[ 21 ] 1969

-

"We have a ten-thirty three on Firestone Avenue."

-

The investigation for the murders of the Irwin family went unsolved for six more years, and there was still no suspect. The criminal, or criminals, had done a good job to avoid leaving any evidence behind. The Sydney police department had given up on the case and considered it closed, but there was one cop who could not let the investigation die.

He was Bobby Vega, who had been a close friend of Ashton.

Now twenty two years old, he had been able to rise up the ranks of the police department with ease. He was a very intelligent officer, and had been able to solve every case presented to him. All except The Multiple Murder of the Irwin Family, as the police files were labeled in his office. There were documents and photographs of the scene scattered everywhere and the young police officer spent the vast majority of his time locked up within the walls of his office with a cigarette in between his pursed lips and a document in his hands, brown eyes scanning every inch of it.

It was still an open case because he still insisted that he was close to reaching a breakthrough, and as part of the police department he had the authority to request keeping the case open. Bobby had promised Ashton he would solve the case in his honor.

He had promised it to Claire as well.

In the subsequent years after Ashton died, Bobby and Claire had become very close. He had yet to learn that her reasons for befriending him were purely selfish. Where at first she had done it to spite Hayley, now she did it to keep Bobby distracted during his investigation of the murder case involving Ashton Irwin and his family.

Whatever the reason was that Claire was seeking out Bobby, Hayley was unhappy with it. Her jealousy at Claire spending time with Bobby had eventually reached a point where Bobby began to feel suffocated and began dreading spending time with his girlfriend. 

It was only a year prior, nearly two, that he had broken up with her. The pain that the break up caused her left the young woman hating Bobby, but hating Claire Feeney even more for succeeding in taking her boyfriend away from her. In hopes of patching up their relationship again, she would often show up at his office at the police station with a picnic basket full of all his favorite foods, just like she did when they were dating. And she wrote him various letters expressing her hurt after he left her, and the love she still had for him.

Though he still had feelings for her, he felt it just wasn't the same and that they both needed to move on. His rejection drove her more and more angry with him and Claire, especially after Claire continuously hinted that she and Bobby were dating.

Hayley ended up moving away to Perth in order to start a new life, and Bobby didn't hear from her again. The last bit of news of her he got was when Claire happened to casually mention to him that Hayley had gotten a new boyfriend named Thomas Davis and was already engaged to him so quickly into their relationship. The news briefly wounded Bobby's feelings, as well as his ego, because he found he still loved Hayley and she wasn't coming back to him after the way he had pushed her away.

He sought emotional comfort in his friendship with Claire and she gladly accepted to help him. Having him close by and sulking over Hayley was much more helpful for her than having him snoop around the crime scene at Ashton's house yet another time. He had been there so many times that he probably could walk through the entire house blindfolded and not stumble once. Claire was surprised he had found nothing yet, then again Con was great at concealing things he didn't want people to know about. 

-

More months went by with no one making any progress in the case. They had now closed off the house where it all happened and would bring in cleaning crews in the weeks to come so that the house could be livable again. But no one in their right mind would set foot in the murder house of Sydney. 

Bobby Vega had long gotten over Hayley and decided to keep his focus on his career with the Sydney police department. There was nothing more he wanted to do with his life than to find the person who had killed his best friend and see them locked in a jail cell. But the twenty two year old finally concluded that he would give up his investigation of the murder case after revisiting the crime scene one last time. 

Perhaps he would see something he hadn't noticed before, he hoped he would.

The house would be cleaned spotlessly the next morning and there would be no way to continue searching anymore. That night, after leaving the police station, he borrowed the keys to the house from the evidence locker and took one of the official police cameras in order to take photographs of possible evidence that could emerge. He climbed into his squad car and drove down the rich neighborhood's of Sydney until he reached the house that had belonged to the Irwin family.

As Ashton's friend, he had been there a handful of times and was familiar with the entire neighborhood, but now everything about the house seemed different. It felt dead.

He parked his car outside the front gates which were closed with chains and a padlock. Opening them was easier than he thought and he walked up the cement path that led up to the front door, hand on his gun in case there were some unwanted surprises.

Bobby decided he would recreate the murder scene in his head. 

