Famous Last Words

For several days, Willa and Wyatt ignore each other at school. Resolved to investigate the mystery alone, Willa attempts to contact the ghost but receives no response. She checks her email repeatedly but finds no reply from Paige Pollan. On Thursday night, she decides to research Paige online and makes a shocking discovery: Paige died by suicide the previous August.

On Friday, Marnie excitedly shows Willa their photograph on the gossip website Starstalkerz. They have been misidentified with fake names from a press release that Marnie fabricated. Willa worries about the possible consequences of lying about their identities in public, but Marnie dismisses her worries, claiming that Hollywood is built on lies and suggesting that they try to parlay their sudden fame into a reality TV show. Faking a headache to avoid Wyatt, Willa uses the school nurse’s office to research online and discovers a photoblog confirming that Marnie and Wyatt once dated. The photos suggest that their relationship was more serious and their attraction more mutual than Marnie let on. Between this and the earlier conversation about becoming celebrities, Willa starts to wonder whether she can trust Marnie.

After school, Jonathan and Joanna confront Willa about the gossip site. The website has revealed Willa’s identity as Jonathan’s stepdaughter, omitting any mention of Marnie and making it seem as though the deception was entirely Willa’s doing. The incident has infuriated Jonathan’s publicist, who works to maintain his carefully crafted public image. Willa receives a lecture about the importance of reputation in Hollywood and is sent to her room, having discovered Marnie’s deceit about their fake identities and disappointed her parents with the unwanted publicity.

Seeking closure about her father’s death, Willa locates her late father’s contacts and calls his physician, Dr. Tilliman. The doctor confirms that her father died from an undiagnosed genetic heart condition, finally absolving Willa of the guilt she has carried for two years. The following Monday at lunch, Willa reconciles with Wyatt, apologizing for her reaction and admitting that he was right about her father’s death not being her fault. She believes Wyatt when he tells her that Marnie invented the story about him being a stalker. In Wyatt’s estimation, Marnie is a pathological liar and manipulator, and Willa agrees. As she tells Wyatt that Paige Pollan is dead, Willa is suddenly struck by a new vision. She experiences the perspective of a captive girl named Lor, whose male captor gives her a cheap imitation necklace.

After Wyatt helps bring Willa out of her vision at school, she tells him that the killer in her vision called the victim “Lor.” She connects this to the name Lorelei Juliano, one of the killer’s known victims. When she gets home from school, a supernatural wall of water rushes down the stairs of her house and knocks her over, leaving her soaked. Reed finds her in the otherwise dry foyer and misinterprets her distress as the aftermath of a breakup. Willa chooses not to correct him.

Later, after swimming in the pool, Willa discovers wet footprints leading from the pool area to the guesthouse. When Jonathan intercepts her before she can investigate, he forbids her from entering the guesthouse, claiming that it has faulty wiring that makes it dangerous. As he speaks, the mysterious footprints vanish completely, deepening Willa’s sense that the guesthouse holds a significant secret connected to the supernatural events haunting her.

The next day, Marnie confronts Willa about her renewed friendship with Wyatt. Willa calls out Marnie’s lies about their past relationship, leading Marnie to end their friendship and uninvite Willa from a planned weekend stay. At lunch, Wyatt tells Willa what he has learned by illegally accessing police files: Paige Pollan’s suicide note quoted lines from Diana’s screenplay, and she died in the same manner as the actress.

That night, Willa pretends to her mother that she is still planning to go to Marnie’s house for the weekend. When Willa is alone in her room, the ghost’s activity escalates violently, with the entity scrawling, “WRONG” repeatedly on the walls. When Willa asks directly, “Who are you?” (215), the ghost responds by writing Paige’s blog biography repeatedly on the wall, finally revealing its true identity as the dead blogger rather than Diana.

On Wednesday, Willa tells Wyatt that Paige is the ghost haunting her. They agree to postpone their investigation until after the weekend. On Friday afternoon, Wyatt drops Willa off at home with junk food for her solo weekend while her parents are away. That evening, she explores the extensive, alphabetized DVD collection in Jonathan’s home office.

Willa makes a disturbing discovery: Four films are missing from the collection. She consults Jonathan’s inventory binder and confirms that the missing titles are The Birds, Heathers, Kiss of Death, and Vertigo—the exact films that inspired the Hollywood Killer’s murder scenes. Deeply unsettled by this connection, Willa tries to rationalize the discovery but finds herself unable to accept the implications of what she has found.

On Saturday morning, frightened by her recent experiences, Willa goes outside to bury the box containing the Walter Sawamura book and the moldavite ring, belatedly following Leyta’s instructions. She is surprised in her backyard by Reed, who has come to visit. They share a kiss, and Reed tells Willa that his parents died in a plane crash when he was 15 and that Jonathan became a father figure to him. He tells Willa that he feels a connection between them and wants to make their relationship official. Willa feels conflicted, realizing that her true romantic feelings are for Wyatt rather than Reed. Willa’s phone vibrates with numerous calls and text messages. Reed excuses himself to take Jonathan’s car to the car wash. Alone, Willa checks her phone and sees panicked texts and a frantic phone call from Kelly Delaine, Marnie’s mother, reporting that Marnie is missing.

Willa immediately calls Wyatt, who informs her that police suspect that the Hollywood Killer is responsible for Marnie’s disappearance. Willa recalls Marnie recently quoting a line from the film Detour and suspects that it was for an audition with a fake talent agency. During their phone conversation, Wyatt is suddenly interrupted and tells Willa that he is being arrested, leaving her completely alone as the danger escalates.

Willa finds an envelope from the pool maintenance company containing a silver rose necklace that was discovered in the pool filter—the same necklace from her visions of Paige. The ghost then covers the walls with frantic writing, including the number “818.” On Jonathan’s laptop, the ghost highlights a blog comment from a user named “G.A. Green” and leads Willa to a file titled “Development Notes.”

The file contains a detailed chart linking the Hollywood Killer’s victims to bogus talent agencies, their disappearance dates, and inventory codes corresponding to Jonathan’s DVD collection. Willa realizes that “Green” was Paige Pollan, who vanished on August 18 (8/18). The final entry in the chart is for “M.D.”—Marnie Delaine—with a code corresponding to Detour, which Willa confirms is now missing from Jonathan’s shelf. She experiences a final vision of another victim, Tori Rosen, being murdered.