Hisham was taking notes in the former stable, Mr. Thompson had been rushed to the next hospital with intoxication, while Lucifer sat in front of the chief inspector giving his statement.
"You carried him out all by yourself? You weren't in the best condition some hours ago."
"I just said that, Chief Inspector." Lucifer was more than annoyed of being at the other end of the interrogation. "Fortunately, he was unconscious, otherwise it would have been difficult. He was very determined to commit murder-suicide. He has cancer and apparently metastasis in his brain in order to react that way. Besides we were the last guests in the manor. The others had left after dinner. We were staying because of the statement we were going to give you tomorrow." He stood up and paced in front of the police officer. "It's a pity the library burnt out completely." Lucifer added. "But at least I saved the gallery." He smiled faintly and continued: "Again, what are you going to do about my spouse? Since she got out, I haven't been able to contact her. It's over an hour now! Everything goes straight to the mailbox. And the luggage is still here." He motioned to the bags on a bench.
Hisham went out of the stable and came back within a minute.
"My colleagues have found a mobile next to the road." It was in an evidence bag and definitely Chloe's. Lucifer paled. Chloe carried her phone everywhere; it was always on and had so many times interrupted their special moments.
"It is hers; I gather." Hisham looked at him.
Lucifer Morningstar nodded. "She would never leave it behind."
"So you think she didn't just leave voluntarily or lost the phone?"
Lucifer's eyes became instantly darker and his voice harsh. "What are you insinuating? She is a trained police officer, just as you are. Would you forget your mobile? You have seen her. Do you consider her to be unprofessional?" Then, he almost whispered: "Do you think she would leave a loved one without any notice? We are newlyweds, even if we know each other for some years now."
His brain started to race. Who would abduct Chloe? There had been many people at the place following him, observing him, but he didn't think they would target her, even less after Mr. Thompson's speech. She was considered a simple appendix, nobody of importance. Cunningham? The gardener? Somebody had to have her or at least an idea who. Maze could get her sore ass over the pond to help him find her. He needed to get out of the place and act.
"I can't probably stay here, correct? Can you recommend me a place for the night? A nice one would do." Not that he was going to use the bed anyway.
"The Harbour Hotel on Station Road is probably the one for you. Let me get you a driver. I will call the owner."
"Thank you, Chief Inspector! Please keep me in the loop. I can be of assistance." Lucifer stared at the man, using his mojo to convince him to call him immediately. "You will call me the moment you receive any information regarding Chloe Decker Morningstar." He slipped him his phone number in one of the jacket pockets.
According to the net the Harbour Hotel was a recently refurbished Victorian four-star place, usually under Lucifer's expectations, but it would do. The kitchen was allegedly award winning, which was a plus, even if he had no appetite.
When he was led to his suite, he was positively surprised. There was complimentary gin and sherry, a waterfall shower and a decent sea view through a bull's eye window, even if the cotton bedsheets were somewhat harder than he liked it.
He showered and changed into some more climate adequate clothes. If he was going to get outside, looking for her, he wasn't going to get soaked again. Somehow, he had the feeling she wasn't far away but used as leverage against him.
xxxxx
Chloe Decker Morningstar stared angrily at Mildred Thompson and the Scottish man in the parka. The wine cellar was cold; too cold for the red wine and herself. She sat opposite the alleged nurse who was trying to brainwash her again and again. She was not bent, but locked in, behind the iron gates of the cellar.
"Honey, this is for your own good. Why didn't you listen to me earlier? You may not know it, but in fact you have wed the Devil, the King of Hell. May God have mercy on you!" Ms. Thompson made the sign of the cross.
"You are barking up the wrong tree. I cannot fathom how you could need God's mercy living well in the twenty first century. We live in the age of science, of enlightenment, of technology. We have become our own gods and masters. We create our world. Sometimes we create good things, sometimes terrible things, but it's always us who are responsible, not some supernatural being."
"So why did you run to the Vatican over a year ago?"
"I was in a bad place and needed additional information. Going straight to the source would have been better. I realized it just before it was too late."
"Why did you approach my brother?", the man in the parka inquired.
"Father Kinley?" Chloe now knew why he looked and sounded so familiar. "I didn't. He did. I was researching the Vatican library when he introduced himself."
"But you did believe that Lucifer Morningstar was the Devil himself?"
"I didn't know what to believe. I don't believe or acknowledge anything if I don't have all the evidence and facts together. That was the reason I went to Rome. I was never in Sunday school and not acquainted with the Bible stories. I thought the Vatican would have the best source and compendium of those stories. In the end I found out that things are not always what they seem and that, like Saint-Exupéry said several times, one has to learn to see with the heart."
'You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.'
She sighed remembering other quotes from the Little Prince.
'To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend.'
How it applied to her. She was responsible for her Devil, like the prince was for the fox, and she had almost forgotten her friend and partner when she had been in Rome and only seen the appearance and not the heart. She had so much to make up for their friendship, their bond. She brought this situation over them and she could not forgive herself yet.
"Do you believe Lucifer Morningstar isn't the Devil?" he looked intently into her eyes.
