7. Chapter 7

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“Interesting friends you keep, Detective Decker,” Agent Johnson smiled professionally. The chaos had left with Lucifer. Chloe would go to Lux after the meeting with the technician to drag him back – she wanted him with her when the photos came in –but she’d had to kick him out in mortification after that last little comment. Oh, if she’d just known he was listening… now she would never hear the end of it.

“I wouldn’t call Lucifer a friend exactly,” Chloe replied, grinding her teeth at the memory. She should have kept her temper.

“An unusual man,” Johnson continued easily. “With unusual connections.”

Well well well, Chloe thought quietly amused at his segue into the topic, finally, they wise up. When Trixie was safe in her arms once more, Chloe was going to have to Talk to Lucifer about his network; it was larger than she’d thought and far more powerful. In fact, she was beginning to seriously worry about their society if nothing had been done about it already. Not that she wanted to see Lucifer in jail precisely. In the mean time, it was none of the FBI’s business.

“He runs a high-end club,” Chloe explained absently, projecting disinterest as she focused on shuffling some paperwork about. “Lots of movers and shakers go there.”

What did they know? What did they think they knew? Who else knew? Perhaps the FBI already had a file on Lucifer? The thought was reassuring and concerning at the same time.

“So I’ve heard. How did he become a civilian consultant again?”

Chloe smiled up at the agent. “He has unusual connections.”

Johnson nodded as if conceding a point, and left, just in time for the lieutenant to wave Chloe over for a ‘quick chat.’

***#

“I’m worried about you Chloe. What was that about?” Dan looked genuinely concerned as he drew her aside and handed her the fourth coffee of the day and she’d only been at the station for two hours. He’d found time to change his shirt, Chloe realised with irritation; she hadn’t even had time to find a hairbrush. Not that there’d been time with all the rushing about.

“I lost my temper,” Chloe told him, resigned to this conversation. Lieutenant Monroe hadn’t chewed her out as she’d half expected; instead, Olivia had let her hide in her office for a minute to let her pull herself together. It had done her a world of good to be away from all of those prying eyes for a brief moment.

Dan frowned. “Chloe, I don’t care about that! I’m talking about Lucifer.”

“I know,” she said icily.

“He’s not good for you, or for anybody. You saw that woman – he’d never be faithful to you.”

Chloe was actually taken aback by his words. That was so inappropriate she didn’t know how to respond.

“Dan, I appreciate the concern,” not that he was demonstrating concern, “But how many time do we have to have this conversation? Lucifer is my friend.” She refused to allow any hesitation when she said the word friend. Lucifer didn’t seem to fit such mundane labels. If any label fit him, it was neon orange with dire warnings of radiation and nuclear waste and toxicity.

Dan looked drawn and weary. “Chloe, you’ll never be happy with him.”

She was so tired of defending her private life. “That is my decision. I will not –“

“Sir, ma’am?” A voice interrupted, “if you’ll come with me? Agent Beck is ready to tag your phones and email.”

Chloe gladly took the excuse to abandon the topic, and walked with Dan and the FBI Agent – she thought this one was Michael – to the conference room that had been set aside for their use at the station.

Agent Beck, call me Julie, was a sharp eyed woman, pretty with brown hair blue eyes and a smile that was somewhere between sympathetic and determined.

“OK, so we know the subject is going to email you pictures in two hours or so if he sticks to his four o’clock pattern.” She said briskly as Chloe took a seat by her workstation. “To do that, he or she needs an email address and an Internet connection. We’re going to try and trace them– but we can only do that if we have a starting point. I’m also going to infect your devices with a programme we’ve developed over the course of this investigation that ought to help. With me so far?”

Chloe handed over her laptop, her phone and her passwords without a whisper of protest. Anything that could help - but she’d get a new phone and laptop afterwards. Her faith in her colleagues had taken a drastic downturn after Palmetto and the months that followed. It had a subterranean turn after discovering the car that Trixie had taken had been from this very station, and there would be some sort of record of the passwords she’d just handed over. There was always a paper trail.

