“We should tell someone,” Wyatt said. “We should — Dad?”
“What?” I asked.
“Hang on, Willa.”
The sound was muffled, like he’d set the phone down, and then there were loud voices and lots of thudding footsteps.
“Wyatt?” I asked, gripping the phone tightly. “Are you okay?”
“Kind of,” he said, sounding rushed. “But I can’t talk right now.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because I’m getting arrested.”
Then he hung up.
I stared at my phone, paralyzed. This was too much to process. Wyatt arrested, Marnie missing …?
I needed to call Mom. I would have to confess that I’d lied about staying with the Delaines, but honestly I wasn’t even afraid of that. I just wanted her home so I wouldn’t be alone. It was irrational to think that the murderer would come after me now, but fear isn’t the most rational force in the universe, is it?
The low-battery warning popped up on my phone, and I got up to take it to the charging cord that was always plugged in by the entrance to the kitchen.
The charger was gone — Mom or Jonathan must have packed it. But I noticed for the first time a little white envelope leaning against the back door. I slipped open the door and grabbed it. The logo in the corner said Pool Pros Inc., and someone had scrawled, Jonathan, I found your stepdaughter’s necklace in the filter.
My necklace …?
With my heart in my throat, I dumped the contents of the envelope into my open palm.
It was a thin silver chain, with a solid silver charm.
A rose.
I stepped back.
This was the necklace from my visions.
I buried my face in my hands, my whole body tingling with dismay. My first instinct was to call Wyatt — but then I realized that he was probably on his way to jail.
Think, Willa, think.
This was the necklace I’d seen in my visions — but only in three of them. Brianna’s, Faith’s, and … and the one we couldn’t identify, with the roses on the table.
The one where the victim had taken the necklace off and put it in her pocket, so it might fall out and be discovered.
And it had fallen out. And it had been discovered …
In our pool.
I got a flash of the ghostly body floating serenely overhead that first night, while I kicked and struggled at the bottom of the pool.
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “It was Paige, it was Paige, it was Paige.”
The phone buzzed in my hand. The battery bar was red, and I just had a chance to see a text from Mom before it died altogether:
Jonathan’s going to meet Reed halfway. He feels bad making Reed do a 4 hour round trip.
I had another charger up in my bedroom. I turned to leave the kitchen, but stopped in my tracks when I saw the hallway.
The walls were covered in writing, words that were familiar to me by now …
THIS IS THE KIND OF DREAM YOU DON’T WAKE UP FROM, HENRY
Written over and over and over.
“I get it, Paige,” I said. “I understand.”
I peered toward the foyer and saw that the words were there, too. They seemed to cover every surface in the house.
I spun back to look around the kitchen, only to see that these walls weren’t the exception — except, instead of the line about Henry, they were covered with the number 818 — 818 818 818 818 818 818 818 —
As I stared around the room, the screen of Jonathan’s laptop flashed to the front page of Paige’s now-forgotten blog. Then it began to scroll downward.
Finally, it stopped on the very post that Wyatt and I had read, the one about Diana Del Mar.
I studied the page.
“What?” I asked out loud. “What am I looking for?”
The screen scrolled down by itself, revealing the comments — well, the single comment. I looked at the commenter’s name — G.A. Green — and then copied and pasted it into the search bar.
Nothing.
I sat back, thinking, and then clicked on the hard drive icon. I was crossing all sorts of boundaries, breaking all sorts of rules, but I didn’t care. I was too close now.
I browsed the names of Jonathan’s folders and even poked through some of the contents, but nothing jumped out at me. I was about to quit, but then I clicked on a folder labeled Development Notes, revealing a single file called Special Projects Status Report.
My heart flip-flopped.
The document consisted of a simple chart with six rows of information.
I scanned down the first column: Scales, Fisher, Green, Bernard, Frowe, and Lovelock.
An uneasy vibration began to thrum somewhere inside me. I knew those names from somewhere.
The second, third, and fourth columns contained simple two-letter pairs, four-digit numbers, and then a letter/number combination.
The top line, Scales, read BL, 0517, B32.
My focus shrank to a pinprick as I read down the list, as fast as I could make myself. I couldn’t stop, because if I stopped I would lose my mind.
Fisher: FF, 0609, K29.
Green: PP, 0818, and a blank column.
Bernard: LJ, 1031, H14
Frowe: TR, 0318,V9.
Before I made it to the end, I clicked the mouse to close the document. I couldn’t bear to look at it any longer.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
BL was Brianna Logan. FF — Faith Fernandes. LJ — Lorelei Juliano. TR — Tori Rosen. The four-digit numbers were the dates they went missing — the dates of their “auditions.” And the letter-number combinations were the locations of each film in Jonathan’s DVD inventory.
That was when it hit me — the memory of where I’d heard the names Scales, Fisher, Bernard, and Frowe before: in the articles I’d read about the murders. They were the names of the bogus talent agencies that the girls had written in their calendars.
So my stepfather, who owned all of the movies that had inspired the killings, also had weird, almost hidden files pertaining to each of the victims.
