Let there be Truth – Tell no soul (Part 2)
They had found him sitting on the ground, back against a mattress red with blood, in the suite of a high-end hotel, but even under the neon lights of the interrogation room he looked the same. Lost, confused, perhaps terrified. Even when she'd shot him, Chloe had never seen Lucifer scared. How could the devil be afraid of anything?
A more worrying question was what or who had done it. She'd told her partner that he couldn't be the killer, and that if anything, his state was an indication of how dangerous the real perpetrator was. Still, she let him take Lucifer into custody. It was the only thing to do with his finger prints all over the place and the blood of the victim soaking his expensive clothes.
"You've got to talk to me," she pleaded in front of him. Never since she'd left the Academy had Chloe thought that she might hear her own voice breaking in this room. She didn't go to church, but this was her temple, the place where she felt at peace, in perfect control. "Lucifer, look at me!"
He did turn his eyes towards her, but a blind man would have held her gaze better. She'd seen attraction, cleverness, or concern when he'd looked at her before and always kindness. But now, Chloe felt like he wasn't in there anymore, and it left a pit in her stomach. She'd been stupid. Finding out about his true nature had comforted her into the idea that he was invulnerable. Sure, he wasn't bleeding, but whatever had transpired in that hotel room had hurt Lucifer deeply.
"I'll find out who did this," Chloe vowed. She didn't know whether she'd be able to fix him, but she could still do her job. Finding the bad guy, making sure he's punished. That's what Lucifer would have wanted.
She found Dan leaning against a desk when she came out of the interrogation room. Her ex didn't say a word, even though he couldn't stand Lucifer, he wasn't here to gloat. He just gave her a nod, one that said that he'd help anyway he could. Even with all the worry and anger bottled inside of her, Chloe had to smile at him. He might not have been the love of her life, but he was a good man and a great father.
The smile vanished when she got a look at Ramirez' face, however. Her newfound partner was coming out of the observation room, and she thought he was about to reprimand her for being on the side of their main suspect. Instead, he waved his phone.
"I just got a call from the FBI. This is a total mess. The coroner put the autopsy report in the system and every bell started ringing. Where's your desk?"
The trip to her computer was short but fruitful. The FBI had sent over a comprehensive package of information, not their entire work file, but still. There had been plenty of victims, and the first one dated back two years prior.
"How come the press hasn't picked up on this?" Chloe wondered. The real question was why every police department hadn't been informed about this guy, so they might communicate faster with the feds. But it wasn't the time to get mad, she'd information to comb through.
"I have no idea, but the guy on the phone told me it wasn't just in the US. They are in contact with Interpol and apparently this guy has killed people on three continents already."
"Wait… They think a single person did this?" Her eyes went up and down the list of cases, with the name of the victim, the location of the murder and the law-enforcement agencies involved. "This looks more like a cult or I don't know what exactly."
"That's the strangest part," Ramirez said, "the killer is far from meticulous. There are prints and DNA evidence on almost all the crime scenes. And he's even more messed up than we thought. Pull up the autopsy report."
She did and at first everything seemed fine. Well, as fine as an autopsy in a murder case could be. She already knew about the various injuries and the cause of death, but it was the details that followed which turned her stomach. She'd rather not have known why the killer slashed his victim's throat after he killed them.
"You must be relieved," Ramirez said. "Your friend probably has an alibi for most of these murders, and we can clear his name with a simple DNA sample."
Chloe froze. According to the Reverend, Lucifer's body was a creation so he could be in the physical world. She didn't know what exactly his DNA would look like, no matter how human he looked. She quickly chased the thought. That wasn't her concern, she'd just have to warn Amenadiel. If the killer was moving, she needed to catch him before he left the city, otherwise it'd be up to the State Police or the FBI to get him.
She needed to know what happened in that hotel room.