Page 2 of The Chain

“You need to be quiet, Kylie,” the man says.

The car is driving fast on what is probably Water Street near Newburyport. Kylie forces herself to breathe deep. In and out, in and out, the way the school counselors showed her in the mindfulness class. She knows that to stay alive she has to be observant and patient. She’s in the eighth-grade accelerated program. Everybody says she’s smart. She has to be calm and notice things and take her chances when they come.

That girl in Austria had survived and so had those girls in Cleveland. And she’d seen that Mormon girl who’d been kidnapped when she was fourteen being interviewed onGood Morning America. They’d all survived. They’d been lucky, but maybe it was more than luck too.

She swallows another wave of terror that almost chokes her.

Kylie hears the car drive up onto the Route 1 bridge at Newburyport. They’re going over the Merrimack River toward New Hampshire.

“Not so fast,” the man mutters, and the car slows for a few minutes but then gradually begins to speed up again.

Kylie thinks about her mom. She’s driving to Boston this morning to see the oncologist. Her poor mom, this is going to—

“Oh my God,” the woman who’s driving says, suddenly horrified.

“What is it?” the man asks.

“We just passed a cop car waiting over the state line.”

“It’s OK, I think you’re in the…no, oh Christ, his lights are coming on,” the man says. “He’s pulling you over. You were going too fast! You have to stop.”

“I know,” the woman replies.

“It’ll be OK. No one will have reported this car stolen yet. It’s been on that side street in Boston for weeks.”

“The car’s not the problem,she’sthe problem. Pass me the gun.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What can we do?”

“We can talk our way out of it,” the man insists.

“With a blindfolded kidnapped girl in the back seat?”

“She won’t say anything. Will you, Kylie?”

“No. I promise,” Kylie whimpers.

“Tell her to be quiet. Take that thing off her face and tell her to lower her head and look down,” the woman says.

“Keep your eyes shut tight. Don’t make a sound,” the man says, taking the blindfold off and pushing Kylie’s head down.

The woman pulls the car over and the police vehicle presumably pulls in behind her. The woman is evidently watching the policeman in the rearview mirror. “He’s writing the license plate down in his logbook. Probably called it in on the radio too,” she says.

“It’s OK. You’ll talk to him. It’ll be fine.”

“All these state police prowlers have dashcams, don’t they?”

“I don’t know.”

“They’ll be looking for this car. For three people. We’ll have to hide the car in the barn. Maybe for years.”

“Don’t overreact. He’s only going to write you a speeding ticket.”

Kylie hears the crunch of the state trooper’s boots as he steps out of his vehicle and walks toward them.

She hears the woman roll down the driver’s-side window. “Oh God,” the woman whispers as he approaches.