Lucifer glanced over at Milton who had slid in to the elevator behind him. "So – Mr. Milton is it? What do you do for this company?"

Milton frowned, his eyes riveted to the closed door. "I'm part of the company's external relations office" he replied stiffly.

"You are?" Bradley responded. "Wasn't aware we still had one. I thought I'd fired the lot of you after the LAST time you made my company – and family – look bad in the press. "

"I was hired after that" Milton admitted, a dull red flush covering his cheeks.

Chloe glanced over at her partner, watching Lucifer as he eyed the two men in front of him without much interest. "How long had Mr. McIntyre worked for your firm?"

Bradley cocked his head as he thought. "About a year. My last forensic accountant had a stroke and had to retire. McIntyre's wife was a sorority sister of my wife's so she suggested I look at his resume. He seemed … adequate. Trainable. So I took a chance on him and brought him onboard."

"Any idea why he was at the Cecil?" Chloe asked, watching as the floor numbers flickered above her.

'I'm not even sure I know where this place is" Bradley admitted with a shrug. "Certainly not a place we would put up our high end clients."

The elevator doors slid open silently and the older man strode quickly out ahead of the group, headed for a set of doors to the right. They passed what appeared to be an empty room containing a fancy microwave, several vending machines and comfortable looking sofas. Chloe glanced in the open door with a frown. "I thought you said your sister was in the break room" she said as she sped up to keep up with Bradley.

"She was" Milton replied coldly.

"Well she's not there now" Chloe pointed out with an edge to her voice. "So where is she?"

"I have a funny feeling your about to find out, Detective" Lucifer responded, pointing to an open door labeled with the victim's name. The sound of a paper shredder flowed out into the quiet hall, disturbing the eerily silence.

Chloe slammed the door open, skidding to a stop in the center of the office. "Stop!"

The woman across the room from her, a mousy brunette, ignored her command and continued to feed page after page into the shredder in front of her. Her dark hair was held up in a prim bun and her bland knee-length dress and sensible shoes made Chloe's wardrobe choices look like the height of fashion. Lucifer moved to the wall beside the shredder and pulled the power cord out of the outlet, watching with interest as the woman tried futilely to bring the machine back to life. "Mrs. McIntyre, I presume? I don't think you're going to do much without power, do you?"

The woman glared at him as she tried to drag the page out of the shredder. "Who are you and what are you doing in my husband's office?"

"Det. Decker, LAPD Homicide" Chloe responded coldly waving a hand towards her companion. "My consultant, Mr. Lucifer Morningstar."

"You don't have the right to be here" the woman muttered, crumpling the pages she had pulled from the shredder in her hands.

Bradley stood beside Chloe, a look of annoyance on his face. "Considering this is MY Company I have every right to be here as does Det. Decker. I think, however, a better question would be what are YOU doing here?" The company owner glanced briefly over at his employee who had come to a stop beside him. "Milton, I'm assuming this wretched creature is McIntyre's wife. What is she playing at?"

"Candice" Milton muttered, eyes dropping to the floor. "I don't understand…. I thought we agreed you would let me handle things."

"No – you agreed. I never did. I had to make this all disappear before anyone could see…" she glanced down at her hands, her fingers flexing reflectively. "I had to clean up his mess – just like always."

"What mess are you talking about, Mrs. McIntyre?" Chloe asked, glancing briefly at Lucifer – who had quietly walked up to the deceased man's wife and easily pried the pages out of her clenched fists. "What was your husband involved in that you didn't want anyone to find out about?" Walking up to the desk, Chloe glanced at the files quickly, noticing none were on the hedge fund company's letterhead. Most appeared to be copies of emails or screen shots of websites dealing with the Cecil Hotel.
Lucifer looked down at the pages he had retrieved from the wife with a frown. "Detective…" he said, holding out one that had not been as damaged as the others. "It looks like Mr. McIntyre may have thought the Cecil had claimed another victim."

Chloe glanced at the page, a missing person notice concerning a 17 year old college student by the name of Annalise Gibson. The poster, heartbreaking in its simplicity, was obviously made by family or friends looking for the young woman and had the number of the LAPD Missing Persons unit and the name of a Jerry Gibson as contacts. "I'll need to contact that unit and see who's assigned to her case. This Jerry Gibson, maybe her father?" She turned to Bradley and held out the flyer. "Look familiar?"

Bradley looked at it and shrugged. "Not really. But I see a lot of pretty young women - my wife is still seriously involved with charity events put on by her sorority."

Chloe looked down at the page, wondering why it was the Bradley's off-hand mention of his wife's sorority sounded so off. "It looks like most if not all of the pages on his desk are NOT related to your business ventures. I'll need to get a warrant for access to his home and business laptop but until that comes in I'd like your permission to go ahead and make a start on these documents." She pulled her cell from her pocket and turned away from the group. "I'll get Dan on it."

Bradley smiled thinly. "Allow me to volunteer this office for your inquiry until your legal documents arrive. Please, make yourself at home, detective. I've nothing to hide."

"I'm sure he doesn't" Lucifer thought to himself, pulling a chair out for himself and settling in the darkest part of the brightly lit office. "But can the other two say the same?" He leaned forward in his seat and caught Milton's eyes as the nervous man started to back towards the door. "Mr. Milton, one quick question before you run off – What is it you truly desire?"

Milton stopped dead in his track. "I…"he stuttered. "I want…I want…"

"Yes?" Lucifer purred, his patented shark-like smile beaming at his victim.

