And so the entire morning was devoted to a sort of therapy, a counseling that both of them needed in order to stay sane and to keep their cluttered thoughts organized, now stuffed into a locked drawer of dark, secretive pasts that should never emerge to the surface ever again.  Levi had arrived at the agency at 6:20, but he drove off, out of the parking lot with Aria in the passenger's seat, by the time the numbers hit 10:00.  The file and the papers inside were all dry by the time he sped off towards the only lead they had in the entire case:  towards the house that Aria had grew up in, 708 Baker Street.

His dark green Mazda MX-6 drove down the road, the engine working hard as it fought through the storm that somewhat seemed to resemble a hurricane.  The rain pounded down on them as they drove down the freeway, the skies still its usual gloomy gray and the clouds that loomed over them just as depressed and foreboding.  Levi's face was stone-hard and bleak, his jaws clenched tightly in tension as his hands clutched firmly onto the steering wheel.

Aria sat to his side, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes, seeing through her large round-rimmed spectacles as her eyes glimmered in a honey-like glaze.  Her dark caramel hair fell down just above her shoulder blades, her cream blazer and pencil skirt now dry but slightly streaked in some sort of filthiness that irked Levi out of his seat.  He restrained himself from saying anything, clenching his jaw as he continued to drive, the girl sitting silently with a slight smile upon her face, possibly a sign that her usual peppiness was making a reappearance.

The silence between the two made the intern a bit uncomfortable, resulting in her reaching a copper-toned hand over to graze against the radio dials.  Seeing this, Levi jolted and swerved the car, tires screeching and making the cars around him honk in a fury.  Aria screamed, holding onto the handle above her head as Levi steadied the car once more, huffing in a fuming rage.

"W-what the hell is wrong with you?!" Aria gasped.

"Don't turn on the radio," he snarled darkly, his shady eyes narrowed in threat.

Aria stared at him with wide hazel eyes.

"A-are you insane?  You almost got us k-killed!" she stammered.

"Just don't turn it on," Levi snapped grimly.  "Never turn it on.  Got it?"

The girl sat there for a second, trying to make sense of the whole ordeal inside her calculative mind.  Seeing there were no links whatsoever to unhaze this strange behavior, Aria sighed and turned her gaze back ahead, watching the cars drive by in the lane to her left.

"Alright..." she murmured.  "But at least drive properly!  And keep me company; your silence is really worrying me, Mr. Ackerman."

"How so?" Levi grumbled.  "Does my introverted behavior bother you, Miss Stefani?"

The girl smiled.

"Not particularly; I would just like to get to know you better, Mr. Ackerman."

"Don't you know enough already?" Levi growled.  "I already told you my fucking life story..."

Aria just giggled.

"You're so funny, Mr. Ackerman." She flashed him a small grin.  "The way you behave."

Levi raised a thin eyebrow.

"I'm funny?" he scoffed.  "Tch, I'm anything but funny, Miss Stefani."

"It's just the way you take conversation," Aria said simply.  "You take small talk as though it's a life-threatening matter.  It's quite amusing to watch, actually."

Levi ground his teeth.

"That's not necessarily how I view conversation, Miss Stefani..."

"It certainly seems that way," Aria giggled again; she flashed him a kind smile once more.  "You need to lighten up on these types of things, Mr. Ackerman."

Levi just scoffed.

The car was enveloped in silence once more, the awkwardness filling the vehicle up to the brim for the rest of the trip.  Aria shifted in her seat often, but she managed to behave and keep to herself, restraining herself from turning on the damn radio.

The small dark green car eventually turned into a small intersection and onto a Baker Street, driving down the slim lane that was lined with old crackling houses and dead beat-up lawns.  The road itself was crumbling and falling apart, the sun-bleached asphalt erupting in cracks and blemished with water-filled pot holes.  Levi huffed in annoyance at the unkempt lawns, the grasses on the yards long and overgrown with jungles of weeds.

