Part 1

Prologue

I arrived for the first day of sixth grade and knew immediately something was wrong. I looked like a complete dork. Already, tight groups of friends had formed, probably talking about their summer adventures. They all wore the same uniform I had on but somehow theirs didn’t look like mine. I looked down at the sharply pressed pleats of my kilt, the dark blue cardigan with the school’s monogram. My saddle shoes were clean and my knee socks were, well, the only ones I saw in the school yard. I didn’t look like the other girls and I didn’t want to get out of my dad’s car. But the bell rang and — oh, god — I was already late for school. On my first day.

The groups dispersed into neat lines. I ran over to a line that had formed behind someone waving a sign with a “6” on it. As I fell in behind everyone, I heard someone rush up behind me. “Lose the beanie,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Nobody wears them,” she said. “The uniform company makes us all buy them and then we throw them in our backpacks or lose them. And roll up your skirt.”

“What!”

“You look like a dweeb with that long skirt,” she said. I looked around. She was right. I rolled up the waistband.

Although that was the last time I took fashion advice from Robin Browne, we became fast friends that day. Those were the days in middle school when friendships really finally mattered. We were both in Mrs. Dougherty’s class and we sat in back, two of the tallest girls in the class. We passed notes all day that year and either Mrs. Dougherty was blind or she knew we were smart enough to give her our “undivided attention” and still pass notes.

When we discovered we lived around the corner from one another — I had moved in only the week before school began — our friendship became permanent. We lived at each other’s houses. Slept at each other’s houses. Wore each other’s clothes. Our mothers didn’t even ask whose clothes she was washing.

Robin was at my house when my father packed his bags and left. She was there when he came back, thank God.

I was at Robin’s house when her sister went to Europe. I’d brought a bunch of flowers for her graduation and she took a picture of Robin and me with the flowers. That picture is still on my dresser. That was the year we finally stopped looking so awkward.

I went with Robin to make Christmas cookies at her grandmother’s house. I sat beside her at family weddings and funerals. It was a family joke that we were twins. You know, we could’ve been.

Except for the few years we went to separate colleges, Robin and I were inseparable. When it came time to buy a house, I told the real estate agent it had to be near Robin’s. It’s close but not too close, just on the other side of the Inner Harbor. So now I’m all grown up and still living near my best friend. 

Consequently, we knew each other’s darkest secrets, fears and worries. And we kept them locked in our hearts. But this is such a good story I have to spill it.

Chapter 1

The water taxi blasted its horn as it pulled away from the dock. A group of schoolchildren yelled to one another as they sauntered along the promenade by the Maryland Science Center. A man in layers of dirty rags sat on the seawall tossing bits of his sandwich to a flock of seagulls and pigeons. Robin stepped around a seagull just swooping in for its fair share but didn’t really see it. In her mind, she played and replayed the conversation from the last hour. She hadn’t heard her sister’s name in years, she thought, as she turned off Light Street. Just hearing it renewed the feeling of loss she could barely endure when she was 15. The mean February wind tugged at her coat so she pulled it closer around her and rewrapped her flailing scarf.

As she neared her house on William Street, in the shadow of Federal Hill, she couldn’t stop the sigh.

No, she thought as she stepped up to the door. What they said can’t be true. Eleanor is dead. My dear sister, we don’t know what happened to you but you’re gone.

Robin dug in her pocket for the door key to the narrow pink and gray Formstone house. The day had not been what she expected. Tuesday was an unusual day for a reception at the National Aquarium; a Tuesday in the middle of winter stranger still. But she always enjoyed her duties during one of these events. She’d supervised the staff as they set up the tables and counted chairs. She had helped the committee find a good caterer and checked the food when it arrived, helped set up the bar and met with the committee when they arrived. The reception was designed to offset a tedious journalism conference underway at the nearby Holiday Inn, the committee’s chairman had told her, so they arranged for a dolphin presentation—not a “show,” Robin had corrected them — and a lavish buffet near the giant cube that housed the Australian Outback exhibit. They’ll love that, Robin had promised. 

