Famous Last Words

by Katie Alender

  Why hadn’t I grabbed a pair of shoes?

  He would have heard you. He would have known what you were planning to do.

  I had to find someplace to hide — someplace where he wouldn’t look right away. The guest cottage sat silently, facing the pool, an impartial observer.

  I looked down, and in front of me, a single rose petal fluttered to the tile. A few feet away, another one appeared. I followed the sparse path around the side of the guest cottage, where there were two windows hidden from view of the main house. If I broke one, would Jonathan hear the impact of a rock on the glass?

  As I looked at the window, it swung open.

  I overturned an old bucket that someone had stashed back there and used it to reach the window and crawl inside. I pulled the bucket in after me, then closed the window and locked it.

  I looked around. The main room was small, with a kitchenette off to one side. The walls were cheap wood paneling, and the carpet beneath my feet was chocolate brown and mashed flat, sprinkled with dust and small white flecks fallen from the decaying popcorn ceiling. It felt strangely oily against my bare skin.

  At some point in its history, this had been a cute, functional little guesthouse, but now it was a creepy, smelly hole of a place, packed with old furniture — a ragged, damp-looking sofa, a huge wood cabinet with a little rounded glass TV screen in it, a coffee table with crooked spindly wooden legs … Every imaginable surface was covered in junk, mostly cardboard boxes and bulging plastic trash bags.

  The windows were all covered in brown paper, each one rimmed by a brilliant square of sunlight seeping in from behind the paper’s curled-up edges.

  To my left was a door that led into a bathroom. Next to it was a set of shutter-like accordion doors — a closet?

  As I stared at them, they opened with a creak.

  Honestly, I don’t even know why I was surprised. Did I say a creepy, smelly hole of a place? Obviously, I meant a creepy, smelly, haunted hole of a place.

  I walked over to the closet. Bonus — there were shoes in there, a lot of them. Fancy, high-heeled, vintage-y looking shoes, old enough to have belonged to Diana Del Mar — not the kind of thing you’d normally wear to hike through a ravine, but certainly better than nothing.

  But when I tried to slide my foot inside one, I realized that Jonathan was right — movie stars did have tiny feet. I held one up and looked at the number on the sole. Size five and a half. I couldn’t even force the toes of my size-eight foot inside. It was a mathematical and physical impossibility.

  Outside, a shadow passed in front of the papered-over door.

  I knew he couldn’t see me, but the sight still turned my blood to ice.

  I was standing motionless when a sound in the closet caught my attention. I looked over just as all of the clothes slipped off their hangers to the floor. Then the two dozen or so hangers began to swing, all at different speeds, making a horrible scraping sound on the ancient wood bar.

  “Quiet!” I hissed, darting over to the closet. I was about to pull them all down — I might be trapped in here, but at least I could keep Paige from telegraphing my exact location to a murderer.

  My plan was interrupted when I saw the hinge.

  There was a hidden door disguised in the wood paneling of the closet wall.

  When I gave it a push, it opened easily, revealing a small, dark space. I reached my hand inside and found a light switch, flipping it on.

  A flight of stairs led down into absolute darkness.

  A biting scent floated up and invaded my nose. I turned away, my nostrils stinging, and remembered what Leyta Fitzgeorge had asked me — what seemed like a weird question at the time — whether I ever smelled the strong smell of vinegar.

  I did now.

  Gently closing the door behind me, I crept down the steps, which opened into a room roughly the same size as the room upstairs.

  On the far wall was a small pull-down movie screen, like the kind you use in classrooms with an overhead projector. A small olive-green leather sofa faced the screen, and a rolling cart directly behind the sofa held an old-fashioned film projector.

  This must have been Diana Del Mar’s workroom. I remembered Paige’s blog entry about her — how she had wanted to make movies. In this room, Diana didn’t have to be a smiling starlet or box office poison. She got to be who she really wanted to be — a filmmaker.

  Close to me there was a large table that looked like some ancient version of a computer, with a screen in the back, raised up like a monitor. On the flat part of the table was an array of buttons and control dials. There were also six big, flat turntable pieces. Two of the turntables held a film reel each, and the film wound through the spools on the machine from one to the other, connecting them.

  It must have been an editing machine — the kind they used before everything was edited on computers.

  Next to the table was a small rolling cart, with a metal rack that stood about five feet high. Curling pieces of film hung from the rack’s thin metal hooks like snakeskins.

  I walked toward the desk on the side wall. It was sturdy, constructed of heavy steel. On it were a typewriter, a telephone, and a few piles of paper. There was a tray marked IN and one marked FILE and another one marked READ. I reached toward the typewriter and tapped out a series of letters on the dusty keys: q w e r t y

  The e on the page was slightly lower than the rest of the letters, the t slightly raised.

  This exact typewriter had been used by Diana Del Mar, more than seventy years ago — to write the script Paige had presented to me in the bathtub.

  I picked up the phone to check for a signal, but the line was dead — it probably had been for decades.

  In the corner of the room, there was a simple door, painted the same drab color as the walls. I tried the handle, but it was locked.

  As I turned back to the stairs, the lights cut out.

