8. Chapter 8

#

Mr. Morningstar was a very curious character; Agent Johnson thought as he put the report down and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Very curious indeed, but was it relevant?

An unknown past was suspicious, but The Collector had been active in times and places when Mr Morningstar had a clear alibi. Still, not being The Collector didn’t mean he wasn’t involved in something else. He tapped his fingers on his borrowed desk. Club owners didn’t remain club owners after five years of running at a loss, nor were they able to hide their past from the FBI’s best, and thus there had to be more to this story. A great deal more. His thoughts circled; The Collector had to be his priority and yet something rumbled uneasily in the base of his skull at the thought of Morningstar.

Michael rapped his knuckles once on their shared desk and Johnson jerked in surprise.

“Sir? We have the warrants.”

“So quickly?” Johnson frowned even as he scanned the proffered papers. The various legal enforcement offices may preach co-operation, but the truth was never as rosy as their press releases made it seem. Search warrants for a local officer, even from a supposedly neutral judge… well, Johnson had seen too much of bureaucratic squabbling to hope that they’d find the girl alive by the time all the ruffled feathers had been soothed and various personages assured of their career’s safety.

“Indeed,” Michael gave a wry grin, “Judge Tourvel already had most of the facts when I phoned her an hour ago. Apparently, a concerned citizen had filled her in. In detail. I was invited to her house as, and here I quote, ‘it will be quicker than the office’ where she proceeded to sign the warrants and encourage me to come to her if there was anything, anything at all, she could do to help.”

“How helpful,” Johnson mused, “and very convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

He tuned back to his computer, where the picture of one Lucifer Morningstar smirked back at him and then he turned his back.

“Gather the team.”

***#

“Dan? Oh my God,” Chloe paced the marble floors in agitation. “No wonder the public scream about law enforcement incompetence. The FBI, the FBI, of all people – and the best they can come up with is Dan? Trixie’s father? No wonder they haven’t caught the guy already!”

She looked incredible, Lucifer thought, entranced as she stalked up and down his living room, her soul afire with passion as she raged about injustice. He liked seeing her here, in his home. It was…right.

“And you!” Lucifer blinked in confusion as she rounded on him, the blaze of her soul almost blinding to his newly empowered eyes. “Why are you not saying anything? You can’t believe this… this fraud!”

“Detective,” he soothed absently, more interested in the glorious whorls and twists of her soul, “The depths of human depravity will never surprise me. Why, the stories I could tell you… Sodom and Gomorrah were really only the beginning you know,” he trailed off, lost in the memories. How surprised they’d been, when the armies of heaven had come for them. Indignant too, right up until the despair hit, when they realised how powerless they were, and had been, all along.

“I’m not a fraud. They have an arrest warrant on the system. It’s real.”

The sullen mutter drew him back to the present and he tore his gaze reluctantly from the Detective’s soul up to her eyes, willing her to believe him.

“Mr. Brent wouldn’t lie to me, Detective, even if he could.”

The hacker shuddered, a full body shudder that made Lucifer purr in satisfaction inside to see. It had been positively ages since he’d had someone in the know in his bed. Connor was going to be so much fun to play with.

This hacker had been a good choice too for that matter; it hadn’t taken him long at all to get into the police’s network. Lucifer would have hated for his one ‘free’ resurrection to go to waste.

Amenadiel had tipped the balance with Malcolm’s unseemly resurrection; Brent’s return tipped it back. His soul was also fascinating to watch, torn as it was between existential horror and inhuman desire, yet it lacked the detective’s bizarre appeal, branded as it was by their Bargain and his time spent in Hell.

Nothing would have stopped him, had Connor lied about his usefulness.

A Deal was a Deal, but he was Lucifer.

He’d promised a mortal life, and a mortal life Connor would get, as agreed. Yet whether Connor realised it or not, there had been many loopholes. Their entire conversation had formed the Bargain, including the moment where Connor had tried to outline the terms and Lucifer had intimidated him into hurrying up.

You won’t ah, kill me once I’m no longer useful?

Only if you annoy me.

Lucifer found lies to be very annoying.

Connor may have understood the trap, not that it mattered, or he may have thought it unrelated conversation, but either way, Lucifer knew how to phrase his Deals.

The Devil was always in the details, you know.

“I’m not lying, Ma’am,” Brent promised fervently, wringing his hands anxiously, “Look, look, it’s right there on the screen!” He ran to the rightmost screen turning it towards her and standing by it, shaking, looking at her with wide eyes full of an emotion Lucifer didn’t understand.

Lucifer, exasperated, returned to watching his unreasonable detective, as he sipped a particularly fine whisky. She was now eyeing his hacker with concern – he’d learned to recognise that particularly nasty emotion fairly quickly. She’d gone from calling him a fraud to being worried for him in the space of two sentences.

Humans.

