“He’s down there with the firm. They’re on a retreat so they had to hand in their phones.”
“But where is it, Tammy? Please, think.”
“Augusta! He’s in Augusta. I think I have a contact number somewhere if you need it.”
“I need it.”
“Yeah, hold on, lemme see, here it is, OK.” She reads out a number.
“Thanks, Tammy. I better call him.”
“Wait, what’s the emergency?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, a problem with the roof, it’s leaking, that’s all. No big deal. Thank you,” she says and hangs up.
She dials the number Tammy gave her.
“Gleneagle Augusta Hotel,” the receptionist says.
“I’d like to speak to Marty O’Neill, please. I’m his, er, wife, and I’ve forgotten what room he’s in.”
“Um, let me see…seventy-four. I’ll put you through.”
She puts Rachel through to the room, but he isn’t there. She calls the front desk again and asks the receptionist to tell Marty to call her as soon as he gets back in.
She hangs up and sits down on the floor again.
She’s dazed, speechless, horrified.
Given all the evil people in the world with unbalanced karmic checkbooks, why has this happened to her, especially after everything she’s been through the past couple of years? It isn’t fair. And poor Kylie’s just a little girl, she—
The phone rings next to her. She picks it up and looks at the ID: Unknown Caller again.
Oh no.
“Calling your ex-husband?” the scary, distorted voice says. “Is that really what you want to do now? Can you trust him? Can you trust him with your life and the life of your child? You’re going to need to because if he says anything to anybody, Kylie’s dead, and I think we’ll have to kill you too. The Chain always protects itself. Maybe have a think about that before your next phone call.”
“I’m sorry. I…I didn’t get through to him. I left a message. It’s just…I don’t know if I can do this by myself, I—”
“We might allow you to get help later. We will send you a way to contact us and you can ask us for permission. But for now, if you know what’s good for you, don’t talk to anyone. Just get the money and start thinking about a target. You can do this, Rachel. You did well getting rid of that cop back there on the highway. Yes, that’s right, we saw. And we’ll be watching you closely until this is all over. Now get on with it,” the voice says.
“I can’t,” Rachel protests meekly.
The voice sighs. “We don’t select people who require continuous coaching. That’s way too exhausting for us. We pick self-starters. Bootstrappers. That’s you, Rachel. Now, get up off the goddamn floor and get moving!”
The line goes dead.
Rachel looks at the phone in horror. They are watching her. They know who she’s calling and everything she’s doing.
She pushes the phone away, gets to her feet, and staggers to the bathroom like she’s walking from a car accident.
She runs the faucet and splashes water on her face. There’s no mirror in here or anywhere in the house except for Kylie’s room. She’d gotten rid of all the mirrors because of the visual horror of the whole hair-falling-out routine. Of course no one in her family had ever allowed her to think that she might die. Her mother, the nurse, had explained right from the get-go that it was a treatable stage 2A breast cancer that would respond well to an aggressive precision surgical intervention followed by radiation and chemotherapy. But in those first few weeks, looking in the bathroom mirror, she saw herself diminishing, hollowing out, wasting away.
Getting rid of all the mirrors had been an important step in her recovery. She didn’t have to see herself become the terrible, pale skeletal spider of the dark days of the chemo. Her recovery wasn’t exactly a miracle—the stage 2A five-year survival rate was 90 percent—but still, you could always be one of the 10 percent, couldn’t you?
She turns the faucet off.
Good thing there’s no goddamn mirror, because Mirror Rachel would be looking back at her with dead, accusing eyes. Letting a thirteen-year-old girl wait by herself at a bus stop? You think this would have happened if Kylie were with Marty?
No. It wouldn’t have. Not on his watch. On yours, Rachel. Because, let’s face it, you’re a loser. They’re completely wrong about you. Tragically mistaken. Thirty-five and you’re starting your first real job? What have you been doing all this time? All that potential wasted. The Peace Corps? Nobody joins the Peace Corps. Those years drifting with Marty after Guatemala. You working after he finally decided he wanted to go to law school?
You’ve been faking it. But you’re just a loser and now your poor daughter has gotten sucked into your loser web.
Rachel points a finger at the place where the mirror used to be. You dumb bitch. I wish you had died. I wish you had been one of the 10 percent who’d died!
She closes her eyes, breathes, counts down from ten, opens them again. She runs to the bedroom and changes into the black skirt and white blouse she bought for teaching. She puts on her expensive-looking leather jacket, finds a respectable pair of heels, runs a hand through her hair, and grabs her shoulder bag. She gathers her financial documents, her laptop, and the employment contract from Newburyport Community College. She gets Marty’s stash of bar-exam cigarettes and the sealed bag of flood money. She runs to the kitchen, slips in the heels, almost smashes her face into the range hood, rights herself, grabs her phone, and tears out to the car.
7
Thursday, 9:26 a.m.
The First National Bank on State Street in downtown Newburyport opens at 9:30 a.m. Rachel paces the sidewalk near the bank entrance and puffs on her Marlboro.
State Street is deserted except for a very pale, nervous, older man wearing a heavy coat and a Red Sox cap who is walking toward her.
Their eyes meet as he stops in front of her.
“Are you Rachel O’Neill?” he asks.
“Yes,” she replies.
The man swallows hard and pulls his cap lower. “I’m supposed to tell you that I’ve been off The Chain for a year now. I’m supposed to tell you that because I did as I was told, my family is safe. I’m supposed to tell you that there are hundreds of people like me who can be recruited to bring you a message if The Chain thinks you or anyone in your family needs a message.”
“I get it.”
“You’re—you’re not pregnant, are you?” the man asks hesitantly, seemingly going off script for a moment.
“No,” Rachel replies.
“Then this is your message,” he says and, without warning, punches her in the stomach.
The air is knocked out of her and Rachel crumples to the ground. He is surprisingly strong, and the pain is terrible. It takes her ten seconds to get her breath back. She looks up at the man in incomprehension and fear.
“I’m supposed to tell you that if you need further proof of our reach, you should Google the Williams family of Dover, New Hampshire. You won’t see me again but there are many others out there like me. Do not attempt to follow me,” the man says and with tears of shame running down his cheeks, he turns and walks quickly back down the street.