At the precinct

Lucifer slid out of the elevator, picking up speed as he stalked towards Decker's cubicle. "Hopefully Det. Douche isn't in early today" he thought, exchanging brief greetings with the various officers and detectives that always seem to be milling around when he arrived. "Last thing I need is to deal with…"

"Lucifer!" Ella's voice rang out across the office spaces. She dated out of her area and give her reluctant friend a quick hug. "Has Chloe come in yet? I've got something she needs to see!"

"I'm not her keeper" Lucifer replied, carefully removing himself from her grasp. His eyes scanned the various faces that came and went around him, searching for his partner. "I'm sure she'll be here soon."

"I hope so" Dan called out, coming around the corner and planting himself beside Chloe's desk. He held out a folder triumphantly. "I've got something for her to see too."

"Well aren't we all the busy little bees" Lucifer replied sarcastically. "Looks like Chloe will have her pick of new evidence on the Cecil case to choose from." Reaching around, he pulled a chair for himself and planted it in the most inconvenient spot he could find, watching the elevator doors and dismissing the other two with a frown.

"Wow – bad night?" Elle muttered. "Someone's in a cranky mood."

"He's just annoyed – annoying" Dan replied, taking up a spot on the edge of the desk. "As usual."

Chloe picked that moment to step off the elevator. She stopped, seeing the group crowded around her desk, all studiously ignoring each other and all patiently (sort of) waiting for her. "This is so not good" she muttered to herself, wondering if she could make a break for the coffee machine before she was spotted. From the look on Lucifer's face – the answer to that was no.

"Detective!" Lucifer called out, waving an envelope at her. "Good of you to turn up. I have something you need to see."

"So do I" Dan said, holding out the folder he had arrived with. "Something is very off about this case."

"You two don't know the half of it" Ella replied, fishing her notes out of her pocket. "This murder maybe just the tip of the iceberg."

Chloe sighed and shooed Dan off her desk. She set up her laptop and pulled up the email that had been sent to her. "Seems someone out there isn't happy with the pace that this investigation is taking" she said, waving at the image files she had just opened up. "Someone sent me some very revealing photos last night."

"Interesting" Lucifer mused, eyeing the photos intently. "Someone left me some prints as well. Found them on my car this morning."

"You leave your car parked in the alley beside Lux, right? Did you see who might have left them? Is there a security camera in that alley that might have picked up who was there?" Chloe asked intently.

"Yes, no and no" Lucifer replied, slightly testy. "Yes, I leave my car in the alley, no I didn't see anyone and no there isn't a security camera watching over the car. I mean really, Detective, who would be stupid enough to steal from the Devil?"

Dan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever dude."

Chloe looked away from Lucifer quickly, biting her lip to keep from blurting out that it WASN'T a story but the truth. She didn't need the extra pressure of knowing who and what she was working with right now. "Ella, did someone leave you photos too?"

"No, but I was going through all that paperwork you and Lucifer brought from the victim's office. There was a printout of a conversation from one of the chat rooms talking about the Cecil hotel and someone told the group that your missing person Annalise was a journalism major and was working on connecting the disappearances from the homeless community with the hotel. Guy's chat room name was DeathStalker24 and he knew an awful lot about your missing girl – and what she had been up to in the hotel. I took what I had to a buddy in cyber-crimes to see if he could find out who this guy was."

Chloe thought for a moment. "I'm betting the best your friend will be able to do is pinpoint where the messages were coming from. The chat room's internet provider will insist on a warrant to release any information they might have on people registered to use their service."

Lucifer sighed dramatically. "Really, another warrant? I'm truly surprised, Detective, that any crimes are solved at all around here considering the amount of paperwork that needs to be generated to get the answer to a simple question."

Dan shook his head. "That's the difference between a "consultant" and a cop. We have to abide by the rules – not make them up as we go along." He opened the folder he had brought with him, laying out several reports and photos on Chloe's desk. "I was FINALLY able to talk to the investigator who originally took the missing person's report from Annalise's father. The old gang-banger brought a couple of very interesting letters and photos with him when he reported his daughter missing. None of the letters had return addresses – seems she had destroyed the envelopes but kept the contents. Pretty spicy reading. Her father told the detective that his daughter had been acting pretty shifty for a few weeks before she dropped out of sight. He suspected she had a boyfriend – one he was pretty sure was either married or way too old to be dating a college freshman. He figured this guy was the reason she had disappeared." He pointed at a photo of a garden party with their missing person prominently on display. Beside her, with his arm around her shoulders, was a familiar figure. "Anyone know him?"

"Yes" Lucifer replied slowly. "That is Don Bradley, your dead man's boss. And he seems very, very close to Annalise. Begs the question why, when he saw those missing person's flyers in his employees office he didn't mention knowing her to us. "

"Rich and married – not something that would have set well with her father" Chloe concluded, holding up the photo to her screen. "And then there is this image – of Annalise at a sorority party attended by both Mr. Bradley's wife and our victim's wife. I wonder how much either of these two ladies knew about what was going on."

