Chapter One: Someone's Knocking

    “Sorry, Trix. Brian and I keep missing one another today, and on top of almost no sleep, it’s making me extra grumpy.” Honey Wheeler flashed her friend an apologetic smile.
    “If anyone is entitled to a grumpy day, it’s you,” Trixie assured her. For the most part, Honey was still the same sweet, even-tempered girl she’d been as a teenager. “You didn’t mention sleeping badly again. Was our addressed-challenged visitor back in the apartment building?”
    Honey lived at a small apartment she’d rented in town.  Originally, she’d taken it because it made any late night or early morning starts easier to cope with and gave her the occasional privacy she craved. The Manor House was huge, but there was always someone in residence. More recently she’d found she quite liked having her own space and had made it her permanent residence.
    Stifling a yawn, Honey nodded her golden head. “I swear, Trix, I am going to have to talk to my neighbors to find out who is visiting them that late and why they can’t seem to find the right apartment at two in the morning. Once was understandable, twice was annoying and three times…”
    “I don’t like it. Maybe I can get Dan to run a check on the other residents for us. See if anything turns up.”
    “Trixie Belden Frayne, we can’t abuse our connections that way. It’s not like whoever it is is dangerous.”
    “I guess not,” Trixie said grudgingly.
    “Let’s talk about nicer things, like Di’s birthday.”
    “I suppose if you haven’t managed to talk to Brian today, you don’t know if he is going to get home for the party tomorrow?”
    “I imagine he’s waiting to deliver the bad news when we speak person to person.” Honey crossed to the filing cabinet and pulled several folders from it, dropping them onto a nearby coffee table.
    “I wish it wasn’t so hard on the two of you being apart so much.”
    “It was a whole lot harder when we were apart and apart than it is now that we’re together again and apart. If that makes sense.”
    “Makes perfect sense to me, but maybe that’s not saying anything.” The two exchanged knowing looks. Since they’d first met, people had made fun of their tendency to communicate in a garbled fashion.
    “Now, will you sit down and rest?” Honey said, waving her slender hand toward the corner chair. “Jim will kill me if you go home exhausted.”
    “Oh pooh! Jim would never harm a hair on your head even if you were an axe murderer. And I’m pregnant, not an invalid!”
    “Noted. Now, ignoring your blatant attempt to distract with talk of axe murderers, take a seat while I go and make us some tea.”
    “Sheesh, you’re bossy. You still look like the same agreeable girl I met all those years ago, but in fact…”
    “I’m Attila the Honey,” her friend suggested, and they both snorted.
    “I like that. I think I’ll call you that from now on.” Trixie leaned forward, eyeing her friend expectantly. “Do you boss Brian around like this?”
    “You know I do. It’s one of the reasons we’re back together.”
    “Well, I want a front row seat when he finally gets back home to see it in action. I’m not sure I believe you. I thought that time in Chicago was a one-off.  But I might try calling you Attila, just to see the look on his face.”
    “Who do think came up with it?”
    “You’re kidding!” Trixie grinned. “I love that. Imagine Brian, who thinks you are walking perfection, calling you that.”
    “I was kissing him at the time,” Honey said. “And we were naked. Maybe that makes a difference.”
    “Ew, ew!” Trixie scrunched up her face and waved her hands. “Are you trying to bring on early labor? Putting an image like that in a pregnant woman’s mind?”
    “Brian looks good naked. Very good.” With a satisfied smile and a toss of her long hair, Honey disappeared in the direction of the small kitchen at the back of their agency.

    Trixie did as she was told and settled comfortably in the small armchair next to the sofa. She heard Honey’s phone ring and wondered if her brother had managed to catch his girlfriend. She hoped so. Brian coming home soon was going to make things perfectly perfect. Here she was, sitting in the long-planned Belden-Wheeler Investigations (she and Honey had decided the name was more fitting to the kind of work they did), she was married to Jim, the love of her life, and she was expecting their first child. Who knew that things would work out so well? 
    She closed her eyes for a moment, counting blessings. Of course, there had been a time when her vision of a perfect life seemed very far away. When her best friend and her eldest brother had ended their relationship, after five years together, she’d been devastated and confused. Neither one of them was forthcoming with an explanation and for Trixie, driven to unravel every mystery that crossed her path, the situation had been excruciating.
It might have been different if either one had seemed happy after the split, but Brian, on the rare occasions they saw him, was distant and more reserved than ever, and Honey, though she tried to maintain a sense of normalcy, had definitely lost her spark.
    However, she had not been Honey’s friend for so long without learning to curb her tendency to speak first and think later and she’d limited expressing her deepest concerns to Jim. When, during the year and a half following the break up, Honey and Brian both began to casually date other people, she wondered if her idea of them as a perfectly matched couple was mistaken.

