When Chloe heard the knock on her window she very nearly rolled her eyes - the only thing stopping her was the threat of giving that man any satisfaction. She settled for very slowly crossing her arms.
"Detective? Detective! You've locked me out rather than in this time. Is this progress?"
Chloe briefly shut her eyes before twisting, pulling up the child-lock. Lucifer slipped in with a grin.
"So my company is wanted after all."
"Not really, I just can't risk you causing a racket and frightening the suspect off." Chloe nudged him hard in the ribs. "How the hell did you find me?"
"Oh, hell had nothing to do it. Rather simple really. Your lovely boss was quite willing to give you up. We're meant to be partners now, remember?"
"I remember," she drawled. Chloe would never admit it, but she was sort of glad for the company tonight.
Over the past month nearly three women had been killed—'nearly' because the last was lying in a coma, giving her family a great deal of what was probably false hope. All three were redheads, the first two prostitutes that even the saintly LAPD didn't miss... but the third victim was Lisa Barlow, daughter of Richard Barlow, owner of a number of LA's casinos. Amazing what money and connections could get you.
"William Stog," Chloe said, pointing to the house across from them. "Served fifteen years for manslaughter. Got into a fight with his girlfriend, Diane Lawrence, and gave the poor girl a good shove. The balcony's railing was completely rotted through and she fell real damn hard. She was a redhead, like our victims. Frankly though, the hotel caught more hell than he did."
Chloe stiffened when she heard a familiar whrr shhh... whrr shhh...whr-sh-whr-sh... Lucifer was playing with the window, forcing the abused glass up, down, up again.
"What are you doing?" she glared. "You're going to blow our cover."
"Do we care?" Lucifer shot back. "You know as well as I do that Mr. Stog isn't our man. Corrupt, despicable—I don't doubt it, but that worm doesn't possess the intelligence to have planned these murders. It's just his bad luck that he killed a redhead way back. Told you, detective, they're creepy, soulless bastards. Heir bringers of bad luck, I swear it." He pushed the window down again.
Chloe agreed wholeheartedly—Stog wasn't their guy, this whole stakeout was a waste of time and bickering with Lucifer was better than sitting in silence—but the four horsemen themselves couldn't drag that admission out of her. Instead of saying, 'Hey, thanks for stopping by,' Chloe's hand shot out and grabbed hold of Lucifer's wrist. His eyebrows shot up in turn.
"Why, detective… if you wanted to get frisky, all you had to do was ask." His gaze lowered. "Or show some initiative. Well done."
Chloe dropped him like a hot potato. "You wish. Just leave the window alone."
"But I can't. I have to make sure our servers know which car we're in."
"Ser—?" Chloe's head whipped his way. "What?"
"Ah! Here we are."
One moment they were alone on the street, 1:32am and not a soul in sight. The next, three people in chefs' garb were leaning over the car, two through Lucifer's window and one knocking insistently at Chloe's.
"Louis! Perfect timing as always. Still hot? Excellent. Detective, don't be rude."
Chloe gapped, but she did lower her window at Lucifer's insistence. A young woman immediately handed her a covered plate.
"Lucifer." The man, presumably Louis, gushed for a moment, hands clasped and supplicating. "How have you been? Still running that horrid club?"
"Now, now, I don't pay you to cast judgment on my business."
"You? Pay me?"
"In a manner of speaking," Lucifer grinned.
"Let me guess," Chloe said faintly. "Another one of your favors—oh no, no please I don't need—" The woman ignored her, flicking out a pristine napkin and leaning in to tuck it over Chloe's knees.
Louis nodded as Lucifer sniffed the domed plate appreciatively. "Yes, Detective Decker. Lucifer helped me to start my first restaurant. Hell's Kitchen down on Grand Avenue, if you're interested."
"If I'm...?" she stopped before she could make a fool of herself, Louis' gaze, even from the shadows, all too knowing. Of course she was interested. Hell's Kitchen was supposedly the place to eat and had been for months now. It was the sort of restaurant that took reservations a year in advance and the kind that Chloe could only ever dream of entering for some sort of arrest—certainly never to eat.
She was suddenly very aware of how good the plates smelled.
"Could have chosen a better name," Lucifer said, snapping out his own napkin. "I can assure you, the food in hell was horrid. Ah well, I suppose you can't be good at everything, darling." His eyes raked over Louis.
Chloe didn't feel quite as bad about squirming when the woman beside her blushed and looked away.
"You still owe that 'manner of speaking,'" Louis purred.