Everybody arrived at once and Robin had hurried to the coat room to help with the rush. Things didn’t settle down until the buffet had been gobbled up and the lovable dolphins were winning new fans. A few people lingered in the Australian exhibit but Robin’s supervisor had told her she could go home. With her coat over her arm and her enormous leather handbag over her shoulder she was nearly out the door when she heard someone call. Though it wasn’t her own name, she was startled nonetheless. 

“Eleanor!” a tall woman gathered Robin into her arms as if she was a long-lost friend. Before the confused Robin could respond, the woman pulled away and peered into her eyes. Robin had no idea who she was.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” the stranger said. 

“It’s been a long time, girl,” added another woman who had come up from behind and folded Robin’s hand into her own.

“I knew it was you when I saw you at the coat check,” the first woman said. Robin loosened her hand from the woman’s strong grip. She searched her memory, trying to remember who these two women were. The first woman was a tall brunette, about 40, Robin figured. Her friend wasn’t as tall but Robin couldn’t get over the clear green eyes that shone from her warm brown face.

“I think you have made a mistake,” Robin said, pulling away.  “You’ve confused me with someone else. My name’s not Eleanor. I’m Robin Browne.”

“Oh no!” the woman replied. “But you must be related to Eleanor Browne.”

“Same nose. Same chin. Same bright blue eyes. Same last name,” her friend nodded.

Robin felt her knees go weak. She leaned against a wall. The two women seemed to be confusing her with her sister – who’d disappeared so long ago. She was too stunned to say anything. She pressed her fingers to her lips as she felt her eyes well with tears. How she still missed her big sister – her sense of humor, her rebellious side, her way of understanding a little sister’s crises.

“I’m a little confused. Who are you?” Robin asked.

“We didn’t mean to upset you. My name is Anita Fisher,” said the green-eyed woman. “My friend here is Katherine Bennett.”

“We’re sorry. We were just so excited to see an old friend,” Katherine added. “We lost touch with her after we all dropped out of grad school. Here, sit down,” she pulled over a chair by the buffet table.

“Yes,” Robin answered. She nervously ran a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair and tried to smile. “I thought for a minute you had me confused with my sister but....”

“Oh! See?” Katherine said. “How is she?” 

“Well, that’s the strange thing. She’s been missing and presumed dead for 15 years. So you couldn’t have known her. She disappeared before you were in grad school.”

The smiles on the two women evaporated. “That’s impossible,” Katherine said, puzzlement washing over her face. 

“The resemblance is amazing,” Anita said. “If you were a little heavier, a little more blonde.”

“And when we heard you humming ‘As Time Goes By’ at the coat check, we were sure you had to be Eleanor,” Katherine said. 

Robin felt her heart jump again. Her sister had hummed that song at the oddest moments. And she quoted lines from Casablanca all the time. 

“Where did you say you met Eleanor?” Robin asked.

“Fordham,” Anita said. “Believe it or not, we were all there studying photography. Even the lawyer here.”

“Merely a detour in my career – I was stupid enough to be following my heart instead of my head. But if I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have met Anita or Eleanor,” Katherine said. She sat down next to Robin and kicked her pumps under the table. “You know there’s only one dorm on the Manhattan campus and there’s no room there for grad students. We met at the housing office looking for a place to live. They sent us to this run-down walk-up apartment.”

“But it was right down the street from Herald Square so we weren’t complaining,” Anita laughed. “Eleanor made the apartment home. She filled the walls with these amazing photographs of the Alps – it looked like The Sound of Music.”

“She worked hard to make the place seem more like home than the second-floor hovel it was,” Katherine said.  “We had so much fun that semester.”

Robin looked at these two polished, professional women and tried to imagine them with her sister. But her memory of Eleanor was old; it hadn’t aged. It hadn’t grown up as these women had. She was still a casual college student with a blond ponytail and frayed jeans. These women wore expensive suits and high heels. Eleanor could be just like them, she stopped to think, well, she could if she had lived. 

“But reality set in, didn’t it?” Anita said, interrupting Robin’s reverie. “The only one with any talent was Eleanor and she decided to quit school and go to work in Delaware. We left the next semester, too. I decided to get serious and went to Wharton Business School and Katherine headed to law school. The fun was over,” Anita said and Robin thought she heard a little sigh.