    But fate or destiny had other ideas. On a case in Chicago, where Brian was doing a rotation, Trixie insisted that she and Honey catch up with him for dinner. The two had arrived on his doorstep to find him, feverish, clammy and gaunt. He’d explained he had a “mild bug” and wanted to beg off dinner. Honey had called a doctor, sent him to bed and ordered takeout.
    The doctor prescribed medication, bed rest and forty-eight hours of supervision, all of which Brian balked at. Honey had merely smiled, asked Trixie if she could finish off their notes for the case and head back to Sleepyside alone while she took care of Brian. Brian protested. Honey ignored him.
    When she returned to Sleepyside five days later, the two had reconciled. She gently insisted that it was private but that they’d never stopped loving one another and realized that for better or worse they belonged together.
    Trixie had been so happy she had not even said, “I told you so”.
    “What are you smiling at?” Honey asked as she returned carrying two mugs of tea and a plate of sandwiches.
    “Memories,” Trixie returned, her smile widening. “You’re too good to me, you know,” she added as she selected an egg salad sandwich. “This was just what I felt like.”
    “Well, it’s my job as a future aunt to keep you well nourished.” Honey set her tea down and took a sandwich herself.
    “I hereby grant you permission to do that job to the very best of your considerable abilities.” Trixie waved her mug of tea, spilling a little in the process.
    The two giggled like the teenagers they’d once been.
    “Was that Brian?” Trixie asked.
    “No,” Honey said. “Just another hang up.”
    “What a pain,” Trixie sympathized. “You’ve been getting heaps of those.”
    “Oh, I cannot pick up these files yet,” Honey said, glancing at the pile on the coffee table. “My brain just isn’t engaging the way it should. All I can think about is the fact that it’s only a few more weeks and I won’t be wondering when I can see Brian again. He’ll be here or he’ll be in White Plains, which amounts to the same thing.”
    Trixie nodded. “Jim is so excited. He keeps saying ‘When Brian’s home’ and ‘I’ll get Brian to take a look at that’ and ‘Brian and I can’— I have to remind him that Brian is still a doctor, working at a hospital. He will be busy.”
    “Yes, but he will be here, Trix.”  
    “So…” Trixie’s tone was exaggeratedly casual. “Have you guys worked out what you’re doing? Will Brian take rooms in White Plains or will you stay in the apartment together?”
    “We haven’t decided yet. There are still some details to work out.”
    “Details?” Trixie blinked her lashes innocently and Honey burst out laughing.
    “For the life of me, Trixie, I do not know how you manage to snow some of the people we investigate. Whenever you’re trying to get information out of me, you’re about as subtle as a horrorcane.”
    Trixie made a face. “You’re my best friend. I couldn’t play you if I tried. It’s that face of yours.”
    “What’s wrong with my face?” Honey demanded.
    “It’s just…yours. You look at people with those eyes and that expression and…trust me I’m not the only one. We all have trouble lying to you or putting one over you.”
    “Well, isn’t that terrible. I should do something about this uncooperative face of mine.”
    “Oh, don’t worry, we’re used to it.” Trixie sighed and took another sandwich.
    “I guess we should start going through these files.” Honey reached over to the pile and picked one up.
    “How would you feel about finishing up early today? Seeing that it’s just you and me, I don’t mind admitting I’m feeling weary.” Trixie regarded her friend hopefully.
    “Of course. You go now and I’ll…”
    “Absolutely not,” Trixie said. “You’ve been starting earlier and finishing later than me heaps lately. If you don’t go home early, then I won’t either.”
    “Well…” Honey frowned. The last thing she wanted was to put any pressure on her beloved friend.
    “We could each take a few files home. Go through them over a glass of, well, juice in my case, but you get my drift.”
    “Sure. I think that’s a good idea.”
    “Great. Jim dropped me off this morning—my car’s being serviced—and I said I’d call if I could get away early. I’ll just give him a call and he can come pick me up and we can all leave together.”
    Honey opened her mouth but before she could speak Trixie continued, “And then tomorrow morning I thought I’d do my regular check of our security system. You know when we came in, when we left…”
    “You’re incorrigible.” Honey shook her head. “Like I said, subtlety, not your thing. Fine, I’ll wash these dishes up and get my stuff together.” She grabbed the mugs and the sandwich plate and hurried out.
    Trixie sat back and propped her feet on the coffee table. Maybe she wasn’t subtle but that didn’t mean she didn’t get what she wanted. Subtlety, in her opinion, was vastly overrated.
 
