Quick Glimpses: Fear on the Ferris Wheel

In another scene from Murder and Marinara, the main character and amateur sleuth, Victoria, is on a date with a man who may be a suspect in the murder she’s investigating. Despite her fear of heights—and boardwalk rides—Vic agrees to join the mysterious Calvin Lockheart on the Ferris Wheel. . .

To my chagrin, there wasn’t much of a line for the Ferris wheel, and before I knew it, I was stepping shakily into an open seat. Cal slid in next to me, and the operator locked the bar into place. I gripped it with both hands. He flashed me a sideways grin. “You okay there?”

I tightened my hands on the bar. “Uh, I’m good, thanks.” I looked over at him with a frozen smile. “It’s not—” I’d been about to say ‘as bad as I thought it would be,’ but then it was. We were lifted up and backward, and I had that familiar dropping sensation that I got on airplanes. The one that made me feel I’d left my stomach somewhere on the ground and that I was flying away without it. My eyes darted for an escape, but Cal put an arm around my shoulders.

“They’re just raising the car to bring the next one up on the platform.” He assumed the slow, gentle tone one might use with a skittish horse, and I frowned at him.

“I said I’m fine, okay?” The car jerked upward, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh my God, what the hell are they doing?”

“Victoria, open your eyes. They’re just filling up the cars, is all. Once they do that, we’ll make a couple of nice, slow circles and be back down on the ground before you know it.”

I opened one eye and glared at him with it. “This ride is interminable.” My grip on the bar was so tight I was losing feeling in my hands. I shifted in the seat, which set the car rocking and me wondering whether sausage and onions had been such a good idea. At that moment we began our slow ascent, and my whole body stiffened. Cal tightened his arm around me, but I was too terrified to tell whether or not I enjoyed the feeling. “Uhh, you said you’d distract me. So let’s talk.”

“You got it. But would you mind opening your other eye?” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Right. Both eyes open.” Ha, both eyes open—that could be the theme of my investigation.

[Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash]