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    The Orchid Grower: a short story
    The Orchid Grower: a short story
    The Orchid Grower: a short story
    Ebook26 pages18 minutes

    The Orchid Grower: a short story

    By Katia Lief

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    About this ebook

    In this chilling story, a woman home alone in the middle of the night surprises an intruder who expected to have the upper hand. In the days that follow, she tends her prized orchid while hiding evidence of her growing list of crimes.

    Derringer Award nomination, 2016

    Praise for Katia Lief's crime fiction:

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlue Table Books
    Release dateMar 16, 2017
    ISBN9780988746220
    The Orchid Grower: a short story
    Author

    Katia Lief

    Born in France to American parents, KATIA LIEF moved to the United States as a baby and was raised in Massachusetts and New York. She teaches fiction writing as a part-time faculty member at the New School in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

    Read more from Katia Lief

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      Book preview

      The Orchid Grower - Katia Lief

      THE ORCHID GROWER

      a short story

      by Katia Lief

      Originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November 2015

      Nominated for the Derringer Award, 2016

      © 2015 Katia Lief

      ISBN 978-0-9887462-2-0

      Praise for Katia Lief's crime fiction:

      "Nail-biting suspense." –Richard Montanari

      Mesmerizing. –Lisa Gardner

      A must-read for fans of unpredictable psychological suspense. –Wendy Corsi Staub

      A new force to reckon with in...suspense. –Donna Anders

      Suspense at a high level. –Midwest Book Review

      Taut, clean storytelling. –Publishers Weekly

      The Orchid Grower

      Lena jolts awake.  Holds still.  Closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep under her covers.

      She is sure she hears someone breathing.

      Listening closely, she counts time before the next exhalation:  six seconds.  Whoever it is, he’s trying not to be heard.  Unless it isn’t a he.  But of course it is; women don’t break into people’s homes in the middle of the night.  Men are usually the ones who cause trouble.  She thinks of her husband, Mort.  His side of the bed is as cool and untouched as when she turned in, never expecting to wake up with another person in the room.

      She forces her own breathing to stay shallow and light—maybe he doesn’t realize she’s there—maybe he’ll creep out of her room and go downstairs to forage for valuables—maybe, if she waits, and keeps quiet, he’ll only rob the house and leave.  She could live with that, given the alternatives.

      She wonders what Mort would have done if he’d been here with her, but what’s the point of

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