The Secrets Of Still Waters Chasm by Patricia Crisafulli (EXCERPT)

Hello, readers! Today we have an excerpt for you from a cozy mystery novel that’s been described as a blend of The Da Vinci Code and Murder She Wrote. The second book of the Ohnita Harbor mystery series finds our heroine once again compelled to help those who need it most, even if it puts her in mortal danger.

One beautiful September afternoon, a hike through the pristine wilderness of Still Waters Chasm becomes a path of mystery and deadly danger for librarian Gabriela Domenici and her boyfriend, Daniel Red Deer. After taking a side trail, they discover an inexplicable construction site in the middle of the woods, where every tree has been cut down and a huge truck bearing strange-looking equipment is parked in the middle. As they continue their hike to the lake, they come across a series of even more startling discoveries.

While conducting a library outreach program in the rural town of Livery, near Still Waters Chasm, shortly after, Gabriela discovers a community that is both curious and suspicious. There she meets Lucinda Nanz, an herbalist whose encyclopedic knowledge of plants for help and harm is both fascinating and troubling, as well as Wendy Haughton, a young woman who desperately wants to sell an old drawing of unknown origin so that she can escape her abusive husband. Despite both the state police’s warnings to stay out of the investigation and Daniel’s urging to not get involved, Gabriela cannot stay away from Livery and Still Waters Chasm — putting her on a collision course with yet another murder and people who will stop at nothing to prevent her from getting too close to the truth.

Read on for an excerpt from Gabriela and Daniel’s eventful hike!

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The September sun rose above the trees and stood nearly at its apex. Gabriela paused to retrieve her water bottle from her backpack and took four long swallows. She offered it to Daniel, who drank deeply.

Reciting what she’d read the night before about this part of northern New York State, Gabriela explained how during the most-recent ice age great glaciers had carved deep lakes and chasms and piled debris and earth into tall foothills. Just thirty miles from where they hiked rose the Adirondack Mountains, which contained some of the oldest rocks in the United States—more than one billion years old. “Who knows? Maybe some of these stones too,” she said, kicking one with the toe of her hiking shoes.

“Always the librarian,” Daniel replied.

Gabriela caught the deepening smile lines around his eyes. “Guilty. But I like knowing stuff.”

“And I like hearing it.”

The trail curved to the right, the trees parted, and Gabriela gasped at her first glimpse of the rocky walls of Still Waters Chasm. Taking slow steps toward the edge, Gabriela peered over, expecting a sheer drop-off. Instead, the chasm walls sloped downward to the long, thin Still Waters Lake, nearly a hundred feet below. On the other side, rocks lay in horizontal bands like the layers of a cake, except where they had heaved up, in some places nearly vertically.

They walked hand in hand as the forest transitioned from oaks and hemlocks to shrubs. Then the trail flattened out, and they stepped onto the stony shoreline of Still Waters Lake.

Crouched at the edge, where tiny waves beat a light rhythm, Gabriela dipped her fingers into the water. Yelping, she withdrew her hand. “My God, that’s cold.”

“Never warms up.” Daniel explained that the lake plunged to more than six hundred feet deep in the middle.

“Wait. You’re kidding, right? Six hundred feet?” Gabriela interrupted.

“Carved out by the glaciers, remember?” Daniel nudged her gently. “So I get to teach you something.”

Gabriela listened intently to his explanation of a river that had flowed here some fifty thousand years ago, carving out a valley. Then the glaciers descended, gouging out the earth and making this chasm deeper and wider. The melting glaciers formed the lake, now fed by snow runoff from the higher elevations and springs that bubbled out of the ground and flowed through Still Waters Lake and into the Little Rocky River. He pointed to the right, beyond their line of sight. “Canoeists come up Little Rocky to the lake. I’ve done it once or twice, myself.”

Canoeing would be strenuous, and the thought of tipping over into that icy water scared her, but Gabriela pushed past those reservations. “Let’s try it sometime. I’ve gone kayaking, so canoeing can’t be that hard.”

Daniel palpated her bicep. “I’d say you’re strong enough for it.”

