The Chain(79)

But it is, he knows, a distraction, something for future analysis.

Amazon’s Alexa is playing Physical Graffiti for the third time tonight. He stops to listen to the opening riff of “Trampled Under Foot.”

He looks at the photograph of himself, his wife, and his daughter in front of MoMA, in New York. His wife’s favorite place in all the world. His wife and daughter are grinning while he looks pained.

He shakes his head and fights the tears and looks at the bullet points on the screen that he will have to condense for his Chain notebook.

Things are OK. While he hasn’t completely tested the app, he thinks it should work. And it should work only for Rachel.

He reorders the list on his screen. These are the things he is fairly certain of now:

At least two individuals. Two different signatures and modes of operation. Family members. Siblings?

Boston-based

Not organized crime

Some kind of law enforcement background



“Trampled Under Foot” ends and “Kashmir” begins.

The woman has been watching him for ninety seconds now. Her heart rate is through the roof.

Her instructions are clear: kill Erik, retrieve his notebook.

She knows why The Chain picked her—because of her two previous breaking-and-entering convictions. They think she’s some kind of expert. She’s not. Those were teenage indiscretions. She’s a respectable fifth-grade teacher now. She got lucky that Erik’s back door was such an old lock. There was barely any skill required.

She got lucky.

Erik got unlucky.

She has in fact killed before. A dog on the road out on Cape Cod. She’d hit it, and she had to put it out of its misery with a snow shovel.

Maybe that’s what she’s doing to Erik.

His wife is dead. His daughter is in an asylum.

Yes, she thinks and aims the gun at his back.





62



Pete’s alarm goes off at five o’clock. He kills it before it wakes Rachel and quickly rolls out of bed.

His skin and eyes and internal organs are craving the fix. It has been a full day now. One of his longest fasts yet. He is trying a technique called stretching that some guys in the program have recommended. You stretch out the time between hits as long as you can—you go a full day, then a day and a half, and then two days. He looks at the clock. Twenty-five hours and five minutes. Getting up there. Getting close to his record. He feels OK. So far.

He makes coffee, does a few pushups, and goes into the bathroom and locks the door. What would happen if he boils half as much as normal? Can he wean himself off that way? Could that work? Half is crazy. Two-thirds, maybe.

He measures out two-thirds of his normal dose, boils it up on a spoon, sucks it into the syringe, injects himself with the good stuff.

He lies down on the sofa and the beautiful dreams take hold of him for an hour.

He wakes up again.

He could have gone longer. He’s feeling fine.

He makes more coffee, showers, and preps the pancake batter. He thinks about the guns and for the third time goes to check that they’re still locked in his truck. They are. He examines the hunting rifle, the .45, Rachel’s shotgun, and the nine-millimeter.

He took all four to the range yesterday and he’d gotten some good practice in. He’d been an engineering officer in the Corps, but no matter the job, every Marine is an infantryman first.

Rachel wakes up next.

She hasn’t really slept.

She’d vomited in the middle of the night.

Eleven days since her last chemo treatment, but it happened like that sometimes. Or it could just be the fear.

The Boy Called Theseus will be phoning the Girl Called Ariadne at ten o’clock sharp.

She comes out of the bedroom and sits at the living-room table.

Pete kisses her on the top of the head. “You didn’t sleep?”

“I did. A little. I had another dream.”

Pete doesn’t need to ask what about.

Another nightmare.

Another glimpse into the future.

Kylie finally wakes at eight and Stuart comes over promptly at eight thirty.

“Pancakes, anyone?” Pete asks.

He has just poured the batter into the frying pan when Marty and Ginger arrive in Marty’s big white boat of a Mercedes.

Pete turns down the gas on the stove and he, Rachel, and Kylie go out to greet them.

“Well, if it isn’t Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts,” Marty says, slapping Pete on the back and kissing Rachel and Kylie.

“And if it isn’t…” Pete says, but he can’t think of a good response.

Marty’s definitely the one who got the family’s gift of the gab.

They’re an attractive couple, Rachel thinks. Ginger’s hair has grown some and she has washed out all the dye, so that now it’s a pretty copper color, which suits her much better. Marty’s eyes are somehow greener.

“Pete’s made pancakes and I’ll fry up some bacon,” Rachel says.

They sit at the living-room table and eat breakfast.

“These are good, big brother—did you make them from a mix?” Marty asks.

Pete shakes his head. “I’m with Mark Bittman. Pancake mixes are the sign of a decadent civilization.”

“My childhood was exactly like that,” Marty tells Ginger and Kylie. “You ask an innocent question and you get some lecture about everything that’s wrong with the world.”