Chapter 9 Alfred Hitchcock Lived in These Hills
Alfred Hitchcock Lived in These Hills
The house in Santa Cruz isn’t unfamiliar to me.
I visited Jules several times the year when she was teaching at the university there.
And, each time, we drove out to this home in the heart of Scotts Valley—a gorgeous community in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
All redwood trees and vineyards, hiking trails as far as the eye can see.
The owner hasn’t only been Jules’s close friend since graduate school, but he was also responsible for bringing her to teach at Santa Cruz in the first place.
He is a tenured journalism professor here—not to mention the sole heir to a snack food empire, which explains how he’s able to afford the stunning eighteen-acre estate up on one of Scotts Valley’s most famed roads.
It’s a Tuscan-inspired estate complete with a gated courtyard, an infinity pool, and a working vineyard. Sweeping views in every direction.
The snack empire is how he’s able to afford his beautiful house—and, more importantly, how he’s able to afford the boat.
I tap in the code at the front gate and the steel doors swing open, revealing the large main house, lit up and glowing against the expanse.
It looks like he is home, many of the lights are on.
It looks like he is inside with his partner and their kids.
I can picture them sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner, sharing a glance when they were notified that the gate was open.
Then, before their kids noticed, they’d return their focus to their family.
I won’t know for sure. I keep driving. I pull past the main house and continue down the driveway, which narrows, leading us past the vineyard and toward the back of the property and the pool house.
The pool house, which is larger than any house I’ve ever lived in, waiting for us.
Food in the refrigerator, fresh sheets on the bed.
The keys to the slip and the boat and all its necessary documentation on the kitchen island.
I can see the awe on Bailey’s face, despite the circumstances, at the scope of this estate, at its depth.
“It’s only for the night,” I remind her.
“Why’s that?” Bailey says. “We could probably hide in different rooms here forever and no one would find us.”
The refrigerator has been stocked for us with fruit, pasta, and roasted chicken from a local organic grocer.
We eat by the pool, Bailey dipping her legs in the water. We are exhausted from the day and ravenous for some nourishment, something warm and filling that doesn’t come out of a shiny bag.
“It’s so freaking pretty here,” Bailey says. “You could almost forget it, you know? Why you’re here.”
I nod. “Not the worst thing.”
“It has like a… historic vibe.”
She isn’t wrong. And it pulls me back to the first time I was here. So long ago—a weekend when I came to visit Jules and she was house-sitting. Before Owen. And long before I knew there was a time I’d be back here, like this.
I was walking the property with Jules, having an after-dinner glass of wine when she pointed out a gorgeous property perched on a hillside in the distance.
Do you see that vineyard to the north over there? she asked. That used to be Alfred Hitchcock’s house.
I debate sharing this with Bailey, who—if she was less on edge—would find it intriguing. Would hold it as further proof. See? Told ya. Historic.
Considering the mood she is in—a little frantic, her nails down to the stubs—I keep it to myself. I want to hold as much of this for her as I can, except what she absolutely must know for her safety.
It’s the reason for all of this, after all, for everything I’ve fought so hard for: to let Bailey be twenty-two, as unburdened as possible, the way she deserves to be. The way Owen would want her to be.
So I tell her to go inside and take a long shower, wash the day off. That I’ll clean up and meet her upstairs.
“You sure? I can help.”
“I’ve got it,” I say.
Bailey smiles, grateful. She heads inside, and I go back into the pool house kitchen and wash the silverware.
Then I take a seat at the island and pull out my laptop. There is a cordless phone on the island. There’s a landline.
I power on my laptop in case I need to take notes.
At exactly 8:55, the landline rings. I pick it up quickly.
“You made it,” Jules says.
It isn’t exactly a question, but I answer anyway.
“We did,” I say. “We’re fine.”
“Good, I’m relieved to hear it…” she says. “I’m at Frances.”
Frances. Our favorite restaurant in the Castro.
The restaurant where Owen and I had our wedding dinner.
This is her way of letting me know that she is calling from their kitchen phone, as planned, that no one is going to be tracing this call.
Her personal phone is off-limits, her work phone at the San Francisco Chronicle too.
But no one will be thinking to trace a restaurant phone to find where Bailey and I are.