 “So what happened to Eleanor?” Robin asked, more confused than ever. 

“Don’t know,” Katherine said. “She told us she was going to take pictures for a newspaper. We never heard from her again.”

“It was so strange, too,” Anita said. “Katherine and I decided to stop by the newspaper office on our way to the beach – we had kept in touch – but nobody there had ever heard of her.”

The last speaker of the conference rose to call the group together to go back to the hotel and Robin jumped up to leave.

“It’s been great talking to you – fascinating story – but I’ve got to go,” she said, rising and putting on her coat. She raced out the door, overwhelmed by the unbelievable conversation. Before heading out into the wintry afternoon, she remembered her handbag, still beside the chair. “Damn,” she muttered to herself. “My bag.”

Anita met her at the door with the oversized leather tote. 

“I’m really sorry for the confusion in there,” Anita said. 

“Yes, well, I don’t really want to talk any more about it,” Robin said, 

“Do you really have to go? Couldn’t you stop for a drink first?” Anita said.

“Maybe another time,” Robin said.

“I understand. Here’s my card. Call me if you want. I work in Washington but my home is here,” Anita replied. 

“Thanks,” she said, smiling politely as she put the card in her pocket without even looking at it. “Nice meeting you.”

Robin couldn’t get the conversation out of her mind as the usual February winds lashed at her face. She shivered and wondered who those two women were talking about all that time.

Losing her big sister had been so awful Robin once wondered if she’d every get over the pain. It was as if Eleanor had fallen off the edge of the world never to be heard from again. How young Robin had idolized her beautiful, bold sister. Ellen — nobody called her Eleanor except Grandmother —  had never shied away from a challenge. She had gone off to Europe without fear, leaving her family behind, ignoring her mother’s worries and her grandmother’s concerns. She had planned to hike up the Alps and on her last day (is it possible it wasn’t her last day, after all?) she had gone skiing on a glacier. There had been a terrible gondola accident there that day. But when she couldn’t be found, police decided she must have been lost on the slopes. No one knew; no one could explain. Robin remembered how everyone said to get on with their lives as if Ellen had died. She may never be found.

The woman those two talked about couldn’t be Ellen, she thought as she walked up her front steps. She and her parents had come to grips with the fact that she had died a long time ago. Fordham? Ellen never went to graduate school. Robin put the key in the lock and stopped. 

Pictures of the Alps? Sound of Music? Ellen had disappeared in Salzburg – but not before she sent home photographs she had taken at Chiem See and all over Austria.

Robin couldn’t get the door open fast enough. She raced into the brick-walled foyer to look at the photos hanging there. All in black and white. Large photos of a Salzburg street, a window with lace curtains, an Alpine landscape, the huge fortress that overlooked Salzburg, the glistening waters of an Alpine lake Ellen had called “Chiem See.” Ellen had sent these to Robin for her birthday, her 15^th birthday. Ellen had promised to send her photos from exotic places. But by the next day those photographs, all so beautiful, had been forgotten, cast aside.

Now Robin loved those pictures. She’d had them carefully mounted and hung on her foyer wall when she moved into this house. Thank goodness her mother had saved them for her. At 15, Robin – self-centered Robin – had left them on a table with no intention of looking at them again. She refused to look at them once she and her parents learned Ellen was missing. Her birthday cake was still on the dining room table when the call came. 

Memories of that awful day flooded in as Robin sank to the foyer bench. She felt the loss all over again. And the anger. For the past 15 years, Robin had shut out the anger and the hurt she’d felt then. Instead, she remembered good times they had spent together. 

Sisters didn’t always get along, she knew. They kept secrets – What kind of secrets had Ellen been keeping from her? They fought – Robin remembered stupid fights about borrowed lipsticks and requests to drive Robin and her friends to the mall. Robin tried hard to forget all that after Ellen went to Europe. And after her older sister disappeared, Robin chose to focus on the good things they’d shared. She didn’t want to keep the anger inside her. She’d succeeded until this very moment. With one idle conversation, she found herself wondering what really happened. What secret did Ellen keep way back then? And if she was still alive, what secret was she keeping now?

