Famous Last Words

But suddenly I was pushing them all aside. And each situation was letting in a tiny bit of light.

“I just think things are looking up,” I said. “Is that insane? To expect that you’re going to be … like … okay?”

“That’s not insane at all,” Wyatt said. “That’s what we’re all aiming for, right?”

I nodded, smiling. “What about books? Do you like to read?”

“Of course I like to read,” he said.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Obscure Russian philosophers?”

“I’m more into Tom Clancy. Military stuff. Strategy, politics. What do you read, Us Weekly?”

I sniffed haughtily. “Not my taste.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You probably prefer the British tabloids, Bernadette Middleton.”

“Could you not?” I groaned. “That was all Marnie’s doing.”

“Yeah, it felt like Marnie. It had her stamp on it.” He looked down at his half-finished sandwich. “But … you, um, you did look like a movie star in that picture.”

“Stop mocking me,” I said, blushing.

“I’m serious. You were totally believable. You looked fresh faced and —”

“Fresh faced?” I repeated. “Weirdest compliment ever.”

He shot me an affectedly arrogant look. “Maybe I’m not trying to compliment you. Maybe it’s an observation.”

“All right, Sherlock Holmes. Thanks for your analysis.”

“Fine.” He sat up straight and looked at me. “You looked beautiful in that picture.”

Oh.

I blinked and glanced down at the table, collecting my thoughts and feelings, which were scattered all over the place.

“Hey,” I finally said, nudging him with the side of my shoulder.

When I looked back up, Wyatt was looking at me. Our eyes met, and I felt a zing! of energy move through me.

“Yes?” he said softly.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He looked back down at his lunch and picked up an apple slice. “Be careful. Your face might stick like that.”

Stick like what? I wondered.

And then I realized I was smiling.

Wyatt dropped me off after school. But first, we stopped at the grocery store, where I stocked up on the kind of food Mom never allowed in the house — frozen pizza bites and macaroni and fake cheese, a whole box of those little chocolate cupcakes with icing squigglies on top, and a two-liter bottle of Hawaiian Punch. I might be dead of malnutrition by Monday, but at least I’d spend my last weekend in carb-induced nirvana.

The house was blissfully calm and still, with no sign of Paige. I began to hope this might be the start of one of her quiet periods, leaving me with a week or two of semi-normalcy. Maybe all she’d wanted was for someone to know she was here.

After arming the alarm system, I curled up in front of the TV with a two-pack of cupcakes and found a marathon of Pageant Tots. Four hours later, feeling like I could use a good brain-scrubbing, I went to the library to look over Jonathan’s DVD collection.

It occupied about sixty linear feet of shelf space and contained basically every movie I’d ever heard of, organized in alphabetical order.

The arrangement was so perfect that it was totally obvious when a movie had been removed. There were a few spots where movies were missing — Vertical Limit leaned on Very Bad Things. Heat and Dust rested on Heaven.

I began to get a strange feeling in the deepest pit of my stomach.

I drifted to the B’s.

Birdman of Alcatraz. Then a space. Then Birdy. In the K’s, I found A Kiss Before Dying. Then it skipped to Kiss the Girls.

Okay, no.

No, no, no, no.

Calm yourself, Willa. Just because the missing movies fit perfectly with the four movies that the Hollywood Killer used as his inspiration doesn’t mean … well, anything.

Right? I couldn’t even be totally sure that those were the missing films.

Then, off to the side, I saw a small three-ring binder with a label on its spine that read DVD Inventory. I grabbed it, flipping to the B’s. My heart flip-flopped as I read down the list, to #B31 Birdman of Alcatraz, and then read the next listing: #B32 The Birds.

#H14 Heathers. #K29 Kiss of Death. #V9 Vertigo.

I took a step back, trying to tell myself not to make something out of nothing. So Jonathan owned all four movies that the murders were based on. So what? Lots of people owned them. They were popular, critically acclaimed movies.

So they all just happened to be missing from their spots.

So what?

With every so what, my stomach twisted more tightly around itself.

Be reasonable. Maybe Jonathan pulled them all when he heard about the murders. Maybe he wanted to watch the scenes that inspired the killer, because he was curious. Maybe he was looking for co

It was a little morbid, but then — who was I to judge?

In the pocket of my jeans, my phone vibrated with an incoming text.

It was from Mom — Good night sweetie, love you. Tell Marnie hello and thanks! Great day here, tomorrow we’re going to lay by the pool ALL DAY.

As happy as I was that my mother was having a great time, my carefree night was beyond ruined by my discovery of the missing movies. I went back to the den and turned off the TV, and then, feeling oppressed by the sudden silence and darkness, I headed for my room.

I burrowed under the covers, for once actually wishing Paige would find some way to tell me she was there.

Turns out the price of freedom is being alone.

Paige never showed, and the night of uninterrupted sleep did a lot to calm my mind. In the light of the morning, the simple explanation seemed like the most likely one: that Jonathan owned the DVDs and got curious about the movies when he heard about the murders. Everyone in LA was obsessed with the Hollywood Killer.

Besides, if Jonathan were a murderer, would he be that obvious about it?

I put on a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, basically a half step up from wearing pajamas, and I was downstairs eating a cupcake for breakfast when my phone buzzed.

Mom had texted: Good morning!

I ignored it for the time being, figuring it would seem more believable if I waited until later in the morning to reply. If I was sleeping over at a friend’s house, no way would I be up by 8:30.

After my nutritionally impaired breakfast, I decided to do something I’d been putting off for weeks. I dug through my closet and found the shoe box containing my moldavite ring and the Walter Sawamura book. All I needed was something silver.

I’d been waiting for the right moment to grab a little spoon or something from the sideboard in the dining room, but then I realized that I had something silver of my own — even better, something I didn’t particularly want to keep around.

I poked through my small jewelry box for the pair of silver hoop earrings Aiden had given me for my fifteenth birthday. Just looking at them made me feel a little quiver of sadness.

At some point, I should probably let Aiden know that I didn’t hate him for what he’d done. That I actually understood why he’d done it. I even picked up my phone and started to write a text – Hi, remember me? Just wanted to say sorry for crushing your soul for so long and then blaming you for needing to make a change. I get it now. But then I chickened out.

I put the earrings in the box, wrapped the whole thing with duct tape, and went to look for something to bury it with.