Famous Last Words

“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 going 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 co

“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.

Reed thundered through the hall as I sprinted across the tile toward the gate down into the citrus orchard.

While I ran, I tried letting out a blood-curdling scream — but screaming used up energy I needed to outrun someone who was stronger and faster than me.

The shaky rock steps leading down to the first terrace wobbled beneath my feet, and I nearly lost my balance. The next terrace was a six-foot drop, so I ran along the edge, toward the stairs on the far side.

I should have jumped.

Reed did.

By the time I got to the stairs, he was already down at my level, only a few yards away. His face and hair were bloody, his eyes lit up with fury.

There wasn’t time to run.

I had to stay and fight.

I raised the towel bar and went to hit him with it again, but he caught my wrist in midair and wrenched my arm behind my back, yanking the towel bar away and tossing it down the hill.

I tried to scream, but he pulled me back against his chest and clapped his hand over my mouth. A bitter, awful scent flooded my nostrils and burned my throat, and I realized he was holding a wet rag over the lower half of my face. I tried to fight him off, but already my arms and legs were quickly growing heavy. I ended up clawing weakly at his wrist with my free hand, drooping back toward him like a rag doll.

He released my arm and then gently lowered me to the ground, the cloth still resting on my face.

The worst part was that he didn’t even have to hold on to me — all I could do was lie there on the ground, inhaling pungent fumes. It was my last chance to fight, but I didn’t even have the strength to try.

Behind the rag, I opened my mouth to try to shout, but the sound that escaped was like the mewl of a scared kitten.

Reed leaned over me, a smile on his blood-spattered lips. “You’ve been a bad girl, Willa,” he whispered. “A very bad girl.”

Then I closed my eyes.

Drip … drip … drip …

A headache drilled into my skull. My back felt tight, my stomach queasy, and my lungs like someone had gone over them with sandpaper.

I couldn’t move.

I opened my eyes.

I was in the den, propped up in a chair that had been wrapped in a black plastic trash bag. The floor below me was covered with more trash bags. My hands were pulled behind me and taped together, and my legs were taped together at the ankle, and then taped to the crosswise supports of the chair.

My head felt hot, and my scalp itched. Was I … was I wearing a wig?

When I tried to call out, my voice was muffled. A piece of tape held my mouth closed. If I tried to move my lips, it pulled at my skin painfully.

Someone was whistling.

Reed came into the room. It took me a second to understand what I was seeing — he wore a tuxedo, and his face was clean, with no sign of any injury or blood.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He leaned against the side of the bookshelves. “I thought I clocked that guy in the head with a piece of rusted metal. But making movies is all about the illusion, Willa. A little makeup goes a long way. Want to see?”

No, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to see. But he disappeared and came back a moment later with a hand mirror.

“For instance, look at yourself,” he said, coming closer. “You’re lovelier than ever. If I hadn’t left my phone at home — they can track your movements by your phone, you know — I’d take a picture.”

I flinched and closed my eyes, but the foreign sensation of the wig on my head made me desperate to know what he’d done to me.

When I saw my reflection, I gasped.

The girl in the mirror had flawless wavy golden hair, a perfectly smooth ivory complexion, and sleepy eyes with thick lashes that looked about a half-inch long. I couldn’t tell you what her lips looked like, though, because there was a piece of blue masking tape over her mouth.

“To be truthful, when I first met you …” He leaned down closer to me, his voice softening. “I didn’t picture you like this. I thought you were pretty, but not leading-lady pretty. No offense.”

His words made me feel like throwing up. Even with my eyes shut, I could still hear his breathing — a relaxed in-out-in-out, only a foot away.

“But then you changed. You got stronger. And then, after that picture of you surfaced on the Internet, I saw you as more than just a little girl. See, it’s about vision. Vision and keeping an open mind. Trusting your instincts. Attention to detail.”

I sensed him moving behind me, but I couldn’t tell where he was. So when I felt him take hold of my wrists, I whimpered into the tape.

“I’d like to cut you free, but I can’t trust you anymore, Willa. You really messed things up.” He sighed. “I can’t believe I chose yet another girl who decided to mess things up. The last time I tried this scene it went so badly I had to pull the plug.”

I realized he was talking about Paige.

“But don’t you worry — that’s not going to happen. You’re nothing like … that girl. We’ll get through this, and it’ll be wonderful — my best effort yet.” Knowing he was behind me sent a wave of terrified shivers down my entire back.

I let my head fall until my chin touched my chest.

“No!” he snapped. “No crying! You’ll wreck your eye makeup.”

Being ordered not to cry by the serial killer who’s about to kill you isn’t all that effective. I felt the lump rise in my throat in spite of his warning.