While looking for a basket in the attic of Grey Gables, the Victorian home she inherited from her grandmother, Annie discovers a Celtic sporran containing several ferrules, the silver fittings of a set of bagpipes. Annie knows her lineage hailed from Scotland, but neither of her grandparents had told her about the sporan or the ferrules. Annie takes her latest mystery to the Hook and Needle Club, the needlework group that has helped her many times in the past. The thread of the mystery leads Annie and several of her friends to the Highland Games, an annual celebration of Scottish heritage. That's when the going gets tough. The close-knit clans the group finds at the games appear friendly at first blush, but then close ranks when Annie and Ian Butler, the mayor of Stony Point, ask too many questions. What is the mysterious link that puts everyone on edge? The answer is as mournful as the drone of bagpipes.