And Paige Pollan was one of them. 818, the number she’d been trying to tell me all along, wasn’t part of a phone number — it was a date. Her date. August 18. Green must have been the name Jonathan used when he booked her “audition.” He’d hand-picked her off the Internet after finding her blog post about Diana’s movie.
I hung my head, a wave of nausea passing over me. Paige must have thought she was so lucky, to be discovered by a talent agent.
And all along, she‘d been one of the Hollywood Killer’s victims. Only for some reason, no one had made the connection. Probably because her death was ruled a suicide. There was even a note … but that was a scene in its own way, wasn’t it? It was an homage to Diana’s death.
More pieces fell into place. The script page, the vision … Paige was calling my attention to Diana Del Mar’s movie. A movie that had never been made — not by a real director, anyway.
But the Hollywood Killer had given it a try. After all … where better to find a forgotten Diana Del Mar script than in Diana’s own house? And who would have better access than the man who lived in the house?
Don’t jump to conclusions, I scolded myself. All of this information could have been collected from the news. Maybe Jonathan is interested in the murders the way Wyatt is. And Wyatt isn’t the murderer.
For a moment, I froze and listened, sure I could hear footsteps coming down the hall toward me. Then I realized that it had been the sound of my own heart, thudding against my chest. Nausea came over me in a wave, and I leaned back in the chair, staring at the dark wood beams on the ceiling.
This isn’t happening.
There had to be another explanation. There had to be.
But there was one way to know for sure.
My heart in my throat, I opened the file again — following a hunch I prayed was wrong.
But it wasn’t wrong.
The row at the very bottom of t
he chart was labeled Lovelock.
And the columns that followed it read MD, 0424, D20.
Marnie Delaine. Yesterday’s date. Then I got a sickening, poisonously bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I rose out of the chair and walked down the hall to the library. To the shelf full of movies that started with D.
There it was — an empty space, about twenty discs in. Right between Deterrence and Devil in a Blue Dress.
The perfect place for a movie called Detour.
I turned to walk out of the room, but before I made it three steps, everything went white.
I can’t stop crying.
“Tori,” he says, and I can tell he’s running out of patience. “Tori, listen to me. You’re supposed to be an actress. How can you expect to have any kind of career if you can’t control your emotions?”
I try to tell him I don’t care about acting anymore. I just want to go home.
But I know he won’t let me. He gets frustrated and turns away, muttering angrily to himself.
I gaze at the line of razor-thin light high in the corner of the room. I don’t remember how I got here — he drugged me, after we met at the abandoned building he’d claimed was his office. But now I know the room as well as my own bedroom. I’ve been here for days, with nothing to do but sit and look around … and cry.
I should stop crying. Not because it makes me a bad actress, but because it makes him mad. Still, he can’t hate me that much, can he? He gave me a present — a necklace. It’s gold, with a little half-moon charm hanging down from it —
Willa?”
The touch on my arm tore me out of the vision. I realized I was on the floor in the hallway, and Reed was standing over me.
“What happened?” he asked, frowning. “I kept calling your name, but you look so dazed.”
“I fell,” I said, wincing as I stood up. Judging by my aching tailbone, it must have been a pretty hard landing.
Reed insisted on helping me to the kitchen and getting me a glass of water. I thanked him, but I was too distracted and upset to make conversation.
All I could think was the granite-hard truth: Jonathan is a murderer. My stepfather is the Hollywood Killer.
I had this horrible feeling that I was being watched and forced myself to turn around. When I looked out the window, I almost fell over.
The pool was filled with brilliant red liquid, swirling so dark and thick that you couldn’t see past the surface.
I balled up my fists, thinking, It’s not real. The pool isn’t full of blood.
It was Paige, sending another sign. Of course she’d be sending the warnings fast and furious, now that I knew her killer lived in the house with me.
“Willa? You sure you’re okay?”
The voice snapped me out of my reverie, and I turned to see Reed standing a few feet away, watching me with concern.
“I didn’t mean to come in the house without knocking….” He spoke carefully, self-consciously. “But you didn’t answer the door, and the alarm wasn’t set. It seems like something’s wrong.”
“No,” I said, though my voice sounded like it had been run through a cheese grater. “I’m … fine.”
I glanced back at the pool water. Now it was perfect, pale aqua. Reed spoke again, but I didn’t quite hear his words.
“What?” I said. “Sorry. I’m a little … out of it.”
“I said I won’t keep you, but now I’m wondering if I should stay for a little while. Do you think you might have a concussion?”
“I’m fine,” I said blankly.
“I’m sure you are.” He shot me a smile and took Jonathan’s laptop off the kitchen counter. “Any big plans for your parent-free weekend?”
I glanced at him without smiling. I didn’t feel like pretending to be normal or okay. “No,” I said. “Not really.”
“I’ll just go, then. Seems like you want to be alone.” Reed’s cheerful expression faltered and he headed for the door.
I started up the stairs, but as I approached the second floor, I became aware of a static quality in the light behind me.
When I glanced down, Reed was looking up at me from the doorway, biting his lip. “This is going to sound odd, but were you by any chance … looking at some of Jonathan’s files?”
