"Where have you been, Luci?"

Amenadiel is searching him with a look of unqualified annoyance: he hadn't signed up to judge a group of slovenly, half-conscious mortals in a glorified costume contest in the middle of a nightclub, alone. "You taking off wasn't part of the plan."

"Ah. Right. See, I was going to stay, as we had discussed, to help you…keep an eye on this angelic bunch, but then I had an even better idea."

"Of course you did. And that was…"

"Well, to leave, of course! If I had been there, helping you, slumming about with the masses—" he plugs quickly along in a withering attempt to mitigate Amenadiel's furrowed stare, "Well, then perhaps our man would have been frightened off. Wrath of God, and what have you. It was ingenious, really. I leave you, you judge the contest, you're the perfect bait for our celestial Butch Cassidy."

"I see. And were you gonna clue me in?" Amenadiel's eyes pass over Lucifer's floundering gaze and land on Chloe, who lifts a discreet hand to wipe at the mascara that had smudged against her cheek. Eve, who stands with her head resting in the crook of Maze's shoulder, registers the move and her eyes widen in amusement. "Where were you, anyway? While I was down here, 'slumming about with the masses'?"

"I was—" Chloe's heart jump starts to life as Lucifer opens his mouth to respond to his brother's irked line of questioning; he never lies, and the smirking glance on Eve's face at the sight of her is already more discussion than she would like to have regarding the events of the past twenty minutes.

Lucifer catches a glimpse of her pointed stare in his peripheral and quickly shifts the trajectory of his response. "I was…with the Detective," he says, lamely, elaborating in a stage whisper, "You know how she gets at these sort of things. Just…sucks the fun right out of them."

He can't help himself. Chloe's eyes shut on an inhaled sigh and she shakes her head at the ground in disbelief. For what it's worth, the innuendo seems to have gone directly over Amenadiel's head and has instead landed squarely in the purview of Maze's knowing grin.

"Nice," Maze nods, running a tongue across white teeth as Eve giggles into her shoulder. Chloe looks at Lucifer — really? — and he offers her back the innocent eyes of a scolded puppy.

Amenadiel seems to have moved on; he has bigger things on his mind and is largely oblivious to the silent exchange occurring beside him. "It doesn't matter," he says. "The plan failed. No one in the contest looked remotely suspicious, Luci. And you didn't even dress up! So much for encouraging participation."

"I beg your pardon? I am literally God, brother, however I choose to arrive is how these miscreants should be dressed."

"Okay. Whatever." Amenadiel sighs, and there's a small silence as the boon of hope that had buoyed their plan seems to deflate against the pulsing heartbeat of the dance floor.

"I saw something. I don't know if it's what we're looking for, or who, but—" All eyes turn to Eve as she straightens from her nest in Maze's shoulder and faces them all with soft earnest. Lucifer breathes in impatience.

"You could lead with that next time," he says, "If only to save us all from Oscar the Grouch." He smiles in mock courtesy to Amenadiel, who embraces his new nickname as he offers up a curmudgeonly scowl. "Out with it, then. Who did you see?"

"I don't know," says Eve, remarkably unhelpful and yet eternally lovable all the same. Maze nudges her with a foreign look of genuine encouragement.

"Well, it was a woman. Like, a…really hot woman?"

"A really hot woman? You saw a really hot woman? What, was it that one? Or that one? Perhaps that one, even?" Lucifer is gesturing with impassioned annoyance, his hand dropping back to his side at Chloe's chiding look. "I mean, that's hardly suspicious. At a Denny's, perhaps. But there is a certain caliber of hot to be expected here."

"I know that," Eve says, slightly hurt, "She wasn't just hot. She was suspicious, too."

"Oh! Hot and suspicious, Detective, d'you hear that? Now perhaps we're getting somewhere. Go on, then. Suspicious how?"

Eve pouts at him, and Maze's gaze narrows. "Watch the tone," she says, arms crossed about her chest.

"Well, she wasn't in costume, for one. She was the only one I saw. She was wearing, like, all black. And, she was following Amenadiel the whole night. Like, the whole time. You didn't notice?" Eve shifts her gaze to Amenadiel, whose reluctant curiosity has now been slightly piqued as he shakes his head.

"I didn't see anyone," he says, tossing a look over his shoulder as if to confirm.

This holds Lucifer's interest. "Following him how? In a fun, sexy way? Or in a sinister, shadowy murderess way?"

Eve shrugs. "The second?" She ventures further. "I didn't see a staff, or anything like that, and you told Maze and I to be on the lookout for someone dressed up and holding it in their hands, but…she was tailing him the entire time he was judging the contest. I was watching her."

