The Chain(31)

“Good morning,” he says. “If it is still morning. It is, I think. I brought you, a, um, late breakfast. Cheerios. You like Cheerios, yeah?”

“Sure.”

He walks across the basement floor and sets the tray down next to her. A bowl of Cheerios and milk, a glass of orange juice, another bottle of water. The gun handle is poking out of his pajama pants pocket.

“Apologies about the hour. We didn’t get to bed until very late last night. We weren’t, um, expecting things yesterday to go so…you must be hungry. Did you get any sleep?” he asks.

She shakes her head noncommittally.

“It’s not surprising,” he replies. “This is a crazy set of circumstances. Never in my wildest dreams…”

“Why are you doing it?” Kylie asks.

He takes a deep breath. “Because they’ve got our boy,” he says softly and shakes his head. “Did you get a chance to look at the books?”

Kylie sees a little opening here. “Yes. I’d never read Moby Dick before. I always thought it would be boring.”

“But you liked it?” the man asks excitedly.

“Yes. What I read of it.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. A classic. Boring at first, maybe, for someone of your generation. But once you let your mind get into that way of thinking, it just sort of flows along.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I liked the tattooed guy.”

“Queequeg? Isn’t he wonderful! Melville lived with the South Pacific Islanders for nearly a year, and his portrayal of them is quite affectionate, don’t you think?”

Kylie desperately tries to come up with something to say, something that would have impressed her English teacher if she was put on the spot in class about a book she hadn’t read.

“Yeah, and the whole book—it’s all a big metaphor, isn’t it?” she says.

“Of course it is. Yes! Very good. You’re—”

“Just leave the tray and come back up!” a voice says from the top of the stairs.

“I better go,” the man whispers. “Eat up and relax and please don’t try anything. I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Come on!” the woman screams, and the man goes up the stairs and locks the door behind him, leaving Kylie alone again.

This time too he came down with the gun.

The gun is the key to the whole thing.





25

Friday, 3:13 p.m.



Her phone chimes. She set an alert to let her know when the latest batch of ransom money cleared the Bitcoin system and landed in their Swiss bank account. Sometimes Visa or MasterCard or, especially, AmEx blocks the charge, but apparently now it has been paid in full.

Her brother mocks her for this kind of micromanaging. When she lets him run The Chain, he claims he does almost nothing. He says he pretty much lets the whole thing self-police. But she’s more hands-on. It’s her baby.

She looks at her phone. Yup, twenty-five thousand untraceable dollars have come through the Bitcoin laundry.

That’s good in one way, but when they came up with the money this quickly, it meant that they could have paid a lot more. This is her mistake. She set the ransom amount. She looked at Rachel’s bank account and income and thought twenty-five thousand would be pushing it. I mean, come on, she was working as an Uber driver until a few weeks ago and there’s no family money.

The philosophy isn’t to soak people for all they have but to keep the sums manageable. It’s not about the money, blah-blah-blah.

Still…

She mirrors Rachel’s computer on her phone, but Rachel hasn’t turned on the Mac since last night. She’s evidently using a different computer now. This is a hint that Rachel isn’t a total idiot.

She looks out the window at the rain falling pointlessly into Boston Harbor. Is Rachel trying to outsmart her? That would be a terrible mistake for her to make.

She opens the Wickr app and sends Rachel a message: Are you ready to proceed with your target, Toby Dunleavy?

There’s a five-minute pause before Rachel replies: Yes. We’re doing it tonight if we can and Sunday night if tonight doesn’t work.

Why not tomorrow night? Or tomorrow morning? she types.

The boy takes archery lessons and walks home from there. Archery is tonight and Sunday night, Rachel replies.

She doesn’t like Rachel’s tone. It isn’t scared enough. It isn’t humble enough. Rachel doesn’t realize that she’s the gamma bitch talking to the alpha.

I can exterminate you, Rachel, she thinks. Just snap my fingers and you’re dead as a D Street crack whore.

Message me on Wickr as soon as you get the boy, she texts. And I will make the first call to the family. You will call them five minutes later. The first thing you will say is “You must remember that you are not the first or the last. It is not about the money, it’s about The Chain.” Do you understand?

Yes, Rachel texts.

Again, it seems curt and confident. She does not like that.

She closes the message thread and thinks things over for a few minutes.

Olly is always telling her not to let things get into the realm of the personal. Like he’s older and wiser. Yes, older by fifteen minutes. It is true that there is no need to do any of this hastily. It isn’t about speed. All that matters is that it keeps going.