Page 105 of The Chain

“This needs to end. I’m going,” she insists.

“No. You’re not going. This is crazy.”

Pete is genuinely concerned, but his misgivings are also partly due to his own difficulties. Rachel doesn’t know that the methadone isn’t fixing him as well as it should. When you’re coming off pure golden-brown, high-altitude Mexican heroin, Bayer methadone is not the solution that the VA addiction-and-recovery counselors think it is.

He’s jittery, buzzing, not thinking clearly. To take on this new project now in his condition? With Rachel in chemotherapy?

It’s insane. They’re out of it. Better to let it go.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Pete. I’m sick of people telling me what to do!” Rachel says.

“Your life is at stake here. Kylie’s life.”

“I know that! Don’t you think I know that? I’m trying to save our lives!” Rachel takes his hands. “We have to do this, Pete,” she whispers.

Pete looks at her.

Rachel is being literally poisoned every other week at 55 Fruit Street.

She’s surviving. She’s coping. She’s still alive.

“OK,” he says. “But I’m going too.”

51

Rachel has never liked Logan. People are always on edge; 9/11 began here. The long lines. The bad vibes. The Red Sox merch.

She and Pete go to the Delta counter and buy tickets to Cleveland.

They go through security and wait. She has her sunglasses on and her Yankees cap pulled down low, as if that will help.

Noon comes and goes.

“What now?” Pete asks.

“I don’t know,” Rachel replies.

“Why don’t you call the number from the paper?”

She waits five minutes and calls.

“I’m sorry but this number has been disconnected,” an automated voice says.

Twelve thirty arrives, and finally her burner phone rings.

“Go to Legal’s Test Kitchen near the Delta shuttle gates and order a Cthulhu black ale and a chowder. Come alone,” the voice says.

“I’m with someone. He helped. We’re in this together,” she says.

“Hmmm. OK, order two Cthulhu ales and two chowders. Table number seventy-three seems to be available. It’s a booth on the left-hand side.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll see, won’t we?”

They go to Legal’s, sit at table 73, and order the beers and two cups of clam chowder. They have the feeling that they are being watched, which, of course, they are.

“Who do you think it is?” Rachel asks, looking around at the customers and the staff. The place is packed. There are a lot of people glancing in her direction. It’s impossible to tell which one is the one.