Chapter Sixteen
"What?" Chloe asked stupidly, some desperate part of her brain refusing to grasp what the word "dead" meant.
"He committed suicide several years ago."
Lucifer lifted his head off Chloe's shoulder and met her eyes. His were slightly stricken, as they often got when someone he knew personally had passed. Chloe took hold of his hand and looked back at the ceiling.
"When exactly was this?" she asked, trying not to feel like all the oxygen was leaving the warehouse, along with their best hope of solving the case.
"I'm not sure," Bethany said. "I can find out, though. Hold on."
While they waited, Lucifer put his head back down with a sad sigh. Chloe gave his fingers a squeeze.
"January 9th, 2014," Bethany reported.
Chloe bit her lip, thinking hard. "Barely a month after Martin was sentenced to death," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
It could mean nothing. Just a cosmic coincidence. Or, it could mean Chet knew something about Rose's murder, maybe even committed the murder himself for some unknown reason, and the guilt of letting an innocent man die was too much for him to bear.
"Was there a note, or any indication at all of why he did it?" Chloe asked, raising her voice to address Bethany again.
"The obituary says no note was found at the scene. Quotes from family members state he had a lifelong struggle with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. His suicide didn't come as a shock."
Damn. Chloe chewed her lip again. No note meant no admission of guilt. But just because they hadn't found a note didn't mean there wasn't one. Did people even write notes on paper anymore? Chloe did, but she was old school. For most people, everything was on their phones.
"Bethany, I need access to Chet's phone, his emails, any pictures he took or videos he recorded." Chloe looked up, holding her breath. It was a tall order, but if Bethany could get her hands on police files normally kept under lock and key, she should be able to get ahold of this information, too.
"I'll see what I can do," the woman replied.
Chloe nodded. It was the very best she could hope for. In the meantime, she'd pick apart Chet's initial statement to the police, his testimony at the trial, and any footage of him either at the bar or the movies that night, searching for any hint of deceit and/or a possible motive to harm Rose.
Lucifer mumbled something just as she got the first video cued up.
"What?" she asked.
When he didn't answer, Chloe turned and saw that he'd slipped into a troubled sleep, his brow furrowed, his lips muttering words she couldn't make out through the mask. Fever dreams. Or, more likely, fever nightmares. What those looked like for the Devil, she didn't even want to contemplate.
In all honesty, this whole situation was starting to feel like a fever dream. Lack of sleep was taking its toll, giving the warehouse a trippy, psychedelic quality. Shadows shifted in the corners like living things and the computer screen burned with unnatural brightness. False stars twinkled and winked overhead as Lucifer slowly slipped away from her, one tick of the clock and dip of the oxygen gauge at a time.
It was like one of those awful recurring nightmares she used to have where she showed up late for an audition and suddenly realized she'd forgotten to memorize her lines. And apparently, judging by the stares of her peers, she'd forgotten to get dressed, too.
At first all she could do was stand there, paralyzed and naked while laughter screamed at her from all sides. Then she began to scramble. Chloe always fought so hard in those dreams—searching under chairs to find extra clothes, begging to borrow someone else's script, so desperate to prove that she could salvage the situation, yet failing worse with every attempt. She'd usually wake up crying and gasping, tangled in sweat-drenched sheets.
Then a big, warm, work-callused hand would stroke her hair and thumb the tears off her cheek. "You're okay, Monkey. Just a bad dream. Daddy's here now."
Chloe's eyes burned with the memory. How badly she ached for his touch right now, his gentle voice, his assurance that it was all just some nightmare. How badly she wanted to wake up.
Lucifer shifted beside her, giving a little moan and muttering in what sounded like Latin. Chloe scrubbed her own tears away and stroked a hand through his damp hair.
"You're okay, Lucifer. It's just a bad dream. I'm here. I'm right here."
He settled under her touch, the creases in his brow smoothing out, his mumbling lips going still and silent. Chloe continued her ministrations for a moment more, then carefully leaned forward and pressed "PLAY" on the video. As the pictures on the screen came to life, depicting a lively drunken trivia game at Brimstone, she reached for the yellow notepad and pen, getting ready to take notes.
She was an old school kind of girl.