He’d never understand them. It was amazing that they even found time to make things – like his whisky – the way they carried on with all these feelings. It seemed so exhausting.

“Are they interviewing him?” Chloe asked, stepping towards the computers warily, “Can we hear what they’re saying from here? Can we watch?”

“Yeah, sure, er,” Connor eyed them both again, “I mean yes, ma’am. As long as the CCTV inside the interrogation room has audio, I mean, but I can definitely do that for you even if I have to hack the microphone of their phones, I swear down.”

Connor looked back to him pleadingly – Lucifer was very familiar with that one - and Lucifer raised an eyebrow in silent question when Chloe’s eyes followed, narrowing thoughtfully on him.

****#

“Have the pictures arrived early?” Dan asked, sliding into the awkward plastic chair of one of the interview rooms – the only place you could talk in private these days. “Have you called Chloe? She’s only just left – probably off with Lucifer again.”

He made no effort to hide the derision in his voice when he spoke of that man.

“Do you not like Mr Morningstar?” Agent Johnson replied in an easy conversational manner. “He’s quite popular around the station, or so I hear.”

“You mean he’s slept with half the station,” Dan scoffed, hands fisting unconsciously. Lucifer made it look so easy.

“Including your estranged wife?” Johnson kept his face smooth as he winced inside. He had not meant to say that, it was too aggressive. Ideally, Mr. Espinoza wouldn’t know he was under suspicion for as long as they could manage. Suspects were much more cooperative before you brought out the A-word.

“She wouldn’t do that to me,” Dan scowled, an ugly expression. “The divorce isn’t finalised, it would break her vows.”

“I see.” Johnson said mildly, trying to get back onto a smoother track. Did he actually believe that or was he trying to convince himself? Was this some sick form of jealousy? Was Morningstar’s entrance into Ms. Decker’s life a stress trigger?

Dan paused. “What does this have to do with Trixie?”

****#

“I don’t get it,” Julie said, eyeing the feed from the interrogation room, “What’s his motive?”

“Jealousy? It’s pretty clear that he hates his wife’s new beau.”

“They’re not sleeping together,” Julie denied easily, “You can tell he wants to, he really wants to, but her body language is all wrong for that. His body language is weird too for that matter, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s not aggressive. I can tell that much.”

“Pre-emptive jealousy then?” Michael shrugged, too used to the way some of these perps minds worked to be surprised. “Nothing like a missing child to give you an excuse to talk to your wife, comfort her, support her, and try to fix the marriage.”

Julie snorted. “That woman didn’t look like she needed comforting, she looked like she needed an axe. And I’m pretty sure Morningstar would get it for her and then gleefully hold the man down for her swing. You’ve heard the gossip around here.”

Agent Michael paused. “Alright,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll give you that one. But you can’t deny Espinoza’s name is the last on the roster, and that he’s been acting suspiciously.”

“Have we talked to the partner yet?”

“No, he called in sick yesterday morning.”

“What do the bank accounts look like?”

“Couple of large withdrawals made recently, all in cash.”

“Suspicious timing, but it doesn’t prove anything.”

“Yet.”

#***

Chloe listened intently to the Agent discussion and to Dan’s interview. It was surreal, and vaguely embarrassing, to hear so many people dissect her life. She was tired of people making assumptions about her private life. Who she slept with was private – right up until it wasn’t, apparently, and it was another injustice piled on top of a heap of them. She was almost too hurt to care. Almost.

Yet, she had to admit that it was reluctantly interesting too. Dan would never have spoken that way in front of her. It was a rougher side to him than she’d ever known – until the final days of their marriage. Nor would she have learned about any of this until after the investigation was over.

Lucifer’s hacker was good. She was glad she’d asked for one, even if this was technically illegal. It was good to be doing something. A balm for her soul to know what was going on instead of being kept on the side lines, waiting, always waiting for news. She’d never treat her witnesses the same way again.

Speaking of ‘the devil’, she eyed the two men. Connor had given Lucifer his chair instantly, when Lucifer had finally meandered over to watch, and hovered awkwardly in the background, drawing close enough to check that they were still undetected, and then retreating for a few minutes before shuffling back again. Lucifer was spending more time watching Connor than he was the screens – and Connor seemed pleased by the attention and then terrified because of it.

The man seemed so confused, if it wasn’t Lucifer, then she’d say Connor was scared of him. But it was Lucifer, and Lucifer was as scary as a puppy, with big soulful eyes. It was probably a sexuality crisis. It certainly wasn’t the first time a straight man had freaked out over wanting Lucifer. Nor was it the first time Lucifer had seduced one for the pleasure of watching them freak out afterwards.

The man was incorrigible. He even had a scale for how he ranked the post-coital reactions, and Chloe wished she didn’t know even that much – but Lucifer would text her the details.

“What roster are they talking about?” Chloe asked firmly.

