side. Or maybe you'll think he's lying even harder to cover his tracks?
Skovko, Haha, you stick with your theory! You'll get nothing from me though *zips up lips*
ViolentHugger03, Ooh, I'm glad you think so and hopefully things are only going to get juicier as we go on!
LunaticMischief, Oh wow, thank you so much. I put a lot of thought into the flow of my stories and how long the chapters should be. Glad that comes through and keeps you hungry for more!
Not-that-kinda-gurl, Well, before you castrate Hurley (and maybe off Jenni too) I've got some more details on him coming up, so see what you think afterwards. There's always time to drop in a few more suspects!
Phoenix lord of rebirth, Well, you might get your chance to have another run at Hurley coming up, so see what you think of him when this chapter is done. Not that I'm going to make anything easy for you though! Glad you're still enjoying it!
Over to Dean and Roman...
TWELVE
"Okay," Dean grunts, "So like, here's what 'm thinkin'. Hurley was messin' around on his wife with the roommate from her rehab place — which is a total scumbag move by the way. He gets worried she's gonna tell someone an' like, ruin his whole nice-guy-philanthropy thing, so the roommate-slash-mistress-slash-lookalike-woman, hires me to watch Ella freakin' killin' herself. Except really Hurley murders her to make it look like a suicide all so he can get his wife outta the way."
"And who then somehow gets himself out of house," Roman adds, trampling up the rickety staircase behind him as Brock and Seth dart past into the brownstone hall, "Which we still don't got an explanation for babe."
Dean waves a hand,
"Eh, one thing at a time uce. Because what we do got is a motive and like, an accomplice now. Plus Christopher Hurley gave money to that fund, which is basically straight up admittin' he killed her."
"Not sure a court of law is going to see it that way."
After having left the Blue Skies clinic behind them, the two of them had stopped off at Burger King for something to eat, since Dean had managed to skip breakfast and dinner in between having been beaten up and left for dead, which should have meant he was hungrier than ever. Except thanks to the concussion that was pounding in his cranium he had mostly just picked at the burger and sides. Roman meanwhile had moved into full dad mode,
"Hey, come on now, three more fries and maybe another two bites of your zinger and I'll stop nagging at you."
Dean had grunted,
"Ugh. Fine."
Although ever since then he had seemed a bit more perky. Or pumped, which in Dean's world was pretty much the same thing, hence his brain working in murder-mystery overdrive as they plod up to the office.
"We should find that Jenni girl. 'Cept she's probably already like, gone to ground somewhere an' is lyin' low so she doesn't get found by the cops."
"You really think she had something to do with it?" Roman asks with a frown as Seth growls from up ahead, probably at a shadow or a piece of dust or something.
Dean shrugs,
"I dunno. It's a workin' theory I guess. But the thing that I'm freakin' like, a hundred percent on is Christopher Hurley killin' his wife. An' no fuckin' way is Dick Hackett sayin' otherwise, or my name ain't Dean Ambr – oh you gotta be kiddin' me."
Because he is trampling up the staircase behind him, Roman can't see what has startled Dean at first, or what has got Seth riled up and barking, although frankly there's a million possibilities on that.
"What the hell are you doin' here?" Dean asks hotly, "Your hired goons not finish me off last night, so now you've come to do the job properly?"
At that Roman pushes his copper blonde partner aside and then steps in front of him with his fists curled in anger to find Christopher Hurley blinking back at them.
"What? What hired goons?" he frowns, "What are you going on about and – ," he squints through the half-light, "What happened to your eye?"
"Actually we were going to ask you the same question," Roman rumbles back, although he's cooled down a bit, since Hurley doesn't seem to have brought any weapons, or anything other than a baffled looking frown, which he's levelling down towards Seth for the most part, as the small white assassin tries to nip at his heels. Brock meanwhile is sat licking his own privates, which was like Dean had said earlier –
Brock was no help.
"Last night Ambrose was attacked by a couple people who told him to stop looking into your wife's death, we figured that you might know who would do that."
"Me?" Hurley splutters, "How in the world would I know that?"
"Because we know you killed your wife an' made it look like a suicide," Dean puts in suddenly and without any warning at all, "So you could like, run off with her little redhead roommate. An' that's why you hired those guys to kill me last night. So you could keep your murderous little plan hidden an' then go join your other girl somewhere on a beach."
"Babe," Roman hisses, digging Dean in the ribcage as Christopher Hurley has a god damn heart attack, or else transforms into a guppy in front of them, since all he can do is sort of open and close his mouth and possibly try to hold onto his eyeballs, which look like they're about to pop out of his head,
"You think – ," he gapes at them. Open. Close. Open, "You think I killed Ella?"
He seems totally stunned and his slack jawed horror kind of dampens Dean's anger,
"You didn't?" he frowns, his face scrunching up.
"No? How could you think that? She – she was my wife. I loved her."
"But – ,"
Further along the hallway a door opens up and the pawnbroker who rents the room Monday through Friday pops out in the same stained white wife beater he always wears and which Roman has clearly at some point become used to over the last couple of days in the brownstone,
"Hey," he barks, "I'm tryin' a run a business in here."
Roman sucks a breath in and then holds a neighborly hand up,
"Babe? Uh, maybe we should take this inside."
"Alright alright," Dean fumbles the key loose and then stands back to let Christopher Hurley in first, or at least that's what the billionaire seems to think anyway, since he takes a step forward still looking watery eyed, only to be nearly knocked flat in the doorway by Seth and then Brock.