Somebody was helping The Collector. Somebody she’d worked with for years had helped kidnap her daughter with intent to sell her like a prized dog to a very short life of rape, slavery and abuse until she met the inevitable awful end. Death would probably be a mercy at that point and damn the bastard for making her imagine such a fate for her Trixie.

God she hoped Lucifer had found her a hacker. She needed to know who The Collector was – then she was going to track the bastard down and… she flailed about for a suitable punishment, and… and set Lucifer on them!

They deserved it.

Chloe would even turn a blind eye to Lucifer’s more psychotic desires.

“Alright, we’re done,” Julie said. “Naturally, this is to be kept confidential, if they know what’s coming we won’t be able to trap them.”

What did she think? That Chloe would run her mouth with her daughter at risk? But, but Julie was looking mostly at Dan. That soothed the ragged edge of her rage.

“This way,” Agent Michael said, gesturing for them to rise. “It’s going to be hard to see the pictures, but you both need to be prepared. Any clue you can discern could be vital, I’m sure you know that of course, but it’s different when it’s personal. The counsellor will be on hand if you – “

“Thank you Agent,” Chloe answered quickly before the Agent could cheerfully escort her to another session with that god awful counsellor. “I know. I’ll be here.”

She walked out of the back entrance of the station before anyone could gainsay her.

“Chloe! Chloe! Over here!”

Oh crap.

Reporters. She’d almost forgotten how much attention this case was getting. Nothing sold news like tragedy.

Chloe risked a look up from the hand she’d instinctively raised and instantly regretted it.

There were only three of them – all with cameras – but they stood between her and her car. Remembering what Lucifer had said, Chloe braced herself and arranged her features into the appropriate expression of pain and grief. He gets off on this.

It went against all of her years of exposure, but she managed it.

“How do you feel knowing your daughter is dead?”

“Do you think you’ve failed as a mother?”

Oh god. She was wrong. She couldn’t handle this. She felt nausea rise as the reporter – a slim, trendy looking woman – smiled cheerfully at her, brandishing camera and microphone both in her face.

“Out of the way! Move or die!”

Dazed by the emotional barrage, Chloe thought she’d misheard, but Mazikeen was right there, ploughing through the reporters like a scythe through grass. Cheerfully, she kicked one fat man in the back of his knees so that he dropped to the grass, her heel impaling his camera as she walked over his prostrate form, dismissing him entirely.

She was a police officer; Chloe reminded herself weakly, civilians were being assaulted…

Failed as a mother?

Well, they had to report a crime first anyway. Until then, it wasn’t her problem.

“I’ve been ordered to escort you to Lux,” Mazikeen told her perfunctorily, when the woman finally stood before Chloe. “My car is over here.”

“I can drive myself!” Chloe protested weakly, head throbbing.

“Lucifer said to drive you,” Mazikeen replied. Her tone was final, unconcerned, as if that was the end of it. Lucifer had said it must be so, and so it was.

Then again, Chloe realised, slumping in despair for her sanity; this was Mazikeen. Of course Lucifer’s orders were absolute to this woman.

Feeling vaguely guilty, as if she was somehow taking advantage from the woman’s delusions or her ninja-bodyguard-contract to Lucifer, Chloe followed Mazikeen to her car. She’d half expected something expensive and classy – clearly Lucifer’s preferred tastes - but Mazikeen drove an enormous four by four truck. It looked vicious and loomed above the league of sedans ominously. Naturally, it was painted black.

“Thank you,” Chloe said dutifully as she hoisted herself up into the seat. “For the reporters I mean, you didn’t have to.”

“Lucifer ordered me to protect you,” the ninja replied easily as she pulled out into traffic and began bullying her way down the roads.

“He did?”

