Chapter Text
Chloe leaned back against the wall of the elevator, one hand covering her eyes, trying to resist the racking sobs that shook her.
Oh… oh… oh God… oh… oh… Lucifer, her heart wailed, grieving for the being who’d looked at her with devastated eyes… red, amidst the wracked ruin of his black and red scarred face.
Her heart ached at the agony she saw in his grief-stricken face… poor… poor devil… her… beloved… damned… tormented… partner… the… devil… on earth…
She’d still staggered backwards into the elevator at the rotunda where Marcus had lured them into an ambush… unable to control her… shock… from the bullet that had slammed into her chest, breaking a rib, even if stopped short of penetrating her heart… as Marcus had ordered… from the shattering vision of the tortured, flame scarred features of her… partner… Lucifer… Morningstar… sobbing at the pain she’d… seen in his eyes… when he realized she was seeing the inner… self-condemned… son of the God she’d denied… not her sleek and glossy LAPD partner… but the… tormented, self-sacrificing son of God… who had suffered from his father’s unwarranted… unrelenting… unforgiving… punishment… the best partner she’d ever known… Lucifer… Morningstar…
Days before…
Amenadiel was gone, and Charlotte was dead. She’d been shot dead at an overlook that offered a great view of the city… and apparently cover for a hidden shooter, who’d shot her dead. When Chloe and Lucifer arrived on the scene, they’d found that someone from the precinct had already called Dan, because they found him cradling Charlotte in his arms, as he sobbed.
The forensic team was torn between their jobs and the need to examine her in order to do their job… and their sympathy for Dan. Turning their dismayed faces towards Chloe when she and Lucifer stepped from her cruiser, she’d grimaced and nodded to them, in silent understanding. She walked quietly over to her ex-husband and crouched beside him, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder.
“Dan,” she said softly. “Dan… I know… I know it’s… it’s going to be hard to… to let go, but you have to let George and Carlos do their jobs. Maybe… maybe you can just… sit next to th… her… and let them do their jobs?”
Dan’s face was still contorted with grief, eyes squeezed shut, as Chloe spoke to him, and George and Carlos hovered just out of reach, but not out of earshot.
Meanwhile, Lucifer had ghosted across the clearing towards the other members of the LAPD on the scene and was quietly questioning them. They’d carefully been expanding their search area outward from the clearing where they’d found Charlotte’s body and found the bush from behind which the shooter had taken his shot… since he hadn’t, ah, policed the ejected shell casings from the shots he’d fired. Apparently he’d… presumably he, based on the size of the footprints, though that was really a questionable assumption… fired more than once at what they concluded had been a pair of targets: Charlotte and someone else.
“Amenadiel was here,” Lucifer said quietly. “My brother,” he added at the questioning looks. At the appalled expression of one of the LAPD officers, he said, “by… by Charlotte’s body. I recognized the marks of Amenadiel’s ridiculous sandals next to her body. I believe he and… and Charlotte… were the shooter’s targets. Has anyone heard from… from Pierce?”
The two LAPD officers looked bewildered, mixed with relief that Lucifer wasn’t identifying his brother as the shooter.
Lucifer sighed. “Charlotte and Amenadiel suspected that… the lieutenant… was involved in organized crime… the Sinnerman gang. They were trying to find evidence trying him into the gang itself. The supposed Sinnerman… the one he shot and killed… was apparently his second in command, a fall guy, as it turned out. I… suspect… Pierce tried to stop their investigation by shooting her…”
“You think the lieutenant killed Mrs. Richards?” one of the officers said, his tone half disbelieving, half horrified at the prospect Lucifer’s accusation might be true.
“I believe so,” Lucifer said, lifting his head to look around. “Look at those footprints again,” he added. “And the shell casings.”
The two officers looked down at the footprints, and then at their own shoes. One of them drew his own gun and pulled out the magazine, looking down at the casing of the bullet at the top of the magazine.
“He used his own gun,” he said in a shocked voice. “His official piece…”
Lucifer looked grim. “He’s gotten away with so much over the years, he’s convinced he’s untouchable. He boasted I’d never be able to prove he was the Sinnerman… not after he’d killed his minion…”
“Pierce… you think Pierce did this?”
Lucifer and the two officers turned their heads to look at the stricken face of Daniel Espinoza. Chloe had apparently persuaded Dan to let the forensic team tend to Charlotte’s body, leading him away… and Dan had wandered over to the bush where the officers and Lucifer were talking just in time to hear Lucifer’s ID’ing Pierce as the Sinnerman.
Dan’s face grew both paler and angrier. “You thought he was the Sinnerman?! You thought he was a killer and… and let him go on pretending to be an honest cop … to go on and kill Charlotte?! What the hell, man!”
“I couldn’t prove it,” Lucifer said, defensively. “And… and when I tried to tell anyone… when I tried to warn…”
“Who’d you try to warn?” Dan snarled.
“Me,” Chloe said in a low voice. “He tried to warn me, Dan, and… and I… I didn’t believe him… I told him to… to shut up and… and stop criticizing my… choices… it’s… it’s my fault I… I didn’t believe him.”