"I wonder" Lucifer echoed. "if our little college student might have gotten herself into a spot of trouble and your murder victim found out about it."

"Okay – so let's say McIntyre found out through his wife that this young girl was banging his boss" Dan said, frowning at the two photos. "So what? Did he try to blackmail Bradley and the rich guy gets someone to off him? That just doesn't feel right. Bradley is rich man – he could pull some strings and McIntyre's career would be flushed down the toilet."

Chloe shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe Mad Dog Gibson, Annalise's gang member dad, went looking for who she'd been seeing and McIntyre didn't want to give up his boss."

"Or maybe" Lucifer mused, "the story she was writing about the disappearances in the homeless community around the Cecil is the real catalyst for all of this and your murder victim was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Ella looked up at Lucifer with interest. "Either that or someone involved with the Cecil didn't want any more bad publicity for the hotel and, as you said, McIntyre got caught snooping around where he didn't belong." She shifted through the notes she had made of the papers she had scanned. "It looks like our victim had a real interest in the chat room about the Cecil. He had all sorts of comments to make about other events that had happened there."

Chloe contemplated the photos. "Maybe Annalise recognized him in the chat room as the husband of one of her sorority's alumni and went to him for help. Or maybe, if she and Bradley were an item, that she knew McIntyre that way. He finds out she is investigating the Cecil and decides to use her to get more information for his chat room sleuths. That might explain why he was at the hotel that night. They may have been meeting to discuss what she had found and someone changed their plans."

Lucifer stared intently at the photo than had been left for him. "Detective – see that shadow? The one in the background watching Annalise? It looks familiar but…"

Chloe squinted at the image for a moment. "Sort of does but there really isn't enough detail to say much more than someone was back there watching her. Could have been her father or one of his gang buddies."

"My bet would be in the brother-in-law with the unfortunate name" Lucifer replied. "Mr. Milton never did say how he and his sister heard about McIntyre died before you arrived to talk to his employer."

"We usually send someone to make the notifications" Dan began, his tone slightly exasperated.

"Yes Daniel – we all know your procedures" Lucifer said dismissively. "But your victim's wife was already at his office before the notification could be made and from the way she was talking, she and her brother already knew her husband was dead when she arrived. So, again, how did they know? Maybe because they had left him in that alley to be picked over by the unfortunates who camped out nearby?"

"Dan, I'll need you to do background checks on Milton, his sister and Mr. Bradley." Chloe stacked the paper in neat little files to be reviewed later. "Get with the gang unit and see what they know about Gibson – though he's probably last on my list of who might be responsible for this. It's too convoluted a case to be a straight gang hit."

Dan slid off the desk and started off, giving Lucifer a sour look as he did so. "I'll let you know what I find."

Ella turned as well. "I'm going to check with my friend in cyber-crimes and see what he came up with."

Chloe nodded. "I'll get on the horn to the coroner's office and see whether we can get him to look at the body sometime before the end of the week." She looked at her consultant with a frown. "Lucifer?"

Lucifer shrugged. "I think I'm going to go talk to Amenadiel. He thought he saw something odd about one of the homeless that were wandering about the hotel yesterday morning. Maybe between the two of us we can put a name to that shadowy figure." He slid out of the cubicle silently and sprinted for the elevator, catching it before it could close.

Ella looked wide eyed at Chloe. "You don't think it was one of those poor down-on-their luck types that are camped out around the Cecil, do you?"

Chloe shrugged, trying not to hear the voice in her head telling her that it might not even be a human Amenadiel had seen – but one of Lucifer's minions come to torment their Prince's new pets.

In a church – somewhere in L.A.

The elderly priest looked askance at the raggedy figure kneeling before the altar. This house of God was located in a fairly well-off section of the city and while there had been the odd homeless person who had wandered in to get relief from the heat this one was stranger than most – and most decidedly NOT from this part of town. "Can I help you, my son?"

The hooded figure looked up and shook his head. "No Father – I'm just having a quick talk with God. I like for him to know I'm still striving to do his will even in the most trying of circumstances. I won't be much longer."

The priest nodded then hesitantly backed away, headed for the rectory. "I hope Seniora Rosales doesn't pick today to bring new flowers for the alter" he thought to himself. "She's easily frightened and the last thing I need is her son to rally the neighborhood against those less fortunate than themselves."

The hooded figure watched the old priest leave, carefully locking the door to the rectory as he did so. "As if locks could keep them safe from the Prince of Hell roaming their streets" he thought, rising from his position in front of the altar. "Not that any of this really matters. Soon, very soon, things will be made right. As soon as the Prince of Hell and his pet start down the path I've set for them – everything will be made right."