Chloe felt a reluctant flush of warmth through her at that. She was capable of defending herself, but she wouldn’t have against those reporters and she knew it. What they’d said had knocked her over as much as a physical blow. It was nice, not to have to let other people walk over her for the sake of politeness.

It was one of the things she admired about Lucifer - reluctant as she was to admit to any redeeming characteristics that man possessed. He was unusual to be sure, but he bowed to nothing and no one.

In a very politically correct world and career, she had to value that.

****#

“Darling!”

Chloe took in the room with a glance. Computer screens were everywhere, creating a mess of wires and technology over Lucifer’s normally impeccable apartment. Where had he found the time to buy all of this?

Also: a dead man.

In fact, Chloe was so busy staring at the previously deceased Conner Brent that it was easy to catch the look he gave her at Lucifer’s address.

She wasn’t sure what look it was, but she caught it. Unease perhaps? Surely it hadn’t been fear. Not of her.

“Lucifer, there’s a dead man in your flat.” She fingered her empty holster warily, wishing she still had her gun.

“Hmm? Oh him, well you did say you needed a hacker, darling, do you not like him? I have time to get another.”

Brent shot her another look. This one she understood: pleading.

“No,” Chloe said slowly, eyeing him uncertainly “He’s fine, er, where did you find him exactly?”

To her memory Connor Brent had been shot dead during a police stand off. It had made the news and there had been some controversy over the legality of it, which was why his face was memorable.

It had all been very public and very real.

“In Hell of course.”

Chloe did a bit of mental acrobatics, on a skill level akin to the Cirque du Soleil. She’d gotten very good at in in the months she’d known Lucifer.

Obviously, the police faked the whole shoot out. Brent must have been in protective custody or pressed into service for his computer skills maybe? That happened to the better ones, or so she’d heard. Lucifer would certainly find either set of restrictions hellish.

“I see,” she said faintly. How far did Lucifer’s network extend exactly? For him to know about new identities or safe houses… oh yes, they would talk. After.

“Ma’am?” Connor said diffidently, edging over towards her, “May I borrow your phone?”

“The FBI have done something to it too,” Chloe said weakly, offering it. Was this going to get her in trouble? Did she care?

“I’m sure they tried” Connor sniffed dismissively, before shooting a terrified look at Lucifer and hastily added, “Ma’am.”

Oh yes, Chloe thought tiredly, Lucifer had definitely used some of his tricks on this one. She knew the signs.

“Drink, detective?” Lucifer held out something amber in a spirit glass. It was probably rare.

Connor flinched again; his back hunched as he connected her phone to his computer and started tapping away, crouching awkwardly in the chair – desperate not to be noticed.

“I’m on duty Lucifer. Besides it’s nowhere near six.” Chloe sighed, collapsing on Lucifer’s hideously expensive and comfortable couch and easing out of her heels. They were the lowest height the station let women get away with and they were still uncomfortable. How she was expected to run in them, well, she knew better than to ask.

“And?” Lucifer asked, bewildered, drink still in hand he sat beside her with no sense of personal space or boundaries but she was too used to it to protest. This at least was familiar, and she needed familiar right now, no matter the source.

“And it means I can’t drink,” Only Lucifer would need that explaining, she thought fondly. Technically, she’d been on forced leave the moment the suspicion of kidnap had arisen, but she still thought of herself on duty, and she was working Trixie’s case.

“How barbaric.” He said, horrified, taking a reassuring sip before angling his body towards her and leaning forward intently. The gleam in his eye made Chloe want to …something.

“I want you to move in with me tonight.”

Chloe’s mind froze, her extreme skill with mental gymnastics failing to re-interpret that sentence. Instead, she reached across Lucifer’s rock hard body – damn him and damn those suits – snatched the drink from his grasp and downed it in one.

“Why detective, you rebel,” Lucifer praised, topping her up gleefully.

