Текст книги "Famous Last Words"

Автор книги: Katie Alender

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Wyatt didn’t notice me waiting by his locker until he was only a few feet away. By then I was holding the notebook in front of me, cradled against my chest.

“You were right,” I said. “I’ve had it for a week. I tried to give it back right away, but you were such a jerk that I changed my mind.”

His mouth hung open slightly.

Full speed ahead. “I have some questions for you. About something you wrote.”

Wyatt adjusted his glasses. “I don’t want to discuss it in public.”

“Why?” I said. “Because you’re the murderer?”

His face twisted in disbelief. I half expected him to snatch the notebook out of my hands. Instead, he just glared at me, his eyebrows furrowed, and said “Seriously?” in a supremely annoyed voice.

“If you’re not the murderer,” I said, “why do you have so much information about the killings?”

He glanced around, but we were the only people in a thirty-foot radius. “Are you kidding? You think I’m the Hollywood Killer?”

“No,” I said quickly, biting my lip. Backpedaling. “Of course not.”

“You’re lying again,” Wyatt said.

A frustration bomb went off in my head. I gripped the notebook so hard that the metal spiral dug into my skin.

“Why do you say things like that?” I said. “Don’t you realize how uncomfortable it makes people? I mean, really, no wonder you don’t have any friends.”

He snorted. “I make people uncomfortable? You just accused me of being a murderer!”

Okay, well. Maybe that was a fair point.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “But this —” I held the notebook out again, and this time he took it.

“Not here,” he said quietly. “We should talk someplace more private.”

“I don’t understand.”

He gave me a level, appraising look. “You haven’t made a lot of friends yet, have you?”

There was no point in lying just to save my wounded pride, so I shook my head.

“Well,” he said, “if you ever want to make friends at Langhorn, you should try not to be seen with me.”

I didn’t have the energy to protest. “All right. Where can we talk?”

“The library,” he said. “After Chemistry.”

“Fine.”

He nodded briskly. “See you then.”

I found Wyatt in the far back corner of the library, well clear of the circulation desk and the handful of students studying at the tables near the door. He was already leaned over, absorbed in his notebook. When he noticed me, he sat up and closed it automatically. I dropped my backpack and sank to the floor beside him.

“Okay,” Wyatt said. “What did you want to talk about?”

First things first. “Why are you still investigating the murders?” I asked. “Your project’s been done for months. Don’t you think the police can solve them?”

He sat back, looking offended. “I didn’t come here to defend myself.”

“I’m not attacking you,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out what kind of person is so completely obsessed with someone else’s crimes.”

He looked up, his brown eyes walking the line between insulted and amused. “Me,” he said. “My kind. Now, did you have real questions or are you just trying to psychoanalyze me?”

I held out my hand. “Can I see the notebook?”

He hesitated for a second before handing it over. I began looking for the page I’d seen last night.

“If you’re worried about the killer,” Wyatt said, “I think you should know that you’re not his type.”

I let the pages slip between my fingers and looked up at him. “Excuse me?”

“In the first place, you’re not an actress, are you?”

“Not remotely.”

“Then you’re off his radar. He exclusively targets young female actresses with a specific body type, an isolated home life —”

“Thanks for your concern,” I said, “but I’m not worried about myself. What I want to know about is this.”

I held up the page so he could read it:

WATER (BATHTUB/POOL)

ROSES

NECKLACE (ALSO ROSE)

HENRY

“What does this mean?” I asked. “How do these things tie into the murders?”

He stared at the writing and seemed to choose his words carefully. “They don’t.”

“Obviously they do,” I said, “or they wouldn’t be in here. Don’t tell me this is a shopping list.”

“It’s information,” Wyatt said, frowning and pulling the notebook from my hands, “but not real information. Yes, it’s connected to the investigation of the murders, but it’s just speculation from a highly unreliable source.”

“What source?” I asked.

He flipped back a page. “Leyta Fitzgeorge,” he read out loud, a sarcastic flourish in his voice. “Psychic to the Stars.”

I stared at the page he was looking at. He had actually written out Psychic to the Stars under her name.

“Leyta Fitzgeorge submitted those words to the police with a suggestion that they would help solve the murders,” he explained. “But they’re meaningless.”

They had meaning for me. And for a second, I thought about telling him as much – relaying my stories about the pool, the writing on the wall, the name “Henry.” But then I remembered that this was Wyatt Sheppard I was dealing with. I wasn’t eager to draw any more of his scorn.

