The Night Sister

“No one here now, Jay Jay.”


“Well, there was. I saw someone,” he said, but his voice faltered a little.

Piper thought he was probably lying—trying to come up with a good excuse to be in here. Probably he’d just been lurking around, spying, trying to catch Amy and Piper kissing again. Her face burned.

Margot, on the other hand, believed him. She peered at the ground around the tower. “Maybe they left a clue—footprints or something?”

Amy rolled her eyes and jabbed a finger at Jason. “Didn’t I warn you about hanging around in here?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Soooo?” Amy drawled, hands on her hips, eyebrows raised.

“So what?” Jason asked.

“So get out of here. Go home. Now!”

He took off like a frightened rabbit, zigzagging his way up the driveway and past the pool, into the field behind it.

Margot bit her lip. “Don’t you think that was kinda mean?”

“Mean?” Amy said, eyes dramatically wide as her voice got louder, angrier. “You have to be freaking kidding me!”

Margot shrugged. She was never afraid of Amy’s moods, and because of this, she never knew when to back down, when just to let things be.

“I think he’s lonely. I feel bad for him. Don’t you, Piper?” She looked at her big sister, her eyes saying, Back me up here.

Piper was silent. She honestly didn’t give a crap how lonely Jason Hawke was.

“Look,” Amy said, clearly straining to be patient, “we’ve got something big happening here. Something secret. All of this—finding the suitcase, the letter, the search for the twenty-ninth room—we can’t tell anyone about it, not until we know more. And we can’t have some stupid kid nosing around, spying on us. He could wreck everything!”

You’re the one who kissed him, Piper thought, but when Margot protested that she didn’t see how Jason would wreck things, Piper turned on her sister.

“Don’t be an idiot, Margot. What if he’d found the suitcase? What if he told people about it?” she asked.

Margot shook her head, her face set with its most stubborn look. “He wouldn’t. He doesn’t care about any of that.”

“Oh, so now you’re an expert on what Jason Hawke cares about?” Piper said, her voice dripping with disgust.

Margot looked down at her worn flip-flops. Each had a ragged plastic flower fastened to the strap between her toes. She said nothing.

“Come on,” Amy said, tugging on Piper’s arm, “let’s go check out that suitcase again.”

Piper followed Amy into the tower; Margot came behind them, dragging her feet, looking over her shoulder toward the hillside where Jason had disappeared.





1961





Mr. Alfred Hitchcock Universal Studios

Hollywood, California September 12, 1961

Dear Mr. Hitchcock,

Sometimes I worry that I might be going mad. Do you ever feel that way? I believe you have. That maybe it’s part of having a creative soul.

Oh, the things I dream about and long for—impossible, maddening things.

The world looks at me and sees a happy girl. A girl bubbling with hope and optimism. So sweet. So innocent. Oh, the things they don’t know! Could never guess at!

It’s all an act; I am the greatest actress of all!

In this house of long faces and quiet arguments, I am the only bright spot. And I shine. Oh, how I shine and glimmer. Sometimes I catch them all looking at me with dazed half-smiles. A beautiful creature. That’s what they see. Someone who can do no wrong. Only Rose suspects the truth. And so I do all I can to avoid her, to never look my sister in the eye.

It’s not that difficult, really. She makes it easy. She’s become such an odd girl. Always in trouble for one thing or another, no friends of her own, preferring the company of that sad old cow to any human.