"Isn't that all about what you believe? I have made myself quite clear." Chloe stared back, her attitude calm and composed. "There is no Spanish Inquisition anymore and no witches or warlocks are burned at the stake because we know better. We know that the brain works to cope with traumas. We also know that good and bad are concepts of our own morality and we are responsible for our acts and should never blame others."
"You are an atheist. How interesting. Can't you see what you have in front of you?"
"Sure, I have two delusional people in front of me who want to convince me that my husband is a billion-year-old evil entity with three heads who eats souls. You should stop believing in fairy tales." If they could try to play with her brain, so could she, gaining time and maybe find a solution to her situation.
"What happened in Los Angeles, the many corpses… was that a delusion?"
"I am so sorry for what happened there. Your brother's body was found stretched on the center of an altar or so it seemed. I wasn't in charge of the investigation, but apparently it was a cult thing."
"What else could he have been? And the perpetrators Satanists!" Kinley's brother was angry. "Your husband was gone for months afterwards. Why was that?"
"It all looks connected. I understand. But your brother wasn't killed by him." Chloe hoped to get through to him. "We have a statement of the person who did it and it was self-defense. Your brother might have been given some drugs. Probably he had been the first victim of all that deplorable bloodshed at the event site. The Mayan is a popular place which is up to rent for anyone who has the sufficient amount of cash and music groups as well as companies and even cults use it."
Kinley inhaled heavily. That wasn't what he expected to hear. Nothing of the conversation was how he had expected it. He had believed Chloe Decker Morningstar to be an easy target because his brother had described her as weak, scared, jumpy, eager to believe in the Evil Incarnate and in front of him sat a professional police woman who was not only denying the veracity of the Bible but was a secure, self-sufficient personality of strong convictions and at the same time very calm. She didn't scream or tried to flee but rebuffed every question they made. Her brother had probably been wrong and so was he. It didn't matter anymore if she would have married the Devil or an eccentric coworker who pretended to be it, probably as a marketing stunt. She wasn't a tool of evil without free will but a person with her feet on the ground. He was angry at himself to have him exposed as a believer of his brother's figment of imagination. But the damage was done. He had exposed his identity. He couldn't let her go without facing repercussions. His mind raced after that conclusion.
xxxxx
Lucifer went back to the manor. The wind had picked up and the rain intensified, but he still hoped to find any clues to Chloe's whereabouts. They couldn't have gone far. Nervous fanatics were unpredictable, and time was an issue. The heavy clouds let no moonlight through, but the road was lit by faint streetlights and it almost turned the walk to the hill into a romantic setting. No cars passed by and so he used the middle of the road, scanning for any sign of her. Sunday night wasn't likely a time to encounter people either, as the officers had left the premises.
Aside of the police tape there was no security at the manor. Perks of a small town.
He started to walk from below the window toward the wall. There were some fresher footprints the police certainly overlooked because of the darkness. According to them there had been a struggle. And they led the way towards another building behind the former stables. It was probably too easy, but maybe they counted on the weather because they had no time to cover their tracks or simply didn't care. Either way he followed them up to an old and wooden door. He waited and listened. No voices. Carefully he sneaked in and looked around. There were no lights on, either. But something was different, he could feel it. Dimness had never been an issue, but this place was a veritable junk yard, filled with old garden tools, shelves bending under rusty paint cans, canisters, a lawnmower which probably already celebrated its silver jubilee and a tractor that witnessed World War II. If he didn't watch out, he would make a hell of a noise.
It was a hunt and he enjoyed the excitement of hunting a perpetrator. His senses became more and more alert by the minute while he looked for clues or traces of a further struggle. The chaos made it difficult but not impossible. He inhaled and he perceived a faint scent of her body lotion hidden behind the predominant gasoline, oil and soil. So she had been here. Lucifer Morningstar followed the trail like the predator he was. It finished at a rear door and he had to leave the building and get out again. The scent had been erased by the now pouring rain, but that wouldn't stop him. Three small buildings lay at the cobblestone lane. He went for the nearest one, a storage room for more garden tools, but didn't get any clues to Chloe's whereabout. Same happened at the second, a place full of straw and hey, but at the last one he got something. He swung the door open, but the place was almost empty.
Was it?
He listened intently and perceived four heartbeats. He looked around, but there was no other door, just three shelves with preserves, cans, oil, vinegar, salt, sugar, flour – the typical long-lasting food people kept as basic stock in a pantry. There was smoked ham and some sausages hanging from hooks. Lucifer was sure that a cellar had to be nearby, probably under the house. Food and beverages were rarely placed apart in those buildings, although there could be some more under the manor itself. Behind the shelves was no space for a hidden room so he looked for a trap door. Indeed! A relatively new pine door was exactly below a dreadful light tube full of dust and cobwebs he nearly hit with his head. With a disgusted grunt he stepped back immediately, listening again for heartbeats and voices. Chloe's was easy to distinguish, a bit faster but steady. So she wasn't in any imminent danger which gave him time to assess the situation.
Usually he wouldn't have waited and burst in, but he was a responsible Devil now and he had to ensure the safety of his consort. He would wait for someone to come up or if Chloe was under distress. He enjoyed the anticipation of punishing the people who had abducted her, perhaps one of the hooks would provide a good place for a little torture. He took the long salami and a knife and sat in a dark corner, slicing it up, savoring it, and expecting a delightful night of retaliation.