Levi's steel-blue eyes flickered around as he slowly inched forward into the neighborhood, searching the rusting house numbers that hung up on the unflattering peeling walls of the devastated homes.  At the end in the cul-de-sac, an Italian-style house stood; it looked nicer compared to all of the other houses that surrounded it with its cobblestone walls slightly chipped but still intact all the same.  Smooth concrete stairs led up from the flagstone path that trailed down to the street, winding next to the rather small concrete driveway.

The detective spotted the numbers "708" hanging next to the antique front door and pulled over on the other side of the street.  He parked the car and killed the engine, pulling on his coat and placing a fedora on his head before walking out into the pouring rain.  Aria followed closely behind him, tugging her blazer tightly around her torso as she tiptoed out into the icy flooded streets.

Levi ambled up the flagstone path and climbed up the slick stairs, taking refuge under the small stone ramada that shielded the front door from the pounding rain.  Aria pranced over, hugging her shoulders tightly as she let out a chilled breath; the contrast between the warm interior of the warm and the frosty February weather outside was amazingly broad.  Levi's eye flickered over to her before glancing back at the old door, pulling out a small notebook and a pen from the inside of his coat.

"So what happened after the murders?" the detective asked coldly.  

The question was so sudden it took a second for Aria to collect her thoughts.

"W-well," she started, "the police told me that they would certainly catch the killer, but of course, they ended up not doing so well with the case.  Lucifer ended up being a rather sly snake and avoided every aspect of capture.  By the seventh murder, he just disappeared, and no one heard from him again."

Levi scribbled some things down.

"And you said that Zacharius led the investigation?"

"Yes," Aria murmured.  "At the college, we stayed up-to-date with every line of investigations with the Lucifer Case, but it wasn't long until Mr. Zacharius abandoned the case and left it cold."

Levi noted some things.

"And did you stay in this house or did you sell it?"

"N-neither" Aria replied mournfully, stammering in the process.  She let her hazel gaze fall down on the damp ground.  "I kept the house, but...I couldn't continue living in here, knowing what had happened."

Levi scribbled onto his notepad.

"I see," he said gruffly.  "And did you move into an apartment?"

"Morning Star Village," Aria murmured.  "Apartment...708."

The sound of pen on paper filled their ears still.  The rain that splashed onto the ground continued still, the icy droplets drenching the bottom halves of their shoes.

Levi raised his head, letting his eyes skim the yard.

"So you said that your mother was killed on this front lawn?"

Aria pressed her lips together tightly.

"Yes..."

"Where exactly?"

The girl turned around, her amber eyes flickering from side to side.  Her jaws clenched, she whirled back around and pointed to the side.

"Her body was found all over the yard," Aria whispered.  "Specifically to the side, where there's a gap of grass."

Levi's eyes glanced over to that patch of overgrown grass, now looking like a swamp rather than a lawn; his face smeared over in disgust.  The water was all murky and muddy, a revolting brown color that flowed down and out, draining into the street.  The detective sighed, seeing no other way for this other than do get down to it.

He cringed as he pressed a black leather shoe into the soggy ground, only to shoot back up and stand at the edge of the concrete ledge.

"Mr. Ackerman?"

"It's filthy," he snarled.  "There's no way I'm getting in that shit."

"Mr. Ackerman, what were you trying to achieve exactly?"

Levi just stood there in a subtle silence.

"Lucifer tackled Daphnie after she tried to flee the murder scene," he murmured to himself, his eyes flickering back and forth on the lawn.  "It was no doubt late at night, probably around eleven to twelve o'clock.  Lucifer's signature style of killing takes exactly sixty-six minutes to initiate, meaning he had to have some place to shield him and his vicitm while he commenced with his torture...

"There's nothing out here but a large patch of grass," the detective continued muttering to himself.  "There's a tree hanging over from the other property, but that's not enough cover to shield such suspicious activity.  So that means...the murder didn't happen on the lawn."

