The Chain(17)

She walks to the back porch and opens the screen door. Her heart is beating fast. It seems nuts to be doing this in broad daylight, but she has to get a move on.

She takes the chisel out of the bag and positions it in the center of the lock at the keyhole. Then she raises the hammer and hits the chisel hard. There’s a metallic thud but when she tries the handle, it doesn’t turn. She positions the chisel again and hits much harder. This time it’s a swing and a miss, and the hammer plows into the wooden door.

Jesus, Rachel.

She lifts the hammer back and strikes a third time. The entire center mechanism collapses and bits come flying out. Rachel puts down the chisel and hammer and gingerly tries the door.

The handle turns, and when she pushes, the door creaks open.

She takes out the shotgun and the flashlight and, shaking all over, goes inside.





15

Thursday, 1:24 p.m.



She stands in the house she’s just broken into. Thirty seconds of fear.

No dogs come at her. No alarm sounds. No one yells.

It isn’t just luck. She has scouted it well.

The house is musty and empty. A thin layer of dust coats the kitchen surfaces. No one has been in here since early September. She closes the kitchen door behind her and explores the home.

Three uninteresting levels and a very interesting basement with brick walls and a concrete floor and nothing in it but a washing machine, a dryer, and a boiler. The house is held up by a series of concrete pillars and she could, she thinks in disgust, chain someone to one of those pillars. She checks out the little window above the dryer. She’ll cover that with a board she’ll get from the hardware store in town.

Rachel shivers with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. How can she think about this sort of thing so glibly? Is that what trauma does to you?

Yes.

It reminds her again of the chemo days. The numbness. The feeling of plunging into the abyss and falling, falling, falling forever.

She goes upstairs, leaves through the back door, closes it, shuts the screen door, and makes sure the coast is completely clear before going down the back steps onto the beach.

She walks home again through the sea spray and drizzle.

She opens her MacBook at the living-room table and begins checking the Facebook feeds on her list of potential targets.

Selecting the right target is very important. You have to choose the right kind of victim with the right kind of family, people who won’t lose their shit and go to the cops and who have both the money to pay the ransom and the emotional wherewithal to carry out a kidnapping to get their child back.

Again she wonders why she was singled out. She wouldn’t have picked herself. No way. She was going to pick someone much more together. A married couple, maybe, with money.

She gets out her legal pad and comes up with some criteria so she can narrow down her long list. No one who knows her and might possibly recognize her voice. No one in Newburyport or Newbury or Plum Island. But also not someone who is too far away. No one in Vermont or Maine or south of Boston. People who have dough. People who look steady. No cops, journalists, or politicians.

She scrolls through names and faces and again marvels at how willing people are to spill their intimate secrets on the web for anyone to see. Addresses, phone numbers, occupations, number of kids, where their kids go to school, all their hobbies and activities.

A kid is probably the best bet. The most pliable. The least likely to struggle or escape and the most likely to pull at the heartstrings of loved ones. But kids are well watched in this day and age. It might be tricky to grab a child without being seen.

“Except for my kid. Anybody can take my kid,” Rachel says and sniffs.

She goes through Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and applies the criteria. She culls her long list down to five kids. She ranks the children in order of preference.

1. Denny Patterson of Rowley, Mass.

2. Toby Dunleavy of Beverly, Mass.

3. Belinda Watson of Cambridge, Mass.

4. Chandra Singh of Cambridge, Mass.

5. Jack Fenton of Gloucester, Mass.



“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Rachel says to herself. Although, of course, she doesn’t have to do anything. She could go to the cops or the FBI.

She takes time to consider it. To really think about it. The FBI are professionals, but the woman holding her daughter isn’t afraid of the criminal justice system; she’s afraid of The Chain. The person above her on The Chain has her son. And if Rachel is perceived as a defector, this woman’s instructions are to murder Kylie and select a new target. The woman is sounding increasingly on edge. Rachel has no doubt she will do anything to get her son back…

No, no FBI. And furthermore, when she makes the phone call that the woman made to her, she’ll have to sound equally determined and dangerous.

She looks at the notes she’s made on her various targets. Her number-one choice looks very good indeed: Denny Patterson. Twelve. Lives with his mom, Wendy, in Rowley. Single mom, dad out of the picture. She isn’t bankrupt. In fact, she seems to be quite well-off.

Rachel considers that. What is it that the operators of The Chain want? The most important thing is that The Chain itself continues. Some of the people on it will be richer than others, but more crucial than their wealth is the fact that they have to be clever and discreet enough to add another link and keep the whole thing going. Each individual link in The Chain is precious. The targets have to have money but they also have to be competent and pliable and afraid. Like she is now. A strong link with a few hundred dollars in the bank is better than a weak link who is a millionaire.