The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

talked about it enough before,” Honey said.
    “And she acted so funny at Mrs. Vanderpoels, and she hardly ever says anything really kind.”
    “That Mrs. Schimmel who raised her, though,” Honey put in, “told us she had grown to love Juliana like her own child. And Mrs. Hendricks, the neighbor in the Bronx, said some pretty nice things about her, too!”
    “So did her little boy.” Trixie’s face was thoughtful. “Kids never pretend. They like people right away, or they don’t, and no fooling. Look at Bobby.”
    Honey nodded. “He’s not one of Juliana’s fans.”
    “I’ll say he isn’t. He’s crazy about Janie, though.”
    “I wonder... Honey picked up the brush Trixie had abandoned and ran it the length of her honey-colored hair. “One, two, three.” She counted as she stroked.
    “Honey?” Trixie said.
    “Yes?”
    “Do you think we’ve been fair to Juliana?”
    “You mean we’ve been too quick to see her faults?”
    “That, and maybe, because Janie was in the hospital... maybe we only thought about her.”
    “Maybe so. I suppose, now that she’s heard from Holland, she’ll be off to the Poconos. I wish, for Jim’s sake, we had been nicer. He hasn’t seemed too keen about her himself, though, especially lately.”
    “It’s because he thinks she’s double-crossing that lawyer in The Hague she’s supposed to be engaged , » to.
    “That is her own business. I guess falling in love isn’t all moonlight and soft music and roses. Maybe a person can make a mistake, Trixie.”
    “She did grow up with that lawyer in The Hague. She should have been sure.”
    “Mmm-hmm,” Honey mused. “Sorta like you and Jim, maybe.”
    Trixie blushed. It was one thing for her to think deep in her inmost thoughts that Jim was someone superspecial, but it was another thing to say it aloud. Ever since they’d first found Jim, she and Honey, and saved him from that old Jones, his stepfather— How could Jim’s mother ever have married a man who even looked like Jones? Sleek, city-slicker type, coal black hair, a crooked gash for a mouth. On TV and in the movies, women did seem to fall for a crooked smile.
    “Have you gone into a trance?”
    Honey’s voice startled Trixie out of her reverie. “My mind was wandering,” she said.
    “I’ll say. To go back to Juliana—were always finding something to criticize. I move we accent the positive from now on, maybe have a big party for her at our house before she goes. Shake?”
    Trixie put out her hand. “Shake.”
    Honey yawned and slipped under the covers.
    Trixie put out the light, then sat on the edge of her bed, thinking.
    There was no sound save Honey’s even breathing. Honey must have gone right to sleep, Trixie thought. Finally she, too, lifted the light cover, swung her feet, and slid under— What was that sound? It was smothered... stifled. And it seemed to come from downstairs.
    Janie’s room was downstairs. Was something wrong with her?
    Trixie found her slippers. “If I turn on the light, it will waken Honey,” she thought. “It’s probably just my imagination. It’s been that kind of a day.
    Reaching out her hand, she followed the wall to the door, then went softly down the hall, her footsteps not making a sound on the carpeted floor. Downstairs, she went through the living room and dining room and down the back hall to Janie’s door.
    The sound came from there, unmistakably. Janie was sobbing.
    Trixie opened the door, went over to Janie’s bed, and dropped to her knees beside it. “What is it, Janie?” she whispered. “Is it pain from the bruises? Does your wrist hurt?”
    “Oh, Trixie,” Janie said, tears half choking her voice, “who am I? Won’t I ever find out?”
    “Of course you will,” Trixie murmured, her arm reaching comfortingly around Janie’s shoulders. They were such thin, frail shoulders.
    “Just you wait, Janie. Do you know what sometimes makes me wake in the night and sit right up straight? It’s the thought that suddenly, suddenly someday, you will remember; then the people you belong to will take you away from here. We’ll all miss you so much, Janie.”
    Janie sniffed and took the tissue Trixie pushed into her hand. “I know that, Trixie. In the daytime I feel warm and loved, secure and safe, but in the night....”
    “In the night it s harder, I know.” Trixie slipped into the bathroom, brought back a cool cloth, and ran it over Janie’s face. “I brought one of those pills Dr. Gregory