The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

was so awful!”
    “All right,” Trixie said gently. “But we have to think about what came before. It’s important. Sergeant Molinson will want to know.”
    Honey looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. “You’re right. I’ll think about what happened right up until... well, you know.” She closed her eyes and sat motionless for what seemed like forever to her ever-impatient detective partner.
    Trixie waited, holding her breath, for Honey to play the scene through in her mind. She was eager to hear Honey’s conclusion, but she was also proud of her friend for mustering the courage to think about the accident.
    When Honey finally opened her eyes, her face remained expressionless. There was neither the gleam of triumph that usually meant she’d decided Trixie was right nor the crestfallen look that meant she’d have to disagree with her best friend. “I don’t remember hearing the van or seeing the headlights until it was almost to us,” she said. “But I’m not sure that proves anything. I mean, we were wrapped up in what was happening with the car. Then, when the stranger started being nasty and Brian got angry— that took all of my attention, too. I’m just not sure I’d have noticed the sound of a van way off in the distance.”
    “What about when Brian was giving directions to Glenwood Avenue?” Trixie demanded. “That wasn’t so fascinating, was it?”
    “No-o-o,” Honey said slowly. “I guess I do remember sort of letting go at that point. You know how you do that when you’ve been really straining to catch everything in a conversation, and then suddenly you lose interest. It’s almost like coming back to your own body. I mean, you suddenly notice how you’re sitting and whether you’re too warm or too cold. I remember that when Brian started giving directions, I suddenly realized that I’d been sitting with my left foot tucked under me, and it had gone to sleep. So I shifted in the seat to put my foot down on the floor.”
    “It’s amazing what we can remember when we really try, isn’t it?” Trixie asked. “When you started talking about your foot just now, I remembered that at that same time, I noticed the handle on the car door digging into my ribs. I leaned back a little bit and rubbed my side with my hand.”
    Honey nodded. “So, in a way, it’s funny that we didn’t notice that van earlier; but in another way, I can see how we didn’t. It’s almost like waking up from a dream. First, all your attention is on the dream. Then you wake up, and for a moment all you’re conscious of is just being awake. It takes a while to notice where you are and what time it is and whether the sun is shining and the birds are singing. When I stretched my leg, I was still in that second stage. Maybe a moment or two later I would have heard the van, but that would have been—it was —too late. I’ll have to think some more about it, though—” She covered her mouth as she yawned— “but I’d rather think about it tomorrow morning. I don’t think my thinker is worth very much tonight.” Trixie put her own hand in front of her face as she felt the impulse to yawn rise in her throat, too. She let the yawn come, so broad that it made her jaw ache and her eyes water. “If we knew for sure that Sergeant Molinson wasn’t coming over tonight, we could just curl up and go to sleep.”
    “I may curl up and go to sleep, anyway,” Honey said groggily.
    The girls were so tired that the knock at the door was not even startling. “Come in,” Trixie called in a voice completely lacking her usual vibrant energy.
    Helen Belden stuck her head into the room. “Sergeant Molinson just called,” she said. “By the time he got through listening to the police officer’s report and writing up his own report, he decided it was too late to come out to talk to you young people. He’ll be here right after breakfast, though, so I’d advise you to get some sleep.”
    “That’s just exactly what we’ll do, Moms,” Trixie said gratefully. “Good night.”
    “Good night, Mrs. Belden,” Honey said softly.
    Trixie got up and rummaged in her dresser drawer for a spare nightgown that she could lend to Honey. She paused with the nightgown in one hand when Honey said urgently, “Trix, do you know what just happened?”
    “No, what?” Trixie asked.
    “The phone rang, for one thing. And your mother came up those creaky wooden stairs out there. And we