I expected some kind of rapid response. After all, that was what Jannie had given me, answering my text about Ali and Nana Mama within thirty seconds. But I got nothing back from Damon. Then again, he rarely answered his phone. Why was I paying fifty bucks a month so he could have the damn thing if he—
The train’s arrival was announced, and quickly passengers began to pour up the stairs through gate G. But they were all gone within ten minutes. I walked down the stairs and found the porter, who said he’d just walked the length of the train and it was empty except for Amtrak personnel.
Had Damon missed it? Wouldn’t he have called? Or texted?
I tried his cell and was immediately switched to voice mail, which meant either the phone was off or the battery was dead. But couldn’t he have borrowed someone else’s phone? He knew I’d be waiting. I’d told him so the other night.
Maybe he had missed it and was taking the next express train, or a local. I went back up into the main hall to the ticket counter and asked the teller if he could check to see if Damon had gotten on the train at Albany.
“Can’t do that,” the teller said snippily. “Right-to-privacy laws.”
I showed him my badge, and he sniffed. “It’s a federal law, Detective.”
“Do me a favor?” I asked.
“If I can,” he said, in a way that said he wouldn’t.
“Call Amtrak Police Captain Seymour Johnson for me?”
The teller stiffened. “I know who he is.”
“I bet you do.”
Captain Johnson owed me big-time for my role in helping to unravel and thwart the al-Dossari bomb plot, and ten minutes later he looked up from his computer and shook his head. “He’s not in the system, Alex.”
Okay, I thought, trying to remain calm. Where is he? Where could he be?
I thought of calling Bree and Jannie to see if they’d heard from him, but it seemed unlikely. If anyone, he would have tried to contact me. I scrolled through my contacts list and found the number of the Kraft School. I got a recording that said the school was in recess for the Easter holiday and told me to push zero in an emergency.
A security guard named Whitfield answered in a bored tone. I identified myself as Damon Cross’s father and explained the situation.
“Oh, you know kids,” Whitfield replied. “He probably—”
“Could you check his room, please?”
The guard hesitated. “I don’t know if I can—”
“Mr. Whitfield,” I said, hugely irritated. “Is it not true that one of your fellow guards was killed in the past week?”
That got to him. “Yes. But that has nothing—”
“Mr. Whitfield, I am a homicide detective, so we’re going to go with my instincts here. I want you to go and check my son’s room and then get back to me. And I want the name of the jitney service he was supposed to have used to get to Albany. Or I’ll track down the headmaster and see what he can do.”
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes,” Whitfield said, and hung up.
I called Bree and was relieved when she picked up. “Where are you?”
“Almost home from Maine Avenue Fish Market with crabs and a jar of Blue Crab Bay boil seasonings. Damon’s favorite.”
I told her about Damon not making any train from Albany that morning.
“But where would he go?”
“I’m trying to figure that out,” I said.
“Keep me posted,” she said. “But Alex, Damon is a big boy who can take care of himself. Let’s not panic yet. He probably got a ride and forgot to tell you.”
But as I hung up, I had the growing, oppressive sense that something could be going very wrong in my son’s life. I flashed on his late mother, saw her holding him as a baby. That only fueled my fears.