At the precinct

Dan and Ella laid out all the forensic reports received and other bits of information on Ella's table. All the paperwork found at the first crime scene was put beside lab results and other items found as the duo tried to find a connection between the deaths. "What are we looking for?" Ella asked, poking at the mounds of paper.

"Something to tell us if we should be looking for Bradley's crazy nephew, Annalise's crazy father or annalise herself" Dan replied, absently stacking items together. He stopped at one piece of paper in particular, an announcement for a blood drive that had been at the bottom of a stack of documents retrieved from McIntyre's office. "Look at this!"

Ella eyed the page from across the table. "So? It's just a message about people needed to volunteer to donate blood."

"Yeah – and look at whose name is on the sign-up sheet! John Milton! Maybe he had more to do with Annalise disappearing and that blood-soaked car then we originally thought!"

"But why would he want her gone?" Ella asked reasonably.

Dan turned and started digging through the stack of print-outs of the photos sent to both Chloe and Lucifer. He held one out to Ella, a scowl on his face. "Maybe he was starting to suspect something was going between his married boss and this barely twenty year old member of his wife's sorority. Maybe he figured if he could make that go away before stockholders found out about it or worse yet her former gang leader daddy his boss would start to remember his name when time for promotion rolled around. It's a stretch but look at the look Bradley is giving her in this photo – you don't stare at a woman like that unless you want to get with her or are already…"

"I get it" Ella said breathlessly. "But doesn't that make Bradley an equally good suspect? Or what if her father had begun to suspect his daughter was messing with an old, married man? Wouldn't he make just as good a suspect?"

"Maybe but Milton had access to the blood drive donations. Bradley, other than taking credit for it, probably wouldn't have know much about it. I'm betting Milton went with the lab techs back to the blood bank to sign off on any money the company had given on top of the blood and managed to walk out with a few packets of blood in his briefcase. Or at least figured out how to come back and get what he needed later."

"Wouldn't the blood bank have noticed anything missing?"

Dan shook his head. "I get the feeling Milton was used to covering up things that didn't add up. And besides – a few pints of a common blood type? The people checking things in would have chalked up the discrepancies to bad accounting on the part of the volunteers. And by the time they found out different it would have been too late to do much about it."

"Okay – so say I agree with you and Milton set up that staged Blood Car. Then who killed him? And where is Annalise?"

Dan pulled out his cellphone. "I'm thinking Bradley would have wanted to shut Milton up if he was behind making Annalise disappear. Maybe he made a play for her and something went wrong. Maybe he accidently hurt her when she rejected his advances and he reeled Milton in to help him cover things up – then killed Milton to close the loop."

Ella shook her head. "That doesn't track – if he hurt Annalise that badly why would he need to "stage" that car with other people's blood? What if she didn't blow Bradley off? Wouldn't that make his wife just as good a suspect? And what about our original victim? Why did he have to die?"

"Don't know" Dan replied. "But I'm going to give Chloe a call and tell her about this sign-in sheet. Maybe she can find something at the hotel to clear this puzzle up."

"She has Lucifer with her" Ella replied, picking through the rest of the paperwork. "I'll bet he'll come up with some crazy theory to fit everything we know. He always does."

Dan grimaced. "Don't remind me."

At the Hotel

Chloe sighed. "I actually don't care if Ms. Simonton is not available at this time. We are working a double homicide – both of which were committed right outside this hotel. All I'm asking for is if you have seen anyone check in during the last few days who might have stood out to you? Someone who didn't look like he or she didn't belong here?"

The night clerk shrugged. "Have you SEEN some of the people who live in this place? Even the ones who make reservations for the Stay on Main part of this place can be weird at best. I mean – who would make vacations plans to stay in the renovated part of the most haunted hotel in Los Angeles?"