"I… wish John had never heard of Annalise or the Cecil" he stopped, appalled by the words tumbling from his mouth.

"So…" Chloe said quietly, leaning back on the desk. "It's about this missing girl – and that hotel. What else is it about?"

"Yes – what other nasty little secrets are you hiding in that head of yours Milton?" Lucifer leaned back into his chair his eyes shifting from the now unnerved young man to his too calm sister. "And you, Mrs. McIntyre? Care to join in? What do you truly desire?"

Candice McIntyre glanced briefly at the shredder with a frown. "I wish I'd never married John. He's been nothing but misery since the wedding. Can't even die without causing a scene."

Chloe and Lucifer exchanged glances. "This might be a very short investigation" Lucifer sighed.

"Or not" Chloe replied with a frown.

Linda Martin's home

Amenadiel glanced into Linda's home with a smile. His partner, and mother of his child, was sitting on the floor with Charlie playing with Legos. "I guess there was a break in your schedule?"

Linda looked up with a smile. "One of my regular's cancelled. He and his family are going to Cancun for vacation. So I thought it would be good time to spend some quality time with my favorite little man."

The baby looked up at his parents with a toothless grin, waving a toy in the air. His baby sounds would eventually evolve into words and conversation but right now only he knew exactly what it was he wanted them to know.

"Caught up with Luci at a crime scene" Amenadiel said, sinking into his favorite sofa with a sigh. "I was hoping he and Chloe would be in a better head space now. It's been over a year since Cain's death and Chloe realizing that Lucifer was exactly who he said he was. I kind of hoped that by now…"

Linda rose from the floor, baby in her arms, and took a seat beside her partner. "It was a lot for her to take in – and that lunatic priest she met in Rome didn't help matters much." She glanced over at the attractive angel at her side. "Do you know what might have happened to him? Chloe told me a while ago that she contacted a friend working in Rome and they couldn't track him down."

Amenadiel shivered. "Azrael took him to his final rest shortly after Chloe left the city. Seems his fanaticism had rung some warning bells with not only the Vatican but with some police agencies around Europe. Seems he had "influenced" some true believers to try to keep evil at bay by ending the lives of people they believed were not worthy of the love of God. Rome police had him under surveillance when he met with a young seminary student they believed had been responsible for the murder of a number of prostitutes - women Kinley had convinced him were demonically possessed. According to what Azrael said – the seminarian and Father Kinley were caught trying to "exorcise" the demon from a poor street child's body when the police piled in. Kinley took a slug to the chest, died instantly." Amenadiel smiled grimly. "He was quite surprised when Azrael dropped his ass off at the gates of Hell instead of the Silver City."

Linda shivered slightly. "Most true believers would be. They are so sure of the rightness of their cause the fact that they might be on the wrong side of the argument never occurs to them." She cuddled the baby close, watching him wrap his chubby fingers around her finger. "Chloe will get comfortable with this new reality eventually. So will Lucifer."

Amenadiel wrapped an arm around his partner, smiling down at the little Nephilim in its mother's arms. "Probably."

"So tell me about the crime scene" Linda probed curiously.

"It was strange – a murder at the Cecil Hotel. I'm assuming you've heard about it?"

Linda thought about it for a moment then frowned. "Hotel downtown near Skid Row where that Canadian tourist died? I remember it was in all the news for ages."

"Yeah – that's the one. Body found in the alley next to the hotel. Seems the vic had rented a room there though no one knows why?"

Linda shifted the baby slightly in her arms. "It's a hotel on Skid Row. People die there all the time. Why is this one different?"

"Because the victim is an accountant for a wealthy firm with no visible connection to the hotel." Amenadiel frowned as he replayed the events of the morning in his head. "There was something else too – something Luci waved off but I can't quite forget."

"What" Linda asked.

"There was a homeless person pushing a shopping cart in front of the hotel while the police were processing the scene. There was just something about that guy. At least I think it was a guy – kind of hard to tell with the baggy clothes they were wearing. Something about him just didn't quite… fit."

"Was he Celestial – or Demonic?" Linda said, wondering when it was exactly that asking that type of question has ceased to sound insane to her.

"Neither" Amenadiel admitted. "Human – but something about his was odd. I just can't quite figure out how."

"Where are Lucifer and Chloe now?"

"Gone to the victim's office to see if anyone there knows why he was at the Cecil." Amenadiel glanced over at Linda's laptop on the table. "I wonder…"

"Want to do a little web snooping while we wait for Lucifer to tell all?" Linda laughed. "Go ahead – but you'll have to do the searching. Your son appears to have gone down for his nap and I'm not inclined to disturb him."

Amenadiel smiled. "I can do that" he whispered, rising to retrieve the laptop. He typed as quietly as he could both the name of the victim Chloe had mentioned and the Cecil and watched as numerous extraneous and useless pages came up, detailing the history of the hotel and all its tragedies.

"Use the Advanced search and put the victim's name in quotes so the search engine looks for it as a phrase instead of separate words" Linda suggested, peering at the screen intently.

The angel started his search again, using his partner's suggestions. A webpage for a group calling themselves "Web sleuths" came up with a message from the victim immediately visible. 'Better" Amenadiel said, reading the message from the dead man with a frown. "I think I'm going to need to get with Chloe and Lucifer on this."

"Why?" Linda said, trying to read the tiny print on the screen.

"Because it looks like their dead man was searching for someone who disappeared at the hotel almost a week ago – someone named Annalise. I have a bad feeling that search maybe what got him killed."