Kneel

Case 29

  "Ella, cause of death?"

  "BABFT."

  "What?"

  "Oh, Big Ass Blunt Force Trauma to the head. Murder weapon's missing, but we're looking for something small and compact, surprisingly heavy for its size."

  "Mystery solved then!" Lucifer clapped his hands together. "It was the imp." We all just looked at him, and his smile fell. "What? Come on, small, compact, heavy for its size? All descriptors of this little brute."

  "Really? Crime scene selfies? Classy move." Ella popped off, and we looked over to see the roommate.

  "Like someone else we know." I popped off.

  "Oh, who?" Lucifer asked, and I stared at him with a flat expression. "Who?"

~

  "If you didn't know her, then how did you fight her?"

  "Because she was nuts."

  "You just said you didn't know her."

  "I know her type. We get them from time to time. They want to be on TopMeet, they can't clear our high bar, and then they get pissed about it. The problem with her was she just wouldn't take no for an answer. And then she, uh, hacked her way onto my app. And then our users complained, of course, because nobody's going on TopMeet to hook up with some random nobody. And so we had to kick her off."

  "Okay, and is that when she got angry and called to complain?" Chloe asked.

  "No," The man laughed. "it was more like she went psycho."

  "Ah, boring people never like to be told they're dull. Right, Imp?" Lucifer popped off.

  "Shut up, I'm looking for a hobby."

  "Oh?"

  "What did you do after the call?" Chloe went on while ignoring us.

  "I stayed here and worked late. We've been busy as Hell these days."

  "Not nearly, I can assure you."

  "We'd like to talk to anyone who can corroborate your alibi. Also, I'll need a list of any of the users that complained about Kim."

  "No can do. With so many celebrity clients, our entire business model is based off our ironclad privacy protocols."

  "Fine. I'll just get a warrant."

  "Good luck with that. I mean, how long did it take the FBI to hack one cell phone?"

~

  "He's a dude and he's straight."

  "That's never stopped me before, Daniel. I'm so good at flipping men, they call me 'The Skillet'." Lucifer said, and I snorted as was walking into the conference room.

  "Sorry, ignore me. Got that file you wanted." I walked past them and handed the folder to Ella.

  "We could have Misha do it." Ella's eyes lit up. "You guys would not believe what I saw when Misha came back from that undercover op with Charlotte."

  "The imp?" Lucifer scoffed. "Socialize? Flirt? Come on."

  "No, no, Ella has a point. Misha is really good undercover." Chloe pointed.

  "It's 'cause they're so short no one can see them."

  "Lucifer."

  "Why would I go undercover?" I asked while glancing around.