Chapter Ten

"Why are we l-looking at boring apartment photos again?" Lucifer complained, his teeth clacking together loudly as he shivered. "I thought we were th-through with those."

"They're crime scene photos," Chloe corrected. "Not 'boring apartment photos.' And I'm looking at the steins on that middle shelf. Notice anything unusual about them?"

Lucifer leaned forward slightly, studied the picture, then leaned back again.

"They're ugly," he declared.

Chloe suspected the cold was putting him in a sour mood.

"They also don't match," she said. "See? There are four dark blue ones, one black one, and one empty space where the murder weapon used to be."

"So?"

"So, don't you think that's a little weird? The one used to kill her was dark blue. Would she really have a set of five dark blue steins, plus one black one? Wouldn't a normal set have an even number, like four or six, all of the same color?"

"Perhaps she was colorblind," Lucifer offered, wrapping his arms tighter around himself in an effort to stay warm. "Or just regular blind. The rest of her décor certainly suggests it."

"Maybe," Chloe murmured. "Or maybe she broke one along the way and when she tried to replace it, there weren't any more blue ones available."

She zoomed in on one of the blue steins until the image got chunky and pixilated, then inched the picture sideways with her finger, examining each beer stein in turn. They all had the same silvery, flaming logo for Brimstone, the pub where Rose and her lover, Keith, had worked. Other than the color difference, the steins were identical. From a distance, it was barely even noticeable that one didn't quite match.

A minor detail, at best. One that was almost certainly insignificant. There were several reasonable explanations for the discrepancy, and no real reason to think anything of a single mismatched beer stein on a shelf. And yet, it niggled in Chloe's gut all the same.

She got up and wrote, "Black Stein" in the green box on the dry erase board. Turning back to Lucifer, she saw him huddled in misery, attempting to fold his long legs up onto the bench so he could wrap his arms around them. When he caught her watching, he gave her such a mournful look she almost had to roll her eyes.

What a drama queen.

"Oh, fine," she conceded. "Take the ice off for a little while."

"Th-thank you, Detective." He wasted no time in discarding the cold pack on the bench and chucking the wet paper towels into the garbage can under the table.

"But," Chloe warned, returning to her seat beside him, "I'm taking your temperature every half hour, and if it starts to go up again, that ice pack's going right back on."

Lucifer sighed. "Very well."

They scrolled through several more crime scene photos that didn't yield any new insights on the case. Next up was another forensic report. The last two had focused on Rose's body and the apartment where she was killed. This one was all about Martin's car, and what had been found in and around it.

Rose's blood on the driver's side door handle. Rose's blood on the steering wheel. Rose's blood on the floor mat under Martin's feet.

Once again, the evidence in favor of Martin's guilt was overwhelming. And once again, it bothered Chloe. Was there anything here that didn't point directly to his guilt like a flashing neon arrow?

As if on cue, Chloe's eye caught on a potentially promising detail.

"Hey, here's something," she said, pointing to the screen. "They found a blond, female hair under the driver's seat of Martin's car. It got ripped out at the root, so they actually got some decent DNA off it." Chloe frowned as she read further. "Couldn't match it to anyone at the pub, though. Or any of Martin's co-workers, or any of Rose's friends." She skipped ahead a few pages, then went back to the report on the hair. "Nothing to tie it to that night, either, and Martin doesn't know who it belongs to."

"That hair could've fallen off of literally any woman in LA," Lucifer said dismissively. "You humans shed like bloody cats."

Chloe shook her head. "No, this didn't just fall off. It was pulled out. That means there was some type of force or strenuous activity involved."

Lucifer quirked an eyebrow. "Strenuous activity, you say?"

Geez, did he ever stop thinking about sex?

Probably not. In this case, though, he might actually be onto something.

"You think Martin was having an affair himself?" Chloe asked.

"He wouldn't be the first to cheat on his girlfriend. Or the second. Or the billionth."

