The Night Sister

Behind her, she heard something out in the hall. Scrabbling, quick steps.

“Hello?” she called. Had the police come back, realizing there was one more thing they forgot to take with them? Or maybe they’d seen her car and wondered who was trespassing on the crime scene? Piper went out to the hallway and stood at the top of the stairs.

“Anyone there?” she called.

From somewhere, a soft, Amy-like giggle. Surely Piper had imagined it. Still: time to go.

She hurried back to the bedroom, went to Lou’s bed, and selected a floppy pink rabbit and a dingy rag doll with yellow yarn for hair that looked like it had been loved nearly to death.

Good enough.

She hefted the bag, grabbed her purse, and hurried out of the room and down the hall. When she paused at the top of the stairs, she was sure she heard something behind her, coming from Lou’s room. Short, trotting footsteps. The sound of nails (or was it claws?) on the painted pine-board floor.

Piper raced down the stairs and headed toward the front door, but then forced herself to stop in the entryway and turn back. She was waiting for a dark, terrifying shape to fill the stairway. She listened. There was nothing. Just the sound of her own frantic breath. She’d imagined it. Of course.

Her phone rang—Margot again. Piper dug around in her bag, and the crumpled piece of typing paper fell out by accident. She watched it fall to the floor as she answered.

“Piper?” Margot said anxiously. “Where are you?”

“On my way out. Just at the front door now. I got together a bag for Lou. I’ll make a quick stop at the drugstore for the baby stuff and then come right back. Half an hour, forty-five minutes tops.”

“Okay,” Margot said, clearly relieved.

“You want me to pick up anything special for lunch?” Piper asked.

“Lunch? Even eating for two, I couldn’t possibly have room for lunch after that huge breakfast you made.”

Piper smiled. “I’ll fix us a salad or something. See you soon.”

She hung up, put the phone back in her bag, and reached down for the crumpled paper, not wanting to leave her weird litter behind for anyone to wonder at, especially not a cop returning to check on one last thing at the crime scene.

She opened the paper, trying to imagine what they might think if they found it, this bizarre message typed to a dead woman.

But that’s not what was on the sheet. The words she’d typed were gone.

She let out a strangled cry.

(And was there another, distant, mocking cry that echoed hers from somewhere upstairs?)

Over and over, one line after another filled the page, from top to bottom:

29 rooms

29 rooms

29 rooms

29 rooms

29 rooms





1989





Piper


29 rooms.

Up until now, it had seemed like something made up; something from a Trixie Belden book, maybe: The Mystery of the 29th Room.

Piper pictured Trixie and Honey creeping around with a flashlight, tapping on walls, looking for a secret door to a secret room.

But now, as they searched through old papers and drawings that had belonged to Amy’s grandfather, Piper began to wonder, what if it was real?

What if there really was a twenty-ninth room?

“Look at this,” Amy said. She was sitting on the floor next to a couple of banged-up cardboard boxes labeled Daddy’s Paperwork that she’d dragged out of the closet. She’d been emptying them haphazardly, crazed, glancing at each bit of paper for a split second before tossing it carelessly off to the side.

Now she held a stack of photos in her hand, each showing the motel in a different stage of completion. First it was only a foundation, then a roughly framed outline of two buildings that slowly added a roof, doors, and, finally, windows. In each photo was Amy’s grandfather, dressed in khaki work clothes, holding a hammer, saw, or trowel.