Gabriela pumped her arms in the air. “Lifting all those books every day.”

They followed the curve of the lake, skirting a small marsh studded with cattails. Up ahead, the bleached hulk of a tree trunk rested on the shoreline and, beside it, an upturned canoe, its deep green finish glistening in the sun. Gabriela looked behind them, wondering if they should walk in the other direction to preserve the illusion of being the only people here, but Daniel continued forward. On the other side of the tree trunk, hidden from sight until they reached the canoe, a man stretched out, faceup, on the rocks.

For an instant, Gabriela recalled Daniel reclining on the ground and wondered if this man might be sleeping. Then a faint gurgling noise grabbed her full attention. She dropped her backpack and rushed over to him. He looked to be about thirty, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt with a gray quilted vest. His body trembled stiffly, his legs and arms rigid against stones along the shoreline. “Help me roll him on his side,” she ordered.

Daniel grabbed the man by the shoulders, lifted him away from a puddle of vomit around his head. The man’s body shuddered, then went limp.

Pressing her fingers into the man’s neck, she felt for a pulse. Nothing—or perhaps just very faint.

Sweeping her gaze over the water, across the beach, and the woods behind them, Gabriela saw another person lying on the ground where the stony shoreline met the trees. She took off toward the body, stumbling over rocks. At the sight of a woman’s gray face and half-open eyes, Gabriela’s vision blurred and she shook her head vigorously to clear her brain. Vomit rimmed the woman’s mouth and streaked her neatly plaited brown hair. She tried to detect a pulse but felt only cold flesh. The woman had been dead long enough for her body to cool.

Turning back toward the beach, she saw Daniel splashing the man’s face with water. “Come on, wake up!” he yelled.

Piercing the swirl of fear, one thought whipped Gabriela into action: She had to save this man. Rushing over, she knelt beside his body and began rapid chest compressions to a count of thirty, then breathed twice into his mouth. “Go get help,” she told Daniel between breaths.

“I’m not leaving you here,” he said.

“Then we’re both staying.” Gabriela kept up the cycle of compressions and rescue breaths until her muscles began to ache. She then placed Daniel’s hands on the man’s chest and showed him how to do the compressions while she kept forcing air into the man’s lungs. They continued, keeping blood and oxygen flowing to his brain and internal organs.

The man’s face grayed to the same pallor as the woman’s and his body cooled. Daniel stopped. “He’s gone.”

Gabriela sank into a seated position on the rocks and pulled her legs into her body, her forehead resting on her knees.

Daniel held up his phone, then stuffed it back into his pocket. “We need to go back up the trail to get a signal.”

Gabriela thought of emergency defibrillators, the possibility that trained EMTs could shock the man back to life. “I’ll stay and keep up the compressions.”

“No, he’s dead, and I’m not leaving you here.”

Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Then you stay, and I’ll go.”

Daniel shook his head. “We’ll both go. As soon as we can call, we’ll come back.”

Gabriela tried another round of compressions and rescue breaths on the man, and Daniel took several photos of both bodies and the shoreline with the bleached tree trunk as a visual map they could text to the EMTs.

As hard as they pushed themselves, it took twenty-five minutes to reach a spot where they could get cell phone service. Gabriela saw the signal on her phone first and dialed. When the emergency operator answered, her words tumbled out: two people, vomiting, seizure, one dead—the other unresponsive.

When the call ended, they started running back down the trail toward the beach, thinking of only one thing: The man could not die; the paramedics would save him.

The extreme exertion spent her adrenaline rush, and Gabriela felt calmer but exhausted by the time they reached the lake. They’d been gone a total of forty-two minutes. At the water’s edge, smaller stones made better footing as they ran. Chilly water seeped into Gabriela’s hiking shoes, giving her mind a point of concentration. Up ahead, the bleached tree trunk lay on the shore. But no canoe, no bodies.

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From The Secrets Of Still Waters Chasm by Patricia Crisafulli. Copyright © 2023 by the author and reprinted by permission.

The Secrets Of Still Waters Chasm by Patricia Crisafulli was published September 5 2023 by Woodhall Press and is available from all good booksellers, including