The Chain(81)

On the one-year anniversary of Cheryl’s death, Tom comes home drunk.

The kids can hear him downstairs in a royal rage about something.

They wait trembling in their bedroom for Tom to come crashing up the stairs.

They don’t have to wait long.

Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp.

The bedroom door is kicked open.

“Where’s the meat loaf?” he says, which is such a silly line that Margaret almost giggles.

He turns the light on and the laughs evaporate. Tom has taken off his belt.

Tom had asked Margaret to save him some of the meat loaf, but she and Oliver finished it. There was nothing else in the refrigerator.

“Do you ever listen, you stupid little shit?” Tom says and he pulls her from the bed so hard that he dislocates her shoulder.

He slaps her twice with the double-folded belt and then he tells her to stop crying because he barely touched her.

He storms back downstairs.

Margaret is in agony all night and it’s the school nurse who finally sends her to the hospital the following day. Tom is guilty and remorseful. He stops drinking. He starts going to church and to Promise Keepers.

Margaret and Oliver bide their time.

Church doesn’t last.

A couple of months later, the drinking begins again in earnest.

One night when Tom is blind-drunk on the sofa, Margaret removes the revolver from his shoulder holster. She and Oliver gently open Tom’s mouth and put the barrel of the revolver between his lips, and together they pull the trigger. Then they wipe their fingerprints off the gun and place it in Tom’s right hand.

They put the suicide note they’ve written on the coffee table.

They work themselves up into fake tears and dial 911.

After being taken into foster care, the kids are dumped with their grandfather Daniel at his fly-ridden tumbledown house by the Inn River in a swampy part of Massachusetts.

Grandfather Daniel is retired Boston PD.

They haven’t seen a lot of him but he sure as hell remembers them. He remembers them when they were only so high and living on a commune in upstate New York.

Daniel doesn’t go into the city much anymore. He lives by fishing, hunting, and trapping, and his house is decorated with the skulls of many different animals.

Daniel meets the woman from social services with a broken-open shotgun over his shoulder. Margaret and Oliver give their grandfather a hug.

The woman from social services is relieved that the kids seem to know and like the old man.

“Their stepmom wasn’t too fond of me or this place, but I seen the kids a couple of times,” Daniel explains.

When the social services woman has gone, Daniel takes them into the kitchen and gives them each a can of Budweiser, which they accept nervously. A butchered hog is hanging upside down over the large kitchen sink. Its white skin is black with flies.

Daniel shows the kids how to open the beer cans. It’s just like with a Coke. He tells them they can call him Red or Grandpa. He asks them what they want to do with their lives. Oliver says he wants to make a lot of money, maybe in computers, and Margaret says she wants to be an FBI agent like her dad.

Daniel considers that. “We’ll see,” he says. “First thing we have to do is fix them names.” He looks at the boy. “We’ll call you Olly. You like that?”

“Yes, sir,” Olly says.

He examines the girl. “And with you, it’s obvious. That mop of yours. We’re going to call you Ginger.”





64



The monster is out there, right out there through the glass in the fog.

It killed Erik and when it finds the name Rachel in the notebook, it will kill her too. Her and Kylie and Pete and Marty and Ginger and everybody connected with her.

There’s no choice now. Choice was always an illusion.

There’s only one thing to do.

Her hand is trembling.

Pete is looking at her expectantly.

She knows what she is going to do next.

First of all, she calls Marty to check that Kylie is safe and sound. Kylie isn’t answering her phone, as usual, but the GPS locator has them at the mall at Copley Place.

Marty answers immediately. “Yeah, she’s fine, we’re just finishing up at the mall,” he says.

“You have her in your line of sight?”

“Yeah, of course. She’s at the Adidas store with Stuart.”

“And then you’re going to Ginger’s dad’s house?”

“Grandfather’s house. What’s the matter, Rach? I can tell something’s up.”

“I just want to know that Kylie’s safe.”

“She’s safe. Ginger’s twin brother will be there, and Ginger is an actual card-carrying FBI agent, and her grandfather is ex–Boston PD. I can’t think of much safer than that.”

“That’s good, Marty. Keep her safe, OK?”

“I will, sweetie. You take care now. Take it easy this weekend, for God’s sake. You need your strength, okay?”

“I will.”

They say goodbye and hang up.

“What now?” Pete asks. “The cops?”

Rachel ties her hair back in a ponytail. “Kylie’s safe but they are going to be coming for us. We need to get out of this house.”

“What’s the plan?” Pete asks.