At the Cecil

"Why don't you tell her, Regina my dear?" Lucifer purred. "Why don't you tell us all?" All eyes in the room swiveled from Lucifer to the middle-aged woman seated in front of him, the only one of the three that hadn't spoken a word since their arrival. She looked down her nose at the Devil in front of her and shrugged.

"What is there to say?" Regina said coldly. "James Milton was a hindrance to the plan. He had to be removed so that the police would not look too closely at Don for the murder of John."

"So – why did he become the first victim of your vicious little game?" Lucifer asked with a Cheshire Cat smile on his face.

Regina shrugged. "Don knew all along Bertha was trying to bring him down, use his affair with Annalise as a way to get out of losing access to all that money in a divorce."

Gabriel snorted, his voice dripping with scorn. "Their prenup was one of the first documents I found in that house. He was just as guilty of breaking their agreement as she was."

"True" Regina replied calmly. "But their prenup really didn't cover his actions all that seriously. And he had NEVER been faithful – not in all the years of their marriage."

"He even slept with you, didn't he" Bertha snarled. "I suspected as much."

"He was sleeping with me right up to the time he said "I Do' to you" Regina purred. "I, at least, understood the world of business. I could keep up with him when he made his deals in the financial market. We had something that linked us together."

"You both understood higher math?" Lucifer asked sarcastically. "But even business has its limits – and Bertha presented a better picture as the Corporate Wife than you did, didn't she? She could wine and dine his competitors and keep their interest while Bradley's company sent them to the poor house. So it was Bertha he married – not you."

Regina shrugged. "But it was me he loved. All the time they were married, it was always me."

"And so you did this all for love" Lucifer sneered. "Or was it for money? Did Donny promise you a share of the profits when and if he managed to buy this wreck of a hotel and turn it into something more profitable? Though how he thought he would do that with all those wretches using the streets around this place as their own personal cesspool is actually beyond me. There aren't enough of the "Ghost Hunter" types around to make this place a profitable venture without a lot of issues being bulldozed over - starting with the homeless camps behind it." Lucifer smirked at the woman in front of him. "But I suspect that would have been your problem to solve. He had other, more important, issues to deal with."

"Like banging my daughter" Mad Dog Gibson growled from behind them. "You two women had become washed-up old hags in his eyes. That's why this all started, wasn't it. His wife trying to find a way to bring him down and you trying to find a way to blame it all on my Annalise."

"She brought that all on herself" Regina snarled. "She saw him as a sugar daddy and went for his pocket book like every other cat in heat he's ever bedded had done. She wasn't special - not like I was."

"I think that in this case we will have to agree to disagree" Lucifer said with a cold smile. "Milton, I suspect, was a good con artist but lousy at planning a murder. The plan was to "arrange" for Donny boy to have a little "accident" then blame it on his all too young lover. John McIntire was starting to get nervous. Maybe he found out some of Milton's actions designed to make the hotel more a viable purchase, actions that might not be totally ethical if totally legal. Maybe he started to notice something about Annalise, about her interactions with a man old enough to be her father. McIntire, from what I have been able to glean from my friends in LAPD, was a good if boring young business man. His only hobby was studying the histories of buildings like the Winchester House or the Cecil – places that have developed reputations because of the actions of humans in and around them. But he decided that rather than stay silent on the sidelines he would what – make a fuss about how the purchase of the Cecil was being handled. Or better yet – hold his boss accountable for his interactions with a naïve young college student who is not as tough as she thinks she is. Either way – he was a hindrance and Milton took him out of the picture, hoping his murder would distract the police long enough for he and his lover to make her husband disappear. Donny boy vanishes and he becomes the perfect suspect for the crime. Until, that is, Regina decided to take a hand." The Devil waved a languid hand at the woman before him. "Couldn't have your beloved Donny be accused of something he hadn't really done – could you? So when Milton came to the hotel that night to get your help with finding a way to frame either Don or Annalise for James's murder you decided to end him instead." Lucifer shifted in his seat, pushing it even further in to the grown shadows, watching as his words took hold on the people he had invited to this little conclave.

"And blame Annalise for the crimes" the old gang banger snarled.

"Maybe – or blame Gabriel here for them." Lucifer's bright eyes gleamed out of the shadows as he stared over at the ragged figure on the floor beside the window. "Personally, I would have chosen him to blame – he makes so much better a suspect that some wild little sorority type with the hots for a daddy figure."

Amenadiel grabbed the man beside him by the arm to keep him from launching himself at the others in the room. "It's not worth it" he whispered desperately. "Let the police handle this."

"Handle what?" Gibson muttered. "Your brother may have all the answers but he's got no proof. The police will poke at this for a while but nothing will get resolved. And Bradley will float away with his money and his influence and no one will be held accountable."

"Is that true Candice?" Lucifer murmured. "Will no one be held accountable for either your husband's death or that of your brother? Strangely enough – you're the only one here who is even somewhat innocent. Oh, you did convince your poor, unsuspecting husband to put in a good word for your brother with Bradley and get that looser a job with the wealthy financial firm he was associated with. You and your brother probably always did try to stick up for one another because of your family's unfortunate bent towards crime. But you never thought it was come to this – even when your brother told you about his affair with his boss's wife – which I'm assuming he did right before your husband's death." Lucifer's perfect white teeth smiled out of the darkness as he watched the woman sink in to her chair. "How am I doing so far? Story sound right to you?"