Not only had I finally dislodged the misshapen shelf, but I had also yanked out a poster-sized portion of the wall as well.

Luckily, the crowbar was still in my hand and not embedded in my forehead. “Stubborn son of a-” I jammed it in hard, braced not only my leg, but my hip against the counter, and pulled, making a lot of obscene sounds as I did so…and wham! Tumbled ass over tea kettle to the floor. I yanked again, bracing my foot against the toe kick at the floor.

Buoyed by the courage of several glasses of wine, I took up the crowbar again, and wedged the straight edge behind the warped wood. I grabbed a crowbar from my toolbox, and with the crowbar in one hand and my wine glass in the other, I crossed to the shelf and took another hearty swig before setting the glass aside. Warped and too unwieldy for my wares, it had to come down. Then my eye went toward an awkwardly smiling shelf. I still had a long way to go, but I would be ready by Friday for my grand opening. Pouring myself another glass of Chardonnay, I sipped and wandered around my soon-to-be-opened tea shop, fluffing a pillow here, adjusting a lamp there. I made a mental note to buy rattraps at the local hardware store. I hated stuff like that rats, spiders, and snakes-the litany of creepy crawly things. “Probably rats,” I muttered for the umpteenth time. But this? Ever since I moved into my shop-slash-house two weeks ago, this noise had been coming from inside the walls. Look, I’m not some scaredy-cat to jump at every sound. The unpleasant scratching sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention had been going on for days. I didn’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural…but that weird noise in the wall was testing my convictions. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.įor more information, email Diversion Books edition October 2017 Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

The Deepest Grave by Jeri Westerson