Page 118 of The Chain

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, the sun has moved across the sky and it’s time to check the mail.

She ignores the junk and the bills and opens the letter that is addressed to her.Dear Whore,it begins.

The rest of it accuses her of being a slut and a terrible mother who is responsible for her son’s death.

This is the thirteenth letter she’s gotten like this. All of them written in block capitals with a black ballpoint pen.

She puts it with the others in a shoe box in the linen closet.

She makes herself another vodka tonic. She finds a cocktail umbrella and floats it in the glass. She watches a bit ofDays of Our Livesand goes upstairs.

She sits on the bathroom floor and opens up a bottle of Nembutal. She pops one in her mouth and takes a drink. She pops another in her mouth and takes another drink.

She swallows the entire bottle and lies down on the bathroom floor.

At four o’clock, Margaret and Oliver come home.

They’ve gotten used to walking home from school by themselves.

Oliver turns on the TV. Margaret goes upstairs to read. She’s a good reader. Two years above her grade level. She’s readingThe Tombs of Atuanby Ursula Le Guin. It’s very gripping but eventually she needs to go to the bathroom. She finds Cheryl lying on the floor in there.

There’s foam around her mouth, her pupils are fixed and dilated, but she’s still breathing. Margaret brings Oliver upstairs and both children stare at Cheryl.

“The letters,” Margaret says.

“The letters,” Oliver agrees.

They look at her for a while. Her face is the color of the wallpaper in Tom’s study, a kind of pale yellow.

Tom doesn’t get home until seven thirty. The kids are in front of the TV eating microwaved pizza.

“Where’s your mother?” he asks.

“She must have gone out,” Margaret says. “She wasn’t here when we got home.”

“But her car is parked across the street,” he says.

“Oh, really?” Margaret says and goes back to the TV.

“Cheryl!” Tom shouts upstairs but there is no answer. He storms into the kitchen and grabs a Sam Adams from the fridge. He takes a bite of pizza.

When he does finally go upstairs, it’s too late. The Nembutal has induced respiratory failure leading to cardiac arrest.

He sinks to his knees and takes his wife’s cold hand.

He begins to cry.

“What have I done to deserve this?” he wonders out loud.

And then he remembers.

61

Erik’s been at it all night. He is five cups of coffee in. He is six layers down in the Russian doll of anonymity and fake identities. He has scrubbed the traces and is using a brand-new MacBook with a bogus IP address that locates it in far-off Melbourne, Australia. He is deep in the maze, but he is safe. Or thinks he is.

He’s pleased with his research. All the building blocks are in place.

Always were in place.

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