Above them, the speakers boomed in an angry way that reminded Chloe of thunder.

"Martin was not cheating on Rose," the kidnapper said hotly.

Chloe glanced up and addressed the ceiling in a calm voice, "Bethany, part of the reason you chose Lucifer and me to investigate your son's case is because we're good detectives. Our process works. You have to let us talk through all the possibilities, even if you don't agree with some of them."

There was a long pause, and then:

"You're right. I…apologize. Please keep going."

Chloe nodded. "Thank you, Bethany." She looked back at Lucifer. "So, let's say, just for the sake of argument, that Martin was having an affair. Why wouldn't he admit to it at the trial? If he was cheating, too, that would reduce his motive for killing Rose over her affair."

"Judge not, lest ye be judged," Lucifer said.

"Exactly. Also, if Martin was with his lover the night of the murder, it would give him an alibi."

"But he doesn't remember the night of the murder," Lucifer pointed out. "Supposedly, anyway."

Chloe took a bite of granola bar, chewing over their new hypotheses. "Okay, how about this: Martin goes to the pub that night, gets completely hammered because of his problems at work, leaves the bar around eight, hooks up with some random blonde on the street, and has sex with her in his car. Afterwards, he goes home, finds Rose already dead, panics, and tries to dispose of her body, thinking he'll be blamed for the murder. He loads her into his trunk, but then passes out in the driver's seat before he can dump her anywhere. The next morning, when he wakes up, he doesn't remember any of it." She searched Lucifer's face hopefully. "Does that sound at all plausible?"

"Drinking, casual sex with a stranger, and trying to erase evidence of a crime? Sounds like my typical Friday night. Before you, of course," Lucifer added, giving her a little nod of deference.

"Thanks," Chloe said absently. "But even if Martin doesn't remember this woman, wouldn't she remember him?"

"Have you ever been to Lux on a Friday night, Detective? Or any decent bar or club? Most people are lucky to remember their own names the next morning."

Chloe nodded. "Okay, so maybe she was too drunk—"

"And/or stoned," Lucifer chimed in. "And/or in a coma from multiple orgasms."

"—To remember what happened that night. Just like Martin. Which means we have two people with amnesia, and still no alibi unless someone else saw them together." Chloe took a sip of her Red Bull and made a face. Flat. "Is there any other reason this woman wouldn't have come forward when Martin got arrested? Visiting from out of town, maybe? Went back home without ever knowing that her one night stand got convicted of murder?"

"Or," Lucifer said brightly, "she was engaged in some unauthorized cheater therapy, and didn't want her husband to find out."

Chloe nodded slowly. "She's protecting her marriage. I like it."

Lucifer smiled at the praise. He definitely seemed to be in a better mood. His eyes even had some of their sparkle back.

"But is keeping her husband in the dark really worth letting someone die?" Chloe pondered aloud. "If she was following the trial, she had to know Martin got sentenced to death. How could she not come forward with what she knew? I mean, what kind of a monster is this woman?"

"Yes, letting someone die just to get what she wants," Lucifer said, casting a meaningful glance at the ceiling. "It truly is monstrous, isn't it, Detective?"

Chloe swallowed back a lump. "Yeah. It is."

They met each other's eyes, unspoken emotions swimming just beneath the surface. Then Lucifer's breath hitched, and he had to turn away from her as a coughing fit overtook him.

It was the worst one so far. His shoulders shook with the spasms, and the painful sounds echoed through the warehouse. Chloe winced and put a hand on his back, not knowing what else to do. When the fit subsided, Lucifer just sat there for a moment, breathing. He slowly lowered the pocket square and looked down at it. His eyes widened.

"Lucifer…?"

"Excuse me," he said, crumpling the makeshift handkerchief and heading for the bathroom on shaky legs.

