chapter fifty-two

“—shooting, you crazy bitch! Stop shooting! Goddamn it!”

The slide had locked open. “Okay. I’m done.” I willed myself not to burst into tears and looked around for Ian Zimmerman’s corpse. There was no way Adrienne hadn’t—

“That was loud and scary,” Zimmerman told me from the floor, where he had wisely dived and cowered, arms over his head. Adrienne had emptied my clip into his …

… his …

“Those are movie posters.”

“Not anymore.” From George, who had heroically thrown himself away from Zimmerman and taken refuge behind the couch in the hopes that Adrienne would kill the killer.

“Posters about movies about suicide.” The Bridge. The Hours. The Virgin Suicides. ’Night, Mother. The Name of the Rose. The Shawshank Redemption. Full Metal Jacket. Jonestown. Leaving Las Vegas. Shutter.

“I repeat: not anymore.” He still had his gun out, but he seemed to feel pretty good about Zimmerman’s nonthreatening vibe. “She’s a real Deadeye Dick when she wants to be. Now I know what Kristen Stewart would look like if someone plugged her in the bridge of her nose.” He paused and thought about it. “I never actually needed to know that.”

“ThreeFer,” I muttered while George took out his real handcuffs and put them on our real killer. “I should have smelled them on this.”

“Why? Their signatures are nothing alike.”

“Because we knew they were slithering around out there and we knew they’d be back and we knew they were obsessed with my sisters and me.”

“Jeez, put your ego in Park for a second.”

“They are.”

“They aren’t.”

“George: your ego’s the problem on this one. Look, I’m not bragging—”

“Excuse me?”

“One moment, Mr. Zimmerman. George, you think I like it?”

“You must.”

“I’m not proud of it, all right?”

“You guys? Please?”

“Zip it, Zimmerman, or I’ll stick your balls in your eyes. Not proud of it? Is that why you keep bringing it up?”

“‘Keep’? I haven’t mentioned them since they sent that letter a few weeks ago. Hmm. I should have been bringing them up more, if anything.”

“Oh, heeeere we go! If you—”

“Excuse me, Miss Adrienne—”

“I’m Cadence now, obviously,” I snapped at him.

“—but they’re here now.”

“What? ThreeFer?” George’s eyes bulged and I could actually see his knuckles whiten on the trigger. “Now?”

Well, hell. I should probably reload.

“They’re in my basement.”

“Of course they are. You’re a serial killer. Ergo, you have two other serial killers stashed in your basement. Let me guess: chest freezer?”

“Walk-in,” Zimmerman said modestly. “My daddy used to have a restaurant before he—”

“Killed himself?”

Zimmerman beamed. “Good guess.”

I had by now slid the second clip home, and stashed the empty one in my coat pocket. Zimmerman was safely cuffed. We had him walk us through the house until we’d checked every room but the basement. Then we did the first sensible thing since we’d left the BOFFO building: called Michaela.