She is on a secure line for us to talk. And, still, we are both careful. We don’t say anything specific about her friend’s boat or Bailey’s and my plan for tomorrow. I certainly don’t say anything specific about Patty and Daniel and the flash drive. How the plan looks like it’s shifting.
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Jules says. “I’m so sorry about Nicholas.”
I feel that in my throat, like a weight, and it takes everything in me not to give in to it while Bailey is in the shower, while I can.
Jules saying it out loud makes Nicholas’s death feel more immediate—the way it feels more real when the person who knows you best acknowledges something you’ve lost.
Nicholas’s face shifts forward in my mind, a spike of grief coming in fast and raw.
I clinch against it, bite it back—in part because I know what Nicholas would say, if he were here—the very thing I’m saying to myself. Get Bailey to safety.
So I push my pain down. I push it down and focus.
“What are you hearing at work?” I ask.
“That all signs point to a heart attack. Apparently, the coroner’s initial conjecture is that he died in his sleep.”
I nod as though she can see me, feeling a bit of relief to know he was sleeping. To hope that he didn’t suffer.
“So… no sign of foul play?”
“Doesn’t appear that way.”
“Don’t they have to wait for the autopsy?”
“Nicholas apparently, in his will, requested that there wouldn’t be one.” She pauses. “That’s not uncommon. Certainly not at his age. And I have it from a reliable source that his bodyguard was the one that found him.”
“His regular bodyguard?” I say. And I think of Seth. Seth, who has always been the one Nicholas wanted with him. There would be comfort in knowing that he was there.
“I’ll find out,” she says. “It was confirmed that no one entered or exited the property at any point last night.”
Last night. How was this all just twenty-four hours ago?
I look at my computer screen—click on the Family photo album.
I flip through until I land on a photograph of Nicholas.
It’s an old photograph (at least two decades old), a far-younger Nicholas enjoying dinner with Kate and Charlie when they were still children at a beachfront restaurant in Hawaii.
It’s a beachfront restaurant that I recognize because Nicholas took us all there the year before last—Charlie and his boys; me and Bailey.
It was the last trip we took with Nicholas before we all knew about his heart condition, before Bailey and I worried about him the way we have worried since.
It makes me smile, despite myself, remembering that vacation.
And looking at a photograph of the much-younger version of Nicholas in the same place—his young children flanking either side of him: Charlie on one side, Kate on the other (Kate looking so much like Bailey), Nicholas looking so happy, his large arm draped over her shoulder.
The photograph captures a moment in which Nicholas feels so much like himself, a moment that encapsulates him—his arms around the people he loved most in this world, trying to hold them as tightly as he can.
It was almost as though I could feel Nicholas consider it just as the photograph was being taken. It was buried behind his smile: the knowledge that, one day, he wouldn’t be able to hold them like this anymore.
“Word at the paper is that CNN is going to use Nicholas’s death as a reason to do a special on the organization. A look back at their history and how they evolved into a where-they-are-today kind of thing. Focusing on Frank’s legacy, the changing of the guard.”
“The changing of the guard?” I ask.
“From what I’m hearing, Frank has taken a step back and is in the process of officially handing over the reins to his children,” she says.
I think of what Nicholas has shared with me about Frank’s children. There are six of them, in total. The youngest four, apparently, are spread out around the country—not particularly involved. But the oldest two are still in south Florida. A daughter named Quinn, and her younger brother Teddy.
“The daughter, especially, has apparently started playing a larger role.”
That doesn’t land correctly for me. If Frank had stepped back, and Quinn had stepped in, wouldn’t Nicholas have known?
Wouldn’t he have shared that with me? Or had he known and chosen to keep it to himself?
Maybe because he was worried too—that the man responsible for Bailey’s and my safety was no longer the only boss?
Maybe because, like how I tried to do with Bailey, Nicholas was trying to shield me from some of that fear.
Grady’s words pop to the forefront of my mind: Everything has changed.
And what he said next: The organization isn’t honoring the deal you two made… that you and Bailey would be safe….
“That must play into this,” I say.
“Into what?” Jules asks.
“I had a visitor last night,” I say. “An unexpected visitor. Which may be leading to my making a potential shift. To the plan.”