The Chain(43)

Kenny smiles. “You did the right thing, ma’am. I don’t know if we could prove aggravated criminal trespass on ten-year-olds, but if you don’t stop them young, the next step is breaking and entering. You’d be surprised how many of these big old empty summer houses get broken into in the off-season.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. Kids usually, of course, very few actual burglaries, but quite often for recreational drug use or immoral purposes.”

“Immoral purposes?”

Kenny’s cheeks flush red. “Sex,” he says.

“Oh.”

They stare at each other.

“Well, I’ll just check that the front and back doors are locked and then I’ll get going,” Kenny says.

Rachel can’t allow that to happen. The back door will give the game away.

She wonders if Amelia is still alive down in the basement. She wonders how the Rachel of today can think such a thing in so offhand and chilly a manner. The Rachel of yesterday would have been heartbroken. The Rachel of yesterday is dead and gone.

She plucks at the loose red thread on her sweater and feels the .45 behind her back. His gun is holstered. She could march him into the house at gunpoint and execute him, take Amelia out of there, and move her to a different safe house.

“Did I see you at the White Farms ice-cream stand in Ipswich a few times?” Rachel says.

“Yeah, I’ve been there,” he replies.

“I’m a butter-crunch girl. What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Raspberry.”

“I’ve never tried that one.”

“It’s good.”

“You know what flavor I’ve never tried but want to? The Outrageous. The one that has a bit of everything.”

“Yeah, I know. Sounds weird.”

“Perhaps if you’re not doing anything, I don’t know…” she says and smiles.

Kenny is a bit slow on the uptake and Rachel guesses that it isn’t every day that a somewhat attractive older woman comes on to him, but eventually he begins to see that she’s making a pass at him. In fact, he probably thinks she made up the whole story about the kids in the yard just to manufacture this little encounter.

“If you could give me your number, I—”

“Yes,” Rachel says. “This week isn’t good, but next week if you’re not too busy…or we could go for a drink or something. You know, if it’s too cold for ice cream,” she adds, giving her winningest smile.

Kenny smiles back.

“Have you got a pen and paper?” she asks, noting that he doesn’t have them on him. “Back at your car?”

She walks him back to the cop car, touching his arm a couple of times accidentally on purpose. She gives him her number and thanks him for coming out. “I’ll check the locks. I’m supposed to go in and feed the fish anyway,” Rachel says.

“I can go with you,” Kenny offers.

She shakes her head. “Nah, I’ll be OK, I have the heart of a lion…and a lifetime ban from the Boston zoo.”

Kenny hasn’t heard that one before and he laughs. He gets in the police car and she smiles again and waves as he drives off.

When he’s out of sight, she rushes to the back door, enters through the kitchen, and runs down the basement steps, putting on her ski mask as she goes. “Hang on, honey! Hang on!”

Amelia is covered in hives and sweat but, incredibly, is still alive.

Barely.

“Oh my God, sweetie, hold on, just hold on.”

Amelia is drooling and her breathing is getting shallower.

Rachel pulls her out of the sleeping bag.

She’s on fire. Her eyes flutter.

Her breathing slows, slows, slows, and then stops completely.

“Amelia?”

She isn’t breathing. Oh my God! CPR! How do you—

Rachel remembers what to do and begins giving her mouth-to-mouth.

She inhales deeply and then breathes life back into Amelia. Once, twice.

She changes position and pumps Amelia’s chest hard and fast, thirty times.

The little girl is breathing again but she needs help, now. Rachel taps 911 into her phone but doesn’t press send.

One call and the paramedics will come and save Amelia’s life.

They’ll save Amelia and condemn her own daughter to death.

She squeezes the iPhone so hard she thinks the glass is going to crack.

Amelia’s face.

Kylie’s face.

No. She can’t do it. Sobbing on the concrete floor, she puts the phone down.





31

Saturday, 7:27 a.m.



The door at the top of the basement steps opens.

“Breakfast on time this morning,” the man says, coming down the stairs with a jug of orange juice, toast, and a bowl of cereal. Kylie looks for the gun and there it is, tucked in the front of his pants, something her uncle Pete says nobody should ever do with firearms.

“Are you awake?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Kylie says, sitting up in the sleeping bag.

“That’s good. Do you like marmalade? I love it. I never had it before I went to London a few years ago. Had it on my toast at breakfast.”

“Yes, I do like it. My mom gets it sometimes.”