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Phoebe lounged on the kitchen table surrounded by garage sale stuff and the gifts from Mary Margret. The feline, her paws tucked underneath her, narrowed her eyes at Ginger.
    “‘Something terrible, something from the past.’” Ginger repeated the panic-stricken words from her friend’s message.
    Resting her palms on the table, she rose to her feet and stared at the beat-up fishing pole. Everything must have shifted in the trunk when she was being chased. Three other items were not new and weren’t anything she had gotten: a box with seashells on it, an old vest with lots of pockets, and a photo album. Mary Margret must have stuffed those items under the pink gingham in the gift basket. Odd.
    She touched the frayed photo album. All this stuff is from the past.
    Something had happened to Mary Margret. Now she did have a reason to call the police. Her hand touched the phone just as it rang.

    Tossing the light comforter on her sleeping husband, Suzanne Thomas propped herself up on her elbows. Greg’s snoring only bothered her when she couldn’t sleep.
    In her rational moments, she knew she was seeing everything through the lens of whacked-out hormones and her own fatigue, but tonight his snoring seemed to shake the bed. The nerve of him sawing logs when she couldn’t even doze. She really wanted to yell in his ear so they could both be awake and miserable. Sweat trickled down her back. Even with the fan running and the window open, she was hot. She rolled sideways, struggled out of bed, and lumbered across the floor out into the hallway.
    The baby was doing gymnastics in her womb by the time she made it to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. She ran a washcloth under the faucet and patted her neck and arms with it. A glimpse of herself in the mirror reminded her that every day was a bad hair day when you were the mother of three small children with another on the way.
    Tonight she had been more restless than usual, but it had nothing to do with the heat or her pregnancy. Since she’d left the church, two trains of thought wrestled in her mind. Both the Saturday cleaning crew and the pastor had been there. No one had seen Mary Margret.
    The thoughts doing battle inside her were not unfamiliar. Every time one of her kids disappeared in a department store, the same warring impulses raised their ugly heads. The first thought spoke with reassurance that her child had just wandered away and that within five minutes, he or she would be found.
    The other notion appeared in half shadow shaking its head, nagging her about all the terrible things that can happen to children who are not watched closely. It allowed visions of horrible people who hurt children to enter her mind. Images of her and Greg on the news pleading for the life of their child flashed through her brain as she checked under every clothing rack and called her child’s name, her chest getting tighter and tighter and her breathing shallower.
    The same type of opposing scenarios rolled around her head when she thought about Mary Margret. One part of her said that by morning this whole thing would be cleared up. And the other more sinister thought made it hard to breathe.
    Suzanne leaned on the sink and closed her eyes. Everything Ginger had pointed out about Mary Margret was true. She always left notes or called to let people know what her plans were. The woman was compulsive about it.
    On the other hand, Mary was a real estate agent, a grandmother, and a churchgoer. She didn’t have an enemy in the world. No one would want to hurt the oldest member of the Bargain Hunters Network.
    Had her waking up in the night been prompted by God? Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the sink and prayed for Mary’s safety. Shopping for a good deal had brought the four of them together, but the bond ran much deeper than gathering for a half price sale. Something beyond her senses told her that Mary Margret was not okay.
    The phone in the kitchen rang. Suzanne