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last month.” Moving to the door, Ella Mae knocked three times. She waited, hoping to hear sounds from inside the house, but all was still. She knocked again. There was no answer.
    “I don’t think she’s here,” Ella Mae said.
    Reba put her ear to the door. Her senses were far keener than Ella Mae’s, so when her eyes widened slightly, Ella Mae felt a stirring of alarm.
    “Do you hear something?” she asked.
    “Not hear. Smell.” Reba inhaled deeply and then tried the door handle. “Damn. It’s locked.”
    Ella Mae touched Reba’s arm. “What are you doing?”
    “We need to get inside,” Reba said. “I smell gas. Lots of it. Enough gas to put a person to sleep and make sure they stay that way forever.”



Chapter 3
    Ella Mae quickly moved to the nearest window and peeked in. Though the living room was stuffed with books and knickknacks, everything seemed to be in its proper place.
    “I’ll try the back door,” she told Reba. “Can you pick this lock if need be?”
    “I can kick the thing right in,” Reba said. “I’ll give you a minute to check other doors and windows, but if you don’t find a way in, I’ll make us one. Somethin’ isn’t right. I can feel it in my bones.”
    Ella Mae ran around the side of the house and mounted a small flight of steps leading to the kitchen door. She could now smell the gas too. She tried the knob. To her immense relief, it turned easily and the door swung inward with a slight groan.
    “Mrs. Drever!” Ella Mae called as she entered the kitchen. She scanned the room, seeing a teapot on the stove and a mug and sugar bowl waiting on the counter. A platewith bits of bread crust sat nearby, and there was a jam jar and a crumpled napkin on the kitchen table.
    Rushing to the front door, Ella Mae unfastened the deadbolt. Without waiting for Reba to catch up, she continued into the living room. “Mrs. Drever?” Her calls were softer, more hesitant. The gas smell was growing stronger as she and Reba moved deeper into the house, where the bedrooms and small sunroom were located.
    “The hairs on the back of my neck are standin’ straight up,” Reba whispered.
    Ella Mae was experiencing the same sensation. There was an ominous silence in the back of the house that neither the ticking of the living room clock nor the birdsong from the garden was able to penetrate.
    Stepping into the sunroom, Ella Mae instinctively covered her nose and mouth with her hand. The room was unaccountably warm, and she was surprised to see a fire burning in the hearth.
    “Gas logs,” Reba said, hastening to examine them. “This is definitely the source of the smell. You’d better open a window before we lose consciousness.”
    Ella Mae opened all four, inviting the spring air to sweep inside and do its best to dilute the invisible cloud of gas.
    “The vent was closed,” Reba said after she’d switched off the logs. “If Mrs. Drever sat here for more than an hour or so, she would have gotten real sleepy.” She pointed at a splayed paperback resting on the arm of the sofa. Judging from the cover, it was a romance novel. “Especially if she was readin’ the slow bits in between the steamy scenes.”
    “She might be passed out in another room!” Ella Mae cried. Racing into the hall, she poked her head into the first bedroom. The bed was made and unoccupied. The second bedroom, which was smaller than the first, was also empty.However, a pair of pants and a green sweater had been laid out on the bed, and a suitcase was propped open on the blanket chest beneath the window. “It looks like she was about to get dressed. She could only be in one place.”
    In the hallway, Reba stood in front of the closed bathroom door. “Let me go first. We don’t know what we’ll find in there.”
    Though frightened by the possibilities, Ella Mae shook her head. “I came here to check on her and I’m going to do just that.” And despite the ridiculousness of the action, she knocked on the door. It