Trick or Treachery Read Online Free Page A

have never encountered a store quite like Charles’s. It seems there is nothing they don’t have on hand—nothing. That David immediately handed me a pair of long white socks wasn’t at all surprising.
    “Think they’ll fit Seth?” I asked.
    “It’s the biggest pair we have,” David said. “Lots of elastic. They’ll expand to fit almost everyone. I think he’ll manage to get into them.”
    I followed David to the checkout counter and stood in line behind the woman Mara had pointed out at breakfast that morning. She was in the process of paying for her purchases—a pointed shovel with a long handle, a sturdy rake and gardening gloves.
    “Need help out to the car with those, Ms. Swift?” David asked her.
    “No, thank you,” she said flatly. “I can manage just fine.”
    The woman—I now knew her last name—gathered the garden tools to her chest and walked to the front door.
    “She’s new in town, isn’t she?” I asked.
    “Yes,” David said. “Matilda Swift. She’s renting one of the cottages on Paul Marshall’s estate.”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    I turned from him and looked about the store.
    “Something wrong?” David’s brother, Jim, asked from behind the counter.
    “No, I . . . I thought someone might have opened a window. I suddenly feel cold.”
    “We’ve been complaining all day it’s too hot,” Jim Raneri said, laughing.
    “The Rose Cottage,” David said as he placed the white socks in a bag. “She’s renting the Rose Cottage on Marshall’s estate.
    “She’s lucky,” I said. “That garden is spectacular.”
    “I know. Well, Jess, there you are. Doc Hazlitt’s all set for the party. Still cold?”
    “No. It came as fast as it went. Thanks, fellas. You always come through with what I need.”
     
    The vision of Lucas Tremaine preaching on that corner stayed with me through the rest of the day and into the evening. There’s always something disquieting about someone who espouses destructive thoughts because even though most folks might view such people for what they are, unbalanced zealots, they will always find some following. My hope was that Mr. Tremaine would fail in his enterprise and simply go away—not a particularly generous thought, but one that accurately reflected my feelings.
    I also reflected on the sudden chill I’d experienced in the department store. If I didn’t know better, the rush of cold air that seemed to have engulfed me had come from Ms. Swift, as though she was a refrigerator whose door had been opened. Warmth returned the minute she left the store.
    I had a quiet dinner alone at home—clam chowder, crusty French bread and a salad topped with shavings of Parmesan cheese—and went to bed early. The problem was that someone else hadn’t gone to bed quite as early. The phone rang. I sleepily picked up the receiver. The line was clear.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi there, Mrs. F. Did I wake you?”
    “As a matter of fact, Mort, you did, but that’s all right,” I said, throwing off the covers, sitting up and wriggling back to rest against the headboard.
    “Just wanted to see if you had any idea what costume I might wear to Paul Marshall’s Halloween party.”
    “You, too?”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “I picked up a costume for Seth today.”
    “What did you get him?”
    “He’s going to be a British soldier from the Revolutionary War.”
    Mort chuckled. “He wouldn’t know one end of a musket from the other.”
    “Be that as it may, he’s going as a ‘lobsterback. ’ I got the costume at the theater. You still haven’t decided what to wear?”
    “Nope. Maureen’s going as that singer, Cher. Got herself a whole outfit complete with a long black wig from a mail order costume place down in New York.”
    “Good for her. At least she was thinking ahead.” The sound of static began to crackle softly under our conversation.
    “I thought I’d just come in my sheriff’s uniform,” Mort said, raising his voice. “But Maureen says