  I stood in perfect, horrific darkness for about three seconds, and then with a groan, the editing machine came to life behind me. The film reels began to spin, and a movie scene appeared on the screen.

  It was a man and woman sitting at a dinner table set lavishly with flickering candles and a huge vase of roses. The woman was played by Diana Del Mar herself – there was no mistaking her radiant, heart-shaped face and her shining eyes. The man was played by an actor I didn’t recognize, a handsome man with dark hair.

  There was no sound, but you could feel the tension between them. The camera slowly moved in on Diana as she took a sip of her wine. Then it cut to the man, watching her carefully. Diana was speaking. They conversed for a minute, and then the man spoke a single angry line.

  The shot cut to Diana. She stared into her wine glass and said something quietly. And then her mouth moved in the shape of the words I’d know anywhere —

  This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.

  I’d known it was coming, but it still stopped me cold.

  This was a scene from Diana’s movie. The one Paige had written about in her blog. I searched my memory for the film’s title. The Final Honeymoon.

  On a shelf next to the table was a stack of empty film cans — the ones that had held the reels that were loaded on the editing table. I picked one up and looked at the label on its top.

  It read: THE DINNER PARTY (WORKING TITLE ONLY)

  I’d heard that name before … but where?

  Then it hit me. From Reed. It was one of the movies he’d listed as his favorites. But it wasn’t even the real name of the movie. It was only a working title, one that even Paige hadn’t known.

  Which meant … Reed had been down here. He’d seen this movie. He’d heard that line.

  Suddenly, there was a jump in the action on the film. Diana’s character was standing up from the table, holding her wine glass. The camera was close on her dazed eyes. The glass slipped from her hand. She stumbled, trying to walk away from her chair, and made it almost all the way out of the dining room before collapsing to the gro
und. The man watched her with a small smile.

  It was a murder scene. She was dying. Henry had poisoned her.

  It was the scene I had seen references to in my vision. The one Paige had been meant to perform. It was supposed to be Paige’s murder, only something had changed — this wasn’t how Paige had died.

  The film stopped with a jerk and rewound itself, then started playing, so I had to watch Diana recite that line again: This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.

  It made me think of Marnie’s line, that she’d used so proudly. He’s no gentleman, see?

  And just thinking that gave me an uncomfortable twinge. Like the one I’d had on the stairs earlier. That feeling of overlooking something important. Of a piece not fitting in the puzzle.

  Weirdly, I thought of Reed. And it occurred to me … Why hadn’t he been surprised to see me? I mean, yes, he was surprised to find me carrying an alleged dead bird in a shoe box. But he shouldn’t have expected me to be at home. As far as anyone but Marnie, Wyatt, and I knew, I was at Marnie’s for the weekend.

  Then my heart seemed to slow to a stop, as I remembered his words in the garage that morning.

  I guess I’m no gentleman.

  It was too similar to Marnie’s words: He’s no gentleman, see?

  Had Reed been watching Detour?

  Maybe Reed knew I wasn’t at Marnie’s because he knew Marnie wasn’t there, either.

  I glanced back at the frame frozen on the editing machine, Diana Del Mar’s face in a stricken expression of regret and sorrow.

  Reed called this one of his favorite movies.

  What if those weren’t Jonathan’s files I’d found on the computer?

  What if they were Reed’s?

  And with that thought, the pieces came smashing together with a deafening, horrifying impact.

  Reed was an insane psychotic killer….

  He’d killed all those girls.

  And now he was after me.

  I paced Diana’s office. Reed’s priorities would be to keep me from getting to a phone or computer and to keep me from escaping out the front gate. Eventually, he’d realize I had to be in the guest cottage and find a way to force me out.

  Keeping me from calling for help was easy enough. He had my cell phone. The landline was useless. And now he had the only computer in the house, too.

  I felt faint and flushed. Now that I knew his secret, there was no way he would let me live. Which meant I had to either find a way out … or be his next victim. I could scream and hope someone heard, but by the time anyone came to help, Reed would have found me.

  There was no way out. I was trapped.

  I made my way back upstairs to the main floor of the guest cottage, looking for something to use as a weapon. My best chance for escape would be to knock Reed unconscious and then run for my life. A baseball bat could work, or even a broken chair leg.

  In the end, the best I could find was the metal base of an old lamp. I dropped the bucket out the window and began to climb out. As I left, I looked at the closet in the corner of the room.

  And that’s when I remembered …

  My father’s old laptop was in my bedroom closet.

  Reed didn’t even know it existed.

  I scanned the yard for a full sixty seconds before scrambling to the trellis and climbing back up. I had to leave my lamp behind, but there would be other blunt objects inside the main house.

  Once I had silently hauled myself through the window, I dropped into an army crawl and began dragging myself slowly toward my room. Passing by the stairwell, I saw Reed sitting on the step just outside the open front door. He looked composed and relaxed — but there was tension in his posture, and I knew he was keeping close watch on the yard.

  I held my breath and kept going. Finally I made it to my bedroom door, which was closed. As quickly as I could, I eased up off my elbows and turned the knob, grasping it with both hands to keep the catch from snapping back after I turned it.

