Текст книги "Famous Last Words"

Автор книги: Katie Alender

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

After we’d been through the scene about four times, Reed came over and cut my hands free. He wanted to get started on the blocking.

We were getting close to the final performance.

“Try swirling the wine in the glass,” he said. “Like you’re lost in thought.”

I’d never drunk anything from a wine glass before, so it felt awkward in my hand. Apparently I was doing it wrong, because he smacked the table impatiently.

“If you’re not even going to try —”

“I am trying!” I protested. “I’ve never done this before.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Willa. It must be frustrating. I have to remember … a director is like a coach.”

“Is that what this is about for you?” I asked. “Being a director?”

“It’s about creating moments,” he said. “Crafting them.”

“But … I thought making movies was about making things that people will enjoy.”

He shook his head. “That’s commercialism. I’m not interested in crass efforts to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I want to make something powerful. Something with impact. Something that conveys my vision absolutely – even if nobody else ever sees it. Something I can … control. So much of life is out of our control, and it just makes me feel so … insignificant.”

“That’s why you leave the people you kill out for other people to find? To be significant?”

Reed looked at me, a coldly superior gleam in his eye. “Because I know it makes their lives that much more interesting. It gives them something to aspire to.”

“You mean you like the attention,” I said.

He scowled. “I don’t care about the attention.”

I wasn’t eager to draw his anger, so I sat back without replying.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s go through this one more time. I’ll try to be more patient.”

We ran the lines again. This time, when I picked up the glass to swirl it, he picked up his own and showed me how to move my wrist to keep the liquid moving inside.

When we got to the end – almost the end – he sat back. “Very good.”

My back was tired from sitting up so straight, and my butt was numb from being in the chair for hours on end. Outside, the day had darkened into twilight. How many hours had passed while I was unconscious?

“I think we might be ready.” He smiled at me – a smile that under any other circumstances could have been described as warm, maybe even caring.

“Ready?” I asked. “No, I need more time to —”

“Hush,” he said, and just like that, the smile was gone. He got up and went to the kitchen. When he came back, he had a glass of water and two small white pills in his hand. “Here. Take these.”

I stared at the little pills. “What are they?”

“Just something to help you relax. Remember, Charice is drinking the poison throughout the entire dinner. She’s getting dreamier and dreamier. These won’t kill you … but they’ll make it easier to stay in character. Don’t worry, Willa – this is only a dress rehearsal, not the real thing.”

“Is this what you gave Paige?” My voice was a pitiful little squeak.

“Yes. But you don’t have to be like Paige. She chose an ugly, meaningless death. You don’t have to do that. You can accept your fate and fade out beautifully, like Charice.”

Without putting up a fight, he meant.

I stared at his hand. Suddenly, he grabbed my face and pinched my nostrils. When my mouth opened to gasp for air, he pushed the pills to the back of my tongue. Then he held my mouth shut.

“Swallow,” he said.

I couldn’t breathe. I struggled, trying to shake his hands off my face.

“Swallow, and I’ll let you breathe.”

So I swallowed. The pills left a bitter taste on the back of my tongue.

“Have some water,” he said, handing me the cup.

I took a few sips, and he took the cup away. Then he pulled my hands back and taped them together, securing them to the chair.

“All right, Willa,” he said. “Hang out for a little while and try to relax. I have to go check on something.”

He left the room.

Marnie, I thought. He’s checking on Marnie.

At first, I struggled to get free. Then, when that didn’t work, I sat back and stared at the table, trying to think of a new plan.

Gradually, my breathing grew slow and steady. The room, bathed in low light from the chandelier, seemed to glow.

“Hello.” Reed’s voice came from behind me. My pulse picked up a little – but the glow on the room didn’t diminish.

How long had he been away – twenty minutes? Thirty?

“Hi,” I said. My voice sounded almost as light and pleasant as his did.

He reached back and cut my hands free. “Are you ready to get started?”

Thoughts buzzed through my brain like lazy bumblebees. I had a vague recollection that getting started wasn’t the best option, but I didn’t have any better ideas. “Okay.”

I was rewarded with a soft smile of approval. “Good girl, Willa.”

