When witches go riding and black cats are seen,
The moon laughs and whispers
'tis near Halloween.
Airport, Thursday morning
Even a decade later, twenty-five year old Trixie Belden's throat was still raw from the screams. That long ago Halloween night when true pain and fear had wracked the quiet confidence of her small town of Sleepyside-on-Hudson, NY and had never truly left.
She'd broken up counterfeiting rings, found lost jewels, been kidnapped, and almost drowned but nothing in her adventures as a teen prepared her for the tiny lifeless body of six year old Emma Ray Kettner. In one fell swoop, her world in Sleepyside was destroyed.
The Kettner family would never be the same. Fearing for their children, the Wheelers took Jim and Honey out of school and left the country.
The Lynches moved to the west coast. Three years ago, the family began starring in a reality show called Lunching with Lynches. LWL chronicled the ongoing chaos of their fabulously wealthy lives.
Dan had become withdrawn and terse and right after graduation from High School had moved to parts unknown. Or, if they were known, no one had told her.
Her own family fared little better. At the urging of Honey, she had gone to Molinson. But somehow her reputation, fed by her own bravado, had grown beyond the reality of her abilities. She'd become shunned at school. Without the benefit of her best friends, she'd been cut off. Alone. Adrift. Depressed. She'd finally allowed Moms and Dad to call Hallie's parents and ask to send her to live with family until she graduated high school.
Mart endured his last year at Sleepyside Junior Senior High School in stoic silence. The weekend after his 18th birthday, he joined the Navy. He served as a Master Chief Culinary Specialist on the USS Enterprise until its retirement and was now serving on the USS Gerald R. Ford.
Brian, already in college when the body was found, was the least scathed. He, too, had joined the Navy and always off doing things he couldn't or wouldn't talk about.
"Trix! Over here!" Came the voice of her now 18 year old "baby" brother, Bobby.
It was time to solve the crime. Past time.
Sleepyside-on-Hudson, Thursday morning
The pink monkey with the buttoned eyes mocked her from the hood of her car. Ruthie Kettner picked up the ugly toy with it's Made in some Third World Stink Hole sticker fingered one of the eyes. Choking hazard, she thought.
Who the Hell did Trixie Belden think she was? Ruthie thought, her eyes narrowed with anger. Gifts on the anniversary of the death of her baby sister?
She gripped the toy hard enough to rip out some of the cheaply fused stitches. A decade of ugly ass toys was too much! This had to stop!
She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number she knew by heart but refused to enter into her phone's memory as a contact.
It went straight to the answering service. "Helen," Ruthie began. "I got another one. One of these horrid toys that only serve…" Her voice caught but she took a deep breath and continued. "You need to make your daughter stop." She hoped her voice dripped with enough anger and disdain that it would finally convince the Beldens of Glen Road leave her and her family alone.
Las Vegas, Thursday morning
"I got a call from Bob. Trixie's coming home," Mart said, wrapping a silken cool ebony curl around his finger. Their nude bodies entwined in the artificial coolness of an impersonal Las Vegas hotel room. Diana's liquid, relaxed body stiffened in his arms before she turned to face him.
"What brought that on?"
"I don't know exactly. I'm honestly surprised it took her this long to come back. You know what she's like when she was a teenager."
"I do," Di said, her eyes clouding with memory. Trixie had been a force to be reckoned with. A beacon that shown and pulled all the Bob-Whites into her orbit. Without her, they merely drifted and bumped into each other like the planetary bodies of a 4th grade science fair project.
"According to Hallie, she stayed focused on the Kettner case. After graduation, she studied everything she could find. Criminal psychology. Crime scene investigation. Pharmacology. Herbs. I don't know all what. Whatever she could find in the library, I guess. Maybe she figured out enough, healed enough." Mart sighed. "She was like a zombie after they found the body," he said. He shuddered, refusing to think about the other. The bruises. The hospital.
The leaving.
"Weren't we all?" Di asked, wrapping the sheet tightly around her chest.
"I've missed her," Mart said. Born too close together and too much alike, their tempers had often clashed as teenager, but it was rarely serious. Whenever push had met shove, no matter the time or location, they'd had each other's back.
"If she solves this case, will you go home?"
Mart lifted and dropped one bare shoulder. "I don't know. Where is home anymore?"
A furrow appeared between her brows. "Home is where we are, together," she chided, softly.
"Is it?" Mart asked. He rolled onto his back and tucked her tightly next to him. "We're together in a suite here in Vegas, but this isn't home. You visit me in Norfolk and that doesn't feel like home, either." He looked at her, china blue eyes meeting exquisite lavender eyes. "I see you on TV and that looks like home." He knew his heart and insecurity was reflected in his eyes and still chose to reveal it to her.
Diana's small nose wrinkled. "I hate that stupid TV show. I have no idea why Mummy and Daddy wanted to do a show called 'Lunching with Lynches'. It's edited to make the five of us siblings look like uneducated, vapid creatures living off of Daddy's business acumen, alone."
"I can't believe how grown up the girls have gotten," Mart said, closing his eyes. He knew the show was "creatively" edited but jealousy ate at his gut every time he saw Diana on TV with some new "boyfriend du jour".
"They are. Rachel Zoe wants to use Tia and Talia for her upcoming fashion show," she said, lazily playing in Mart's chest curls.
That sounded important but he didn't know why.
"Larry and Terry aren't on the show much these days," he commented.