“Oh I looked that up,” Connor said, giving Lucifer another one of those glances, “It’s for the police car you found? Apparently you sign them in and out or something? I wasn’t too sure, but apparently that guy’s name is the last on the list before it was used in the crime.”

“Yeah,” Chloe confirmed softly, “It’s the cost cuts. No need to have so many cars fitted out if half the time the officers are on desk duty.”

“Is that all you’ve found out? It’s been ages,” Lucifer whined, twirling around in the computer chair, a fresh drink in hand. Honestly, the man’s tolerance had to be insane. He had whisky for breakfast and had never once stumbled. Connor jerked so hard at Lucifer’s whinging that he nearly fell of the desk he’d perched on since Lucifer had his chair.

“I’ll find more boss. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m not worrying,” Lucifer assured sweetly. “I have full faith in your abilities.”

His sweet, patient, tone set all of Chloe’s instincts off.

Connor shakily reached across Lucifer to access the keyboard. Chloe watched as he shut down half a dozen YouTube sites relating to… bushcraft? Seriously? This guy? Chloe eyed the skinny man dubiously, unable to picture him braving the wilds. Still, she tried not to judge as Connor returned to the L.A.P.D intranet – and didn’t she feel uncomfortable seeing all of those files so easily accessed.

Afterwards, she promised herself, afterwards she’d drop a few words to the tech department.

Yesterday – a lifetime ago – she’d have arrested Connor. Today, she was willing to trust him.

What a difference twenty-three hours could make.

Twenty-three hours?

Chloe glanced hurriedly at her watch even as she grabbed Lucifer’s shoulder and hauled him upright, stealing his drink and tossing it down the sink in one smooth motion as she hustled him out the door.

“Detective! That was four hundred year old Bushmills!”

“We need to be at the station,” Chloe overrode his complaining, knowing it was the best way to deal with people like Lucifer and her mother. Horror mixed with exhaustion in her belly and it roiled wildly, unimproved by the thought of a twenty-minute car ride ahead. She was sick of the dashing too and fro she’d been doing all day too, but it hardly registered against the backdrop of other worries.

Lucifer stopped whinging, grabbing his car keys as he hustled her into the elevator.

***#

“You brought him?”

The echo from earlier was not welcome.

“Yes Dan. Lucifer is my friend. Sort of. He’s here for support.”

“Chloe he’s –“

“He’s staying.” Chloe grit her teeth. “I want him here.”

She was relieved that Lucifer didn’t take obvious innuendo, keeping it hidden behind his smirk for once. Not that he needed to say it for her to hear it.

Here? Detective! You naughty minx.

“Ten minutes,” Agent Price warned, her eyes fixed on the computer.

Chloe reached for Lucifer’s hand beneath the desk, ignoring his deer-in-the-headlights look as she silently demanded his support. She gripped it as hard as she had for those poor nurses during labour. She needed something to hold onto and Lucifer was it.

Pictures.

Pictures of Trixie.

Proof of life, that was one good bit – not that she could know when they were really taken. Or if they were real. What if they’d been photo shopped? What if they were obscene? Explicit? God, what Trixie had gone through? A full day in this monster’s company, and Chloe hadn’t saved her. For Trixie to have those pictures on a dozen different legal files, for all those people to see them – and Chloe was stuck sitting here in this cramped little office, Lucifer on one side awkward with her emotions, Dan on the other all stiff-backed pride, and the eyes of a dozen people on her.

Without looking at her, Lucifer reached over with his one free hand and tugged the blinds shut, shielding her from the curious bullpen.

That man. Sometimes he was so callous, so insensitive to everyone around him that she could barely look at him, other times he was so generous, so kind that she couldn’t look away.

She had to look away today though. Chloe stiffened her spine, wondering if The Collector was watching her even now. He wanted to see her pain, they said, and Connor had certainly accessed the L.A.P.D CCTTV easily enough. If one hacker could do it, then so could others.

Should she scream? Cry? Would that satisfy him? Would it help Trixie somehow, keep his attentions on the mother rather than the child?

Before she could even begin to decide, there was a faint chime from the computer, signalling the incoming email, and her insides turned to icy stone. God she was going to be sick, and probably all over Lucifer, the way her life was going.

Agent Beck opened the email without a fuss, and Chloe was deeply thankful she had that task, and not only because she really would have been sick if she’d had to do it. How she prayed the computer virus had taken, that this whole sorry, sordid, event could have some sort of greater purpose.

Trixie was in a pink dress.

Trixie hated pink. It seemed such a tiny thing, and yet it brought tears to her eyes. Trixie had always hated pink. God, Chloe would eagerly argue about flushing Barbie’s down the toilet all day, pay a thousand plumbers, if she could only hear Trixie scream about pink one more time.

Chloe took one look at her daughters frozen expression of absolute misery, before she had to bury her face into Lucifer’s arm, trying to remember how to cry.

#