"Freeze! LAPD!" Chloe shouted, hand lunging for her gunbelt and drawing her weapon, training it skillfully at the assailant. The woman in question jerked around and sprinted around the corner, long, brown hair trailing behind her loosely. Chloe sighed exasperatedly, holstering the gun and beginning her pursuit. She was not in the mood for this.

Around the alley and down the next street over, Chloe had made substantial gains on the other woman, who was limping significantly. She had her before the woman could enter traffic on the busy downtown street, tackling her to the ground and kneeing her back as she reached for her handcuffs. Dan came running up from his route meant to cut the subject off moments later, helping her haul the person of interest to her feet.

"Delilah Burns?" Dan asked her. "We need to ask you a few questions at the station."

"I didn't do anything!" The woman, Delilah, shouted in return, eyes looking around frantically. "I didn't kill him!"

Chloe sighed again, catching her breath as she adjusted her jacket. LA in the summer wasn't a joke, and she was beginning to perspire in the heat. She grabbed Delilah's other arm and together the two detectives escorted her to the back of the waiting unmarked cruiser. Chloe's head wasn't here; she kept thinking about Amenadiel. It had been three days since she had left her first note. Amenadiel had come back but hadn't had anything to report. Yes, he had seen Lucifer. No, Lucifer didn't look hurt. No, Lucifer hadn't passed along a message back to her. Yes, he looked tired.

"I forgot to mention," Dan said after they'd closed the door behind the now-weeping Delilah, "You got a call while I was waiting from the precinct. Gloria said somebody stopped by to see you. Didn't recognize him. Accent, bearded, very calming. Do you know who that is?"

Chloe frowned and shook her head.

"Did she -"

"Yes, she went back to the security cameras to see if his face matched any records. Nothing. Look," he reassured her, "she didn't sound too worried. If anything, she seemed to think he was a good guy."

"Hmm," she murmured thoughtfully as she climbed into the driver's seat and buckled up. Dan followed suit, taking shotgun. "I'll have to see who he is when we get back."

The ride back was quiet. Chloe was very aware that there was a crying subject in the backseat, partially because she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up like they did when she thought she was being followed, but mostly because there was loud sniffling as she continued to cry. It was distracting, but was better than stifling silence that would otherwise have enveloped her.

Why didn't Lucifer send a response back? Had that note been too personal or too painful for him? Had he been trying to forget her and didn't want to encourage her behavior? Had he forgotten her already? She remembered once upon a time that he had said time worked different in Hell. How long had passed for him since he had descended from earth?

These and more questions swam through her mind, each passing through her direct thoughts and then passing to the subconscious to provide a drumming of constant questions. It was steadily bringing about a headache. Thankfully, these thoughts were easier to push down as she pulled back into the precinct parking ramp. The shadows of the ramp soothed her hurting head, and she took a deep breath as she parked and turned the car off. It was time to move onto the next stage of the investigation.

The precinct entrance was...calm. As Chloe and Dan escorted the subject through the doors and handed her off to a couple of officers stationed nearby, Chloe looked around herself suspiciously. The usual din of ringing phones, short conversation, and mingling employees was still apparent, but everything was so...happy. People were smiling, even a few criminals who sat on chairs waiting to go to processing. The atmosphere seemed light and airy, the exact opposite of the usual feeling of the LAPD precinct.

"Wow!" Dan exclaimed. Chloe turned to agree with him, glad she wasn't the only one seeing the strange situation, but was surprised to see he too was smiling. His eyes looked less tired than they had in a long while and he also seemed...happy.

"What's going on?" she asked uncertainly, "Are you okay, Dan?"

"Never better!" he replied. He looked down incredulously at himself, raising his arms out as if he was showing her he was indeed better. "I haven't felt this okay in a long time, Chloe! Can't you feel it?"

She shook her head. What in the world was going on?

Dan grinned at her and let his arms fall down. He bid her farewell at the front desk and walked - practically pranced - to the elevator, a spring in his step. Chloe blinked in confusion and stared after him for a moment. What was going on?

Gloria behind the front desk was just hanging up the phone with a pleased expression when Chloe approached her. She smiled at the detective.

"I have that information about your gentleman right here," she said before Chloe could speak. A clipboard with a single sheet of paper was presented to her. She took it with hesitation, nervous.

