Page 129 of The Chain

“Call it a day?” Pete asks again.

“And then what?” Rachel asks.

“Go to the feds? Tell them everything. Let them search for the house.”

“We’ll go to jail.”

“The Dunleavys might not cooperate with the cops,” Pete says.

Rachel shakes her head again. “They’ll help us only if they know The Chain is finished.”

Pete nods.

“What’s that over there by the river to the north?” Rachel asks, taking Pete’s binoculars. “Is that a cabin?”

She scans the structure.

It’s about three-quarters of a mile ahead. A big old house with a deck that goes all the way around the outside. And it’s on a direct vector with the cell-phone tower.

“It’s definitely worth a closer look,” Pete says. “But we’re going to have to wade another stream or two. It’s actually over on the mainland, I think.”

They hike through an icy stream that comes up to their thighs and then up through a sparse little wood to within a few hundred yards of the cabin.

It’s a large dwelling built partially on stilts near a river. It’s next to a couple of derelict farm buildings sinking back into the marsh to the east. Several vehicles are parked under the veranda on the north side of the structure.

The hairs on the back of Rachel’s neck are standing up.

Something about this place screamsdenouement.

“What do you want to do, Rach?” Pete asks.

“Let’s try to go a little closer. If we can get a look at those license plates…”

“We’ll have to crawl. Nice and low to the ground. The cover’s not so dense here; we could be seen,” Pete says.

Rachel shoulders her shotgun on its strap, drinks the last of her water, and follows Pete as they crawl toward the cabin.

The terrain is boggy and damp with brambles, thistles, and beach-plum bushes.

Within thirty seconds they are scratched, cut, bleeding.

Snow begins to fall.

They’re a hundred yards away now.

It’s an ugly property, all angles and ungainly additions from different eras with different timbers. It has been expanded very recently to accommodate what appear to be a couple of extra bedrooms on the upper story.

Pete takes out the binoculars and tries to read the plates on the vehicles under the house, but he can’t quite make them out. “Rachel, you’ve got good eyes, do you want to try?”

She scans the cars. A Mercedes, a couple of pickup trucks, a Toyota.

She sees someone stepping onto the wraparound balcony.

“Kylie! Oh my God!” she screams. She scrambles to her feet and begins running toward the house.

“What the hell?” Pete yells, momentarily stunned.

She has twenty yards on him, but Pete catches her in seven seconds. He tackles her and she goes down just in front of an old tree stump.