"College keeps them busy. They want to move to London after graduation. Somewhere out of the limelight."
"Smart boys."
"You have no idea. The constant scrutiny is insane. There is one fame-hungry producer who is suggesting a sex tape of me get 'leaked' to the internet. I've had to turn off all entertainment related news. Every time I eat a full meal, there's chronic 'baby bump watch'." She closed her eyes, thinking of the downside of all the fame her family had. "I hate it. I wish I was thirteen again."
"Don't we all?" Mart said. Then, as something Diana said sunk in, his eyes widened. "We've never filmed our sex," Mart said, his chin set mulishly.
Her lips quirked with humor. "I think they're hoping I've been with someone who did film us."
"Did you tell them you haven't? Ever?"
Di propped herself up on one elbow to look Mart in the eye. "My sex life is no one's damn business but mine and yours. You are not going to get crazy jealous over this. You are going to trust me as I trust you. You are who I need to escape this crazy life I'm contractually tied to." Di's gaze was steady and unwavering and Mart nodded before brushing a small kiss against her forehead. "You are the one I need, no matter what."
"I love you, baby. You can have any man in the world."
"I love you, too. And yes, I can. Which is why I chose you. Do you hear me, Mart Belden? I chose you. When the fame is gone, the money is spent, and the beauty fades, our love will still burn."
"I don't deserve you."
"Of course you do, now hush." She rearranged her body, seeking the comfort and heat of his.
Mart closed his eyes, relishing the feel of her small body next to his. The soft texture of her hair as she snuggled into his chest.
"Are you still planning on quitting the show?"
Diana waved one hand airily. "We're in negotiations right now. Mummy is leaning on me to sign the contract, but if Trixie is back in Sleepyside, that's where I belong."
Mart nodded and rolled her under him. "This, Diana Belden, is where you belong," he said, kissing her.
Brooklyn, NY, Thursday afternoon
The brown haired young man with brilliant emerald green eyes sat in the corner booth of Tony's pizza waiting for his sister. He tensed as the door opened and closed, letting in hungry patrons and cool gusts of fall air.
Ten years later and he still couldn't sit with his back to the door. Waking and finding Trixie had been the culmination of every fear he'd had over countless adventures. How had he let anyone sneak up on them?
The limo pulled up to the curb, incongruous to the quiet family neighborhood. His generous mouth twisted with a smirk. The Wheelers traveled, as they say, in rarified air.
Some Wheelers, he thought, as the weak afternoon sun dappled through fingerprint painted windows. Absently, he wondered when the last time they'd been scrubbed clean.
Anything to ignore the question that maybe his own more modest means meant he was no longer a Wheeler. A spot near his chest ached with the need for a family to call his own.
"I'll never get used to seeing you in brown hair," his sister said as she approached. "At least you didn't wear those horrid brown contacts." The exquisite cut of her white wool Olcay Gülşen dress was remarkably out of place in the well-worn cleanliness of the Brooklyn restaurant. A cashmere scarf kept the fall chill away, and her Christian Louboutin's echoed on the worn tiled floor.
Jim shrugged. They'd had this discussion before. "Red hair stands out too much," he said. "When I come down here, I prefer to blend. I'm not crazy about the contacts myself but I figured I should be neutral enough for a quick trip for some of Tony's pizza."
Madeline sat down and primly began cleaning the silverware. "Did you order?"
Jim nodded. "Pizza should be here in a few minutes."
She sighed and looked at him, her wide hazel eyes beseeching. "I miss you. Why did you leave Daddy's company?"
"I miss you," Jim responded. "I miss my sister 'Honey'."
"I'm still here. No one would trust a corporate lawyer named Honey, even if her last name was Wheeler." Hazel eyes calmly met his. "Your turn."
"I didn't belong," Jim answered simply. Honestly. "Dad left Sleepyside to give us freedom from media speculation. The paps chased us everywhere we went. London. Madrid. Rio. All he did was exchange one prison for another."
"Being the youngest VP of Acquisitions was a prison?"
"Now you sound like Dad! Look at me, Honey!" Madeline did, taking in his snow white T-shirt and thick flannel shirt. "Do I look like a VP of Acquisitions? No! Wearing a suit every day, wearing dress shoes and carrying a briefcase and sitting in an office all day? That was prison to me. I chose to go my own way."
"By buying your parent's old farm in Rochester?"
"I'm free there. I grow my own food. A few rescued horses and cats. I have goats, rabbits, and chickens. I earn enough money freelancing magazine articles."
Madeline reached across the table and pulled on the silver chain to reveal the small pendent tucked under his shirt. "Still?" she asked, revealing the small class ring with the bright green stone.
"Always," Jim answered, looking steadily into her eyes.
"But are you happy?"
Images of china blue eyes and sandy curls played across his mind like a vivid dream. Happy? No. But he was content. And free.
It was enough. "I'm not unhappy," he finally said.
Madeline bit her lip and checked the time on her Cartier watch. "I don't have much time," she said.
"I drove all the way from Rochester to see you and you can't find a few hours for lunch?" Jim demanded, his brow creasing. He felt his neck getting hot as his temper rose. When had his little sister, Honey Wheeler, become this uptight snobbish young woman with artfully highlighted hair and no time for family?
Madeline shook her head. "No, you don't understand. I got a text from Di on the way over here."
"Is everything okay?" Jim asked.
"It's Trixie. She's home."