"And he seemed...okay?" She asked tentatively. Gloria was beaming now.

"Oh yes," she replied with gusto. "Ever the charmer. I hope you track him down! He's welcome here anytime!" With a flourish of a wave, Gloria began to hum and returned to the ringing phone.

Chloe caught the elevator as the doors were closing, sliding into the empty space. She pushed the floor and then glanced down at the clipboard. Elevator music floated absently through the air as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and read the brief description. Medium build, muscular, curly dark hair and an olive complexion, dark eyes. Called himself Michael. No last name. There was a picture which accompanied the description, a bit blurry and at an awkward angle. The man standing there was exactly as described, as best as she could see. She had no recollection of this man on any of her other cases or any other professional or personal purpose.

The elevator dinged to the homicide division floor and Chloe was thrust back into reality, at least on this floor of the normal variety of chaos. She looked up and stepped off the elevator, looking around suspiciously to see if anything seemed off. It all looked normal.

At her desk, her work phone was blinking. She looked at the caller ID. Trixie's school. Chloe glanced over at Dan's desk on the other side of the floor, but he wasn't there. The light wasn't blinking on his phone. He would be taking care of whatever was going on, which gave her time to prepare for her questioning of Delilah. Maybe she would ask Ella to come in with her. The forensic scientist didn't tend to get actively involved with the suspects in investigations, but she really didn't want to face the interrogation room alone. Especially since she had become so used to not being alone there.

Setting the clipboard down, she steered toward the lab.

"I don't know," Ella said thoughtfully as they left the interrogation room a half-hour later. "Delilah just doesn't seem like a killer."

"Then why did she run?" Chloe asked, frustrated. They had gotten nothing out of the suspect, but she had to agree. The woman had seemed genuinely distraught and upset.

"She knows something," Ella replied. "Did you see how nervous she looked?"

"Yeah…"

"Don't worry! The forensics never lies, and we'll get to the bottom of it!" Ella gave Chloe a side-hug, and Chloe smiled at her friend. That hug was very appreciated.

"Maybe I should take off early," Chloe said then, feeling weary. Ella nodded vigorously.

"You've been pushing yourself too hard, Chloe. You need to take some time off and process everything."

"I know." Chloe sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time today. She knew there were chores back home waiting to get done, and her thoughts were straying from the case at hand. "Okay, Ella. Cover for me?"

"Okie-dokie!" Ella said cheerfully, breezing away into the lab. Chloe stopped at her desk, grabbed a few things, and heard her cell phone go off. She pulled it out of her pocket. It was Dan. Trixie got in a fight at school. I have her for the night. Take the evening off.

Thank you, she texted back, relieved. Trixie getting into fights wasn't normal, but this was an area that Dan would be better at taking care of. Especially calm, happier Dan who had shown himself earlier. This way she could get those home tasks done and maybe get an early night's sleep.

And that's where Chloe found herself, elbows deep in scrubbing the counters in the kitchen, when she heard a knock on the apartment door. She was in a state - soapy water covered her legs and the shorts she was wearing, her hair was falling down from the bun she had thrown up to get it out of the way, and she thought she felt suds on her nose. She stood up quickly and grabbed the kitchen towel, drying her face and legs. She tried fixing her bun as she walked to the door, which was knocked on a second time before she got there. She unlocked the door and opened it cautiously.

On the other side of the door stood two teenagers, dressed smartly in suits and ties. They had badges on and polite, smiling faces. Behind them, the sun had begun to set, bathing the alley in an orangish glow.

"Good evening!" The young man on the right greeted, smile becoming more pronounced. He was taller than his counterpart, with well-kept blond hair, bright, green eyes, and a thin stature. The shorter of the two wore a bit more weight around his middle and had an olive complexion and brown eyes. It was very obvious to her the shorter of the two was younger and more unexperienced.

"Um...hello," Chloe replied after a few seconds. She wasn't expecting anybody tonight.

"We're Elder Wolfe and Elder Anderson," the taller, "Elder Wolfe," introduced. "We are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Would you like to hear a message about Jesus Christ?"

Chloe blinked in surprise. Weren't those Mormons? She'd never met any before, not in person. In her line of work, she was never at home when pamphlets were left at her door by proselytizing people.

"Um...I don't think so," she said slowly. "I have my beliefs, thank you."