“What?” I asked.
Balancing the laptop on his left forearm, Reed turned it toward me.
The Development Notes folder was still open.
“Oh, um, yeah,” I said. “I didn’t realize right away that it wasn’t my computer. I clicked on the files without really looking.”
He glanced at the screen. “Oh. Okay, then.”
I went back down to the foyer. “But … I found something kind of strange.”
“Strange?” His eyes cut sharply up to meet mine. “How do you mean?”
I had to tell him, even if he wouldn’t believe me. “Um … Brianna Logan,” I said. “She was the Hollywood Killer’s first victim. And the agency name the police found in her calendar was Scales. Do you remember reading that in the news?”
“Possibly.” He blinked. “I’m not sure. What are you trying to say?”
“Um,” I said. “Nothing, really. Just that I found this chart …”
He leaned back against the doorframe, looking up at me with concern in his eyes. “I do know that Jonathan has been working with his agent to try to get the film rights for the story. I mean, so is everyone else in town. But that’s what you found, I’m sure.”
I nodded.
Reed didn’t seem willing to let it go. “He wasn’t even here when the last girl disappeared. He was in Connecticut.”
Suddenly, he frowned.
“Although he came back for one day,” he said. “At the beginning of the week. But I’m sure there’s no connection.”
Except he didn’t sound sure. He sounded distinctly unsure. And he was acting really unhappy and flustered all of a sudden.
“Reed …” I said.
He shook his head. “Listen, it’s nothing. I’ll figure it out, okay? I mean, it has to be nothing.”
I nodded.
Looking at me, Reed visibly relaxed, even cracked a smile. “What are we even talking about? This is crazy. Jonathan couldn’t be a … I’d better get going. I’ll talk to you next week, okay?”
He shut the door, and I walked to the bottom step and sank down, my head in my hands.
Who just accuses their stepfather of murder, without even asking him about it?
A crazy person, that’s who.
I sat like that for probably fifteen minutes, utterly at a loss as to what I should do or even think. Forget the computer file. Forget the ghost. Did I really believe my mother had fallen in love with a serial killer? Some vague sense of dissatisfaction, of an unanswered question, lingered at the back of my mind.
Finally, I stood up and padded slowly to my bedroom. I was tempted to crawl back under my covers right then and there, even though it was the middle of the day. I was worn out from the morning — the week — the month — my life. I was so tired.
Then I heard a sound from downstairs.
I crept to the top of the stairs and listened with every bit of attention I could scrape together in my panicking mind.
A sound — a footstep? Or my heart again?
I closed my eyes and listened so hard it hurt.
No, I wasn’t imagining it. A footstep. Downstairs.
There was someone in the house.
“Reed?” I called. Maybe he’d forgotten something and come back inside.
But there was no answer.
My cell phone was downstairs, and the battery was dead anyway. I tried to recall what time Mom had texted about Jonathan driving back from Palm Springs.
Something moved in my field of view, practically giving me a heart attack. Looking down, I saw a thin stream of water moving forward like a snake, trailing ahead toward the end of the hall, almost as if the floor slanted downhill – which, of course, it didn’t.
&n
bsp; I glanced back down the stairs, and as I did, the thought came automatically: Don’t be crazy, Willa.
But you know what? This wasn’t crazy. This was me trusting my instincts.
The water reached the end of the hall and seeped under the door to Jonathan’s office. I went on tiptoe, staying as close to the wall as I could, praying I wouldn’t step on any creaky floorboards.
Then, shattering the quiet, there came a cough from downstairs.
And a dragging sound, like someone was moving furniture around.
I kept going. With every agonizing step, I was sure I was going to give myself away. Somehow I made it to Jonathan’s office and opened the door.
When I saw the room, I gasped.
The whole room was covered in the same two words, repeated over and over:
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
The rose petals led to an open window. I deviated from the path just long enough to pick up the phone and hear the thick silence of a dead phone connection.
Someone had cut the line.
I no longer had the luxury of agonizing over whether I was overreacting.
I hurried to the window. The drop was at least sixteen feet, but there was a trellis bolted to the exterior wall below the window — where the jasmine bloomed so fragrantly at night. I didn’t have time to worry about whether it could support my weight. I swung my leg over and struggled to grip the tiny holes with my toes. By the time I got to the ground, my bare feet were full of splinters and cramped from holding on so tightly — but at least I was out.
I crept around the side of the house, pausing to peer into the front yard. Unfortunately, there was no way to get through the front gate without coming into easy view through the huge den window. If Jonathan was still in the house, I could run for it — but if he saw me, and chased me, he would almost certainly overtake me.
I saw the front door start to open and darted back to the rear of the house, where he wasn’t bothering to keep watch.
He didn’t have to. Because he knew, like I did, that the only way into and out of the property was through the front gate. The fences at the sides of the house were eight feet tall, with metal spikes on top and nothing to use as a foothold. Behind the citrus trees in the back, the hillside dropped off steeply into the ravine, littered with cactuses that had spines the size of sewing needles. Even if I made it down there, I wouldn’t make it more than five or ten feet — and then I’d be a sitting duck.
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