A Wild Fright in Deadwood by Ann Charles

 I gasped in surprise, fumbling with my phone before dropping it. The flashlight went out, leaving me in a darkness lit only by the faint glow of the first floor button.

Shit. I held my right hand over my pounding heart as my eyes tried to adjust to the dark. Had I really heard my name, or was my mind playing tricks on me?

Something bit into my forearm.

I screeched and whirled around, searching the shadow-filled corners as I clutched my arm. What in the hell was that?

The corners were too shadow-filled for me to see, so I moved closer to the dim light from the lobby button. Where was my phone? I tried to scan the floor for it, but it was too dark to see anything below my knees.

The elevator slowed to a stop. A rush of relief filled my legs, making them wobbly and weak. A ding sounded outside the doors. I backed up against them, keeping my eyes on the shadow-thick corners, wishing the damned doors would hurry up and open.

The lights overhead flickered on, the sudden brightness making me recoil.

Then I saw my phone. It rested on the handrail that lined the opposite wall. Next to it, with its legs splayed over the rail, was the half-burned clown doll I’d seen earlier in the video playback.

 

It took a second for me to remember to breathe.

Why weren’t the doors opening?

I had a feeling it had something to do with that clown and the little girl who’d been holding it earlier.

Stepping forward, I reached as far toward my phone as I could without one foot leaving the doors. My hand trembled as it neared the phone. My gaze moved to that damned clown in case it decided to come to life and go all Chucky the killer doll on me. As soon as I grasped my phone, a cackle of clown laughter filled the elevator. I cried out and plastered myself back against the doors, which were now opening, thank God.

“Wilda,” I said over the cackling while backing out of the elevator, “leave Cornelius alone.”

The cackling stopped as suddenly as it had started.

As the elevator doors started to close, the light flickered out again. From out of the darkness I heard two words spoken in a high, scratchy voice: Kill her

I love reading the Deadwood Mysteries series by Ann Charles.  They are light, funny, easy to read with a little paranormal element and romance in the book.  I like these books because I don't have to concentrate ob the written word like I had to to in the two Dune books I just read.  The above quote is about as scary as it gets so I don't really look at this as a horror type book.  This is the 7th book in the series of 10 so far and 3 novellas.