"You haven't yet told me who Terri is," Lucifer pointed out as they turned away from the bus and back towards the Schulzes' house.

"She's the pastor at St. Stephen's, the Lutheran church in town. She's who introduced me to Carl and Kathy."

"Ah," said Lucifer. "Clergy."

"Hey, be—" Chloe began before catching herself.

Too late; she'd caught his attention. "Be what, Detective?"

"Never mind. I shouldn't have said anything."

She felt a touch on her good arm, unintimate through her bulky coat, but insistent. Reluctantly, she turned to face him.

"Why shouldn't you have said anything?"

"I . . . well, I keep forgetting, when I'm not paying attention. Forgetting that you're . . ."

"The devil," Lucifer finished for her when she couldn't quite say the word.

"Yes. And that I, a very very breakable human," she carefully shrugged her sling-supported shoulder, "should probably not be bossing the devil around."

Lucifer sighed, and she saw his lips press together as though he were working hard to restrain some intense impulse. "Detective, I hereby grant you permission to boss me at your leisure. I would much rather hear an endless stream of bossing than hear you self-censoring because you are afraid of me."

Chloe sighed, too; hearing him give her explicit permission was not the same as the freedom she had felt in earlier days to issue commands to her partner on her cases, when she'd known herself to be In Charge. But she steeled herself and finished her thought. "I was going to say, please be polite. Pastor Terri has done a lot for Trixie and me and I owe her."

"See, Detective? That wasn't so hard. And look . . . no anger, no violence, no devil-face."

"And you're gonna be polite?"

"No, of course not. You know how I feel about those predatory exploitative hypocrites. Come on." And, taking advantage of his longer legs and two working arms, he was off toward the house again, leaving her scrambling to catch up.

She managed to reach the front door just as Terri responded to Lucifer's knock. "Oh, hi, Claire. Come on in. Kathy's still asleep, poor thing. She was up half the night crying."

"We just wanted to check on the two of you," Claire offered as she squirmed her feet out of her snow-covered boots. Only when they were both off did she realize the thing she'd been holding onto for balance was Lucifer's shoulder. She let go abruptly and tried, and failed, to find something not-awkward to do with her hand instead.

"Speaking of 'we'," said Terri, looking up (way up) at Lucifer, "I didn't catch last night who your friend is."

Lucifer's smile was distinctly shark-like. "Lucifer Morningstar," he offered, taking Terri's hand with exaggerated politeness. "The devil."

Terri's eyes went wide, and she looked to Claire. "This is the guy?"

"No!" Chloe insisted. "No, not exactly. It's a long story. Look, can we sit down?"

Terri indicated the sofa and chairs in the living room. "You want coffee or anything?"

"No, thanks. We're okay."

Terri crouched by the wood stove for a moment, adding a couple of logs from the stack next to it, before joining Chloe on the couch.

"Okay," said Chloe. "Terri, I haven't been totally honest with you. My name isn't Claire. It's actually Chloe. Chloe Decker. And Bee's really called Trixie."

"Really?" Terri sounded disappointed. "But that was such a cute story, about her Rs!"

"Detective!" Lucifer looked horrified. "Have you been telling people cute stories about your daughter's arse? Shame on you!"

"Oh, shut up," said Chloe, without thinking, and Lucifer grinned in genuine delight. "I'm a homicide detective from Los Angeles," she continued to Terri. "What I told you, about being on the run from a domestic violence situation, was true. What I didn't mention was that my ex-fiance was a lieutenant with the LAPD, extremely respected and well-connected. When I left California, I was effectively on the run from the cops. Hence the aliases, why I couldn't use my own documents to get a job."

Terri frowned in confusion. "But this is not your ex-fiancé?"

"It is not. This is my partner. When I broke my arm on Wednesday, I called him for help, and here he is. Turns out, Pierce . . . the ex . . . is dead. He got into an altercation with law enforcement and was killed while resisting arrest. So now I can tell you all of this."

"And you can go home," Terri added.

Chloe nodded. "Yeah. We can go home." Home . . . "But not until we find out who murdered Carl. Lucifer here is . . . a lot to get used to, but . . ."

"I beg your pardon!"

"—he's one of the best investigators in LA." Chloe stopped, then added, "He also like actively hates organized religion and is going to deliberately try to weird you out. Just be warned."

"I'm warned," said Terri, before turning to Lucifer. "Any specific reason, or do you just not like being told that God exists and you should care?"

"Oh, I know God exists. I just hate his bossy scheming manipulative guts, that's all."

Terri nodded. "Okay, fair enough."

"What?" Chloe asked, incredulous.

"Claire . . . sorry, Chloe . . . St. Stephen's is left-wing rural Minnesota Lutherans. We are much less interested in ordering people to love God than we are in ordering them to eat peanut butter bars. Kindness first. The rest, God will deal with. And if he doesn't, I will." She grinned . . . a surprisingly wicked grin for a woman of the cloth; Lucifer looked mildly impressed . . . and sat back. "All right, then, Detective Chloe. How can I help bring Carl's killer to justice?"

"Well, what can you tell us about Carl and Kathy's family? Carl mentioned a few times that they had grown kids, but I never got any details."

"Yes, they have two kids. The older one, Sam, is settled down in the Cities, and their daughter Laura lives out west someplace . . . Arizona or New Mexico, maybe? She was still in high school when I got hired at St. Stephen's, so I remember her pretty well. But as soon as she graduated, she ran to college in the warm weather and stayed there."

"And who could blame her?" Lucifer demanded. "If I'd grown up in an ice cave heated by a wood stove in the twenty-first century, I'd have run for the hills too!"

Terri laughed. "Lots of homes around here are heated with wood. It's not the cleanest fuel, but if you own forest land like Carl and Kathy do, it's free and at your doorstep. And the wood stoves these days are high-efficiency, less polluting. Which reminds me, I should bring in some wood for Kathy before I go."

"Do the kids know yet what happened to their dad?"

"Kathy asked me last night to call them; she wasn't in much of a state to talk coherently on the phone. Sam's coming up today to be with his mom. I couldn't reach Laura, but left her a voice mail. I hope Sam can get some bereavement leave from his job; Kathy really needs someone here, and with the police involved, who knows when we'll be able to hold a funeral?"

"Well, the sooner we get this resolved, the better. We're just on our way to the sheriff's office now."

"God go with you. Thank you for helping to find out what happened."

"After all Carl, and everyone at St. Stephen's, has done for Trixie and me, it's the least I can do to repay you all."