Unexpected

Chapter 3: Let the scheming begin! Part 1

She took him to the ninth floor, apartment D.It looked like a nice, clean building. And it wasn't too far from the lab. Maybe he should ask to see if there are any apartments available and how much the rent is.

"Do you have a key to his/her apartment?"

"Yes, he did. Almost 6 months ago. I have his key, and he has mine"

"You gave him a key to your place? Are you crazy? He might abuse your trust and get in while your gone! And who knows what else he could...
Wait. Did you say HE? Is he your boyfriend? Because if he is than he should meet..."

"Calm dawn Eric! Give me some time to answer your questions; yes, its a guy. No he's not my boyfriend. Plus he's a cop. Well sort of."

"How can you be sort of a cop? You either are or you aren't."

"You'll understand what I mean in a minute. And by the way, he has my full trust."


The first thing he saw when Marisol opened the door was the living room. The walls were a nice shade of blue and beige. There were two comfortable looking beige couches with a coffee table in the middle. On the left, against the wall, was the entertainment centre with hundreds of DVDs, Cd's and what looked like thousands of books.

"Eric, follow me to the kitchen. You can look around while I put this stuff away. But pleaseeee, don't touch a thing! He will know if you do!"

The kitchen was just as clean as the living room. Obvious signs of bachelorhood were nowhere to be seen.

"Does this guy's mother clean for him or something?"

That made Marisol smirk. Oh yeah, she definitely knew something.

"Not everyone like you or Mama, Eric! By the way, I'm curious; how do you know when to hide the condoms??"

There it was. He should have seen it coming, it was so obvious!

"Hey, It's not my fault she insists on cleaning my place. I didn't ask her. And for you information, she doesn't clean my bedroom. And this conversation is creeping me out!"

Leaving the kitchen, Eric made his was to the bookcase. Maybe he could find out who this friend is.

"Marisol, do I know this guy?"he shouted.

"Why don't you look around and tell me?"
"When you'll find out I will be laughing my ass off" She was mumbling. Still he heard her. He wondered if he should be scared?

So Eric went in search of photo's. Tidbits that would clue him as to who this friend was. From her reaction he gathered that he knows this guy.

'Okay, let's find some clues. It's a guy, he is really clean, he likes fantasy movies, he's a cop. What else?' he thought.
Salvation! On the bookcase were some framed pictures. There was one of his sister, on what appears to be her birthday. Weird thing was; she had spent her birthday with the family. Why hadn't he seen this photo?

Marisol was standing in front of a birthday cake with a big smile and one of those goofy hats. The background was blue. Oh, so the photo had been taken in this apartment. Still didn't help him figure out who it was.

The frame next to it was a family photo. It looked like it had been taken quite a few years ago. If Eric had to guess, he would say 10 years at least.

In it were five people. In the centre were two attractive adults. They looked very proud of their family. Both had brown hair. The woman in the picture had familiar green eyes. She was beautiful.
The man had a 10 year old girl on his lap. She was smiling so much you could see the gap between her front teeth.
On the other side of the woman were two teenagers, about 14 years old. Since they looked identical although one teen was female and the other male, Eric was going on a limb and say they were twins.
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Marisol was standing by the kitchen counter.
She had placed everything in the fridge in, what she thought, was an orderly fashion. No doubt Ryan will take it out,label it and then reorder it.
He's OCD made him weird that way!

Now she was watching Eric. It was obvious to anyone watching that he was a CSI by the way moves across the room.

He's was looking at the middle frame. The one with Ryan's family. They looked happy, content with their lives. It was such a shame it had been taken away.

Eric's intake of breath drew her attention back to him. On the right side of the bookcase was a frame with a picture Marisol had given Ryan.

It was a photo of both Ryan and Marisol. She remembered when it had been taken. It was Ryan's birthday.

When she found out that he could dance, really dance, and not the feet shuffling most men do, she had taken him there. They had had a blast. He's such a graceful dancer! At the end of the night their feet were killing them. But it was so worth it!

She'd asked one of the waiters to take the photo. Ryan was sitting on a stool, right arm on the bar. Marisol had her arms around him and her head on his left scolder.
Ryan's left hand was covering hers. Their hair was in disarray, they were sweaty, their eyes sparkled, and they had the biggest grins on their faces. It was perfection!
She glanced at her brother with a smirk on her face.
There it is. The reaction she had been waiting for! Disbelief, curiosity, confusion and so much more.
Where's her camera when she needed it?
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What the hell was going on? Why is Marisol hugging Wolfe? How does she knows him? How and when did she meet him? And why does Ryan look so yummy all nice and sweaty?

