Chapter Fourteen

Chloe stuck her head under the faucet, gasping and sputtering at the shock of cold. She rose to full height and raked wet fingers over her scalp. More strands escaped her already sloppy ponytail, and she thought briefly of trying to fix it, but couldn't summon the energy. Avoiding the haunted eyes in the mirror, Chloe scrubbed her face dry and walked out of the bathroom.

Lucifer was exactly where she'd left him: sitting upright on the bench, fast asleep. It had taken some tricky maneuvering to extricate herself from his slumbering form. She'd managed to slide the balled-up suit jacket under his cheek to replace her shoulder as a pillow. It reminded her of that scene in Indiana Jones where Indiana has to swap out a priceless artifact with a bag of sand. Speaking of priceless, if Lucifer had been awake, he would've howled in protest at her abuse of his precious Prada. As it was, he snoozed on, happily unaware.

Keeping her footsteps quiet, Chloe walked over to study the whiteboard. She took in all the fragments and tried to make them into a cohesive whole. The abundant DNA evidence implicating Martin. The presence of an unidentified woman in the car. The door handles that had been wiped clean, with Martin's fingerprints seemingly deliberately placed on afterwards. Her gut said "set-up." But who? And why? Was this crime really more about Martin than Rose? Was she just collateral damage to someone hellbent on hurting Martin in the worst possible way?

Chloe looked at Martin's smiling, innocent face. Who has a grudge against you? Who hates you enough to make you think you bludgeoned your own girlfriend?

"Detective?" Lucifer's soft voice came from behind her, sounding impossibly small and achingly lonely in the vast emptiness of the warehouse.

She turned to find him gazing at the open bathroom door, a strangely lost look in his eyes.

Chloe hurried over to him. "Hey. What's up?"

Lucifer's head wobbled with the effort of staying upright as he turned it sluggishly toward her. "Oh…there you are." He sighed and closed his eyes, letting his cheek settle back onto the jacket-pillow. "I was afra…I thought…maybe you'd left."

Chloe gave a little chuckle. "Where would I go, silly? We're trapped in here, remember?"

"Yes…that's right." He sounded hesitant, though, like he didn't really remember at all.

Chloe reached for the thermometer. Lucifer's eyelids didn't even flutter when she inserted the tip in his ear.

105.5.

She dug through the first aid kit. He was already wearing the last ice pack, and it was half-melted. Only one travel package of Tylenol remained. Chloe hesitated before opening it and dropping the pills into his warm palm.

"Here, swallow these." She lifted the oxygen mask to make it easier for him. "Now drink this." She handed him the remnants of a Gatorade Frost.

Lucifer took a few sips, then rested his arm back in his lap, like even that small movement had taken too much effort. Chloe rescued the bottle from his limp fingers before the liquid could spill.

"Besides," she added, fixing the oxygen mask back on his face and stroking the sweat-damp hair off his forehead, "I would never leave without saying goodbye. Or telling you when I would be back." She settled in beside him, tugging him closer so his head was once again pillowed on her shoulder. "Or telling you that I love you." Chloe whispered the last bit right in his ear.

Lucifer made a pleasant little hum in his throat, like a happy bumblebee.

Chloe smiled.

He fell asleep soon after, and Chloe spent the next forty-five minutes going through Martin's emails and asking Bethany questions about anyone in her son's life who might've had an axe to grind. Neither avenue produced anything promising. The defense had presented a large collection of Martin's emails and texts during the trial, trying to show that he had never used anything resembling threatening language against Rose. Of course, as the prosecution pointed out, when a person was drunk and enraged, all bets were off. Chloe rubbed at her painfully dry eyes, succeeding only in irritating them further. She heaved a tired sigh.

Lucifer shifted beside her. "Detective?"

"I'm right here," she assured him, finishing up the email she was reading. It didn't yield anything worthwhile, and was apparently the last one in the file, because the next click brought up a cluster of surveillance photos she'd already been over. Rats.

"Detective?"

"Yeah?"

"You…are so pretty."

She looked over to find him gazing at her in wonderment, his eyes starry and love-struck. Chloe giggled and planted a kiss on his forehead. "And you," she told him, "are so loopy."

Lucifer pouted. "Am not."

Chloe just smiled affectionately and turned back to the surveillance photos. Maybe the second time would be the charm. Several minutes passed in silence while she worked, and Chloe assumed Lucifer had fallen back asleep until he spoke up again.

"Detective?"

"Hmmm?" she replied, not taking her eyes off the screen.

Lucifer raised his head off her shoulder, leaving an imprint of warmth where his cheek had been. "Chloe."

She glanced sideways at her partner, half-expecting another drunken declaration about her undying beauty. The seriousness in his dark eyes made her breath catch. Chloe scooched around on the bench to face him more fully.

"What's up?" she asked.

Lucifer started to take a deep breath, but stopped when something crackled in his chest. He hadn't coughed in a while, and Chloe almost wished he would. Instead of trying to expel the fluid from his lungs, his body was now just letting it build up in there.

"I just wanted you to know…no matter what happens…everything will be all right." There was kindness in his eyes now. Acceptance. Maybe even a little peace.

Chloe was having none of it. "Don't do that, Lucifer."

"Do…what?"

"Give up."

"I wasn't…"

"Yeah, you were, and I want you to stop it right now." She gathered his limp hands in hers. "Listen, I know you feel awful, and you're not thinking straight, but we are going to get through this. I truly believe Martin is innocent. Every cop instinct I have is telling me so. But I can't prove it alone. I need my partner backing me up, okay?"

Lucifer nodded slowly, once again looking at her like she was the most special, most wonderful thing in the entire universe. To him, she was.

Chloe gave his hands a squeeze. "Good. And besides, in case you've forgotten, there's another very important reason we can't give up."

Lucifer tilted his head questioningly.

"After Martin's case, we still have to get justice for your pot dealer."

"Pot grower," Lucifer corrected. "He was a very skilled…botanist."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Whatever he was, we can't just let his killer go free, now can we?"

"You're right, Detective." Lucifer adjusted his oxygen mask and turned to look at the computer with renewed determination. "For Fernando, then."

"For Fernando," she agreed, studying the image on the screen once more. "So…see anything helpful?"

Lucifer shook his head.

"Yeah, me neither." She was about to click onto the next image when Lucifer murmured something else, the mask muffling his voice too much to make out.

"What?" she asked.

"I said…I'm glad she's gained some weight…she was far too thin."

Chloe frowned, looking at the screen then Lucifer then back at the screen again. "Who?"

It took him a moment to summon the energy to point out the person he was talking about. "Her."

Chloe huffed a small laugh. "Okay, now I know you're loopy. Lucifer, that's Chet Owens, one of the bartenders at Brimstone. And he is most definitely a guy."

Lucifer leaned forward slightly, squinting at the surveillance photo, then sagged back against the bench. "Oh," he said. "Right you are, Detective." Lucifer heaved a weary sigh and snuggled closer, his short burst of energy already waning.

"Well," he said, pillowing his head on Chloe's shoulder once more, "when I knew him, he was a she. And her name…was Cheyenne."