Finally, I asked, “What does the number eight-one-eight mean?”

“It’s one of the LA area codes. For the Valley.” Wyatt watched me intently. “It seems like there’s some major thing you’re not sharing.”

“Do you know anything about Diana Del Mar,” I asked, “aside from where her house is?”

Wyatt sat back, thinking. “She starred in movie musicals, right? Did she date Howard Hughes? No, that was what’s-her-face. Why? What about her?”

An idea popped into my head. “The movies the serial killers used to pose his victims – were any of them Diana Del Mar movies?”

He shook his head. “Nope. She was long dead by the time any of them were released.”

Another question occurred to me. “What did you mean before, when you said I shouldn’t be seen talking to you if I want to make friends?”

He glanced down. “Nothing specific.”

“Now you’re lying,” I said.

“I’m not lying,” he said. “I’m just not going to provide you with the sordid level of detail you seem to be craving. If you want stories, you can get them from Marnie.”

“Marnie has stories about you?” I asked.

He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at me, his brown eyes a little distant and sad. Then he blinked the mood away. “No doubt she does. Are we done? Because —”

“Almost,” I said. “Can I ask a question that’s not about the murders? Or Marnie?”

He nodded, a little wary.

“What did you mean at my house when you said I lie about everything?”

He shook his head. “That was out of line. I apologize.”

“But you were right,” I said, feeling a sudden heat in my chest. “How could you tell?”

He took a second to study me before answering. “Your body language is closed off. See how you lean back, cross your arms? You never maintain eye contact. And the touching, like I said – your face and neck. Covering your mouth.”

I nodded, letting it all sink in.

“I didn’t mean you tell actual lies.” His voice was lower, almost gentle. “More like omissions – like you’re shut off from people on some fundamental level.”

Ah, yes. Where had I heard that before? A memory of my last talk with Aiden flashed painfully through my mind. “And you’re not?” I said.

“Is this about me now? I am who I am. People can take me or leave me. I have nothing to hide.” He wrote something in his notebook, and then tore off the sheet and handed it to me. “If you need to talk – I mean, if you have more questions – you can text me. Here’s my number.”

I pocketed the piece of paper. “One more thing?”

He narrowed his eyes. “If I can ask you something, too.”

“Fine,” I said. “What are you after? What’s your endgame? At what point are you going to say you’ve done enough – when they catch him?”

“Maybe,” Wyatt said. “Or maybe it’s more like … Have you ever walked into a room, and you know something’s different? Like your little brother’s been messing with your stuff and tried to cover it up but you can tell?”

I shook my head. “I’m an only child.”

Wyatt gave me a look. “I am, too. It was a metaphor. Do you ever get the feeling that you’re missing something you shouldn’t be missing?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I feel that way all the time.”

“That’s how I feel about these murders. Like we’re all missing something. There’s some piece of the puzzle we haven’t found yet. So I don’t know if it’s catching the killer I’m after … or just figuring out what’s off. Making it easier for someone else to catch him.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“My turn, right?”

I looked at the carpet and waited.

“What is it?” he asked. “What you’re afraid of? The thing you hide.” His voice was low and had a note of compassion in it that made me want to shove him.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I reached up to swipe them away. “I don’t think that’s a fair use of your question.”

“It’s being angry, isn’t it?”

I stared at him in shock. I didn’t need to answer, because the look on my face was all the confirmation a person could ask for.

“I can tell…. I mean, I make people angry on a pretty regular basis,” he said, giving me a self-conscious smile. “Apparently I come across as a little abrasive sometimes. But with you, I’ve said things that make you mad on some caveman level, but it’s like … the emotion dies inside you. Without ever coming out.”

I hardly dared speak, for fear of how my voice would sound. “And what’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It can’t be healthy.”

“Lots of things aren’t healthy,” I snapped. “We do them anyway. Like devoting our lives to studying a serial killer. I have to go.”

I stood up and grabbed my backpack, then turned to leave.

Wyatt’s soft voice stopped me. “But why? What’s the worst that could happen if you let yourself get angry?”

I turned around and stared into his eyes. You want eye contact, Wyatt? Here’s your eye contact. “The worst that could happen is that someone else could die.”

When I got home, Reed was sitting in Jonathan’s office with the door open. He looked up and waved as I walked to my room.

I got the feeling that he wanted me to go in and talk to him, but I needed a few minutes to myself. I’d spent the drive home deflecting a barrage of Mom-questions, and I hadn’t had a chance to process my conversation with Wyatt, especially the things he’d said at the end – things he had no right to even think about, much less say to me.

