Page 75 of Girl, Reformed

The Laughingstock's front door mockedthem, a bolted-up slab of dented metal. Ella yanked on it anyway, just to feelthe rattle of futility up her arm and into the sockets of her shoulders. Besideher, Luca scanned the lot, the street, the overflowing dumpster and tagged-upback alley.

‘We sure about this?’ Luca asked. ‘Doyle’skilled all of his victims at the witching hour. It’s not even happy hour yet.’

‘Jumping the gun's the only way to keepfrom eating a bullet, Hawkins,’ she said. ‘He knows where onto him. We’ve gothis wheelchair and his murder weapon. Even someone as deluded as him knows it’sonly a matter of time before we figure him out. He knows it’s nut-cuttingtime.’

‘So what, he just throws the serial killerrulebook out of the window?’

‘Guys like this go out with a blaze ofglory or swinging from a bedsheet in a cell. No in between. If he wants his micdrop moment, he has to do it now. He can’t do it when the club is full.’

Luca jerked his chin at a rusted-outChrysler squatting in the corner. ‘That’s Vanzetti’s car. I checked his licenceplate on the way here.’

‘Looks like someone’s home,’ Ella said asshe tugged the door handle again. Then she stepped back and raked the rest ofthe building for another way in.

And there, running up the side of thebuilding like a jagged metal smile - a fire escape, ladder hanging a few feetoff the ground like an engraved invitation. The city's half-assed attempt atthwarting junkies and frisky teens alike.

‘There,’ she said.

She was moving before the thought had evenfully formed, boots pounding against pavement as she closed the distance. Ajump, a scramble, and she was hauling herself up the ladder hand over fist.Luca followed close behind, with his coiled grace and coltish limbs. Theyclattered up the steps, ancient iron shuddering beneath their combined weight.The landing at the top was little more than a rusted grate, a tetanus shotwaiting to happen.

Ella tried the fire escape. It rattled,but didn’t open.

She glanced at Luca, jerked her head in asilent command. On three.

He nodded, jaw tight, hands flexing at hissides. A heartbeat passed, two, the space between seconds stretching liketaffy.

Then they both took a running start andcrashed into the door shoulder-first. The shabby red door burst inward, andElla hit the ground on her knees. Luca, the monkey-like little prince, landedin a graceful crouch. Unbelievable. He made it look like she’d been asleep forthe past two years.

Pistols drawn, they moved as one, sweepingdoorways and shadowed corners. Ella straightened slow, keeping her piece leveland ready. She jerked her chin at the open doorway gaping to their left, therectangle of deeper darkness that hinted at a hallway beyond.

Luca nodded, fell into step beside her asthey moved into the belly of the beast.

The corridor was narrow, walls pressingclose on either side. Peeling plaster and nicotine stains, the ghosts of athousand amateur sets echoing in the silence. They cleared the rooms as theywent, quick and quiet as sharks through bloody water.

Empty offices, storage closets packed withmoth-eaten velvet and moldering props. A green room that looked more like aholding cell, complete with sagging couch and shattered mirror. Ella tried notto think about how many poor saps had sat there over the years, psychingthemselves up for one more night in the spotlight, one more chance to chasethat ever-elusive laugh.

Ella shook off the maudlin thoughts,forced herself back to the here and now. They were close, she could feel it inher bones. Close to the central nervous system, the heart of this hive ofhumiliation and despair.

And then, drifting from somewhere up ahead– a sound. A thump, a muffled curse. The unmistakable music of human misery, ofviolence in the offing.

Ella froze, head cocked, every sensestraining. Beside her, Luca went still as stone, barely breathing.

There. Again, louderthis time. A crash, a clatter. The dull thud of flesh meeting flesh, of bonecrunching against bone.

She was moving before she knew it, eatingup the distance in long, loping strides. Heart hammering, blood singing in herears like a murderer's lullaby. Luca hot on her heels. The hallway opened upahead, spilling out into a cavernous space. Dim shapes loomed out of theshadows - the hulking bulk of an ancient sound system, the tattered drapes of astage long past its prime.

And there, caught in the watery spill ofan emergency exit light, was hell itself.

Two figures grappled in the center of thestage, locked in a brutal pas de deux.

Doyle. It was Doyle,had to be. The madman, the monster, the architect of all this misery.

And his final victim, slack andglassy-eyed in his grip – Freddy Vanzetti. Club owner, creep, cheap profiteerof human suffering.

Ella raised her Glock, the barrelrock-steady even as her blood sang with the sick thrill of it. Beside her, Lucamirrored the motion.

‘Freeze, you son of a bitch!’ Ella roared,voice booming over the scuffling, the gagging, the heavy thump of her ownpulse. ‘Let him go. Hands where I can see 'em!’

For a split second, the world hungsuspended. Doyle, Vanzetti, twin gargoyles grappling in the ghost light. ThenDoyle moved, quick as a cobra strike.

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