The Epstein Files

Read at your own discredit ...

Chapter 1: Dante’s Inferno

“I’ll be home after my watercolor class” I said to my dog, Blight. Blight always had a way of knowing when I was feeling gregarious, perplexed and somewhat spacey. He gestured his cute little nose to my laptop, which was open on the kitchen table, next to my haphazardly sipped cup of coffee and a newspaper which was gregariously and haphazardly opened to the arts section. I longed for the arts like a bear longed for salmon in the winter, the cool mountain stream gushing as salmon swam swiftly towards their origin.

“Really, Blight?”. Plastered on the screen of the laptop on the web browser was a newly updated profile on my Plenty of Fish account. It was gregarious and glistening, but not quite glorious. “Not today, buddy.”

Blight was particularly focused lately on me reentering the world of dating. He wanted a new dad to throw baseballs with and eat chicken nuggets with. On several occasions he has updated my dating profile using only his paws. Once he even was able to have a full conversation while pretending to be me with a man named Todd who worked in finance and was 7 feet tall. He had glistening blue eyes as bright as the sun and a gold tooth and a bellybutton ring. He was gregarious and wore stylish suits to work, and when I zillowed his house the zestimate was 2 mil. He was a catch, but I just couldn’t do it. I looked down at my natural D’s and sighed. I just was not ready to date. Just give me some time I said to them.

It’s been about three years since my husband passed. My dear Blint. Blint was a professor of art and science, and we were madly in love. We met young and married fast. Our wedding was in a little chapel in Vermont or Michigan and the service was held on a crisp October day. I still remember the leaves falling as we said our vows. Married life was bliss. We drank coffee together in the morning and talked about the world. In the evenings we sat by the fire with Blight and discussed philosophy and listened to Jewel or Enya. We cooked homemade pasta and bread together and drank red wine as we danced in the kitchen, bread dough on our aprons. He was kind and patient and the type of man you marry and love for the rest of your life. How he died is basically he fell into a quicksand and then got rescued by a helicopter but then the helicopter dropped him clean into a volcano and then he managed to climb out even though his bones were sticking out at that point from the volcano juice but then on the way to the hospital I guess the ambulance guys and him all stopped for burgers at a drivethrough and he’s lactostintolerant and they forgot to say no cheese so ya he died from that he farted so bad all his bones fell off. I look back fondly on our life together.

When he passed I sold all of our belongings and moved from our cool, gregarious ranch in El Paso, to a small town in the middle of the country or the Pacific Northwest. Or New England. Wait ya, New England, coastal New England. I was determined to start anew. I found a lovely little house. A white bungalow with green shutters, and a furnace that almost immediately needed to be replaced. The guy that sold me the house did not disclose any information about the furnace prior to me purchasing the bungalow but given the way inspections work he had to know. I tried to leave him a review but google said I needed to open an gmail account which I did not want to and now it’s been what like three years so even though I have a gmail account now I’m not gonna go and leave the guy a review from three years ago. Two lilac trees lined the entry next to the white picket fence, and squirrels danced around gregariously the dewy grass. My kitchen was open and rustic with a big bay window looking out to the street. I left the windows open all summer, wind rustling in through the checkered curtains that I brought back from a trip to Paris the summer before I met Blint. In the winters, I sat by the fireplace and knitted or did Zins. I spent many summer evenings on my wrap around front porch reading the police log and playing tetris on my phone. I liked my new little life.

The neighborhood has always struck me as interesting and gregarious. It didn’t take long for me to notice that everyone knew everything about everyone, and I was quickly swept up into the mix. Stacey was a meteorologist, she was one of the only woman I have ever seen wear high heels every day. She was chic, and looked like she belonged in midtown manhattan, not our sleepy little suburban town. Valerie and Dimeatri were the classic nuclear family. They bickered like an old married couple, but they had each other’s backs. They had two teenage kids who I don’t really care about. Bonnie and Selma were sisters in their late 70’s who had lived in the same house since they were children. They always wore matching dresses and only talked in rhymes. Mr. Beef was a mysterious fellow, an attractive man who was a bachelor and an art collector. He wore big green glasses and was often seen on his porch enjoying a nice scotch. Then there was Linda and Brent.

Linda Belmont was, by all accounts, gregarious, gracious and gallant. But me, having worked in cybersecurity and investigative journalism for over four decades (I had my first apprenticeship at the age of 11), immediately knew that something was off.

I first met her when I was walking Blight. I was wearing a gorgeous sundress that showcased my D’s and a big floppy hat. When a gust of wind came and swept my hat clean off my head, I gasped an audible gasp. I looked around and saw it laying on a bush in front of an outdated split level home with just the most obnoxious red door you’ve ever seen. I went to delicately and innocently pick my hat off the bush when the door swung open like a witches castle on halloween night.

Standing in front of me was a cryptid in Lulu Lemon garb. She had the blue eyes of satan and sneakers that screamed Nike Outlet Store. She wore pink lipstick the color of hell and emanating from her house was the smell of eggs mixed with a yankee candle.

“Well hello there”, She said. “Misplace something?”

“Oh”, I said sheepishly, staring down at my beautiful hat from Paris, “Yes, it just blew clean off my head into your hedges. I’ll be on my way now, sorry for intruding”. I turned to walk away, elegantly and swiftly.

“Not so fast”, she said, in a tone that resembled Ted Bundy and not Enya. “How would you like to come to my party later this evening? You can bring a dish and meet the neighbors.”

“I—uh—”, Thinking of an excuse to get out of this, I paused and remembered how Blint, my old husband that died from cheese and a volcano, always used to tell me to put myself out there. I have always been such a bookworm and not a party girl. I took a deep breath. For Blint, I thought. “Ok. Ok I’ll be there.”

I smiled and saw Linda notice how straight and white my teeth were. I was wearing mascara and have naturally large breasts, so I could tell she resented me.

“Amazing. I am Linda by the way.”

“I know—I’ve heard about you—I mean—all good things—I mean—I mean—Hi. I’m Heather…Like Feather but with an H. An H Like in the word “Hope” or “Happiness".”

“See you tonight, Heather like Feather”, Linda hissed.

I walked away holding my hat and whispered to Blight under my breath:

“Did we just walk into Dante’s Inferno?”

• * * * * * *

Across town in an office building, two men in suits talked quietly. One was tall and slender, and the other about as tall as Jennifer Garner but a guy and he had a bald head and glasses.

“I’m not worried about the island or the jail stuff. What I’m worried about is the storm that’s coming if we don’t find out what happened in that lab”, said the tall slender man.

“I’m on it boss. Give me 14 or 15 days”, said the other one.

“So you’re saying you have no leads?”

“I have something. We don’t quite know how it fits into the big picture yet, but my sources say it’s big”. He pulled out his laptop and slid it across the table.

The tall man looked quizzically and gregariously at the screen, trying to decipher what he was gazing upon.

“What the hell am I looking at, Stevens?” he said finally.

“I don’t know, Prawnklin. But I know that I’m not going to stop until I figure it out.”