Trixie Belden's best friend Jim ran away before anyone could tell him that he is the heir to a major fortune. Secrets shift into high gear when Trixie and her friends set off on a road trip to find Jim--and uncover another mystery along the way! When Trixie Belden’s friend Jim runs away, she and her neighbor Honey jump in an RV and hit the road. Someone has to tell Jim he inherited a fortune —but he needs to be around to claim it! Unfortunately, Trixie and Honey’s troubles are only beginning. The girls learn there’s been a string of break-ins to campervans, making travel more dangerous than ever. What’s worse, a young girl named Joeanne has disappeared into the woods, leaving her family and their shiny red trailer behind. Trixie and Honey worry that Joeanne could be in danger—and the fear only grows as the car bandits get more bold. The race is on to find Jim and Joeanne and untangle the mystery of the road trip thieves before the burglars hit the brakes on Trixie’s adventure once and for all. In the 1940s, Julie Campbell was running her own literary agency when Western Publishing put out a call for talented authors to write mystery series for kids. Julie proposed the Trixie Belden series and wrote the first six titles herself, but books seven through thirty-nine were written by a variety of writers all under the pseudonym Kathryn Kenny. Chapter 1 A Search Begins Trixie saw her father’s car turn into the driveway from Glen Road, and she raced out of the back door to stop him before he reached the garage. “Dad! Dad!” she shouted. “We’re going on a trailer trip, Honey Wheeler and I, with her governess, Miss Trask, to try and find Jim Frayne who has run away again.” Mr. Belden stopped the car by the steps leading to the back terrace. He leaned out of the window, smiling, but there was a puzzled frown on his face too. “What on earth are you talking about, Trixie? Who is Jim Frayne?” Trixie put her arm on the car door. “He’s old Mr. Frayne’s great-nephew, Dad,” she said, remembering that her parents hadn’t guessed the secret of the mansion. “And now that Mr. Frayne is dead, Jim is his sole heir to a fortune of over half a million dollars. Isn’t that wonderful?” Mr. Belden nodded. “So they found the missing heir at last? When I left to drive your mother and Bobby to the seashore, they were still looking for the widow and her son.” “Jim’s mother is dead, Dad,” Trixie said. “And he ran away from his stepfather who beats him and makes him work on his farm for nothing. And Honey and I found him,” Trixie went on excitedly, “and brought him food while he was hiding in the mansion, but now he’s run away again. And, oh, Dad, I forgot to tell you, the old mansion burned to the ground last night.” Mr. Belden glanced up at the ruins on the eastern hill above the hollow. “I thought I smelled stale smoke when I turned into Glen Road,” he said soberly. “That crum-bling old house must have burned like tinder. It’s a wonder, in the drought we’ve been having until the rain this morning, that the fire didn’t spread through the woods to our place and the Wheeler estate.” “We were awfully afraid it would,” Trixie told him as he got out of the car and walked with her to sit on the terrace. “And, Dad, this morning when Honey and I were up there, Mr. Rainsford arrived from New York. He’s the executor of the es-tate, you know, and was looking for Jim because Mr. Frayne left all his money in trust for his nephew’s son, who is Jim, you see. But Jim doesn’t know that because he ran away early this morning. So now we’ve got to find him, Honey and I. That’s why we’re going on the trailer trip in the Wheelers’ Silver Swan, which is really the darlingest little house on wheels you ever saw.” Trixie reached out and clutched her father’s sleeve, begging, “Please, Dad, say I can go, please! Miss Trask, Honey’s governess, is a wonderful driver and the best sport in the world. She has already phoned to Honey’s parents in Canada for per-mission, and Mr. Rainsford is counting on our help.” Mr. Belden laughed and patted Trixie’s brown hand. “It looks like it’s pretty much settled, and I can’t see any reason why I should object if Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler ap-prove of the trip. But I don’t quite see why a trailer trip is necessary. Couldn’t Mr. Rainsford advertise in the papers for Jim and put detectives on his trail? It seems to me--” “Oh, no, Dad,” Trixie put in quickly, “that would ruin everything. Jonesy, Jim’s step-father, is his legal guardian, and Jim has made up his mind that he will never, nev-er go back and live with him. Jonesy thinks Jim died in the fire last night--that’s what the morning papers said--so now he has stopped looking for him. Jonesy doesn’t care anything about Jim, Dad. He just wants to get control of the Frayne money. If anything appears in the papers about Jim being still alive, Jonesy will start looking for him again, and then Jim will run away and hide somewhere so we’ll never find him.” “I’m beginning to unde