"What?!" Aria yelped.

Levi ignored her, feeling his mind working and churning its gears.  He turned to the other side, walking forward and leaning out of the ramada, eyeing the front of the house from an angle.

"The only other place there could be for hiding would be inside the garage," he said bleakly.  "But that means Lucifer would have to know the code to open the damn thing..."

"Does that mean...that Lucifer tortured it out of my parents?" Aria wept.  "The code, I mean?"

Levi, finally able to hear the words that escaped the intern's mouth, turn to her and stared at her with harsh iron eyes.

"Or," he said grimly, his orbs glinting in a stormy demeanor.  "It means that Lucifer already knew the code; it could mean...that he was close enough to the Stefani's to already know the pin."

Aria's eyes widened, opening her mouth to say something that was probably a horrified response.

She was interrupted by the sound of Levi's phone ringing.  The detective spat in annoyance, pulling out the irritating device from his pockets.  He identified the caller, and with an annoyed scoff, slid the "call" icon across the crystal screen.

"What is it now, Erwin?" Levi snarled.

"Shut up," the man hissed on the other side of the line.  "I'm still unbelievably angry at you for what you did earlier this morning; it was irrational and completely immature. I just called you to give you an update on the damn Lucifer Case."

Levi ground his teeth, a painful throbbing wrecking his temples.

"Spill it," he growled, leaning on the cobble wall of the house.  He shoved a hand inside his coat pocket, the fedora on his head tilted down so it shaded his glinting eyes.

The chief paused for a moment, his tone softening as he spoke once more.

"There has been another murder," Erwin said quietly.  "Just a few hours ago at TPrep."

"What?" Levi jumped back up, his eyes widened just slightly.  "Another murder?"

"The third one of this month," the chief muttered.  "And you're not going to particularly like who the victim is this time."

Levi's eyes narrowed, the corner of his lip twitching as he rumbled.

"Who."

There was a silence, nothing but the rain to fill their anticipating ears and shock to glaze over their eyes.

"He was a college law professor," Erwin resumed solemnly.  "He was young, and he'd only been at the college for two years; his good looks were often distracting to his female students, but he was a good teacher all the same.  His profile is filled with nothing but good schooling and volunteer work; although, he did have some thievery experiences when he was younger as an orphan."

There was a pause.

Erwin snuck back in, his voice deep and low.

"You know who it is...don't you, Levi?"

The detective was left stunned, his eyes widened and the breath in his lungs caught in his throat.  He tried to respond, but only a strangled cough noise escaped.  His glinting eyes grew dull and the remaining color in his ivory face drained and cease to exist.

Erwin sighed.

"The police are investigating the body now in room D606.  Don't take too long."

The call ended just like that, the monotonous beep blaring in his ear.  Levi stared at the damp ground in a sort of horrific shock, his mouth gaping open and the air inside his lungs freezing with trauma.

"Mr. Ackerman!" Aria shouted, her hands covering her mouth.  "Did you just say another murder?!"

"I..." the detective choked out, nearly dropping his phone that was clutched loosely in his palm.

"Mr. Ackerman!" Aria hissed again.  "What?  Who is it?  Who was killed?  Mr. Ackerman!"

Levi blinked, feeling his lids sticking to his eyes, tearing up with warm tears by reflex as he flickered the steel orbs over to the frantic girl.  He took a while to speak, moving his jaw up and down various times, indicating he was about to say something, only to be interrupted by his own mysterious thoughts.  Finally, after a few minutes of collecting himself, the investigator spoke.

"He was a close friend of mine..." Levi said bleakly.  "Back when we were younger; it's been years, and I haven't talked to him since our college days...but..."

"But...what, Mr. Ackerman?" the caramel-color haired girl murmured.

Levi closed his eyes, letting out a choked breath as he whispered grimly.

"He's dead now..." he sighed.  "My friend...Farlan Church..."