Lucifer 5x01 The One that Flew Away

Scene 4

10 months later

No one had told Chloe about the most gory details of the crime scene, maybe because none of the officers that had seen it first had the stomach to actually look. The blood wasn't even the problem, Chloe decided, but the skin. At first sight, the poor man that laid before her had been gutted and left to die, but upon closer inspection it was clear that he had been tortured first. A long torture that had consisted in removing strands of his skin. Chloe had never seen a flayed — or semi-flayed — body before, and she hoped she never had to again.

The rest of the officers observed her from the distance. They had argued that they didn't want to disturbe the crime scene much, but truly the didn't want to get close to even get a sniff of this particular death. They all turned as a joyful voice asked them to move and, between them, emerged Ella López, ready to process the scene.

"What's up, Decker?" She said as she crouched next to her.

Chloe smiled at the girl, relieved that Ella had been the one called. "Hey."

"Wow, thank God I didn't have dinner!" She took her camera and started to photograph different angles of the victim. After taking a picture she looked at it and determine if it was good enough, if not delete and repeat.

"Yep..."

"Detective, we have the security feed." One of the officers dared approached with a tablet. He extended his arm as much as hie could so that Chloe would take it and he could run back to the safety of ignorance, some meters away. Chloe took it and he ran. The video showed the door of the warehouse and the victim going in to work. Some minutes later, a young man followed inside. Nothing else happened until three hours later when the young man simply walked out. The next person to go in was another worker, hours later, and he came out screaming and bewildered after having found the body.

"Well, at least we have our guy," she said, rewinding the video until it showed the person exiting the warehouse. He hadn't made an effort to cover his face and the picture, despite dit being somewhat pixeled, was clear enough to find his identity. She showed the photogram to Ella to share her findings with the only person around and Ella jumped up wide eyed.

"Hey, that's my guy!" Ella sounded almost offended.

Chloe looked at the video, surprised by her outburst. "Our guy," she corrected, "He comes in after the victim and is the only one that comes out."

"No, no. Decker, I saw him at the morgue."

"He's dead now?" Chloe sighed. She wanted an open-and-close case, but if the perpetrator had been murdered, it complicated things.

"No, Decker," Ella insisted exasperated, "He was dead before. Yesterday. Way before this. Dead I-did-his-autopsy dead. He had overdosed."

Chloe couldn't hear anything else for a while, not the water dripping in the distance of the warehouse, not the quiet murmur of the scared officers, not the cars driving past the warehouse in the middle of the night. She could only hear inwards: only her breathing, her heartbeat, and the thought that bounced freely in her mind. If the guy that had killed her victim had been dead meanwhile, it could only mean one thing.

"It's happening again."