But mostly by Brock.
"After you," Dean smirks in response like an asshole as Christopher blinks at him, or possibly at the mess, which is near enough spilling right out of the office even though Roman has been working his damn ass off tidying up, "Find yourself a freakin' seat."
Nodding uncertainly the older man steps in, although Roman grabs Dean before he can follow him through and then keeps his voice low,
"You think he's telling the truth here?"
Dean shrugs back at him,
"Like, honestly? No. Because my head's like, totally sayin he killed her, except, if he did then why the fuck is he here?"
Roman sighs,
"You wanna go ask him?"
Dean grins,
"You know what uce? You just read my freakin' mind."
"But hey," Roman warns with a wince, "Go easy."
Dean nods,
"Go easy. Sure thing man, can do."
Although the fact he cracks his knuckles before stepping in over the threshold doesn't fill the big man with a whole lot of hope and nor does the fact that Christopher Hurley has taken a seat – of all places – at Dean's god damn desk, since Brock and Seth have unhelpfully claimed the sofa and Carl the pigeon is doing laps around the room, which the businessman is watching with such total confusion that for a second Roman figures that he must have concussion too, or possibly be in the middle of a stress induced seizure.
Although thankfully it's neither.
"So like, what's the freakin' deal?" Dean starts in what is evidently his take on go easy and not even flinching as Carl swoops past his head, "Why are you here an' what the fuck do you want from us?"
Us? Roman blinks for a moment at that and then wonders at what point in the four days he has known him, that he and Dean Ambrose had officially become us. Although in hindsight it had probably been from the moment that Roman had let the whole babe thing slip loose, or possibly from day two when he had turned up for work again instead of bailing out like all the other temps had. Since Roman gets the sneaking impression that when it comes to Ambrose, people not bailing out on him is kind of rare, which breaks his big old heart just a little.
Or okay, a lot. It breaks his damn heart a lot.
Christopher Hurley sucks a long unsteady breath in and then brushes off some dog hair,
"I want to hire you."
"You – huh?" Dean half-snorts, half-chokes in astonishment and then laughs, "Did you say you wanted to freakin' hire me? For what? You got another wife you're thinkin' of ditchin'?"
Roman throws a ball of wadded paper at his head and then takes control of the tentative opening as Dean looks up in outrage,
"Dude? What in the fu – ,"
"Hire Dean to do what exactly Mr Hurley?" he asks, ignoring the blue eyed death glare to his side and the dive bombing pigeon cooing above him, who isn't really helping.
"Because I think my wife was killed and I need you two to find out exactly who did it."
Dean blinks,
"Okay," he makes a t-shape with his hands and then shakes his head like he's lost the conversation, or is possibly seeing stars, or a little of both, "Wait a minute, you want us to look into your wife's murder when we already have an' figured out it was you?"
Christopher Hurley turns a shade of bright purple – which makes a nice change from white – then balls his fists,
"It wasn't me."
"So then who the hell was it?" Dean blinks,
"It was Henry."
"Wait, who the fuck is fuckin' Henry?"
"Their son babe."
"Oh."
Dean drops down onto the paper strewn desktop looking even more baffled than he had been before and more tired, which is hardly surprising given that some assholes had tried to kill him the night before. Hurley meanwhile seems more outraged than ever,
"I mean why in Heaven's name would I kill my own wife?"
"So you could shack up with that woman from Blue Skies like I told you," Dean shrugs back rubbing a hand across his face and clearly forgetting about his brooding black shiner considering that he hits it and then barks a curse out, "Fuck."
"What woman from Blue Skies?" Christopher Hurley asks indignantly,
"The roommate."
"The roommate? Oh for god sakes," he huffs, "How many times do I have to say that was an accident? She had her hair in a towel and they looked practically the same. Plus I mean, she was sitting on Ella's bed. I only kissed her. I was trying to be spontaneous because Doctor Merrick said it might help to – you know – spice things up, but I never intended to get the wrong person. I'm not that much of an idiot."
"Coulda fooled me," Dean snorts in response. As Roman clears his throat again rapidly, Hurley stares daggers.
"So tell us more about your son and why you think he might be mixed up in this."
"Because," Hurley pouts, "He never forgave us for cutting him off from the family fund. He thinks we should fund his ridiculous hobbies instead of sending him out to get himself a proper job. I mean, you should see some of the letters he's sent us. Here," Hurley pulls something out of his pants, which in spite of the personal tragedy he's going through are businessman style and immaculately pressed. He slams a piece of crumpled paper on the desktop, which Dean blinks down at. It appears to be a threat, scrawled in swirly but furious writing and peppered with warnings and spelling mistakes.
He snorts,
"Ho yeah. Dude. This kid is freakin angry. Here," he passes it to Roman to read, even though all the big man does is skim through it and then pick out the main points.
Regret crossing me.
Wish you were dead.
Roman raises a hesitant eyebrow,
"And you really think Henry could have hurt his own mom?"
"I don't know," Christopher Hurley frowns back at him, beginning to rifle through his suit pants again before pulling out bundle of tightly wrapped fifties that almost make Dean's blue eyes bug out of his head. The older man pushes them over the desktop, "Which is what I need you two to try and work out. So there, that's two thousand dollars to get started. Now for god sakes find out what happened to my wife."
Hmm. The plot thickens. Next week, Dean meets Roman's wife and daughter, hope to see you there!