  And then I was in the room, closing the door behind me. It slid shut with only the slightest whisper of sound. I reached up and turned the lock — but it wasn’t the kind of lock that would keep someone out. Not if they really wanted to get in.

  I ran to the closet and grabbed the old laptop — and a pair of running shoes. I locked myself in the bathroom, to buy some extra time in case Reed figured out where I was. I carried the computer in, set it on the counter, and plugged it in.

  The screen slowly lit up.

  Then, to my horror, it made that DA-DAAAAAHHH! boot-up sound. I nearly peed my pants in surprise.

  It took an eternity for the home screen to load, but there was still no sign of Reed.

  I was safe … for the moment.

  I loaded up the web browser. I’d deleted all of my social network accounts months ago, so unfortunately, I couldn’t log into Facebook and post HELP HE’S TRYING TO KILL ME! to a concerned group of people who would be able to find me right away.

  I searched for contact police online, but the results were useless — a bunch of people complaining about not being able to contact the police online. There were a few police departments’ CONTACT US! forms, which I figured would get me rescued in about a week and a half, if Reed would be kind enough to postpone his serial killing for a while.

  I decided to send an email blast to all my contacts, something like SEND THE POLICE TO MY HOUSE ASAP! I opened a new blank message, selected every name in my address book, and in the subject I typed, SEND POLICE IMMEDIATELY 2121 SUNBIRD LANE HOLLYWOOD.

  I was about to hit SEND, when I decided to add to the body of the email: NOT A JOKE ALONE WITH REED THORNTON HOLLYWOOD KILLER PLEASE HELP — WILLA.

  I moved the mouse to the SEND button …

  And clicked it.

  I sat back, watching the little wheel spin — not surprising, considering all the addresses it had to send to —

  And then the lights went off.

  Reed had cut the power.

  Oh, no.

  The laptop ran on a battery, so the screen stayed lit. But the spinning wheel stopped. An error message popped up onscreen: Error sending message. No wireless connection detected.

  A few seconds later, I heard the approaching clunks of distant footsteps coming up the stairs. After a slight pause and the rattling of the stupid, useless lock on the door, he entered my bedroom.

  Oh, no, no, no.

  “Hey, Willa.” Reed’s voice had a hollow cheerfulness to it. “It’s me. Are you all right?”

  “Um,” I said. “I’m not feeling very well. I’d kind of like to be alone.”

  “Is it from your fall?” he asked. “Why don’t you come on out and I can drive you to an urgent care place? You should probably get looked at.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” I raked a hand through my hair. “It’s kind of embarrassing. Just a stomach thing. I actually called my mom before. She should be here any second. You can go.”

  He paused, and for a second I thought I might have fooled him.

  There was a soft impact on the door, and I cowered away before realizing that he was leaning against it. “Just out of curiosity,” he said, “what exactly are you typing in there?”

  My whole body began to shake. “I already emailed my mom and Jonathan! They’ll be calling the police any second!”

  “You’re bluffing,” Reed said in a light, pleasant tone. “I know you’re upset, and I think we should talk. Why don’t you come on out?”

  “If you run now, you can get away,” I said. “Before the police get here!”

  He shook the door, a sound that made me nearly pass out from fear.

  “It’s important that you know that I’ve been through this before,” he said, all the diplomacy gone from his voice. “And I always win.”

  I felt a tightening at the base of my throat.

  “I can take the door down if I have to,” he said. “But that’s going to make me unhappy. And if I’m unhappy … I can promise you’re goin
g to be even unhappier.”

  A sob came from someplace deep down in my body, near my heart. My teeth gritted and my eyes squeezed themselves shut and I forced it back down.

  I couldn’t lose control.

  “Now,” Reed said, and his voice was perfectly even and pleasant. “Which one of us is going to open the door?”

  “What are you going to do to me?” I asked.

  “That’s no concern of yours,” he said. “Open the door, Willa.”

  “You killed those girls … all of them.” As I spoke, using my own words for cover, I knelt and opened the cabinet under the sink. I reached around in the dark until my hand hit a piece of sharp metal — the towel bar that Paige had so kindly pulled out of the wall. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Reed. You’ll get caught. There’s no way they won’t connect you to the other murders if you kill me.”

  “If I decide I want your perspective, I’ll ask for it,” he said. “Open the door.”

  My hand trembled so badly that it fell away from the lock twice before I could twist it. I had time to think, Is this the worst mistake of my life?

  As Reed opened the door, I raised the towel bar and swung it at him, and made contact with the side of his head — hard.

  He howled and doubled over.

  I rushed past him, scrambling down the stairs so fast I thought I might miss a step and go tumbling head over heels.

  “WILLA!” Reed yelled, his voice thick with rage.

  I didn’t stop to look back. I ran straight for the front door and reached up to turn the dead bolt.

  Only I couldn’t. This was an old-fashioned lock, where you need a key to get through it from either side. You could get locked in just as easily as you could get locked out. I’d never thought about it before, because we always left the key in it.

  But now it was gone.

  I turned and ran for the double doors to the backyard. I had shoes on now — I could climb over the fence and escape through the ravine.