Instead I focused on the reason we’d talked in the first place: the list of items that he insisted were worthless, because they came from an “unreliable source.” But that list was proof that my experiences weren’t just the results of my overtaxed mind finally breaking down completely. Someone else knew, somehow, that those things fit together.

And that someone just happened to be a woman who billed herself as the Psychic to the Stars. I sat down with my laptop and Googled the name Leyta Fitzgeorge. A cookie-cutter website popped up.

Her number was listed, but I stopped short of calling her. Reaching out to Leyta Fitzgeorge might seem like the next logical step, but my most pressing goal was to clear away the drama in my life, and getting in touch with a psychic was a pretty obvious move in the opposite direction. So I set my phone on my desk. Maybe I’d call her later.

I changed from my uniform into slim-fitting jeans and a teal V-neck T-shirt that brought out the blue in my eyes, telling myself that this extra bit of care with my appearance had absolutely nothing to do with Reed’s presence at the house. It didn’t matter anyway, because when I went into the hall, there was no sign of him in Jonathan’s office.

As I went downstairs, I could hear him talking to Mom in the kitchen.

“And anything that could be considered office supplies – printer ink or pens or stationery – I can arrange to have delivered from the studio. Just drop me a text or an email the day before you need them, and I’ll take care of everything.”

When I entered the kitchen, my mother looked up at me. “Oh, hi, Willa.”

“Hi,” I said, more to Reed than to her.

Mom cleared her throat a little awkwardly. “Thanks, Reed. We’ll definitely let you know if you can help.”

“Absolutely,” Reed said. “Anytime.”

He gave me a little eyebrow raise on his way out, and I had to fight to keep the corners of my mouth from turning up as I went to the sink to get a glass of water.

“He’s very nice,” Mom said, after he’d been gone for a minute.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’m going to have to talk to Jonathan, though,” she said slowly. “I’m just not sure how I feel about having him in the house all the time.”

I set my glass down with a louder clatter than I’d intended. “What do you mean? He’s not here all the time.”

“You know what I’m saying.” She shrugged. “This is our home. Having a stranger here doesn’t seem like —”

“He’s not a stranger,” I said. “He works for Jonathan. He’s just trying to save money for college. You don’t have to kick him out. Where will he go?”

“Oh, Willa, don’t be so dramatic,” Mom said. “He can work at Jonathan’s office.”

“But there’s stuff that needs to be done here,” I said. “He doesn’t just do work on the movies. He handles a lot of random stuff around the house, too.” I fought to keep my voice light and unemotional, when really, I was flipping out at the thought of not getting to see Reed on a regular basis. It wasn’t that I had a crush on him – I mean, maybe I do, but so what? – but he was the only person in California who seemed to see me as the person I wanted to be.

My mother stood up to her full height (which was the same as my full height and therefore not terribly intimidating). “Anything that needs to be done here can be done by me.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because you’re suddenly some little wifey? What is this, 1950?”

She frowned, her eyes searching my face. “What on earth has gotten into you?”

Her question hit me someplace deep and raw. I looked down quickly, embarrassed.

Mom put the back of her hand against my forehead. “Are you feeling all right? Is it a headache?”

For once, it wasn’t a headache, but I nodded anyway. “A little one.”

“You’re not getting them a lot, are you?”

I backed away from her gentle touch, shaking my head. “No, I’m fine. Forget it.”

Her eyes flashed, a little wounded. “If you have something to say to me, then we should talk about it. But I feel like what you’re trying to say doesn’t have anything to do with Reed anymore.”

I swallowed. Mom was always good at getting to the heart of things. But I wouldn’t even know where to begin now.

“Willa?”

I shook my head. “I’m not trying to say anything. I just wanted a glass of water.”

Mom’s cell rang, and it was Jonathan, so she excused herself and went out the sliding door into the backyard. I let out a breath, put my glass in the dishwasher, turned to leave – and saw Reed standing in the kitchen doorway.

He was hovering, like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Oh … hey.” My words felt all stumbly and loose. “How much of that did you hear?”

“How much of what?” Seeing the skeptical look on my face, he gave me a sheepish smile. “All of it. Sorry I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to embarrass your mother.”

“She doesn’t mean any offense,” I said.

