Page 14 of The Chain

Crap,Rachel thinks. She knows this information will not help her case, so she tries to rush through it.

“Oh, it’s nothing. She had a chocolate store in Harvard Square, and it went under. She’s not a businesswoman. I think she’s only about twenty-five or—”

“How do you lose money selling chocolate in the munchies capital of New England?”

“I don’t know. Look, Colin. We’re old friends. And I…I need this. I need it as soon as possible. It’s an emergency.”

Colin leans back in his chair.

Rachel sees him turning all this over. He’s probably learned how to spot a liar…

“I’m sorry, Rachel, I really am. If you’re looking for a contractor, I can recommend Abe Foley. He’s honest and he does a good job fast. That’s all I can do.”

Rachel nods. “Thank you,” she says meekly and, thoroughly defeated, exits his office.

8

Thursday, 9:38 a.m.

Hmmm, this one feels different.

There’s no evidence, of course, that itisany different. It shouldn’t be any different. Theyalwayssay the same things, act the same way, and then fall right into line. Human beings are boringly predictable. That’s why the actuarial tables work so well.

And it’s just a feeling—that’s all. And she can shake this feeling and replace it with another. But she doesn’t want to do that today. She wants to sit with the bad feeling and experience it and have it explain to her why it’s here. If the feeling means anything at all, it’s almost certainly about the current person on The Chain.

Perhaps it would be wise to take a look at the present state of play. She opens up the encrypted file on her computer and examines the current protagonists. Everything looks fine. Link negative two is Hank Callaghan, a dentist and Sunday-school teacher from Nashua who has done everything requested of him. Link negative one is Heather Porter, a college administrator also from New Hampshire who has done all she has been asked to do. Link zero is Rachel O’Neill or, as she calls herself now, Rachel Klein. A former waitress and Uber driver who will soon be teaching at a community college.

Is Rachel the bad apple?

It doesn’t really matter if she is. As Olly is always saying, The Chain is largely a self-regulating mechanism that repairs its own broken DNA with only a little nudging from the outside.

“Don’t worry. It will all sort itself out,” her stepmother used to say. And she was right. It generally did all sort itself out. She was sorted out too in the end, of course.

No, Rachel won’t be any trouble. None of them will be or could be. Rachel will fall into line like all the others; either that, or she and her daughter will die. And die horribly, as an example for the others.

9

Thursday, 9:42 a.m.

On the street outside the bank, Rachel fights back tears and waves of panic. What is she going to do? She can’t do anything. She has failed at the very start.Oh my God, my poor little Kylie.

She looks at the clock on her phone: 9:43.

She sniffs, wipes her face, takes a breath, and goes back inside.

“Miss, you can’t—” someone says as she marches back into Colin’s office.

He glances up from his computer looking startled and guilty, as if he’d been Googling some particularly arcane pornography. “Rachel, I told—”

She sits and resists the urge to jump over the desk, put a knife to his throat, and scream for the tellers to give her the goddamn money in nonsequential bills.

“I’ll take any loan this bank offers at any rate of interest, no matter how predatory. I need the money, Colin, and I’m not going to leave this frigging office until I get it.”

Her eyes, she knows, have a piratical, dangerous, bank-robber glint to them.Look at me,they seem to say,I am capable of anything right now. Do you really want to begin your day with the guards dragging me out of here kicking and screaming?

Colin takes a deep breath. “Well, um, we do offer a ninety-day emergency home finan—”

“How much can I get?” Rachel interrupts.