The Chain(19)

“I’m in Augusta. We’re down here for the retreat.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I’ll be back Friday evening to take Kylie for the weekend, don’t worry.”

Rachel stifles a sob. “Oh, Marty,” she whispers.

“That’s tomorrow, hon. Hang in there.”

“I will.”

“This isn’t about the roof, is it? What’s happening, babe? Something’s wrong. Tell me.”

Aside from the fact that I’m probably dying and our daughter’s been kidnapped? she very nearly says but doesn’t. Doesn’t because Marty would go straight to the police and wouldn’t understand.

“Is it about money? I haven’t been good, I know that. I’ll do better. I promise. Have you got a contractor?”

“No. I’ve got no help,” Rachel says in a monotone.

“How badly is the roof leaking?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, hon, I checked the weather. No roofer will come out in the rain tonight. Maybe Pete could help?”

“Pete? Where is Pete?”

“He’s in Worcester. I think.”

“I’ll send him a text. I think I’ll be allowed to do that.”

“What are you talking about? Allowed by whom?”

“Nothing. No one. Yes, maybe I’ll ask Pete. I’ll think about that.”

“All right, sweetie. I really have to go, OK?”

“OK, Marty,” she says sadly.

“’Bye,” he says and hangs up. Without his calming baritone, the car is chilly and silent once more.





16

Thursday, 2:44 p.m.



Unless you are a bow hunter, a paraplegic, an ancient-firearms enthusiast, or under the age of eighteen, deer-hunting season in Massachusetts doesn’t begin until November 27.

Pete, however, has never really bought into the logic of the Massachusetts hunting-season dates or, indeed, most laws, rules, and ordinances.

He knows that if the rangers or a sheriff catches him, he could get fined or worse. But the rangers won’t catch him. Pete knows these woods west of Worcester the way other people know the bars outside Fenway or the rotation of the girls at Hurricane Betty’s. He’s been hunting these forests since he was a boy. Admittedly, his senses are dulled somewhat because of his current issues, but even so, no clumsy sheriff’s deputy or high-visibility-vest-wearing ranger is going to surprise him.

He often thinks about moving to Alaska, where there would be even fewer rangers and deputies, but Kylie will keep him in the state at least until she’s off to college. Kylie is his only niece and he’s nuts about her. They text nearly every day and he always takes her to those movies her mom can’t sit through.

Pete follows the big buck deeper into the birch forest. It has no idea it is being stalked. He’s upwind of it and he moves through the trees in utter silence. Pete is very good at this. In the Marines he had been an engineering officer, but after a couple of years of building bridges under mortar fire, he had taken a sabbatical to attend the basic recon course at Camp Pendleton. He finished near the top of his class. The brass had wanted him to transfer to a recon battalion but he’d done it only to test himself.

He sights the old buck in his rifle and aims under the heart, but just as he is about to squeeze the trigger, his phone vibrates in his pocket. Should have turned it off, he thinks. Didn’t imagine there would be a signal out here.

He looks at it. Two new messages, one from Rachel and one from Marty. Both asking the same question: Where are you?

He tries to respond to Rachel, but the message won’t go through. He ignores Marty’s text. He doesn’t hate Marty but they have little in common. There’s six years between them, and by the time Marty was up walking and talking and starting to get interesting, Pete had been itching to get out of the house. And get out he had. At the age of twelve, he had “borrowed” a neighbor’s Chevy Impala and driven it all the way to East Franklin, Vermont. He’d been heading for Montreal, of all places, but he was stopped at the Canadian border and arrested.

And nothing had happened. Nothing at all. The judge gave him the old blah-blah-blah and a finger-wagging. He’d stolen more cars after that but was more careful. No attempts to cross the border, no racing. He hooked up with a bad crowd in high school, but nobody cared as long as he maintained a high-B average, which he did. School bored him but he somehow managed to get accepted to Boston University to study civil engineering. At BU he just about maintained a C average. He spent most of his time playing with the new computer-aided design software, creating outrageous suspension bridges that could never be built and old-fashioned cantilever bridges that no one wanted. He graduated in May of 2000 with no plans for or ideas about his future.

He moved to New York and attempted to make a living as a cybersecurity expert on the burgeoning World Wide Web. Everybody said that the internet was the new gold rush, but Pete must have been panning in the wrong virtual rivers. He barely made enough to keep up with the interest on his student loans.

But then a year later: September 11.

He went to Times Square the next morning. No one who was in New York then will ever forget that day after. It was a new world. At the recruiting booth, there was a line that stretched to Thirty-Fourth Street. Pete’s grandfather had been in the navy. With Pete’s engineering degree and background, the recruiters recommended the navy or the Marine Corps. Pete chose the Marines. And that was all she wrote for the next thirteen years. Officer Candidate School, the combat engineers, seven overseas tours, five to operational theaters. After the Marines, he’d traveled some and finally moved back to Worcester.