Page 103 of The Chain

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Wednesday, 5:00 a.m.Rachel can’t sleep.

She gets up, puts on her comfy red sweater and her robe, and makes some coffee. She sits in the dark living room for a while looking at the lights of the houses on the far side of the tidal basin.

Then she goes outside and waits. She plucks at that loose thread on her sweater. Eli the cat comes to investigate, and after accepting a few strokes, he slips off into the sand and reeds to war with the possums.

A bristle of alertness lights the nerve endings on the nape of her neck. This is an eons-deep response. Humans are both predators and prey.

The insistent pounding of her heart. The talismanic trembling of her limbs.

Today is going to be important.

The curtains are opening on the third act.

The morning sun is low and dim, and the air is cold but not bitingly so.

The smell of the marsh.

The sound of birds.

The yellow of a bicycle headlight on Old Point Road.

Little Paul Weston makes more or less directly for her house. Almost no one now gets home delivery of theGlobe. Paul cycles down the lane. She waves from the stoop so as not to freak him out, but he’s spooked anyway.

“Jesus, Mrs. O’Neill! You scared the life out of me,” he says.

“Sorry, Paul. I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d wait for the paper.”

Instead of throwing theGlobevaguely in the direction of the house he cycles up to her and puts it in her hand.

“Have a nice day,” he says and bikes off.

She goes in, unfolds the paper on the living-room table, and turns on the main light.

She ignores the headlines and goes straight to the personal columns and the small ads. Despite Craigslist and eBay, theBoston Globestill has dozens of small ads every day.

She skims through the obits and love connections and car ads and finally finds what she’s looking for under the heading Miscellaneous:

Chains bought and sold: 1-202-965-9970.

She wakes Pete and shows him the ad.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“We are going to do this,” Rachel insists.

“Why?”

“Because it’s never going to end unless we do something. It’s killing Kylie and it’s out there right now, stalking us, remembering us, and drawing in other families, other moms, other kids.”

“You’re talking like The Chain has a life of its own.”

“That’s exactly what it has. It’s a monster demanding a human sacrifice every few days.”

“I don’t know, Rachel. Sleeping dogs.”

“They’renotsleeping. That’s the issue. I’ll call this number on a burner phone.”