“Not happening,” Chloe protested firmly. You always had to use a firm tone with Lucifer or he just rolled over your objections and carried on anyway. Why did he always spring these moments of insanity on her when all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep? It was like he could sense weakness or something.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Brent jerk. He shot her – and it was definitely her – a wide-eyed stare before snapping his head back around to the computer. Determination to see nothing, hear nothing, and say nothing so clearly portrayed in his body language that he might as well have screamed it out.

“Will you want a room of your own or will you share mine?”

“I’m not moving in.” Chloe insisted again.

“Darling,” Lucifer reproved, “I’m not leaving you alone until you have the spawn back, and I refuse to be exiled to the couch again.” He perked up, face lighting, he smirked, “Unless, you –

“You aren’t sharing my bed.”

Lucifer fell back against the couch pouting.

“Maze will make up the guest room then.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe said “I’m-

“Reporters can’t get up here,” Lucifer told her earnestly, “And I have much better security and you can supervise your hacker,” he tempted. Damn it, it was so hard to tell him ‘no, no, dear god no,’ when he was acting from concern. She felt like she ought to reward his good behaviour. Positive reinforcement would eventually lead to a more stable mind, she was certain. She’d been reading too.

“You already have a guest,” she changed tack, knowing when an argument was lost didn’t mean she’d surrender that easily. It set a bad precedent.

“Connor doesn’t mind sleeping on the couch, do you, pet?” Lucifer said, smiling at her. He hadn’t even glanced at his probably-a-fugitive- hacker before speaking. She doubted a fugitive was sleeping in a hotel with records and CCTV cameras everywhere.

There was nothing in his tone that had been threatening, per se, but Brent must have heard something for he paled rapidly. Perhaps it was simply being acknowledged? She knew hackers had a certain stereotype, but surely no one was that socially awkward? Lucifer hadn’t been polite, but Chloe couldn’t imagine why anybody was ever afraid of Lucifer. He was an overgrown puppy really.

Except for the criminal empire.

“No, sir, I’m fine right here sir, really, there’s no need for you to concern yourself with me at all sir, ma’am.”

“You see?” Lucifer prompted her acting so much like Trixie – look mummy! - she had to swallow hard.

“Jesus Christ, Brent,” Chloe said, it was so much easier to speak to the hacker until her throat stopped feeling so tight.

“-Really Detective, do you have to call on him?”

“-Don’t let Lucifer walk all over you!” There was enough of that about already she thought, easily ignoring and talking over Lucifer’s protest.

“Oh no ma’am,” Brent told her earnestly, “I don’t mind, really I don’t.”

“And stop calling me ma’am,” Chloe added, more gently, the irritation fading and taking her energy with it. The other man looked terrified and it was calling to her maternal instincts for all he was a man grown already.

“My name is Chloe Decker, and I ought to have thanked you for helping me find my daughter,” Chloe replied softly, “Thank you. I don’t know how I can repay -,”

“It’s fine,” Brent interrupted hastily, waving his hands frantically, “Lucifer made me a, erm, a deal, yes a deal. So I’ve been paid already. I was never a white hat but I don’t hold with anyone who hurts children either. Really it’s fine.”

“You’re upsetting my hacker detective,” Lucifer sulked. “And anyway, Mazikeen has already bought an overnight bag for you.”

She took a long breath. “Lucifer, did Mazikeen break into my house?”

“She didn’t break anything,” Lucifer sighed, sprawling over the couch dramatically – still sulking.

Choose your battles, Chloe thought; thinking fondly of the advice the lieutenant had given her back when she’d first started as a beat cop.

“So, Mr. Brent, have you found anything?”

Brent looked first to Lucifer, who nodded permission, before talking.

“Well, I can tell you that the FBI suspect someone called Dan Espinoza,” he reported easily, relieved now that he was on familiar territory, “Apparently he’s a cop? Anyway he –“

Chloe dropped her glass, the crystal shattered into a thousands shards, bright and sparkling against the black marble floor.#