Read Online Trolls in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome - Free Book Online Page A

you look as good as that apple pie tasted.”
    Yes, Virginia, there really are decent men out there. Arlen would have looked away from Susan and kept his distance, as if she were contagious.
    After they left, I made coffee and Agent Grant and I sat in the living area, me on the couch, Grant on the old leather chair that I’d covered with a quilt from a flea market.
    I didn’t know where to start, so I sipped my coffee and just watched him. He made for nice scenery, except he was watching me.
    Finally he said, “Peculiar goings-on, hm?”
    I laughed. “You can say that again!”
    He did not laugh back. I realized he seldom smiled, unlike Van, who flashed his dimples often, and to good effect.
    â€œAnd far too coincidental,” Grant went on, eliminating any urge I had to chuckle, “that you’ve been at each of the troublesome events. One of the first rules they teach in detective school is there are no such things as coincidences. Look for the common threads, find a pattern, locate a common denominator.”
    â€œMe?” I squeaked.
    â€œWe’re not sure.”
    I did not like the way the conversation was going. “Who is this ‘we’ anyway? You never said what agency you actually work for.”
    â€œIt’s called DUE. Department of Unexplained Events. There’s a much longer, technical name for it, but that’s the one we prefer. DUE is less troubling to the average citizen.”
    Good grief, he was talking UFOs, X-Files, Men in Black. “You think this is something extraterrestrial? That I am an alien?”
    â€œOh, no. We know where you were born, what doctor delivered you, where you have that charming birthmark. You are no alien.”
    The birthmark was on my ass, for heaven’s sake! “I cannot believe this!”
    â€œDo you believe in trolls, then?”
    I choked on a swallow of coffee.
    While I sputtered and dabbed at the droplets on my nice shirt, he said, “I know what you have been working on.”
    Ohmygod. “How? How could you know? Only my cousin and my boss know. Maybe Van, too, by now.”
    â€œI am sorry, but we’ve had to establish access to everything. Your computer, your apartment’s video camera, your phone lines. I swear no one listened to or recorded anything not pertinent to our investigation.”
    Suddenly he was not the cherry on top. He was the worm in the apple. My conversations, my ideas, my life? “How dare you! I insist you stop right now. I’ll get a lawyer, a court order. A . . . a new cell phone.”
    â€œWe have a warrant, not that it’s any consolation knowing that your privacy has been breached. We intruded as little as possible, and then only because of the grave threat to the security of the entire world as we know it.”
    â€œYou think I am a danger to the entire world?” He was crazier than I was. And I was alone with him. With my luck, he did have a gun. And who cared if he was married or not?
    He crossed his right leg over his left knee, getting more comfortable, while I felt like I was suffocating. “More coffee?” I asked, thinking I could leave via the fire escape.
    â€œNo, thank you. But let’s start over again, shall we, with the facts, as we know them. Maybe you will understand better, and forgive us. And me.”
    He described the street scene. “A trolley. On your block.”
    The falling crane. “A train, a troop of teenagers. Outside your publisher’s window. And today, at the hospital, a bowl. A trolley, a train, a bowl. What’s the thread? What do they have in common?”
    â€œThey were red?”
    He nodded, as if congratulating a really slow first grader. “What else?”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œThat too, but a trolley, a train, a bowl. As if people were trying not to say what they really saw.”
    I gave up. “A troll. No, wait. There’s another common denominator. A man named Lou was