“Having fun yet?” Jake asked.

Pretty sure he was smiling now.

I ignored him and crawled forward on my elbows, trying to get to the back wall where the offending pipe from the kitchen was located. He angled the flashlight for me and I saw the pipe up above me and next to the brick wall. I reached out to touch it and was glad my fingers weren’t wet. Because it was so icy cold, I was certain my flesh would have stuck permanently to the frozen metal. And there wasn’t enough room for Jake to come up and help me. I looked down, squinting in the darkened space, trying to locate the hairdryer. I saw it, the pearly gray barrel blending in seamlessly with the layer of dust and dirt.

But I saw something else, too.

“Did you see this?” I asked, my eyes zeroing in on the floor.

“See what?” he said. “My eyes were full of dirt.”

“This door. Did you see it?”

“Nooo. I was looking for the pipe.”

“There’s a door,” I told him. “Like, a wooden door. That opens up.”

“Excellent. Can you get the hair dryer up there now so the pipe doesn’t burst?”

But I was enamored with the door. It was about three feet by three feet, made of several two by fours. I used my hand to clear the dust from it. A splinter sliced into my palm and I winced but even that couldn’t deter me.

“There’s a hole,” I said. “To pull it up and open it.”

“Daisy,” he said sternly. “The pipe.”

“Just a second,” I said. I stuck my fingers into the hole and tried to lift it out, but it was too heavy. “Do you have a screwdriver?”

“No.”

“Liar. There’s one right there on the table.”

He sighed and a moment later, slid the screwdriver into the space. I reached back with my hand, grabbed it and brought it over to the door.

“If that pipe bursts…”

“Oh, please,” I said. “It’ll be fine. It’s been frozen for hours; a few more minutes isn’t going to hurt. Did you know there was a door here? Where would it go?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “To someplace beneath the crawl space?”

I’d never even thought about the crawl space actually being above something. It was just sort of…there, this elevated concrete space in our basement that, after studying for about half a second, I’d decided would be good for storing things. To me, it was like a bonus shelf, four feet off the basement floor. I’d already thought of putting valuables up there, off the floor that I’d been warned by our home inspector might be susceptible to flooding.

But the area underneath, the concrete tomb that the crawl space created? My mind was already spinning. I was thinking of secret tunnels and buried treasure and mementos left by previous residents. I didn’t want to see what was down there; I needed to see.

I wedged the screwdriver into the hole, set my elbow against the concrete and lifted the door up out of the ground. It lifted easily and I used my other hand to get it out of the square and slid it to the side.

“I got it!” I yelled. “It’s off!”

“Do not fall in, Daisy,” Jake said.

“Throw me the flashlight,” I said.

“You have one minute,” Jake said, rolling the flashlight toward me. “And then I want that hair dryer on the pipe before this basement fills with water and drains our bank account. Well, what’s left of our bank account.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, grabbing the light.

I propped myself up on my elbows and angled the light down into the now-open door. The drop down was about twelve feet and the walls were made entirely of metal. I felt a twinge of disappointment. It looked like an old coal chute. I did not see a tunnel. I did not see treasure.

“Daisy?” Jake asked. “What do you see?”

I angled the light again, searching every crevice of the space. The light flickered over something and my hand stilled before it began to tremble. I tried to steady the beam of light, to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. I swallowed hard and wiped at the cobwebs clinging to my face.

“I see…a pair of shoes,” I said.

“Shoes?” Jake asked.

“Yeah.” I swallowed again. “And someone’s in them.”

THE MURDER PIT by Jeff Shelby is now available at all ebook retailers!

Table of Contents

Copyright

Books by Jeff Shelby

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY ONE

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY THREE

TWENTY FOUR

TWENTY FIVE

TWENTY SIX

TWENTY SEVEN

TWENTY EIGHT

TWENTY NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY ONE

THIRTY TWO

THIRTY THREE

THIRTY FOUR

THIRTY FIVE

THIRTY SIX

THIRTY SEVEN

THIRTY EIGHT

THIRTY NINE

FORTY

FORTY ONE

FORTY TWO

FORTY THREE

AUTHOR'S NOTE