Famous Last Words

I watched for a moment, speechless, and turned to run for the door.

Then I saw my bed.

The sheets and blankets had been completely stripped off. My pillow was shredded, its stuffing strewn everywhere.

Drawn on the mattress, in black, was a giant question mark.

“What?” I said. “What?”

I spun in a slow circle, taking in the chaos around me. The flower petals churned silently overhead.

“Wrong … question?” I asked.

And in a whoosh, everything disappeared. The rose petals were gone. The walls were wordless once again. I heard the faucet shut off.

“Wrong question,” I whispered, looking down at the pillow stuffing that littered the floor.

Not what do you want, but …

Maybe there was a reason Diana Del Mar wasn’t replying to my questions.

“Who?” I asked. “Who are you?”

I swallowed hard and waited for my answer.

More writing appeared, once again covering every available square foot of wall space in the room:

I AM AN ASPIRING HOLLYWOOD TYPE DETERMINED TO DO MY HOMEWORK BEFORE PLUNGING INTO THE SWAMP OF TINSELTOWN I AM AN ASPIRING HOLLYWOOD TYPE DETERMINED TO DO MY HOMEWORK BEFORE PLUNGING INTO THE SWAMP OF TINSELTOWN I AM AN ASPIRING HOLLYWOOD TYPE DETERMINED TO DO MY HOMEWORK BEFORE PLUNGING INTO THE SWAMP OF TINSELTOWN I AM AN ASPIRING HOLLYWOOD TYPE DETERMINED TO DO MY HOMEWORK BEFORE PLUNGING INTO THE SWAMP OF TINSELTOWN

I closed my eyes and sat down on the bed.

And then I said, “Hi, Paige.”

The next morning, after cleaning up the mess Paige had made and sneaking around the house to find replacement lightbulbs, I couldn’t wait to get out of Mom’s car to find Wyatt and tell him about everything that had happened.

But my mother was practically wringing out a hankie at the idea of being away from me for a whole weekend.

I tried to extract myself from her clingy embrace. “You’re going to be gone for seventy-two hours,” I said. “And Monday afternoon, when you come to pick me up, I’ll come trotting out that gate like always.”

“I wouldn’t describe your movement as trotting,” Mom said, not letting go of my hand, “even on the best of days.”

“A joke!” I said. “Why, that’s wonderful, Mother, what smashing progress. So listen, you have my phone number, and I have yours, but don’t call me. This is your honeymoon, remember?”

She frowned. “Not even to say good night?”

“You can text,” I said. “You get two texts a day. How about that?”

Mom sighed.

I gave her a hug. “Have fun,” I said. “And remember, a honeymoon doesn’t involve actually mooning people.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Can’t have you getting arrested.” I kissed her on the cheek, then slid out of the car and hurried to the gate.

Behind me, I heard her call out, through the open window: “Be sure to say thank you to Marnie’s parents!”

I spun around and saluted, which in my humble opinion was a very effective way to get out of actually lying to her.

Marnie was absent again. Not that she and I had any relevance to one another anymore, I guess. But it was nice to walk over to Wyatt’s table at lunch without her eagle eyes watching me.

“It’s Paige,” I said as soon as I sat down. I hadn’t been able to find Wyatt that morning, and my news came bursting out. “The ghost in my house is Paige Pollan.”

“What?” Wyatt looked up from his laptop in shocked disbelief. “How do you know?”

“Trust me,” I said. “She made it very clear.”

“Then … then … this changes a lot of things,” he said. “We need to kick-start our investigation. We need to figure out what Paige’s death could possibly have to do with your house. This weekend.”

I shook my head. “We can start on Monday. My mom and stepdad are out of town, and if Paige burns the house down when I’m not even supposed to be home, there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do.”

Wyatt looked perplexed. “It would be better if she burned the house down next week?”

I nodded. “Much.”

“We don’t have to mess with the actual ghost at all,” he said. “I was thinking more along the lines of trying to talk to kids from Paige’s high school, or going back over the police report from her death….”

“Oh,” I said. “Then knock yourself out.”

“What about you?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to help?”

“Sure I will,” I said. “I’ll be home with the fire extinguisher at the ready.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Listen,” I said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that when Paige has something to say, she’s going to find a way to say it. At some point she’s going to let us know what the next steps are. I can’t afford to go looking for trouble this weekend.”

“We’re not looking for trouble,” he said, sounding a little defensive. “We’re looking for answers.”

“The answers we get are always troublesome,” I said. “Do whatever you want, but I can’t play until next week, okay?”

Wyatt pushed his laptop a couple of inches farther away from himself, which I took as a sign that he agreed with me, even if he didn’t like it.

We ate in silence for a couple of minutes, and then Wyatt flipped his notebook open. “Why would Paige Pollan’s ghost be at your house? Yes, she was a fan of Diana Del Mar,” he mused. “But enough of one to be drawn to her house when she died?”

“That’s not even half of it,” I said. “I mean, the script, the lines she writes on the walls, ‘Henry’ … that all ties back to Leyta Fitzgeorge, and the murder investigation.”

“Only Paige wasn’t murdered,” Wyatt said. “She committed suicide.”

“Well, maybe she was the murderer,” I said, feeling a sudden chill of fear.

“But there have been two more murders since she died,” he said.

I relaxed.

“Although …” Wyatt thumbed back through the pages. “Maybe the ghost is murdering people now.”

I threw a sweet potato fry at him. “Do you mind?”

He looked up at me, shaking his head. “Don’t you want to figure out the truth?”

“Wyatt, I’m staying home alone this weekend,” I said. “If you put that kind of thought in my head, and then Paige gets excited and decides to give me a little haunted-house performance, I will die of fright. I promise that I’ll give it everything I have on Monday. But I can’t do this today.”

He made a face, but he shut the notebook and slipped it into his bag.

“Let’s try something else,” I said. “Like talking about something other than murders and ghosts and dead people.”

He folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on them. “I don’t know about anything else.”

“You don’t like music?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mostly listen to country —”

“No,” I said. “Stop. You do not.”

“What’s wrong with country music?” He sat up. “Marnie got me into it.”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “If I buy you a giant belt buckle, will you promise to wear it?”

He gave me a withering glare. “Never.”

“Wyatt the cowboy,” I said. “Like Wyatt Earp!”

“He wasn’t a cowboy,” Wyatt said. “He was a sheriff.”

“All right, so we’ll get you a big, shiny star.”

“Willa,” Wyatt said, a hint of warning in his voice. But there was a tiny smile on his lips. Then his eyes narrowed. “Why are you in such a good mood?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Because Marnie’s not here?”

I shook my head. It had never been about Marnie. It had never been about Wyatt, either. Or Mom. Or my dad. Or Reed, or any one thing, really. Not even the ghost. Those things were like individual curtains blocking back the light in a very dark room.