Secrets in a Still Life by Kari Ganske (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📕

so covered the bottom of the well. I could feel the years of coins digging into my knees and hands as I slowly sunk into the muck.

“I’m calling Security,” Nana K said. “Just hold on.”

“Tell them to hurry. We might have a quicksand kind of situation happening here,” I said trying not to breathe too deeply.

I sat back on my heels, using the rocky sides of the well to help me sit up. I still felt a little dizzy from the fall—and the smell—and didn’t trust myself to stand right away. How deep was I? Could I simply climb out? The fall didn’t seem that long.

While I waited for the nausea to clear, I felt around for Nana’s glasses. My eyes weren’t adjusting to the pitch darkness, so I shoved a handful of the dirty coins in my pocket instead. Maybe that would get me an extra line in her will. Or at least an extra slice of cheesecake.

No luck on the glasses by feel alone.

“What’s happening, Nana?” I called up the well.

“They’re on their way. They gotta find a ladder that fits down there. They didn’t think the bucket would hold you.”

And now I was conjuring images from Silence of the Lambs. Great.

My nausea and dizziness had abated some, so I took the risk to stand. Reaching up as far as I could, I was still about a foot away from the top edge of the well. Being stuck in the well was absolutely not on the plus side of being short.

I kept moving my feet around to make sure they didn’t get sucked too far down into the muck. It was like when you stand in the sand at the beach and let the waves crash over you. Little by little the sand underneath is carried out to sea and more sand is deposited over until your feet are buried. Sometimes you could even see little sand crabs rolling up and down with the ebb and flow of the waves.

Thinking of sand crabs made me wonder what critters could be lurking in the undisturbed depths of this void. I didn’t want to think about it, but I had to know. Against my better judgment, I reached into the back pocket of my jeans for my phone.

The pocket was empty.

Well, poo. Had it fallen out? If it landed in this mess on the bottom that probably meant I needed a new one. The smell alone would be hard to combat. I crouched down again and started feeling around in the dirt and along the sides of the well. I’d made it almost all the way around the edge, when my hand disappeared into an opening. I caught myself against the side of the well. With my face.

Trying to wipe the grime and slime from my cheek, I slowly felt along the wall for the opening again. There was a shaft or tunnel or something at the bottom. Probably originally to fill the well from the local stream when it was still functional. I reached in and felt something solid and cold blocking the way. Too soft to be a rock; too hard to be vegetation.

I pulled my hand back immediately, hoping I wasn’t patting the backside of a Jurassic-sized spider.

“Nana! Turn on your phone flashlight and shine it down here.” My voice sounded high-pitched and thin. I really hated spiders.

“Okay, Peanut.” A minute later the shaft was filled with a surprising amount of light. I located her stupid glasses right away and shoved them into the pocket with the coins. I glanced around once again for my phone with no luck. It had either been sucked up by the goop never to be seen again, or I’d left it in my camera bag. Please, let it be the latter.

“Did you find my glasses?” Nana K asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Nana. I have them.”

“Oh goodie.” She moved the light away from the well.

“Hey! I’d rather not be stuck in the dark down here!” The light reappeared.

Taking a few deep breaths, I worked up the courage to peer into the small opening at the base of the well.

Please, don’t let it be a spider. Please, don’t let it be a spider.

When I finally saw what it was, I would have gladly used all those ill-gotten coins in my pocket to wish it were a spider.

I recoiled immediately and swallowed a scream.

“Nana, call the cops,” I screeched. If I thought my voice sounded scared before, this was full on panic mode.

Still, my grandmother needed an explanation. “Why?” she asked. “Security can handle a ladder. If I called anyone else, it would be the fire department. If they can get cats out of trees, they can get a Peanut out of a well.”

“Słuchać, Nana K,” I said, hoping that telling her to listen in Polish would get her attention. “Call the cops.” I took a deep breath and pressed myself as far as I could away from the opening. “There is a dead woman down here.”

To Be Continued in

One Click in the Grave

Book 2 of the Alex Lightwood Cozy Mystery Series

Ebook available now for preorder on Amazon and in KU

Paperback available for preorder on the website

 

Author’s Note

TL;DR - I'd love it if you could leave a review on Amazon. Good, bad, or great I genuinely care about what readers think. I'd love to say I write for myself, but really, I want to reach readers like so many authors have reached me. I read every single one of the reviews and take any feedback with me when writing and editing the next book.

Thank you so much for reading one of my books! This was so much fun to write. The Alex Lightwood series is the first series of books I've written and published in the