'Hold on. Yummy? It's official', Eric thought 'I am indeed going crazy. The last question is proof of that!'

"Marisol, why are you hugging Wolfe? How do you even know him? Are you sleeping with him?"

He knew he was freaking out but, damn it, he had a right to!

He turned towards her and saw that she was laughing her ass off, just like she said she would.

"This is so funny! Ry's going to laugh so hard when I tell him this." Suddenly she stopped laughing and frowned. "Well after he yells at me for telling you that is."

Marisol made her way across the room to stand in front of Eric. Gently she put her hands on his shoulders.

"Eric, Ryan has been my friend for over a year. When I met him, he was still in patrol.
The family photo you saw, that was Ryan's family."

"Was?"

"The little girls name was Isabella. She died of leukaemia a few months after this was taken. She was eleven."

"She's dead?"

"They all are Eric. 6 months after Isabella died, Ryan, his sister and their parents were in a car accident. A drunken college student got into his car after a party and crashed into Ryan's parent's car. His parents and his twin sister, Lilli, died on impact. Ryan was the only one to survive the crash."

This bit of news hit Eric hard. He collapsed on to coffee table.

Eric used to think that Ryan was a cocky kid who could never replace Speed.
Eric always has the impression that Ryan was the kind of guy who have no siblings; spoiled to death by his parents...
Eric was wrong.
Even if at some point in his life Ryan had been cocky, he wasn't anymore. When something this awful happens to someone, it changes you. Forever.

Eric knew this from experience. When he found out about Marisol's cancer he too changed. The most noticeable being his sleeping habits, particularly with other people.

Losing everyone he loved must have been hard. He couldn't imagine losing everybody he loved. He would feel so lonely.

'Does Ryan feel lonely?' he wondered
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Okay. Part one of the Furbie-plan started well. Time for part 2...

"We should go. Let me grab Ry's iPod and we can go. I want to be there when he wakes up."

"Wait! We are not done! You have to tell me the rest? How did you become friends? Why did you hide it?..."

"Eric, I already told you too much. Ryan made me promise I wouldn't tell you. That's why I insisted that you come up here with me. Now you know, almost, all there is to know and I still kept my promise. I promised not to tell you, but if you asked I would answer honestly. Which I did!"

"You can't be serious? You haven't told me nearly enough!! I have a right to know what..."

The 'I have a right to know part' really pissed her off!

"You have the right to know nothing! You don't even like him!
If you want to know more, you will have to ask Ryan to tell you or to give me permission to."

Turning around she made her way to Ryan's bedroom. There she found his iPod on his nightstand. Back in the living room Eric still hadn't moved a muscle.

Rolling her eyes Marisol called him. "Eric come on!"

She saw him shake his head as if to clear his thoughts.

Pointing a finger at her he said "This is not over yet."

Locking the front door, he could hear Marisol say "Don't I know it".

Marisol hoped that that expression wouldn't turn out to be true. The expression 'what goes around comes around'.
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Eric finally made it home. He almost didn't. Thinking about what he just found out almost made him drive through a red light.

He only had time to take of his shoes, when the phone rang. It was Marisol.

"Didn't I just drop you off?" he asked.

"I forgot to tell you something?"

"You mean there is actually something else you CAN tell me?? Wow, let me get a pen and paper to write this down."
The sarcasm was evident in Eric's voice.

"By the way, you never told me why Wolfe was in the hospital."

"Hey watch that tone mister! And he's getting surgery. He'll be out tomorrow afternoon."

"Surgery? For his eye?" Oh crap. This was bad. It was his fault. It should have been him.
His spiralling thoughts were interrupted by Mari again.

"Yes, for his eye. Now for what I wanted to tell you. A few weeks after I met him he introduced me to his childhood friend."

"Yeah, so?"

"Ten days after I met this friend, he was shot while on duty. His gun malfunctioned. This friend was a CSI."

Shot? Malfunctioned? CSI?

Oh nononnonnn. It can't be true.

"I just thought you should know." With that Marisol hung up.
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There. Part 1 of the Furbie-plan is complete.

Tomorrow she would begin part 2. to get as many allies as possible on her side.

That was why she had to get up bright and early to go and talk to Alexx. She had to be careful and make sure Eric didn't see her. So this left her with 2 options. Option 1: she could
sneak in after Eric had started working, fat chance of that working, there were glass walls, after all. Option 2: she could in go before Eric started work and wait for Alexx.

After much deliberation, she decided to go with option 2.

TBC