“Of course not. I didn’t take any. She’s totally right. This is your house now. Jonathan has to change his bachelor ways.” His lips twitched mischievously. “He might even have to take the Porsche to the car wash himself now.”

The subversive little glint in his eye was gone as fast as it had appeared – but I’d seen it. And I was pretty sure he knew I’d seen it.

It kind of made me want to grab him and kiss him.

Reed tilted his head. “So that’s what your real smile looks like.”

My breath caught in my throat. “What?”

“Nothing.” His fingers traveled absently up the side of the doorframe. “It was cool of you to defend me. But I don’t want to cause any strife between you and your mother.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. “There’s never any real strife.”

He was less than two feet away. I could smell the boy smell of his perfectly rumpled jacket.

I looked up into his eyes. And he looked down into mine.

“Willa,” he said, “you’re …”

I held my breath.

The room was silent – for a few seconds, anyway. Then I heard:

Drip …

“Are you kidding me?” I said, looking up at the ceiling.

Reed took a jerking step back. “I’d better get back to work.”

I stared at him, watching for any reaction to the sound.

Drip …

Nothing. He didn’t hear it.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I have some homework. Not a ton, but enough that I should … do it. I mean, get busy. I mean …” I mean, ugh, SHUT UP, Willa.

Then we both started for the stairs at the same time, which was incredibly awkward. But what was the alternative, him standing at the bottom watching me go up? Or me watching him?

“I think I’ll get a – another glass of water,” I said, ducking back into the kitchen as he went up toward Jonathan’s office.

But I wasn’t thirsty, so I simply stood in the kitchen, waiting.

And listening to the last sound I wanted to hear in all the world.

Drip … drip … drip …

That night, I sat in my room, my homework done, staring at the clock. It was only nine, and going to sleep so early felt like committing myself to nine solid hours of staring despairingly at the ceiling. I’d convinced myself that calling Leyta Fitzgeorge would be a fool’s errand. It would waste her time and my own. Worst of all, Wyatt would be proved right.

Drip … drip … drip …

The sound had followed me around the house through dinnertime, until I wanted to pull my ears off and throw them out the window.

My fingers itched to take some concrete action. But what action can you take when your problems are the furthest thing from concrete?

When your problems are caused by a …

You know what it is, said some tiny, traitorous voice from someplace in the back of my mind.

In a fit of frantic, frustrated energy, I dug my fingernails into my palms, trying to suppress the thought – but it was too late. The word was in my head, and there would be no getting rid of it.

I grabbed the journal out of the drawer next to my bed and flipped it open. I took the pen, determined to let everything inside me come out on the page.

But despite how complicated my feelings seemed, it all came down to one simple thought:

GHOST, I wrote.

IT’S A GHOST.

And just like that … the dripping stopped.

I set down the pen and picked up my phone.

Willa?” Wyatt was winded, his cheeks pink and a lock of sweaty golden-brown hair stuck to his forehead.

I pulled my French textbook from my locker and then shut the door, turning to face him. “Yes?”

He looked like he’d run all the way from the parking lot. “I have to ask you a question.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“No.” He glanced around at the almost deserted hall. “Not here.”

“Wyatt, I’m not going to run and hide in the library every time we have four words to speak to each other. First bell’s going to ring in like three minutes. If you need something, now’s your chance.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he conceded. “About yesterday – about that woman —”

“Leyta Fitzgeorge,” I said.

“I just wanted to ask you not to call her.”

“Too late. I called her last night.” I almost said sorry, but I stopped myself. Because I wasn’t.

For a moment, Wyatt seemed too dismayed to speak. “What did you ask her?”

“If I could go see her today.”

He was so jittery that it almost made me nervous. “What? Why? What did she say?”

“She said yes,” I said.

“But that’s —” He stood up straight. “You need to cancel.”

I let out a surprised laugh. “Um, no. You weren’t willing to help me, so I’m helping myself. And now you don’t even want me doing that?”

“You’re not supposed to have that information.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I’m not supposed to have that information. If she complains to the police about you getting in touch …”

I waited for the second half of that “if,” thinking he might reveal something about his source. But he clammed up.

“Why would she go back to the police?” I asked. “According to you, they ignored her before.”

He huffed unhappily.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell her where I got her name. Although she’s a psychic, so …”

“You’ll be wasting your time.” There was a hint of presumptuous authority in his voice. “She’s a crook.”

I felt oddly protective of Leyta Fitzgeorge all of a sudden. “Why would you say that? You don’t even know her.”