Before I knew what was happening, he had reached his arms around my neck. I felt the cool, quick touch of a chain against the skin of my throat.

“My mother’s rose necklace,” he said. “I guess you could call it a souvenir. I use it to remember my girls by. I had misplaced it … but you found it for me, didn’t you? That was kind. It’s very special to me.”

I stared numbly ahead, not looking up at him.

He went back and sat down on the other side of the table. “Do you remember the lines?”

“I – I think so.”

There was a sound behind me.

Reed jumped to his feet, as light and quick as a cat. He pointed at me. “Stay there. If you call out, I’ll make you sorry.”

A key was turning in the front door. Someone was coming in.

But Reed didn’t walk toward the foyer. He ducked into the kitchen.

“Hello …? Willa, are you home?”

It was Jonathan.

“Who’s here? Why isn’t the alarm on?”

I was afraid to speak. Reed had said he would make me sorry.

Jonathan came into the dining room. He whipped his head around, trying to take in the table, set for a romantic dinner, and my outfit. “Willa, what’s going on? Are you drinking wine?”

“Call the police,” I said softly. “You need to go. Reed’s here.”

“Reed is here? And you’re drinking wine together? What are you talking about, the police? Is – is that a wig?”

“It’s from a movie,” I said.

Jonathan stared at me – and then his energy shifted.

He understood.

I had a feeling like a fog was lifting. Emotions came through the fog, sharp needles of fear. “Be careful!” I hissed. “He knows you’re here!”

Jonathan turned to look around, but it was too late. There was a flash of movement behind him.

“Watch out!” I cried.

As Jonathan pivoted in place, Reed raised a heavy ceramic figurine and brought it down on his head.

Jonathan dropped to the ground.

Reed stood over him, panting heavily. Then he looked at me, his eyes rimmed with red and his nostrils flared. “I told you to be quiet.”

I couldn’t think of a reply. I’d snapped out of the dreamy haze into a state of stark terror.

Moving quickly, Reed taped my arms and legs to the chair and then stuck another piece of tape over my mouth, muttering about how he would have to fix my makeup later. Then he grabbed Jonathan by the arms and dragged him out of sight.

I stared, petrified, as my stepfather’s feet vanished around the corner. A minute later, the dragging sound stopped, replaced by a new sound: running water.

Reed was filling the bathtub in the downstairs bathroom.

Oh, God. He was going to drown Jonathan. I got an image in my head of my mother arriving home to find both her husband and her daughter dead. And I couldn’t do a thing about it. I hung my head as hopelessness descended over me.

In defeat, I raised my eyes to look around the dining room. This is what the room where I will die looks like on the night that I will die.

Suddenly, everything in my messed-up life seemed precious and amazing, shining and brilliant. I wept in my heart that I’d never have the chance to say good-bye to my mother.

And I’d never have another chance to talk to Wyatt.

I wondered what Paige had been thinking as she fought for her life, struggling to surface, only to be cruelly pushed back under. Who was she fighting for? Because I understood on a fundamental level that any will I had left would have to be drawn from the love I felt for other people – for my mom. For Wyatt.

If I found the strength to resist, it would be for their sake. Fighting for them suddenly seemed more important than fighting for myself.

Something cold and wet brushed against my face, and I opened my eyes.

A rose petal lay on my plate.

It was a sign from Paige. She was here.

My eyes, fluttering around the room, landed on the sideboard.

The knives. If I could get to them, somehow …

That’s crazy, Willa. He’ll torture you.

Yeah, maybe so, but … what was the alternative, to do exactly what he wanted me to do? Just let him kill me?

Suddenly, I felt a fire inside me. It was a familiar sensation – and my automatic response was to push it back, suppress it. Not let it affect me.

But then, for the briefest moment, I tried not suppressing it.

I let myself feel the true horror and shock of what was happening. I let myself envision Reed’s cold eyes staring across the table at me. The sound of his voice commanding me to play a willing part in my own murder.

The fire spread. First, it spread to my heart. Then to my head. Then through the rest of me.

And I found that I was sitting there, practically panting.

With rage.

How dare he? I thought. How dare he do this to people?

The tub was still running. If Reed was in the bathroom, he wouldn’t be able to hear me moving.

