The Next Morning
Chloe yawned as she pulled up a chair and opened her laptop. She was up earlier in the morning than she had planned with Trixie not in the house. Her daughter – now verging on her teen-age years – was spending the night with a friend from school whose mother was also a teacher at the same establishment. The girls would be delivered to their class after a fun night of movies and gossip about the "cute guy" that had just started in their class. "Must be fun" Chloe thought to herself, remembering her own days as a pre-teen.
The phone buzzed briefly with yet another call from Lucifer. "Way too early to deal with him" Chloe muttered, logging into her work email and scanning what might have come in overnight. It wasn't that she didn't WANT to talk to Lucifer - but at this hour of the morning she wasn't up to dealing with his rapid fire changes of subject - or the gnawing unease she sometimes felt at being in the presence of the actual Devil. It was something she was still trying to get use to. No matter how kind or how much he did for her and for Trixie there was still that voice in her head asking her if she really KNEW what she was getting into.
Chloe gave herself a good shake and returned her gaze to the laptop screen. "No sign of the coroner's report" she mused, randomly moving assorted messages about other, non-priority, cases into their appropriate folders. There was a backlog of bodies to be examined at the coronor's office – 180 at last count – so she supposed she shouldn't be surprise at not getting a report right away. After all – unless her victim had someone with pull to call and insist on his case being moved up in the line it would be considered only a mid-level priority. One message, however, stopped her cold. The address indicated it wasn't message from inside LAPD and appeared to have some sort of attachment. She briefly recalled Ella warning her about a message that had been going around, an email appearing to be from an outside agency that had loaded a virus on several unsuspecting receipents. This message was, like the one Ella had mentioned, was addressed directly to her. Her eyes narrowed at the subject line – Annalise.
The message was brief: "Detective Decker – something you should know as you investigate the happenings at the Cecil. Events are in place for another tragedy. Best you get busy before you find another body in the alley." There was no signature and the address the message was supposedly coming from was might or might not be traceable. And then there was the attachment. Chloe hesitated for a moment, not wanting to join the group of "dweebs" who had foolishly picked on a file and had their laptop corrupted by a hacker. But the mention of the Cecil was just to tempting to ignore. She clicked on the file and discovered there were three photos – all taken at the hotel. One was of her victim, holding the missing person's flyer and talking to the day manager of the Cecil – a person who had claimed in her statement not to have ever met the man. The second photo was the girl from the flyer – Annalise – dressed in a maid's uniform and exiting the hotel's side door with several other women. And the third photo…
"Well – so maybe that's why you didn't want your husband involved in looking for Annalise" Chloe said grimly. She examined the third photo carefully, taking in the sight of Candice McIntyre and another woman seated at what appeared to be an outdoor event with the missing woman, Annalise Gibson, seated between them. Just behind them Chloe could see a banner for the Sigma Kappa sorority. "Both at the same collage event – and whose is this other woman? Maybe Mr. Bradley's wife? He did mention something about her being involved in events in her old sorority." She looked at the message address again then closed Outlook and her laptop with a determined thump. "Maybe Ella can track this down – or at least get one of the computer techs to see how they managed to get a message to me. Not like my email is on the cards I leave with potential witnesses." She packed up her computer and started out the door, her list of unanswered questions growing as she started for the office.
At the station
Ella stared down at the results of various forensic tests she had performed on open cases with a sigh. It wasn't like the other cases weren't important but…"They aren't cases include the haunted Cecil hotel" she muttered, reaching for the results on what had been found at the victim's home – which wasn't much. No laptop there either, no paper files, nothing to clue investigators in to why the victim had been so bloody interested in one missing person's case and what connection that case had to his eventual death in the alley. She flipped through some of the papers Chloe had found in the dead man's office, rummaging through piles of hand-written scribblings and print outs from chat sessions. "Wonder why he decided to kill a few trees rather than just save this to a file somewhere?" She stared at the back and forth conversations the victim had printed out for a moment then stopped, eyes narrowing as she spotted something.
The group had started to talk about other disappearances and deaths at the hotel when one participant named "DeathStalker24" had dropped some knowledge on the group – mainly that the homeless population had been suffering numerous disappearances in the last month. He also let slip that the missing girl was majoring in journalism and had submitted the start of an article to her professor about the missing homeless and how the Cecil hotel (and it's dark reputation) might factor into their disappearances.
"Someone knew she was a journalism major and what she was working on" Ella muttered, tagging the conversation with color-coded labels for each person. Grabbing a notepad from the table she jotted down some information then trotted off to the cyber crime's unit to see if they could track down the owner of the handle DeathStalker24 and where he had posted his message from. Someone out there knew more about this missing person's case and how it related to the murder than they were willing to say to authorities – but they didn't seem to have a problem with spouting off to their web sleuth buddies. With any luck – she and Chloe would be able to change that once they knew who there were looking for.
At Lux
Lucifer stared glumly down at the club floor, a glass of scotch in one hand and his cell phone in the other. It was, from the human perspective, a tad early to be drinking but the Lord of Hell had never cared much for that mind set. "And besides" he thought to himself "it's not like I can be effected by it." He glanced down at the cell, noticing that Chloe had again not chosen to pick up when he called and shrugged, tucking the phone in his jacket pocket. She was still a little stand-offish about his "real identity" even though she swore that Father Kinley had NOT infected her with his virulent lies. And it was early in the morning to call her – something he knew she didn't much care for. Still… He took another sip and started outside, down to the alley where his car was kept. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a figure moving towards the street. "Odd" he muttered. "Little early for the street people to be digging around for a hand-out." He stopped and stared with a frown at his convertible. There was an envelope under the windshield wipers with his name written across it in big red letters. "Someone's playing games" he said quietly. "It's too bloody early in the morning for this." He ripped open the envelope and laid the prints side by side on his car hood with a frown. They all followed one subject – the girl from the missing person flyer. And they were all taken at the Cecil.
"Interesting" he purred, his temper cooling as he examined the photos. "I wonder…" He held up one print in particular and peered closely at something in the corner. A dark shape, hiding in the shadows of the alley beside the hotel behind the missing girl. A vaguely familiar shape. "I think the Detective would like to see these." He stuffed the prints back into their envelope and hopped into the convertible, roaring out of the alley – forgetting the figure he had seen leaving the area. A figure that had stopped across the street and was watching him roar into traffic.
"Good" the figure murmured. "Now the Lord of Hell and his pet human both have a lead to follow back to her. Let the games begin."