Chapter 2

“Here,” Jane handed Robin a big glass of something pink and icy. “Sorry I ran out of those little umbrellas...”

“Well, who needs little umbrellas in their drinks in the dead of winter,” Robin said, feeling better already.

“That’s quite a story,” Jane said. Robin always counted on her friend and had confided in her about everything since their middle school days in Annapolis. “Their ugly days,” they used to say in high school. But now these two adult women remembered those days fondly. If their middle school days were “ugly,” then these were their “beautiful” days. 

They looked like sisters more than best friends. Both had shiny, smooth brown hair that hung just below their shoulders. Neither could see a thing without their contacts but they never were without the biggest sunglasses they could find at Target. Not too tall, not too short, they were strong and confident when they walked, loud and almost always boisterous when they talked. Jane loved clothes, expensive, name brand clothes, in bright colors. Robin, on the other hand, dressed in the preppy style she’d picked up growing up in Annapolis: lots of khaki, white and navy blue and all of it a few years past its prime.

Their close friendship was only slightly strained when Jane had gone away to Hood College and later as she began teaching. Overwhelmed by homework and parent-teacher meetings, she lost touch with her friend except for an occasional Sunday night phone call. 

Robin had been busy getting her own life started so she had understood, much as she missed her friend. But Jane had been there when Ellen had disappeared. She had been at the funeral home and church when they buried her father a year later. She’d stood by when her mother had moved to Havre de Grace.

Then one day Jane had called with news that she was moving to Baltimore. She was going to teach at Hampton Hill, a small private girls school. Rather than live in the county near the school, she was opting for a rowhouse in the city. It would bring her closer to her old friend, and it would also bring her closer to the new boyfriend in her life, another teacher she’d gone to college with. His name was Parker.

Robin sipped her strawberry margarita (strange drink for a winter afternoon, she thought to herself) and sat back on the maroon leather sofa. Jane’s Canton rowhouse was narrow. The single first floor room began with a seating area, followed by a dining table with an open kitchen in back. Upstairs were two bedrooms and two baths, one on each floor and the previous owner had topped the flat roof with a deck that boasted views of the harbor if you looked down a ways and over to the left.

Jane’s house was as modern and un-fussy as Jane herself. Not interested in the house’s old “character,” she had stripped away all the Victorian trimmings to streamline every surface and keep clutter to a minimum.

Robin remembered the high school days when she couldn’t even step foot in Jane’s bedroom. Her friend had clearly changed. The only place with a bit of clutter was the armoire that served as Jane’s office. The piles of papers and books stayed hidden until Jane opened the doors.

“So what do you think of my story?” Robin asked Jane as she dropped into a nearby armchair.

“Spooky, don’t you think? I can’t imagine a stranger walking up and calling me by my dead sister’s name. I’d have run screaming from the room. Probably good you didn’t do that.”

“True. It might have ruined the party.” 

“Well, are you going to call her?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Call her.”

“Mmmm. No.”

“Call her!”

“Why would I do that?”

“Why?! This here’s a mystery. Don’t you want to do the Nancy Drew thing? I’ll be the friend/sidekick, what was her name? Hey! I think it was Jane!”

“No, it wasn’t. It was something else. Anyway, it wouldn’t accomplish a thing. I’ve got too much to do at work. No.”

“You know you want to know.”

“What’s there to know? Someone had a roommate in college that bore an eerie resemblance to my sister who was dead at the time.”

“Eerie is right. I think there’s something going on here you need to find out about. Tell you what; let’s go out to dinner -- I’m not cooking after this announcement. I’ll just tell the girls they’ll get their essays back on Thursday. They’ll live. Tuesday is special ... oh special something, I forget what ... night at Helen’s. C’mon. You need to take a break.”

“It isn’t good to dredge up sad, old memories.”

“Maybe not but it’s always good to go out with an old friend. And maybe I can talk you into looking for what is lost but may be found.”

“Get your coat; let’s get out of here before you throw another wise saying at me.”

Chapter 3

“Really, Mom,” Eleanor said firmly. “This is all I will need.” She zipped the backpack and tossed it down beside her camera bag.