Lucifer shook his head. “You’re a detective… you and Daniel… you need proof, and I had none.”
“You said he was Cain!” Chloe protested, “not just the Sinnerman! What am I supposed… what was I supposed to do with that!”
“Believe me?” Lucifer said, in a half bitter tone, though whether the bitterness was aimed at Chloe or himself wasn’t clear. “I never lie, Detective! Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Dan’s face was still a mask of frozen rage even as Chloe shook her head and muttered something about his metaphors.
As the two of them apparently struggled to find something to say in response to Lucifer’s protest, there was a sudden bustle from behind them and Ella Lopez burst onto the scene, throwing her arms around Daniel.
“Dan! Oh, Dan! I’m so so sorry!” she said, her voice raw and rough as she gave him a fierce hug… a hug that led him to break down, hugging her back with a sob before she had to finally release him, saying apologetically, “I have to check in with Carlos and George… I’ll… I’ll be right back after they fill me in.”
Dan nodded his understanding, trying to draw a deep breath and reestablish control over his emotions as he released his grip on Ella. She regretfully drew back and quickly moved to join her forensic colleagues, listening to their explanations with a frown on her face, even as she nodded, absorbing what they were saying, and periodically looking up and over at Lucifer, Dan, and Chloe as she listened to her colleagues’ conclusions. At the end of their observations, she nodded, straightening up and stepping away to walk back to the quintet by the sniper’s nest. She cleared her throat.
“They say it looks like there were two targets, based on the body and the marks around it,” Ella said.
“Amenadiel was with her,” Lucifer said, nodding.
“Where is he, then?” Dan asked bitterly. “Did he run away?”
“Dan, he might’ve been hit,” Chloe objected. “Though…” she looked at Lucifer with a doubtful look in her eyes. “Do you think he was hit, Lucifer? I mean, if he was… or even if he wasn’t, where’d he go?”
“Where’d he run off to?” Dan repeated. “Did he go after Pierce?”
As Elle started, looking shocked at the unexpected words, Lucifer shook his head. “He probably went home,” he said grimly. “Back to the Silver City.”
“He fled the scene?” Ella gasped. “And what did you mean… ‘go after Pierce’?”
“Lucifer says Pierce was probably the shooter,” Chloe said, her own voice and face grim. “Based on the footprints and shell casings, Lucifer thinks he’s the one who shot Charlotte.”
“He gave her… he took her to the Silver City,” Lucifer said heavily. “She… she deserved that final kindness.”
More than one of his auditors’ eyebrows were furrowed as they tried to fathom what Lucifer was saying.
“He took her soul to heaven,” Lucifer said, looking up and around at them. “She didn’t deserve to go to hell… and he made sure she didn’t.”
“Fuck you, man!” Dan burst out. “Charlotte didn’t deserve to go to hell!”
“That’s just what I said,” Lucifer said, shaking his head in reply. “She redeemed herself… she earned her way to heaven… she got rid of her guilt.”
Dan shook his own head even as Ella’s (and Chloe’s) forehead wrinkled.
“Guilt’s what sends you to hell,” Lucifer said. “Not me, not my father… but your own guilt. That’s what took her there the first time… but not this time… she redeemed herself… she wiped away her guilt.”
Dan lashed out, but Lucifer swayed back and the roundhouse blow missed him entirely, almost toppling Dan to the ground… the hard grip on his upper arm… Lucifer’s grip… held him away, out of reach.
“Daniel, I forgive you… I know how much it hurts,” Lucifer said.
Dan shook his head. “I love… I loved her!” he said bitterly. “What would you know of that?”
“I… I don’t have the best record,” Lucifer said in a low voice, “but I do recognize… I do know… what love is, Daniel. I know you loved her… and she loved you, too. And if… if… you too redeem yourself, you’ll see her again.”
Dan shuddered at Lucifer’s words.
“You’ve made a good start at it, Daniel,” Lucifer continued in an urgent tone. “You’re a better man than you know… what you’ve done… lately… is more than making up for your past. Know that… know that, and keep up the good work, and you’ll see her again. I never will, but you will. As the devil, I promise you… you will see her again… you won’t go to hell.”
Dan shook his head, tears sparkling among his eyelashes.
Ella had been listening to Lucifer’s urgent words, eyes wide, her lips parted, but no words escaping between them. She shook her head slowly. Somehow, Lucifer never let go of the identity he’d claimed. But… but maybe his method was what was needed to bring Dan back to earth.
Chloe had one hand fisted before her own mouth as she slowly shook her head. “We need to report this to IA,” she said. “If… if Marcus really did do this…”
“He did,” Lucifer said with a grim, certain tone in his voice.
“He’ll need to be brought to justice,” Ella said, her own voice hoarse, thinking back to how she’d encouraged Chloe to go out with the lieutenant.
“Indeed,” Lucifer said. “He’s escaped it long enough… damn dad’s idea of justice.”
Elle blinked.
“He’s not Cain,” Chloe scoffed. “He’s… he’s just a criminal masquerading as a cop.”
“Potato… potahtoh,” Lucifer said. “He’s going to be done, now, if I have to throw him into the sun to do it.”