At Lux

Lucifer watched the assorted mortal "beautiful people" of Los Angeles cavort to the music in his club, casting a disdainful eye on the assorted women who were trying to catch his eye. "Really – so blasé" he murmured, taking a quick sip of his drink. "Where is the interest, the magic? When did my club goers become so boring?"

"Maybe when you started to hang out with the LAPD" Maze replied, sliding up to him on his perch above the dance floor.

"Possibly" Lucifer conceded. "Either way – tonight is beyond boring. I don't suppose you've heard anything more about this Gabriel person that priest you brought me talked about?"

"No" Maze replied. "But one of my contacts did mention someone else you've been looking for. Someone named Annalise."

"Really? And what did your "friend" have to say about her?"

Maze gazed out at the crowed below them, wistfully thinking about the pits of condemned souls in Hell she would watch, waiting for one particular condemned mortal to catch her eye and become that day's subject for torture. "Word is that her daddy is a gang-banger – and that he's heard rumors that his little girl was probably murdered by Decker's first victim. Seems the old man isn't taking it well that the police are dragging their heels about her case and is reaching out to "old friends" to get a little of his own back."

"From whom?" Lucifer growled. "McIntyre is dead and from what the Detective has found out about him I seriously doubt that he would have had the balls to take out his little pod cast friend – even if we could find a motive for him to want to. Milton is dead too. Now he's the one I'd be inclined to believe would kill a helpless girl if it furthered his purposes."

"Yeah – but what purposes?" Maze replied with a shrug. "Dude, from what I hear, was a weird little douche but that doesn't make him a killer anymore that McIntyre."

"Which leaves Don Bradley and his nephew Gabriel. Either would make a good suspect."

Maze shook her head. "Same problem there – no motive. Damn – when did I start talking like Decker?"

Lucifer smiled thinly. "When you started to see how complex mortal life could be." He tapped his glass on the railing for a moment, trying to see where this case had ceased to become a simple Who Done It and become a complex puzzle. "I keep feeling like there is something we're missing here."

"We are" Chloe's voice called out over the music. She moved quickly over to where the pair were standing, her cell still in her hand. "I just got a call from Dan. Ella was able to pull some information from that broken flash drive you and Amenadiel found at the hotel."

"What was on it?" Maze asked, leaning back on the railing. "Something salacious that is likely to get the tabloids running for their websites."

"No – but it might just give us another set of suspects." Chloe tucked her phone in her pocket and motioned for the duo to follow her into a quiet corner. "Seems we've managed to overlook some very serious motives. We know that Candice McIntyre and Bertha Bradley were part of the same sorority as Annalise but it seems that Ms. Regina Simonton, the current manager of the Cecil, was ALSO in their pledge group."

"That makes no sense detective" Lucifer protested. "Surely Mrs. Bradley is far too old to have been in college with either of these other two."

"She didn't enter college right out of high school" Chloe replied. "From the documents found on the drive, she and Regina Simonton both had to work and take out student loans to attend college. Candice was a scholarship student but also not from a high society background. The three formed their own little club within a club when they pledged the Sorority that they did in order to make it through till they graduated."

"Bet that was fun – not" Maze commented. "All those little rich girls stuck with three poor folk types in their midst. Wonder why they bothered?"

Chloe shrugged. "Probably trying to network their way out of their family's life style. And for Bertha and Candice it sort of worked. Both married men with either money or status and goals. Candice especially did well - marrying a man she's already known from childhood and whose position with a wealth hedge fund management company would ensure she wouldn't have to be running cons like her brother and parents had done. Regina, on the other hand, seemed to set her sights on working her way into corporate America – with very little success."

"Someone, it seems, did a very thorough background check on these three women" Lucifer purred approvingly. "Do we know who the drive belonged to - who we have to thank for all this knowledge?:

Chloe shook her head. "Nothing on the drive points to who might have put the information together - but I'm betting it was someone close to all the people mentioned in the documents - especially the Bradleys."

