The Spaceship Next Door Read Online Free PDF

yes.”
    “Those always sell well. But that isn’t it either, is it? You’re just agreeing with me so I’ll stop guessing.”
    “Why do I have to have an angle?”
    “Because if you don’t have an angle, you’re not here for a puff piece at all, you’re here for some other reason. And that would mean something happened to report about, and we all know that can’t be true because there hasn’t been anything new about the ship since the day it landed. And if there was something new, well… I can think of a lot of people who would want to know all about that.”
    He stared at her for a few beats.
    “You’re sixteen.”
    “Haven’t turned seventeen since the last time you asked.”
    “It’s possible a sixteen year old is attempting to blackmail me right now, so I wanted to re-establish that.”
    “I understand.”
    “So I’m clear: you think I’m a reporter, and that I’m going to be getting a close-up of the only thing in this town anyone cares to see, and that I’m doing this because something’s happened involving that very thing. And you’d like me to know if I don’t… do something for you? You’ll tell everybody this. Do I have that correct?”
    “I would never say blackmail, that’s a terrible word. I’m an innocent young woman.”
    “Right. And what is the thing you would like for me to do?”
    “I am offering my services,” she said. She more or less decided on this the second she said it.
    “Come again?”
    “Not those services, dude. God.”
    “What kind of services?”
    “As I said, everyone in town knows me and I know everyone. A reporter such as yourself would benefit from having a person such as myself around.”
    “For information?”
    “For all sorts of things. Everyone here’s been interviewed a dozen times. If you want to get good answers instead of the usual answers, you need someone there to call bullcrap on them when they say it.”
    “I think I can detect my own… bullcrap… just fine, thanks.”
    “Oh, yeah? Maybe you can ask Joanne when she gets here.”
    “You’d like to be my tour guide.”
    “Sure, you can call it that. I prefer translator. Like in The Killing Fields .”
    “Northern Massachusetts is a poor substitute for Cambodia.”
    “But you see my point.”
    “I do,” he said. “Except you’re bluffing.”
    “I am?”
    “Oh yes.”
    The front door chime rang, and as was the case every other time this happened, Ed looked at the door. In this instance, though, he saw someone he was expecting. Annie turned around to see a man she didn’t recognize. He was in civilian clothes, but he had the sort of crispness she’d seen many times before in members of the army.
    “Huh, looks like they changed the press liaison,” she said.
    “Never mind him,” Ed said, as he collected his laptop and his bill and stood.
    “Last chance.”
    “It’s an interesting offer, Annie Collins. But I don’t need a translator.”
    “And you think I’m bluffing.”
    “I know you are. I know the type.”
    “What type is that?”
    “The type who likes secrets but not gossip. But it’s a pleasure to meet you, and I thank you for the offer.”
    He shook her hand, as if this had been a job interview—which it sort of had been—and headed to the front register to handle his bill. A minute later he was out the door and climbing into a black SUV.
    “So?” Beth asked, when Annie returned the coffee urn to the counter. “What’s his story?”
    “Not sure yet,” Annie said. “But he’s definitely not a reporter. Which makes him a whole lot more interesting.”

4
    The Little Things
    “ W as that Annie Collins you were sitting with?”
    This was the first thing Brigadier General Morris had to say to Ed, as soon as they were in the back of the car, at which point Ed began to wonder if he was losing his mind or if everyone else in this town had lost theirs and he was only catching up.
    “That’s what she said her name was. Do you know her?”
    “I know of her.