“You’re going to be gone a month. You barely have enough clothes for a week.” Diane Browne looked worried. She’d been in Europe many times and knew you had to dress well in Europe. Diane always looked well dressed. She was tall with long, lean legs and looked good in anything, something she took for granted. Even now as she helped her older daughter pack for her trip, she wore carefully-pressed linen slacks and a delicate sweater set. Not her daughters’ taste, she knew, but she had always tried to teach them to dress presentably. Robin lounged on her sister’s bed, leafing through the itinerary Ellen had thrown beside the backpack.

Ellen turned to her mother and laughed just a little. “I’m not going to the Ritz, Mom. I’m going with a group of friends and staying in youth hostels. I’m climbing mountains and following goat paths to take pictures of the Alps. Jeans will be much more comfortable. Really.” She kissed her mother on the cheek, picked up her bags and grabbed the itinerary away from Robin. “But if you want to give me some more money, I’ll take that,” she added.

“Oh get out of here. You’ve got plenty,” Diane said.

Diane watched her petite blonde daughter skip down the stairs, clad as always in slightly-worn jeans. Friends always commented on the family resemblance between mother and daughter but Diane rarely could see it. No, her daughter was more like her husband Scott. Ellen had his blonde hair, his broad shoulders, his sense of adventure. Diane felt Robin looked more like her: taller, slimmer, brunette. She was the sensible one. At least, Diane thought, she would be when she grew up.

Eleanor had planned to take this month-long trip since freshman year. It was all she talked about – once she finished griping about grades and professors and swooning over some boy. As graduation neared, the plan developed as she had dreamed. Eleanor rounded up a group of six college friends to go backpacking through Switzerland and Austria. They were all photographers, taking more film than underwear for the trip. Diane had objected to the trip at first. Diane had met the group — Jean had been Eleanor’s roommate since freshman year — and thought they were delightful young people. But Diane was old-fashioned enough to think young unmarried women shouldn’t be traveling with young unmarried men. One of them, Bill, had made it clear he wanted Eleanor to marry him when they got back home. Diane wasn’t pleased with those arrangements either or even the idea of her talented young daughter thinking about settling down so soon. Eleanor had spent her childhood declaring her intention to stay independent and travel the world. Diane encouraged her; she knew what it was like to start a family too young. 

Eleanor insisted that she was going – this was her first chance to see the world. Scott had reminded his wife that their little girl was an adult. Ever the peacemaker, he recalled how Eleanor had planned for this trip for so long. Though Diane had finally relented, later she always wished she hadn’t.

“I’ll bring you home something pretty. And I’ll send you a postcard from every place I go,” Eleanor said to her little sister Robin, who was watching her go at the top of the stairs. “I’ll try to send you my photographs, too. Something exotic.”

Robin always remembered the thrill of seeing her sister head off on her adventure. If Ellen could go, Robin had thought, I will, too. Soon, I’ll be grown up and it will be my turn. 

A horn tooted. “That’s Bill,” Eleanor said. “Got to go. See you next month.”

But Ellen didn’t come back. A week before she was due to return, Bill called.

Robin and her mother were lounging on the deck when the phone rang. It was Robin’s 15th birthday and she was admiring the bracelet her parents had given her that morning. Jane had had to babysit all day but she’d promised she’d make it over before dinner. Of course, she was already late. 

The afternoon was hot but the great old maples kept the deck cool. When the phone rang, Robin jumped up to answer it. “I’ll get it. Jane’s probably got some lame excuse for not being here,”

But Diane stopped her. “No, it might be Eleanor,” she told Robin, “and I’d like to talk to her.”

“So would I. I want to thank her for her pictures,” Robin thought and pushed open the heavy door. She heard her mother gasp, and then sob. As Diane carefully hung up the receiver, Robin walked over to her mother’s chair in the kitchen. 

“Mom?” 

“That was Bill,” she said.

“Why was he calling?” asked Robin, puzzled by the look on her mother’s face.

“Eleanor’s missing. They think she might have been in an accident.”

“Where’d she go? What happened?” Robin demanded, not comprehending.