"Hm. So, looks like we can rule out option one," Chloe mutters, donning her detective cap once more. "No one in the contest looked suspicious. No…idiotic clubgoer with a stolen prop to wave around for free drinks. I think we're looking at option two. Our creepy, celestial stalker angle."

"Yes," Lucifer sighs, rolling a tongue across his gums and glancing around his darkened club with sudden unease, "I believe you're right."

All eyes are on Eve, who smiles broadly under the flare of attention ascribed to her.

"We'll need a little more in the way of description," Chloe says, clearing her throat and rubbing at her cheek to wipe away any last remnants of makeup that are smeared out of place — Eve has proven to be quite quick on the uptake, even in the darkness and flashing lights of the club, and Chloe is striving for at least a morsel of professionalism.

"Did you, uh…did you get close enough to see her face? Her clothes, maybe?"

"Yes, but…" Eve pauses, a strange look overtaking wide eyes, "I can't remember. It's so weird, it's like, I know I looked at her, but she's just…a blur."

"A blur." Lucifer repeats, glancing at Chloe to gauge her professional opinion. "Are you going to write that down, Detective?"

She ignores him. "Okay, how about clothes? You said she was wearing all black? That must have stood out, I mean—" she motions about, to the sea of white and glittering gold jewelry that surrounds them.

"Mm, kind of the opposite," Eve murmurs. "I only saw her because I was staring at Amenadiel the whole time. I never would have noticed her if I hadn't been keeping an eye on him — like, a really serious eye. She was just floating behind him, like a ghost. Like a hot….scary, ghost." She shrugs apologetically. "I don't know what kind of clothes she was wearing. I know they were all black, though. Does that help?"

"Not really," Lucifer interjects, before Chloe can respond.

"So, you can't remember her face, you don't know what she was wearing, but she was 'really hot'?"

"I can't explain it," Eve says, "It was like…a gut feeling. You know when you just see someone from far away, and you know they're hot? Like that. Not as hot as you, though," she clarifies quickly, at Maze's snarl of increasing annoyance. She softens slightly.

"Great. Great. So, the contest was a bust, we're looking for a shadowy, potential angel-assassin, and the only description we have is that she potentially, possibly, could be good-looking."

"No, she said she's definitely hot," Maze corrects Chloe with a supportive look at Eve.

Lucifer is nodding along, solemnly, rapt with attentive focus on her words. "Yes, that would seem to sum it up," he says, as Eve nods in approval. "Do you want to put out an APB, or whatever it is you do? Oh, no—" he laughs lightly, "I keep forgetting you've quit. Right. A pair of bounty hunters then, perhaps?" He looks knowingly to Eve and Maze, who return his smile at the mention of work. Chloe stares at them with utter perplexity.

"Lucifer — you can't just put a bounty out on a hot person. We need a little more than that." She shakes her head. He can find a serial killer on his own, become God through sheer force of will, quell a swarm of demons with a single word…and yet, sometimes, smug and content under her watchful gaze, he is so dense. Linda's voice echoes in her mind. The world's oldest immature person.

Just about.

Chloe turns back to Eve, her mind unraveling the few, scant threads she can think to follow. "Do you think you'd recognize her, if you saw her again?"

"I don't know. I think so? I know I saw her face, I just…it's like it's blurred out on purpose."

"Okay." Chloe sighs. She's not exactly a font of ideas, not with so little to go on and no resources to draw upon in her ex-detective arsenal. "Weirdly, I think Lucifer might be right. Not about the bounty —" she explains, quickly, before he can puff up beside her, "But if anyone can track someone down, it's you two. She can't have gone far, not if you saw her tailing Amenadiel the whole contest. If she's gone, she must have only just left. She can't have gone far."

"If she's human, that is," Lucifer mutters, in a voice so low only his brother right beside him can hear.

"We're on it." Maze nods in response to Chloe, turning and pulling Eve along with her through the packed dance floor and up the stairs, out of the club, before Chloe can even finish her line of thought.

"Great," she says, pursing her lips in a blinking smile at the space where they had just stood.

"I suppose you'd better come up to the penthouse." Lucifer looks somewhat disappointedly to Amenadiel. "Even if this simply turns out to be the case of the harmless, sexy stalker. Any man's dream, save for…well, you. You've never been one to comport yourself in the face of sex: I hardly trust you to keep yourself safe, celestial murderess or not."

"Thank you, brother," Amenadiel says, in genuine solemnity. He means it. Lucifer sighs dramatically, and as he turns to mount the stairs his fingers brush against Chloe's knuckles with the prick of muted promise.

"Come on, then."