Chloe watched him go, cold fear churning in her gut. She kept both ears hyper-tuned to the bathroom as she got up to write, "Blond female hair – unidentified" in the green box. The words looked small and insignificant in the face of everything else. Any sense of triumph at finding a potential new clue had evaporated, leaving only hollow emptiness in its place.

Chloe resumed her seat and forced herself to look at some surveillance camera stills, but her real focus was on the bathroom. Lucifer had looked very pale when he went in there. At any moment, she was afraid she'd hear a cry of pain or the thump of a body hitting the floor. The only sounds that came through the closed door, however, were a few throat-clears and a lot of running water.

After a couple minutes, Lucifer emerged, still pale but looking slightly less shaky and a little more put together.

"You okay?" Chloe asked.

He nodded.

She shot him a skeptical look.

"I'm all right for now, Detective," he assured her, taking his seat on the bench.

For now.

"And what about you?" Lucifer asked, cocking his head to the side in that way he did when he was concerned.

Chloe blinked. "Me?"

"Yes, are you holding up all right?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Just—" Her eyes narrowed "—Did you fix your hair while you were in there?"

"Well," Lucifer said, smoothing out his vest, "there's no need for me to look like a 'homeless magician' as you once put it." He'd tucked his shirt in, too, she noted.

"You always look good," Chloe told him softly. Already, she missed his messy, boyish curls.

She suspected that tidying himself up had less to do with his massive ego and more to do with maintaining some small amount of control over their situation.

Lucifer picked a speck of dust off his vest. He examined the particle for a moment then flicked it away and smiled charmingly at her. In that way he did when he knew he looked charming. Okay, maybe his massive ego was the main reason he'd cleaned up.

"All right, pretty boy." Chloe patted his knee. "Let's get back to work. I want to look at that report on Martin's car again. There might be something else there besides that hair."

"Perhaps we'll find evidence of a scandalous affair," Lucifer said, covering a small cough.

"Perhaps we will," Chloe replied. Already, she was scrolling back to page one of the report to find out.

It wasn't until Lucifer coughed again, a few minutes later, that she realized he was no longer using his pocket square as a handkerchief. He'd replaced it with a handful of brown paper towels from the bathroom.

Cheap, scratchy towels that couldn't possibly feel good when pressed to his face. Quite a step down for someone who favored Italian silk and Egyptian cotton.

Chloe cleared her throat and stood up. "Hey, uh, I'll be right back…you keep reading, all right?"

"Copy that," Lucifer replied, deeply engrossed in his search for possible bodily fluids in the back seat of Martin's car.

Chloe stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Then, under the cover of running water, she dug through several layers of crumpled paper towels in the wastebasket. The pocket square sat at the bottom of the pile, soaked from a thorough rinsing that was almost—but not quite—enough to wash out the stain in the center of the silver fabric.

Faint as it was, Chloe had rinsed out enough pairs of panties over her lifetime to recognize what that stain was. Blood. He was coughing up blood.

Cold fear threatened to overtake her. She shoved it down forcefully. Lucifer had said he was all right for now, and he didn't lie. Chloe knew he'd only kept this from her to protect her. And because, even with his limited knowledge of human ailments, he probably realized there was nothing she could do to help him.

No magic pills in the first aid kit to prevent someone from slowly drowning in their own blood.

Hands shaking, she quickly reburied the pocket square and turned off the faucet.

When she stepped back out into the warehouse, Lucifer looked up from the computer screen. "Everything all right, Detective?"

No, she thought. Everything is not all right. We are being held hostage in a freaking warehouse. You are slowly drowning in your own blood. You are keeping secrets from me, even though you promised not to. We are nowhere NEAR solving this case, and I'm starting to think we might not be able to. None of that is all right, Lucifer.

"Detective?" he repeated, raising his eyebrows at her lack of response.

"For now," she said finally, retaking her seat beside him.

In the silence, Chloe could clearly hear a rasp in his lungs that hadn't been there a little while ago. Without a word, she reached over and took Lucifer's hand in hers.

Eighteen hours to go.