A $100,000 student loan is murder-but then so is a human head in your pantry.Mariah Garrett has two weighty problems-crushing agoraphobia, and a six-figure student loan. While searching for something to sell on eBay one morning, she uncovers a hidden staircase in the upstairs closet of the beachside Victorian once belonging to her Great Aunt Mae. A misstep on a stair sends her plummeting to the bottom and back to 1957, where she meets a young Aunt Mae who invites her to join the H.O.E.S. (Houston's Outstanding Emissaries of Society) But when the annual H.O.E.S ball takes a deadly turn, Mariah soon discovers that the Nifty Fifties can be a dangerous place.