Lucifer chuckled. "As I said before – you would be surprised what turns people on." He turned and watched the few visitors out and about trying to hail a taxi outside while avoiding contact with one of the numerous homeless sorts that seemed to appear and disappear out of the shadows. "Let me ask – has anyone checked in who presented himself as a priest? Perhaps even asked for a room specifically not in the Stay on the Main section – somewhere above the sixth floor?" He looked at the detective and shrugged. "A bit of trivia that's been floating in my head since this started – anything above the sixth floor was considered dangerous by long-time residents."

The night clerk frowned for a moment. "Yeah – young guy. Checked in a few weeks ago. From what I've heard from the staff he's barely ever in his room. Doesn't look like he sleeps there, doesn't seem to make use of the towels he's provided. A couple of the maids swear they saw him talking to some of the homeless types camped out around back. Figured he was just some nutcase playing dress-up and pretending to be a man-of-the-cloth. "

"What was his name and when was the last time anyone saw him?" Chloe asked urgently.

The clerk shrugged. "Not sure when the maids saw him last but I remember his name - Pablo Vergara. Which was strange because he really looked more Irish than Mexican but he insisted on using a Mexican passport when he checked in."

Lucifer's eyes brightened. "Pablo Vergara? You know whose name that is, don't you Detective. That's the name of the Death Metal Rocker Morbid who was accused by the internet of having had a hand in the death of that girl found in the water tank here."

Chloe scowled at her "consultant". "Can this case get any more confusing?" She started to fish her phone out of her jacket pocket to call in this new breadcrumb for Dan and Ella to follow. "How the hell did you know that?" she asked. "And when were you planning on telling me about it?"

Lucifer smiled. "I assumed Daniel would. I'm pretty sure he and Miss Lopez, having done so much digging in the Internet for information about the previous murders in this place would have found out about Mr. Morbid."

Chloe's phone buzzed suddenly, Dan's name appearing on the screen. "Chloe? Ella and I found something you might want to know."

"So did Lucifer and I" she replied, motioning her partner to not make his usually sarcastic comments at Dan's expense. "You first."

"Blood in the car may have come from a blood drive held at Bradley's company a few days before the first murder. And John Milton's name was on a sign-up sheet to act as a volunteer." Ella's voice buzzed with subdued excitement. "I'm going to put a rush on the DNA to see whether we're right about what was found in the trunk being from multiple donors."

"Which actually would fit in with a theory I've been turning over in my head about our missing girl – who may not be missing after all." Chloe's voice dropped as she watched hotel maintenance staff gather at the door to the bowels of the building. "Quick question – what do you know about a guy who goes by the stage name of Morbid? Real name is…"

"Pablo Vergara" Dan's voice responded. "We found information on the web sleuth's website from the time of the Elisa Lam case where some people tried to point the finger of blame at him because he of a music video he had filmed that had some elements of Ms. Lam's disappearance and death in it. Why do you ask?"

"Because according to the desk clerk a Pablo Vergara checked into the Cecil just a few days before our first murder. But I have my doubts about whether it's the same guy or not. The person who checked in under that name was described rather ambivalently as a "young guy" dressed as a priest."

"Not going to be the original Morbid" Dan mused, his voice thoughtful. "But I'll run a check to see if I can find his present location. One other thing about Vergara – according to our research on the Bradley family, his sister married a man named Manuel Herrera who moved his wife and stepson Gabriel to Mexico. When he died Pablo Vergara was listed as a "friend of the family" in one of the death notices posted in the news. So Bradley's nephew knew Morbid and probably heard from either his father or his father's friend what had happened to him during the Lam investigation."

"So – again we're back to looking at Gabe again as a suspect" Lucifer mused. "Interesting."

"Not to me" Chloe replied, hanging up on her ex-husband abruptly. "Gabe's only part in this maybe in sending us breadcrumbs to follow and nothing more. I think we need to find Bradley and Annalise – if we find them we might find our answer."

"Well then" a voice whispered from behind them. "Allow me to show you the way."