"That's okay!" Elder Wolfe responded, still enthusiastically. "Did you, uh, have any work you need help with, or…"

"I'm just cleaning my kitchen, but thank you," she said quickly. "I appreciate the offer though."

The two Elders looked at each other quickly. The shorter one looked down sheepishly while the taller resumed smiling at her.

"We can leave then, but before we do, would you happen to have any tools? Wrench, screwdriver? Elder Anderson's bike is having issues and we don't have any tools with us."

"Uh, yeah, sure," she said. "Let me grab what I have. Hold on a minute, please. Do you want to come in?"

Elder Anderson replied "Sure!" just as Elder Wolfe asked "Is there a man present?"

"No," she called over her shoulder as she headed to the kitchen and to her junk cabinet. "Just me tonight."

"We'll stay out here, then, thank you," he called back. "We aren't allowed to enter the home without a man present."

That's a bit sexist, Chloe thought to herself as she rummaged through the cabinet where everything was haphazardly stashed. Still, she understood and appreciated their honest response. It was barely 20 seconds later when she produced her tool kit, brandishing it for Elder Anderson to take. She grabbed a sweater and followed them out, closing the door behind her.

The bikes were at the bottom of the stairs, and Chloe instantly could see how maybe both of them could use a tune-up. Both had paint peeling, dents and rust, and the worse-off one's chain seemed to be hanging on, not at all how it was supposed to be. She supposed this was Elder Anderson's bike.

The two Mormons got to work, not entirely ignoring her but just chatting to themselves about their plans. Chloe sat at the bottom of stairs, eyeing them both.

"What do you believe about heaven and hell?" she asked them suddenly. Elder Wolfe glanced up at her from where he was balancing the bike while Elder Anderson fixed it. Elder Wolfe grinned, and it was easy to see he was pleased to talk a bit about why they were there.

"We believe that all families can be sealed together forever in Heaven," he said enthusiastically. "By keeping the commandments and our promises to God, we are welcome after this life to be together forever. It's a beautiful thing."

"Sounds like," Chloe said. "What about Hell?"

"Well, we don't really believe in Hell," he replied. Elder Anderson shook his head, and Chloe saw he had gotten some grease on his face and part of his white shirt under his suit jacket. "There is Outer Darkness, but only the worst of the worst go there. Those that chose the wrong side in the pre-existence."

"Pre-existence?" She frowned in confusion.

"Yes," Elder Wolfe said calmly. "We believe we choose our families in the pre-existence. When Satan rebelled against our Heavenly Father, he and his armies were banished to outer darkness. So only the worst of the worst go there."

"Well that's not right," Chloe said before she could stop herself. She clamped her mouth shut, embarrassed. Elder Wolfe contemplated her thoughtfully for a moment.

"We have a few different tiers of heaven," he said slowly. "The highest kingdom, the celestial kingdom, is the heaven you may know about in popular culture. The second kingdom, the terrestrial kingdom, is like life on earth now. The telestial kingdom is where the murderers and criminals go. They're all heaven, but they're separated. Only in the celestial kingdom do families be together forever."

Yes, that certainly wasn't right, Chloe thought to herself. Lucifer would have mentioned something like that. And he always referred to Hell as just that, "Hell." No "outer darkness" involved.

"Satan is dangerous," Elder Anderson said, face red from exertion. He had just managed to slip the chain back into the spot it needed to be. "He is always tempting us to stray from our covenants. But Heavenly Father believes in us. Jesus is our brother and he wants us to get back to our Heavenly Father." He plopped the tools back into the tool kit and zipped it shut, handing it back to them.

"Would you like us to come back and talk about God's plan for you?" Elder Wolfe asked eagerly. Chloe let out a small chuckle, shaking her head.

"No, thank you," she said. "Thank you for speaking with me."

The Elders thrust a book into her hand before she could turn it down, and then jumped on their bikes, waving before heading to their next location. Chloe waved back tentatively, before looking down at the book in her hand. The Book of Mormon. Of course. She trudged back up the stairs and into her apartment, tossing the book onto the counter she had been cleaning earlier. She wasn't thinking about picking up where she left off, however. This small conversation with Mormon missionaries had gotten her thinking. What if there was a church that had it all right? What if there was a priest of some sort that could tell her what Heaven and Hell were like? She could learn more about where Lucifer was. Maybe, even, she could figure out a way to get him out of Hell forever.