The Chain(20)

Now that chapter of his life is closed. Now he’s just another unemployed forty-year-old who needs to take some free venison to make it through the winter.

The stag lowers its big head to take a drink at a stream. There’s a scar that runs along its left flank. They’ve both been in the wars.

Pete has a clear shot, but something tells him that the stag is going to have to wait. He has that feeling you get in the back of the neck: Something is up. Something is wrong.

He looks at the texts again: Where are you?

Is Rach in some kind of trouble? He puts the rifle over his shoulder and looks for some slightly higher ground to see if he can get a signal, but now his phone says that it’s got 1 percent charge.

He climbs the little hill above the waterfall and tries texting from there but in the two minutes that that takes, of course his phone dies. The big stag turns to look at him. They stare at each other for three seconds.

Spooked, it slips between the trees. Pete watches it vanish with regret. Food stamps go only so far. He secures the rifle and heads back to his truck.

And now his skin is starting to crawl. Is it that time already? He looks at the sky. It can’t be three o’clock. But evidently it is. He hikes through the autumnal wood and finds his pickup truck undisturbed in the firebreak. Unfortunately, he hasn’t brought his phone charger, so he will have to wait until he gets back to his apartment in Worcester to see what Rachel wants.





17

Thursday, 3:27 p.m.



Kylie sits in the sleeping bag. She holds the toothpaste tube in one hand, her wrists aching from the effort of trying to pick the handcuff lock. She remembers a YouTube video Stuart wanted to show her about three ways to get out of handcuffs. Stuart loves that kind of thing—Houdini, magic, escapes. She hadn’t watched it; she’d been on her own phone scrolling for the video about a new secret chamber someone had found in the Great Pyramid.

Next time she would pay attention.

If there is a next time, she thinks with a rush of terror.

She breathes deep and closes her eyes.

She likes magic also.

The Egyptians lived in a god-and-demon-infested world.

There are demons here too, but they are human beings.

She wonders if her mom is doing the things the kidnappers want her to do. She wonders if the kidnappers have mistaken her mom for someone else. Someone with access to a bank vault or government secrets…

She takes a big breath, lets it out slowly, does it again.

She’s calmer now. Not calm, but calmer.

She listens to the nothing.

No, not nothing. There’s always something. Crickets. A jet. A very distant river. Seconds tick past, then minutes. She wants the river to take her away from this place, these people, away from all of it. It doesn’t matter where. She wants to lie back and let the current float her down through the marshes to the Atlantic.

No. That’s fake. A dream. This is real. This basement. These cuffs. Be in the now, the school counselor had said in that mindfulness class they had all mocked. Be present and see everything there is to see in the now.

She opens her eyes.

She looks, really looks.

She sees everything there is to see.





18

Thursday, 3:31 p.m.



Wendy Patterson picks up Denny from Rowley Elementary School, takes him to soccer practice at Rowley High School, then drives into Ipswich and gets herself a soy chai latte from the Starbucks. She Instagrams a picture of the latte and a Thanksgiving cookie that she got for Denny.

Denny has changed into his soccer clothes and is doing dribbling drills with the team. Rachel watches him from her Volvo 240 parked across the street while using her phone to monitor Wendy’s tweets, Facebook updates, and Instagrams. She watches him and feels sick with doubt. How can she do this? It’s the most evil thing you could ever do to a mom, to a family. But then she thinks about Kylie locked in some crazy woman’s basement. It’s the most evil thing you can do but it has to be done.

She watches Denny play, and when the practice is over she sees that, yup, Wendy is still in Ipswich at the Starbucks. The drizzle has stopped now and it looks like Denny is going to be walking home. Wendy doesn’t indicate on her Facebook feed that she is coming to pick him up.

Could Rachel grab him now?

She had thought that this would be a scouting trip, not a snatch-and-grab mission. She hasn’t prepared the Appenzeller house yet. The board isn’t over the basement window; she doesn’t have a mattress down there. But if the opportunity presents itself?

She follows the little boy in her car as he walks home with a friend. Obviously, she can’t grab two kids, so she’ll have to wait until they part.

She knows she must look very suspicious, creeping along at five miles per hour following two little boys.

She hasn’t thought this through properly. She has no idea where in Rowley Denny’s house is. Is he on the main road? Down a cul-de-sac? She curses herself for not figuring out the route from the high school to his house on Google Maps.

The friend hangs with Denny for a few blocks but then waves and leaves, and Denny is by himself.

Little Denny all alone.

Rachel’s pulse quickens. She looks at the front passenger seat. Gun, ski mask, handcuffs, blindfold.

She rolls the window down and checks her mirrors.

There are witnesses. An old man with a dog. A high-school girl jogging. Rowley is a sleepy little community but not quite sleepy enough today. And then, just like that, Denny walks up a driveway, takes a key out of his pocket, and goes into his house.