He knew that Ashton's family always left the gates unlocked, which gave the murderers easy access to the house. Most families in the area had security booths installed at several points of their house, with security guards ready to detain any threat to the family inside the house. The Irwin family had done none of that. They were too trusting, and that had been one of the key things that had led to their demise.

As he reached the front door, he stopped when he noticed one vital detail they had failed to take into consideration when they first investigated the crime scene. The front door was completely untouched. He had learned in his training at the police academy that break ins where there were murders were often left with doors that were clearly tampered with. The front door of Ashton's house was just as it had always been, and that meant the guilty person or people had been people the Irwin's were familiar with.

Bobby thought back to that night and tried to recall where any possible suspect was. And as he went down his own mental list, he was able to get an exact time and place for everyone he suspected of. Everyone except Con Hood. 

Ashton's family was in the house when it all took place. They were fairly new in the neighborhood and didn't have as many friends living in town, and no family whatsoever, which made them prime targets for the type of crime committed against them. Ashton was the only one out that night, and he had been out with a group of friends, his closest friends. Hayley Reed, Mary-Joy Worthington, Lucas Hemmings, Claire Feeney, and Robert Vega had all been there while someone was at Ashton's house hurting his family. Anne-Sophie Fontaine Hood had been at home, bed ridden due to her fragile pregnancy. 

The young police officer had gone to question her various times and her story was always the same. Her husband Con had been out all night. No one had seen him or heard from him in several hours. According to the French woman, he hadn't returned until around the break of dawn where he spent several hours in his office before checking on her.

He left the house once again when there was news that something had happened at the Irwin's home.

Bobby always had that hunch, that Conrad Hood had something to do with the murders, especially after he saw how unmoved he seemed by the death of his best friend. But he had no way of proving it. Con Hood came from a wealthy family, the wealthiest in Sydney, and with wealth came power. He would need absolute solid proof to sink the son of Sydney's wealthiest family, and he had none. He doubted he would ever have any.

-

He had put on some gloves and had spent the next several minutes examining the doorknob for any finger prints. It was the only form of advanced technology they really had that could help them match a criminal to a crime scene.

When he got nothing out of his search besides the proof that the culprit had been someone known to the family, he decided to return to his squad car. It was late at night, but he would have to call up Claire Feeney in order to ask for a favor.

She and Con Hood were neighbors, and had grown up together. They were childhood friends and if anyone had any information on him, it would be her.

He was walking down the path that led to his car, pulling the elastic gloves off his hands, when he heard the static of his radio as though someone were trying to communicate with him. He hurried to the car, opened the driver side door, and climbed inside. His hand reached for the speaker attached to the radio system and he hit the side button to issue a reply, "This is squad car #1119, officer Vega speaking, over."

"Officer Vega," The person spoke over the static of the radio. "we have a ten thirty three on Firestone Avenue. Whats your twenty?" There was an emergency situation on Firestone Avenue, and the station wanted to know his location in order to determine if they wanted to send him to the scene.

"Firestone." He replied, specifying after a moment, "Irwin residence."

"The call came from across the street." Bobby was informed. He looked in the rear view mirror to see the house he house where there was a supposed emergency.

It was Conrad Hood's house.

-

EDIT: most of you read this as the last chapter of part one. but i need more chapters so that i can feel like im not rushing the ending. so i moved this down and now each part has 20 chaps instead of 18. my ocd heart is stressing, but its okay.

as you know, the previous two books had fifty two chapters each. this one will have instead 54-58 chapters (even though it hurts my ocd heart. it highly bothers me when books in a series don't have the same number of chapters). the reason for the extra chapters is that i promised i would have an alternate ending for you all. and there will also be an epilogue which will conclude the series. 

qotd: who do you all ship more? hashton or carley? or marley (i heard a small amount of you still ship this). guys, im the author, and ashton and calum are my top boys. and i am struggling bc this is an ashton fic, so he kinda has to get the girl in the end. but then the other half of my heart says fuck it, let her stay with calum. so even me, as the writer, i dont know how this will end up yet.

thank you all for reading. i have already established that update days are definitely fridays for this story. and 1-2 random updates during the rest of the week. have a great week!

-clary xx