    Honey took a sip of white wine and put the file she’d been studying aside. She’d come home, showered, changed into lightweight sweat pants and a long loose top and got to work. As the night closed in, she fixed herself a bowl of pasta, poured a glass of wine and tried Brian’s number again. She still didn’t catch him, but her mood was a little better than it had been earlier in the day; she went back to work, determined to clear her case notes before she went to bed.
    The apartment had been her mother’s idea and she had to admit that even though the drive from their office was negligible, this small space gave her a sense of independence that really mattered. Her father had bought it and had initially refused to take any rent but when she flatly refused to live there unless she paid for the space, he’d given in. Honey was well aware her rent was lower than it should be, but compromise, she’d learned a long time ago, was ever present when you were dealing with those you loved.
    In the same spirit, she’d furnished most of the place herself but agreed to her mother’s gift of a sofa and matching chair. Madeleine had chosen a modern suite in cappuccino, and while it was not what Honey would have chosen for the home she hoped to make with Brian one day, it was beautifully made, suited the style of the apartment and could provide additional sleeping space when required.
    Anyway, Trixie and Jim occasionally used the place as well as friends and extended family, so she made peace with her desire for total independence and did the smart thing. After all, even Brian thought it was a good idea. She pulled her thoughts back from the man she loved. She’d never get through the last few files if she let her mind go there.
    She followed her wine with an herbal tea and an hour later put the final file back into her briefcase. It was only a little after ten but after three bad nights within a week, Honey was ready for an early night. She grabbed an old Lucy Radcliffe from the book shelf in the living room, changed into the silky pajama bottoms and tank top she favored for sleeping, and slid in between the soft cream cotton sheets. She definitely didn’t want something that would get her mind racing, and Lucy’s exploits were comforting, full of memories of her own teenage years. Before long she felt her eyelids drooping, and setting Lucy aside, she switched off her bedside lamp and slipped into blissful sleep.
                 
    Trixie sipped her delicious decaffeinated coffee and settled back against the mountain of pillows in the king-sized bed she shared with her husband.
    “Happy?” Jim asked as he slipped in beside her.
    “Yes, thank you.” She turned and smiled at him, loving the way his face lit up whenever she did so. It was something she would never tire of— Jim’s love and his willingness to show it. “I am perfectly willing to drink copious amounts of tea. After all, I quite like it and it seems to make Honey in particular happy, but I crave coffee and this stuff is so good I can almost convince myself it’s riddled with caffeine.”
    “Well, promise me you won’t do too good a job convincing yourself, I don’t want you awake half the night.”
    “Even my imagination isn’t that good. Anyway Honey’s the one who…” she trailed off. So far she and Honey had not discussed her friend’s late night visitor with anyone else, and while she usually told Jim most things, for the sake of both her friendship and her partnership with Honey, the two often kept things just between them.
    “Honey’s the one who what?” Jim asked, instantly alert.
    “Nothing,” Trixie said, sipping her coffee.
    “Trix?”
    “It really isn’t anything…much. Honey’s just had a few sleepless nights lately. Either there’s a new tenant who gets too drunk to find their way to their own apartment or someone in the building has a visitor with the same problem. She’s been woken up by someone knocking on her door.”
    “Does she recognize the person?”
    “By the time she gets to the door, they’ve gone.”
    Jim frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
    “Honey’s going to talk to her neighbors; I’m sure it will be fine.”
    “But if it happens again?”
    “If it happens again, your wife will interfere no matter what her level-headed partner says.”
    “Good. Now, have you finished that coffee?”
    “Almost. Why?”
    “I fancied a nightcap of a different kind,” he said trailing his lips down her bare arm.
    “Now, that,” Trixie said, “is even better than caffeine.”
                   

    “Stop it,” Honey mumbled. “Stop that banging. My head is pounding.” She opened her eyes and realized she’d been dreaming. The banging didn’t stop. She stumbled out of bed and made her way to the door of her apartment. She pressed her eye against the peephole, knowing nobody would be on the other side. She was about to stagger back to bed when something made her look again. Nothing—and then suddenly, an eye, bluish in color, was pressed against the other side of the door. Honey stared into it and then it was gone. As she fumbled with the locks on her door, she heard the door to stairwell bang shut. Whoever it was was gone.

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Author's Notes: This story brought me back to Trixie and encouraged me, finally, to join Jix, so it holds a special place in my heart.  I thank my editor and now, my friend, Dana, who not only gives her time and talent so generously, but also offers clear, specific advice that improves both the technical and narrative aspects of my writing. Anything not up to scratch is entirely down to me. Trixie Belden et al belongs to Random House (technically, anyway) and not to me. No profit is being made from these scribblings.