"I thought..." Chloe pointed inarticulately. "... favor..."
"Louis has paid me back for the restaurant in spades, detective. No, no, I indeed owe him payment for this little deep. We'll have sex tomorrow, okay? And you two are quite welcome to join in."
The man standing beside Louis jumped while the woman nodded vigorously, still blushing. Chloe continued to imitate a trout.
"Tomorrow then," Louis said, bending to brush a kiss across Lucifer's knuckles. "Bon appetite."
Chloe had seen Lucifer get people to admit their deepest secrets with just a glance and a smile. She'd thought she'd seen him shot, even a moment when his face had seemed to distort, becoming deformed and inhuman... but Chloe could honestly say that out of everything this last month, the strangest thing she'd seen was three chefs slinking back into the night, leaving her with a quiet suspect, two steaming plates, and a man who claimed to be the devil.
"Do you ever just question your life choices," she murmured.
"Never. That's an awful habit." With a cry of delight Lucifer pulled up the cover and tossed it onto the backseat, the steam from his meal fogging up the windows. He drew in a breath. "Louis never disappoints. Well go on, detective. Dig in."
Hesitantly, Chloe lifted her own lid, biting back a moan as that wonderful smell increased tenfold. She revealed an arrangement similar to what Lucifer had beside her: a filet, perfectly pink and oozing juices into a mound of scalloped potatoes, both of them surrounded by green beans seasoned with garlic. The arrangement was artful, sure, but Chloe's mouth was a little too busy salivating to care—the traitor.
"Louis can do far more complex dishes of course," Lucifer said. He already had his fork and steak knife out, delicately cutting a slice off the filet. "He was disappointed when I asked for something so... plebeian. I thought you'd enjoy a heartier meal after a long day's work though. Long night ahead of you too. Besides, I never could resist a good pun."
Chloe had given up by now. They had no good leads, their non-suspect was no doubt fast asleep by now, and it had been a very long day. She unfurled her own knife and fork and set to work, stuffing a mound of potatoes into her mouth with no (okay, only a few) reservations. They were melty and cheesy and exactly what Chloe needed. She looked over at Lucifer with hooded eyes... then narrowed them. His words caught up with her.
"Pun?"
"Why yes," he said, smiling around his fork. "We're having a steak-out."
Chloe blinked, then slowly leaned forward to rest her head on the steering wheel.
"Do you get it, detective? Steak-out? Like stakeout? We have takeout? Except it should really be takeaway—"
"I get it, Lucifer."
"Good." He was positively preening in the next seat. Chloe offered him a half-hearted glare. "Oh! And you can give this to the small one." Turning, Lucifer grabbed a bag Louis must have handed him when Chloe wasn't looking. He shook it enticingly. "Same goodies, just smaller. A doggie bag for your little mutt."
"Trixie's not a dog."
"No? Doesn't it amount to the same?"
"And it will be nearly 5:00 by the time I get back."
"Well how am I supposed to know what time tiny humans eat?" With a shrug Lucifer took another bite. "Are you really going to let that go cold?"
For a moment Chloe considered just staying like that, the steering wheel making a semi-permanent imprint on her skin. Nearly 2:00am now, eating takeout from one of LA's most exclusive restaurants, a doggie bag to take home to her daughter, learning that the devil (supposedly) loved puns almost as much as he loved kind gestures...
...almost as much as he loved denying they were anything of the sort.
Chloe ran her finger along the edge of her plate, turning her head. She slowly sat up—then jabbed Lucifer with her fork.
"Ow!"
"Thanks for this."
"You're welcome—funny way you have of showing it though!"
Chloe stifled a laugh, turning into the shadows so Lucifer wouldn't see. There's no way he could have missed it though.
Fifteen minutes that sat in companionable silence, eating steadily through their meal. It was only when Chloe had finished her steak that Lucifer leaned forward, the last of his green beans protruding from his mouth, his lips wrapped around the stalks suggestively.
He removed the beans with a wet 'pop!' "You know, tomorrow you're more than welcome to join Louis and I. It looked like that gorgeous woman was thinking of joining in on the fun. Why not take a page out of her Tijuana Bible and—"
"No."
"Very well."
Lucifer didn't sound too put out about it. He didn't even adopt his usual, overly shocked persona. The night was too calm for that. He merely collected their plates, deposited them on the backseat, and put his feet up on the dash.
"You're staying?"
"I don't see why not. At least until 5:00. If there's one thing my Father didn't mess up, it's the sunrise."
Chloe smiled, settling back as well.
"Yeah? Then that I need to see."