“It’s obviously true,” he said. “Psychic abilities? More like made-up nonsense.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’ll find out for myself.”

“So … wait. You actually think she could be right about something? All that stuff about water and the roses and …”

“Henry?” I said.

“Right, Henry.” He rolled his eyes. “You know what she said? She said she got a ‘feeling’ about the name, but she couldn’t be sure if it was a first name or a last name or even a middle name. Hey! Maybe it’s the killer’s dog’s name! Ridiculous.”

“It’s a first name,” I said.

For a beat, Wyatt was surprised into silence, which I found extremely rewarding.

Then he squinted at me. “How would you possibly know?”

“I know because I’ve … seen it. And heard it.”

Wyatt adjusted his glasses. “What are you saying?”

“That Leyta Fitzgeorge might be right.”

He shook his head and laughed nervously. “So you believe in psychics?”

Be careful, Willa. Where you’re going, you can’t come back from. “Well … I don’t know, actually,” I said. “But I do believe in ghosts.”

He spluttered. Like, “Spluh!” Only he didn’t say the word aloud. You could just see it coming out of his brain.

I hadn’t quite meant to break it to him that way. On the other hand, it was a bit of a relief to have part of my secret out in the open. Even if I was telling it to someone who assumed everything I said was a lie.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“I said, I believe in ghosts,” I pressed on. It felt like riding a bicycle down a steep hill – I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to, but there was something exhilarating about it. “Specifically, I believe in a ghost who’s living in my house and refuses to leave me alone.”

A blend of emotions swept across Wyatt’s face: disappointment, curiosity, and stubbornness. But his voice was utterly blank when he said, “A ghost … in your house.”

“A ghost,” I repeated. “In my house. Want me to say it again?”

“No. Thanks.” He started to turn away. “Good luck with that.”

“Wait,” I said, grabbing the strap of his backpack. “You’re seriously walking away from me right now?”

“Yeah, I’m seriously walking away.” He looked flustered and upset. “I have no idea what you’re doing. For all I know, this is all some bizarre prank that Marnie put you up to … And I’m not playing along anymore.”

“It’s not,” I said. “Marnie wouldn’t —”

“Oh,” he said, and he laughed, a single bleak ha. “Oh, I can assure you, Marnie would.”

“She didn’t!” I said. “Nobody put me up to this – unless you count the stupid ghost who’s giving me horrible visions about the murders and leaving me messages and trying to drown me —”

“A ghost tried to drown you?” he repeated, incredulous.

“In the pool,” I said. “The night I moved in. I went swimming and I couldn’t surface and —”

His eyes went mockingly wide. “Are you sure you actually know how to swim?”

I glared at him, and he shrank back a little. “I’m an excellent swimmer,” I said. “My dad and I used to swim every morning. I know the difference between not knowing how to swim and not being able to swim. Something held me under the water. And I saw —”

He was listening raptly, but I cut myself off. I wasn’t sharing any more with him until he stopped being a jerk, which basically meant never.

“What?” he asked, interested in spite of himself. “What did you see?”

“Never mind,” I said. “I was starting to think maybe you would listen to what I had to say without judging me. But I guess I was wrong.”

“I’m not judging you,” he said. “I just don’t believe you.”

“Fine.” I could feel nervous, angry sweat beading at my hairline.

“Look, I get it,” Wyatt said, startling me – he sounded almost understanding. “You move to a strange new city, into an old, drafty house with a lot of history. You’re feeling uncomfortable in your new family situation, and —”

“What are you doing?” I snapped.

He looked a little hurt. “Trying to talk to you.”

“You’re trying to talk me down from believing in ghosts?” I said.

He seemed vaguely confused about it himself. “I don’t know. I guess.”

“Tell me this – if the psychic is a fraud and I’m hallucinating, why do the things that are happening to me appear on her list?”

“What? Really?” He looked genuinely surprised. “Well … it must be a statistically improbable set of correlations. I can see why you’d find it curious, though – if you’re telling the truth.”

“If I’m telling the truth?” Flabbergasted, I tried to muster what remained of my dignity. “You know what? Forget it. This has been a total waste of energy.”

I was done being insulted and second-guessed. Just when I’d managed to convince myself I might not be insane, now Wyatt was actively trying to persuade me that I was. I wished I hadn’t told him anything.

“Wait,” he said, and the smirk disappeared from his face. Regret flashed through his brown eyes.

I held up my hand to stop him from saying more, and turned to head to class.

But then the world went white.