Lucifer frowned. "I'm sure it very nice to have all this extra information but how does that make them any more viable suspects than Don Bradley or his disturbed nephew Gabriel?"

"Seems Bradley had a reputation even before he married Bertha for liking his women young, pretty and not likely to complain if they are not treated well. He started stepping out on Bertha almost from the moment they said "I do". And when she couldn't produce an heir to pass his fortune on to he stopped even pretending not to be screwing around."

"Why didn't he divorce his wife if being a broad mare was all he wanted? Why didn't she ditch him?" Maze's voice took on an angry tone as she contemplated all the tortures she would have had available to her if they had still been home in Hell.

"Bertha was smarter than he gave her credit for" Chloe replied. "Bradley needed a wife on his arm that could put on a good act, make him look good in society circles and Bertha was perfectly capable of doing that. He insisted on her signing a prenup before the ceremony but she also insisted that the arrangement would guaranteed her a huge settlement if he ever initiated a divorce. So long as she was a good girl and didn't bring notoriety to the family name or business – including calling him out for his multiple affairs – she would have access to his money and his influence. The drive had photos, copies of hotel receipts, a cornucopia of information that any divorce lawyer would give his eye teeth to have – but it did Bertha no good because of the prenup."

"So their marriage was a business arrangement" Lucifer sniffed. "So why would that have changed?"

"Annalise" Chloe said sadly. "There was a copy of a note from Bradly to her on that drive – probably a first draft of one he was planning on sending. It laid out a plan for him to divorce Bertha and marry her. Seems he had photos that provided her infidelity and was ready to use them to make Bertha go away."

"Really? And who was she screwing?" Maze asked, curiously.

"Our second victim – James Milton."

"Okay – but Bradley is still alive. Milton and McIntyre are dead and no one is sure what happened to this Annalise kid. It still doesn't make sense." Maze complained.
"Maybe we're not looking for one killer but two – one for the original murder and one trying to hide their actions in the mess of the first investigation."

Lucifer frowned. "Maybe – but of all your dead bodies detective I'm still not seeing why McIntyre had to die. Milton – possibly. Especially if he was screwing his bosses wife. Annalise also possible if she was about to be the reason Bradley's wife lost all her access to his money. But McIntyre?"

"Maybe someone thought McIntyre was also sleeping with Annalise?" Maze said. "Seems like everyone is sleeping with someone they should be with."

"And how does this Gabe person fit in?" Chloe mused. She had come to Lux so sure she had finally found a straight path to the truth – only to see that it was a crooked as the one she had been walking before.

"Maybe Gabe wants everyone to know everyone else's dirty secrets" Lucifer replied quietly. "And maybe part of that truth includes the truth about me. He was, after all, Father Kinley's protégée."

"Great protégé" Maze snorted. "Managed to not be available the one night his teacher went out and bought a one way ticket to Hell."

"Well we won't know where he fits into any of this until we find him" Chloe said. "I've got uniforms watching the Bradley home. I knew from those units that all three women, Bertha, Candice and Regina are currently there. Not sure where Don is – he disappeared shortly after our last visit to the house. We also have the church that Father Tovar is assigned to staked out. Even have someone watching the hospital in case that homeless man you and Amenadiel found at the hotel somehow miraculously survives. If Gabriel goes near any of those sites – we'll know."

"I wonder where Donny boy decided to run away to?" Lucifer purred. "Between LAPD and Annalise's father, the man surely can't think there is any where he can hide."

Chloe shrugged. "No clue but we do have a APB out on his car. Soon as we find him we can ask him where he thinks he's going – and where his nephew is."

"What if this Gabe guy decides to return to the Cecil?" Maze asked. "He could pretty much come and go like he wants there – especially if he can blend in with the homeless around the hotel."

Lucifer sighed. "Well, Detective, this is NOT where I had hoped our first tryst would be but are you up for a visit to the local hotel?"

Chloe sighed. "Why not?"