“Robin!” she heard her friend shouting for her through the glass door. She opened the door and called her in.

“Happy birth—What’s wrong?” Jane said as she presented Robin with a beribboned package.

“You girls go outside,” Diane told them. “I want to call your father.”

“Something happened to Ellen,” Robin said as she sat on the deck step and laid the gift aside.

“Happened? Like what?”

“Dunno, really. Bill said they can’t find her. He told my mother about an accident but I don’t know anything else, yet.”

The two girls sat in silence, waiting for news. But the house grew dark and quiet as the sun went down. The birthday party was forgotten. Black and white photos from Ellen’s trip to the Alps that had arrived earlier in the day had been laid out on the dining room table with the cake. 

When they heard the front door slam, the two girls rushed inside. Scott held Diane as she tried to tell him what happened through her sobs. The girls stopped and listened to the news, too.

“Bill says Eleanor stayed behind in Salzburg when they went ahead to Zurich to see the city before catching the plane home. She had made plans to go skiing up on a glacier.”

“This doesn’t make sense. She went alone? How do they know she went?” he asked trying to comprehend.

“I don’t understand. Bill said there was an argument during their last few days. She met some new friends who wanted to go skiing. Bill and the others wanted to go to Zurich as they had planned. And they went without her. She apparently went skiing. Her things were still at the youth hostel yesterday but the manager said he hadn’t seen her in two days. She was supposed to go skiing Monday, three days ago. They were supposed to come home tomorrow.”

“So what happened? I know this is hard, Diane, but tell me,” he helped her to the sofa and handed her his handkerchief. He turned on a table lamp and sat beside her. 

“Bill said a story has been all over the news. A gondola came loose Monday at the ski resort where Eleanor was going. It crashed into a pole and then fell. Everybody inside died, Scott, maybe even our Ellen.”

“But they don’t know?”

“Not yet. They haven’t identified everyone yet,”

“So Ellen may not have been on it,” Scott said, hoping for some good news. 

“No, maybe not. But still, she is missing. She didn’t check out of the hostel. Her backpack is still there. Nobody’s seen her since Monday.”

“Okay,” Scott said, still trying to understand, “Bill saw her on Monday?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know when he and Jean and the rest of them went to Zurich. I don’t know. It might have been the hostel manager who saw her.”

“I can’t believe Bill left her alone there.” 

“Scott, it doesn’t matter. He was crying when he told me. He said he came back to Salzburg when the manager called him to ask what to do with her backpack. The man thought she’d left it behind,” Diane said, trying to keep her mind clear about what Bill had said. “He’s staying in Europe for a few days to look for her. The police have asked him to stay for questioning.”

As her parents sat silently on the soft, Robin felt the first warm tears running down her face. She looked at Jane and saw her tears, too. “Let’s go outside,” she whispered. 

“Maybe it’s not true,” Jane said as they sat in the two lounge chairs. 

“I hope it’s not,” Robin said. “Maybe she’s just out taking pictures.”

Summer faded into fall as the family waited for word about Eleanor. The Austrian authorities had investigated the gondola accident until one by one the bodies were identified. No trace of Eleanor was found in that gondola – she had simply disappeared. Bill brought home Eleanor’s belongings. The knapsack was filled with all the things Diane had helped her daughter pack. Nothing seemed to be missing, except for Eleanor’s camera bag. 

“I looked everywhere for the camera,” Bill had told Diane, looking apologetic. “It must have been stolen while the police were looking around. There were so many people coming and going that we couldn’t keep track of everything. I’m sorry.”

In the end no one really knew what had happened to Eleanor. Austrian authorities did their best to find the missing girl. Every time the phone rang, the household stopped. Every time the door opened, Robin looked up to see if maybe her sister was coming home at last. At last, the case was declared cold and the heartbroken family was urged to get on with their lives.

That was hard, Robin remembered. It took years to reconcile herself that her big sister wouldn’t be back. She checked the mail for letters every day, jumped up to answer every phone call and waited for the door to open and her sister to appear. She still caught herself every once in a while, looking up when the door opened. But finally the reality of her sister’s fate settled in her heart. Ellen was gone. But the question never really went away: what happened?