Ginger walks into the big remodeled master bedroom feeling pretty pleased with herself. The Chain has neutralized the Erik Lonnrott threat, and her new boyfriend is getting along like a house on fire with Daniel. They are both big Red Sox fans and Marty can throw out names like Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, and Roger Clemens and know what he is talking about. Daniel told Marty he could call him Red if he wanted. A rare honor.
A big decision, bringing him here. It’s not every partner she brings to meet her grandfather and her brother. But Marty O’Neill is special. He’s funny. He’s smart—Harvard College and Harvard Law; I mean, come on. He’s very good-looking if you like dark-haired, green-eyed, and Irish. And she does.
It’s true that he has a daughter, a thirteen-year-old daughter, a slightly annoying thirteen-year-old daughter, but her recent tribulations have obviously taken the wind out of her sails, and the thirteen-year-old is very appreciative of both Marty and his new young girlfriend who has an awesome job and who taps into the coolest hipster frequencies.
Oliver would no doubt be furious if he found out that she had met Marty by stalking him through The Chain, but Marty wasn’t exactly a victim or anything. His ex-wife had kept him out of it. And she’d just chanced upon his Facebook page sort of accidentally while researching her.
Sort of.
True, she had The Chain get Marty’s previous girlfriend, Tammy, out of the picture, but that’s as far as it went.
This time.
If Olly knew how many times she has used inside knowledge from The Chain for her own little adventures, he would no doubt have a fit, but what’s the point of having all this power and ignoring it? It’s fine to dip your toe in from time to time. It would be perverse not to.
The Chain is her invention, after all. Her thing. All Olly’s talk of IPOs and internet millions is just talk. The Chain got Olly his house in San Francisco, her house in Boston, and the apartment on Fifth Avenue. The Chain. Her idea.
So if she wants to play with Marty O’Neill, she can. Marty is handsome, witty, and fun. Olly need not worry. She’s in control. She’s the spider. The annoying fly, of course, is the ex-wife. The nerve of her on Wickr today. People never Wickr’d once they were off The Chain. They normally were so grateful. Grateful and scared. Maybe it would be better to have the ex-wife disappeared. All it would take was one little phone call or message: We’ve added a new condition for your child’s safe return. A woman named Rachel Klein O’Neill who lives on Plum Island, Massachusetts—get rid of her by the end of the week. The body must never be found.
Rachel can be removed from the picture at any time.
“The children seem happy. I just saw Kylie on the deck,” Marty says, coming up behind her and kissing her on the back of the neck.
Ginger turns to face him and Marty put his arms around her. “This is so good for Kyles. I’m not the world’s best judge of teenagers, but she seems to have been going through a really hard time in the past few weeks.”
“Yeah, I did give Rachel the name of one of our therapists.”
“Well, Rachel’s been out of it too, as you can imagine,” Marty says.
Ginger’s phone pings to let her know that she has a message.
“What’s up?” Marty asks as she reads the message from her brother.
“Oh, it’s only Olly. Something about dinner, I’ll bet. No doubt Grandpa is going to try to burn the house down with his barbecue again. Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.”
Ginger walks along the second-floor landing to her grandfather’s study, goes inside, closes the door, and sits down. Olly has that look of superiority he assumes sometimes, a look that would try the patience of a saint.
“Yes?” she says. “What is it?”
“You’ve been using The Chain for your own ends again, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes, you have.”
“It’s all for our own ends.”
“You know what I mean. You’ve been meddling. Like you did with Noah Lippman.”
“No.”
“Or that girl crush you had on Laura what’s-her-name a few years ago. Poor Laura made the mistake of her life by rebuffing you, and then she vanished without a trace three months later. You waited a whole three months before unleashing The Chain on her. Very tactful.”
“Noah’s still alive.”
“Just about. We don’t use The Chain for our own personal vendettas, Ginger—we’ve discussed this.”
“I didn’t.”
“Or to meet handsome young men.”
Ginger groans. He’s onto her. “Do you know how difficult it is to meet people in this city?” she protests.
“Not difficult at all. There are a million dating apps.”
“I’m supposed to ignore any man who might have come in contact, even peripherally, with The Chain?”
“Yes! You know the protocols.”
“Who set up the protocols? Who invented The Chain?”
“It’s a security issue, sweetie.”
“It’s all my handiwork. It wasn’t you. It was me. I can do what I like with it.”
Olly closes his eyes and sighs. All good things have to come to an end eventually, he supposes. He is surprised that it has lasted this long, actually. The models all said that The Chain would probably last only about three years before it collapsed. You could intimidate so many folks for only so long. The number of people involved grows almost exponentially, and no conspiracy can survive exponential growth. It’s a typical stochastic fast-slow system and when the breaking point comes, it will break spectacularly.
Olly strokes the little goatee he has been cultivating without much success for the past few months. “We should have retired The Chain years ago,” he mutters. “I mean, why keep it going when we have enough money?”
“Why stop it? You’re just jealous because it was my creation.”
“Wasn’t the purpose of The Chain to set us up for life? It’s done that.”
“Was that its purpose?” she asks with a sneer.
He frowns and shakes his head.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Ginger says. Not for Olly the peregrine-hovering-over-the-hay-field thing. Olly isn’t a true predator like her. A true predator sometimes kills even when it isn’t hungry. “Wasn’t it us against the world? Remember?” she says.
Olly’s frown deepens.
“All right, what’s gone wrong?” Ginger asks.
“It has to do with that notebook,” Olly says.
“You’ve decoded it, haven’t you?”
“No, not yet.”
“Then what?”
“Near the end, crazy Erik didn’t write everything in code.”
“And?”
“What did you say your new boyfriend’s ex-wife’s name was?”
“Oh, shit.”
“Sometime in the last week or so, Erik apparently met with a woman named Rachel.”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
“Come on, spill.”
Now it’s Ginger’s turn to sigh. “You know what your problem is, Olly? You’re completely bloodless. You’re like Spock or something. You should probably see someone about that. It’s not normal.”