He’d done a much shabbier job taping my wrists together this time, and with only a small amount of concentrated effort, I was able to get my hands free. Then I leaned over and untaped my legs. I got to the sideboard, pulled opened the center drawer, and shoved the lid off the flat box.

The light from the candles flickered off the knife blade.

I grabbed it and slid the drawer shut.

From the bathroom came a grunt of effort, and then a loud splash.

I’d need to surprise him, catch him off guard. So I slipped back in my seat, setting the knife under the right side of my skirt. Then I quickly leaned over and bound my legs back to the chair, reached my hands behind me, and rewrapped my wrists with the tape.

About two seconds after I finished, Reed walked in, his tuxedo wet from the bathtub. He looked winded and upset.

“What are you looking at?” he snarled. I shifted my gaze to my plate.

He was a hundred times more dangerous now because things were going badly.

But I could be dangerous, too.

He bent over and ripped the tape from my legs, then tore the piece off my wrists and mouth, making me wince as the adhesive pulled at my skin.

“What are you doing to Jonathan?” I asked. “Did you kill him?”

Reed grunted. “It’s not your concern.”

“I thought you said he was like family to you.”

He ignored me. “Let’s get started. I’m tired of waiting.”

“Is my lipstick okay?” I asked.

“You’re stalling, Willa. It won’t help.” He gave me an exasperated look, then turned for the makeup kit. “But I might as well —”

His back was toward me.

GO. GO. GO.

I reached under my skirt and grabbed the knife. Then I propelled myself out of the chair, toward Reed’s back.

He heard me and began to turn around.

But I was already on him. I plunged the knife into his side. He gasped and let out a primal roar.

I gave him a hard shove, and he tumbled backward. Then I ran out of the room, toward the front door. All I had to do was make it to the road and pray somebody was driving by – and that they’d be willing to stop.

What I hadn’t counted on was that, over the course of the evening, my legs had fallen asleep. As I moved, blood rushed back through the veins, essentially turning my legs into unusable stumps. Even though Reed was injured, I wouldn’t be able to outrun him all the way to the gate. I staggered across the foyer, threw the door open, and screamed at the top of my lungs as I crumpled onto the porch.

Then I started crawling, determined to drag myself to the road if I had to.

But Reed grabbed me by the back of my dress and pulled me back inside the house. He slammed the door closed, struggling to get me into a choke hold with his left arm. In his right hand, he held the bloody knife.

He was breathless with fury. “Huge … mistake … Willa …”

The feeling was coming back into my legs now. I kicked backward and threw him off balance. He tried to grab me by the hair, but only succeeded in pulling the wig off my head. I raced for the stairs, scrabbling up on all fours. He was right behind me. I made it to the top barely two steps ahead of him. I could lock myself in Jonathan’s office and climb out the window again….

I ran to the end of the hall and tried to shove the door open.

There was a low, gurgling laugh from behind me.

“Yeah, it’s locked,” Reed said. “I locked it. I locked them all, actually.”

I turned to face him. He hadn’t bothered to follow me down the hall. He stood at the top of the stairs. Blood ran from the wound in his side, staining his white shirt ruby red.

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” he said. “But you’ve got nowhere to go, sister.”

I glanced at the banister. How far was the drop to the first floor?

“Go ahead,” he said. “Break your legs. See if I care.”

Oh, God.

He stood rooted smugly in place, clutching the knife as if he knew a thing or two about knives. “You’re going to pay for this, Willa. Your poor mama’s going to cry her eyes out when she sees you.”

I was distracted momentarily by something else glinting in the light, besides the knife blade …

Water.

A trail of wet footprints on the floor, between Reed and myself.

Paige?

“Stay back,” I said. “I’m warning you.”

He laughed flatly. “Big, tough Willa. Haven’t you noticed that I keep winning? Didn’t I tell you that I always win?”

I couldn’t let him corner me. I was still woozy from the pills and not moving very fast, but I’d rather be a moving target than a sitting duck. He was hurt, too.

I drew in a breath and charged toward him. As I got closer, I ducked and flattened myself against the wall.

But I didn’t make it. He used his whole body to shove me to the ground. I fell back and hit my head on the sharp edge of the baseboard, so hard I saw stars. Then I scooted as far away as I could, which wasn’t very far.

