Death of a Garage Sale Newbie Read Online Free PDF Page B

furnished and decorated her new home mostly with stuff she purchased at sales. It was a skill Kindra aspired to.
    She had two goals. First of all, she wanted to be the best-dressed physicist in the world. She considered it her mission to dispel the assumption that if you were smart, you dressed like you shopped at “House of Dowdy.”
    And someday, she wanted to marry a cool Christian guy and stay home with her kids. Mom and Dad would have a cow if they knew that was her plan. She needed to learn to shop like Suzanne and Ginger if she was going to make that happen. She and Mary Margret were apprentices at best, newbies to the bargain hunting craft.
    Kindra walked down the hallway, switching on lights. She leaned against the door frame to the master bedroom. The bedspread was so smooth it looked like a marine had made it. The room smelled like Mary Margret, gardenia.
    A stack of folded shirts rested on the hope chest at the end of the bed. Those must be the clothes Ginger had found knocked off the coffee table. No Mary Margret or even a sign that she had been here.
    Maybe she had dreamed that Mary shook her—a sort of wishful dreaming, her unconscious working through the anxiety she felt. It just wasn’t like her friend to be gone this long without any word.
    An eeking, squeaking noise came from the attached garage. Kindra trotted down the hallway and opened the door. Rain hitting the metal roof of the garage sharpened and intensified.
    Her hope renewed, she started to speak Mary Margret’s name just as the garage door creaked shut. She let out a huff of air. Something felt wrong…creepy.
    A wedge of light became a sliver and then disappeared as the garage door shut completely. Kindra clicked on the light by the stairs. Mary Margret’s little blue Jetta was parked on the concrete. A naked incandescent bulb created a circle of light over the vehicle.
    Goose bumps formed on Kindra’s bare arms. She ran to the driver’s side. Empty. Someone, probably Mary Margret, had brought the car back. But why not just go through the door that led directly into the house? Kindra darted back up the three wooden stairs and into the hallway.
    “Mary Margret? Is that you?” Her feet pounded across the hallway carpet then on the cool linoleum of the kitchen. She opened the front door and ran out into the cool, dark night. Rain drizzled from the sky. Drops spattered against her face.
    She scanned up and down the quiet street. A car, its red taillights staring at her like angry eyeballs, edged toward the stop sign. Without coming to a full stop, the car pulled onto the main road and roared away.
    Boy, he was in a hurry. Streetlights illuminated empty yards and dark windows. No one was out here. Not a soul. But someone had brought Mary Margret’s car back. Concrete chilled Kindra’s bare feet, and rain soaked her thin cotton shirt. Must be 2 or 3 a.m. by now.
    She turned slowly back toward the house. Another car pulled off the main road into the subdivision. The flashing lights of the police vehicle caused white spots to jerk across her field of vision.
    Ice entered her veins.
    She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as the police car came to a stop across from Mary Margret’s. The officer got out and walked toward Kindra.

    Ginger sat at her kitchen table, resting her face in one of her hands. She gripped the answering machine tape with the other.
    Mary Margret had been in danger.
    Ginger shivered at the thought of the fear in Mary’s second message. Earl had awakened her when he came in for his coffee break. Her migraine had subsided enough so she could function.
    Her jaw tightened. Why hadn’t she checked messages first thing? So what if that car had chased her. So what if she had a migraine. Something worse could be happening to Mary.
    I’m a terrible friend.
    Ginger lifted her head. The kitchen clock indicated that it was 2 a.m. Why? Why did she have to get a migraine and lose twelve hours of her life just like that?