Page 72 of Girl, Reformed

Ella pinched the bridge of her nose,willed the throbbing in her temples to kindly go to hell.

‘Shit. Doyle’s mom said something abouthim going after the main one, the last one. There’s no one else in thevideo? No one at all?’

‘Not that we can see. The main threeculprits are the three victims so far. There’s a few other voices, but they’reout of shot.’

Ella closed her eyes, counted to ten. Thenagain backward, then one more time in Sanskrit.

‘So what are you saying, Chief? That we’rechasing our tails?’

‘I don’t know. What else can we do?’

Ella's heart dropped into her boots. Threevictims, three links in this psycho's daisy chain. But no fourth. Was this it?Was his mission over, and he'd disappeared into the sunset?

The gears in her skull spun, smoked. Allthe details, all the testimony. Granny Dearest spitting bile about Seb'stormentors, the crowd that cracked him open like a bottle rocket on the Fourthof July.

What if Sebastian was targeting someone noton the video?

No. It couldn’t be that, because thisvideo was surely his only reference point for his hecklers. He could haverecognized faces in the crowd during his performance, but that seemed a longshot. And besides, it was Archie, Georgia and Harry that made him a viralsensation for the wrong reasons.

Then it hit her. A bolt from the blue.

Ella pulled the phone away from her ear,stared at it like it might start oozing pus.

Maybe they were looking at this backward.Maybe it wasn’t about what was in the video, but what was behind it.

Phone back against her ear, she said, ‘Thecameraman.’

‘Christ, of course,’ Harland said.

‘There's one face we didn't account for.The prick filming it all. Uploading it for the world to gawk at. He's the key.Sebastian's grand finale!’

‘Shit on a shingle,’ Harland spat. Then aclatter, the squawk of tin-can orders hollered at light speed. ‘You're sure?That's the connection?’

‘Who else could it be?’ Ella asked.

She could damn near hear the steamshooting out Harland's ears. But credit to the old goat, he came through in theclutch.

‘Brandon Mulroney. He’s the uploaderaccording to the something-data,’ he barked, after a tense filled eternity.‘5284 Briarcliff Road.’

‘We’ll be there immediately,’ Ella said.

‘No. Briarcliff Road’s only a mile fromhere. I’ll get a car there in a blink.’

‘Roger. Meet you there.’

Ella clicked off without another word. Shewas already moving, already running.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

‘Almost there,’ Luca chirped, ever thenavigator. ‘Two blocks up, hang a left.’

Ella grunted, slinging gravel as she cutthe corner too close. No time for niceties, for coloring inside the lines. Notwhen every second wasted was another chance for Doyle to claim his next victim.

She sucked the sour air through grittedteeth and played every hunch, every half-assed instinct that had gotten herthis far. Pictured the clues clicking into place like a Rubik's Cube from hell– masks and mics, gags and guffaws all twisting, aligning until the truthstared her dead in the face.

And the truth was, their killer had onelast name on his list. One final act, a gut-busting encore to bring the wholehouse down. And Brandon Mulroney would be his stage, his straight man, hisgiggling corpse.

‘Up here,’ Luca said.

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