Reed loomed above me, holding the knife. “Want to know what I’m going to cut first?”

On the ceiling above him, black words bubbled into existence.

Just three short words:

I AM HERE

“Wait, Reed … please.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I just have one question.”

He smirked. “What?”

I took a deep breath. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

His smirk turned to a confused sneer. “Do I —”

There was an explosion of blue light between us.

Reed cried out in surprise, giving me a moment to dash out of his reach. I turned back and looked at him —

At him, and at Paige.

Her ghost stood in the center of the hallway, a girl made of light.

Reed stared up at her in terror. “What … what are you?”

Paige looked over at me. In her gaze I saw sympathy, understanding, sorrow … but also anger. Resolve. Strength.

She turned back to Reed, who was basically reduced to blubbering.

“What is this?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

Paige smiled and took a step toward him. She spoke in a voice of hollow whispers. “This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.”

When he tried to move out of her way, his foot landed on one of the wet footprints and slipped.

He tumbled backward down the stairs.

And then there was stillness.

I crawled to the banister and saw Reed lying unconscious – maybe dead – on the floor of the foyer below.

I glanced up at Paige.

She gave me a look of satisfaction … but also full of regret and wistfulness.

And then she disappeared.

I raced down the stairs, past Reed’s body, and into the guest bathroom.

The faucet was still running. The bathwater was pink with blood from Jonathan’s wounded head. The water level had just reached his mouth. I shut the water off and then hauled him over the edge so he was lying down on the floor. I turned his head to the side, and a bunch of water streamed out of his mouth. But he still didn’t wake up.

Oh, God, what if he never woke up?

I could not sit there and watch him not breathe and not open his eyes and not be alive anymore.

It would break everything that was left of me.

“No, no, no,” I said. “No, you are NOT going to die tonight!”

Desperately, I racked my memory for the first aid I’d learned back in ninth grade. I wrestled him into a sitting position and drew my balled-up fists into the soft space beneath the center of his ribs. As I did it, I felt emotions rush through me, raw and unprocessed, and for a moment I closed my eyes and went back to that morning at the YMCA trying to save my father.

Live, I remembered thinking. Live, Dad. Live.

Now I thought, Live, Jonathan.

Please live.

Suddenly, his body began to convulse with a series of racking coughs. I ran out of strength to hold on to him, so I laid him down on his side and watched and waited as he came back to life.

He drew in a huge gasp of air, and his eyelids blinked heavily.

“Willa,” he croaked.

I was too overcome with relief even to speak.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

He started looking around frantically. “Where is he? We need to get out —”

I was already moving toward the door. “I’ll be right back. I have to get help.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to sit up.

“It’s okay. Don’t move. Wait here.”

I got up and walked over to where Reed lay in the foyer. I thought about checking for a pulse, but decided that could wait. I kicked the knife so it slid under the heavy cabinet by the door and went to the dining room for the roll of tape Reed had used on me all night.

I hesitated before grabbing his hands – what if my touch woke him? What if he was only dazed?

I had a feeling that, if he sprang to life, he would have more than enough fight left to finish me off.

“Is he … dead?”

I jumped at the sound of Jonathan’s voice. He was slowly staggering toward us.

“I don’t know,” I said, and my whole body began to tremble. I honestly didn’t know whether to hope the answer was yes or no.

“Be careful,” he said. “Here … I’ll sit on him. Start with his feet, okay?”

I nodded as Jonathan painfully lowered himself onto Reed’s chest.

I wound the tape around his ankles about fifty times.

“Now his hands,” I said.

“We need to call 9-1-1,” Jonathan said.

“This first,” I said. “Here, watch out.”

Jonathan stiffly climbed off Reed, and together we flipped him over. Jonathan grabbed his wrists and held them tight while I circled them with the tape.

“Hold him down,” I said. “I guess I’ll see if he’s alive.”

I lay my two fingers flat against his neck, under his right ear. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to jump up and attack me.

But he didn’t.

“Is there a pulse?” Jonathan asked.

I felt the faint, slow beat of Reed’s blood under my fingers, and my entire body went cold.

“Yeah,” I whispered. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. My eyes felt swollen and painful.

“My phone’s ruined,” Jonathan said, taking it out of his sopping-wet pocket. “Do you have yours?”

“No,” I said. “Reed took it. And the landline is dead. I’ll go outside and flag down a car in a minute, but first … I need the code to get into the garage.”

“Wait … are you okay to walk?” he asked.

I nodded, even though it wasn’t totally true. “What’s the code?”

“It’s four fours. Why?”

I didn’t answer. I left the front door open and staggered over to the garage. Every step hurt, and my head ached from being slammed into the wall. Lights seemed surrounded by halos, and I saw two of everything.

But I managed to type in 4-4-4-4, and the door opened with a rumble. I flipped on the lights and walked over to the corner, where I’d seen the puddle of water that morning.

There was a door in the side wall, behind an old bike. It wasn’t even disguised – it just looked like it hadn’t been used in eons.

The chauffeur’s quarters. That’s where he’d been keeping them, rehearsing with them. Preparing them for their deaths. He had easy access, since he could come and go into and out of the garage as much as he pleased. And it was far enough from the house that no one would hear the girls crying and screaming for help.

I shoved the bike away and pulled the door open.

Stairs.

From the bottom of the stairs came a soft, muffled sound.

“Willa?” Jonathan stood, slightly swaying, in the open garage door. “What are you doing?”

“Marnie?” I called.

The muffled sound stopped, and turned into a muted shriek.

“We’re getting help,” I said. “Sorry I can’t come down for you right this second, I …”

I was so dizzy I could hardly walk. Jonathan slumped against the garage wall like he might collapse at any moment.

“Who’s down there?” he asked.

“His next victim,” I said. “Besides me, I mean. Her name is Marnie.”

The devastated look that came over Jonathan’s face just about broke my heart.

“Could you go down and tell her she’s safe?” I said. “I’m going to get help.”

He nodded and slowly began to descend the steps while I shuffled to the gate. When I pulled it open, I saw headlights approaching from around the corner. They blurred in my vision until they were four bright diamonds of light.

I raised my arms and stepped out into the middle of the street, thinking, Wouldn’t it be just my luck to survive all that and then get run over by some loser checking his text messages?

But the car slowed as it neared me, and then stopped. The driver’s side door opened, and after a few seconds, a woman about my mom’s age got out.

“Could you please – Hey, are you all right?” she asked. “Good God, what happened?”

“Please,” I said. “Call 9-1-1.”

Then I sat down in the middle of the street and passed out.

“Her name is Willa. She’s my stepdaughter. We were attacked in our house by … an intruder.” I heard Jonathan speaking before I forced my eyes open. I was propped up in his arms, on the ground, just inside the gate. He glanced down at me and relief crossed his face. “Hey, try to stay awake, all right?”

“All right,” I said. “I’m okay. I think I was just overwhelmed.”

Jonathan managed a weak smile. “You’re well within your rights on that count. The police are coming. And an ambulance.”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” I said.

“Nice try,” he said. “You’re bleeding from the head. And you’re woozy. Your eyes are bloodshot. Did he give you something?”

I thought of the white pills and nodded.

“Do you know what it was?”

I shook my head. Somebody had covered me with a jacket. “What about you?” I asked. “He hit you, too. And you almost drowned.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m all right. My mother always said I have a thick skull.”

By now there was a small crowd of people around us. And there were a bunch of people in the garage, too – they must have been helping Marnie.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Somewhere in the ravine, a pack of coyotes started howling along with them.

Jonathan kept glancing up at the people around us, and then back down at me. “Are you really okay? Did he hurt you? I can’t believe … all this time, it was … Reed. In our house. In our garage.”

I blinked back my tears. I couldn’t believe it, either.

Jonathan ran his hand over my hair in an awkward, reassuring gesture. “Your mom’s on her way back. She’s going straight to the hospital. Willa, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

At the thought of seeing my mother and being wrapped in her arms, I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. All of the emotions I’d tried to ignore all night – fear, humiliation, anger – burst forth in a tidal wave. I started to cry huge, ugly-cry sobs.

Jonathan hugged me closer, rocking back and forth. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re safe now, Willa. You saved us.”